Financial Freedom One House At A Time
Every industry has expenses associated with the cost of doing business. In real estate, however, those cost may not be as apparent, especially for new and aspiring investors. I know this because I got to explain some of those expenses to two different investors involved in two different deals this week. I would like to talk you through both scenarios so you’ll be better prepared to account for…
Ashley and I had a first recently. We bought a house with an in-ground pool in the backyard. Now we’ve bought houses with above-grounds pools many times. But that’s an easy situation to remedy. Depending on the style of pool, you can either take a razor knife to the side or post a picture of the pool on social media with a line that reads, “Free — come and…
I went to pull my iPhone out of my pocket at a house the other day. My phone tumbled out of my fingers and began to topple toward the floor. I have pretty good reflexes, though, so I brought my right foot up and caught the phone in the same manner one would stall a soccer ball or hacky sack. That particular action may sound odd for this…
Have you ever started on a property just knowing it was going to be a homerun? I know we have. One that sticks out in my memory was a 2,000-square-foot, three bedroom, three full bath, brick ranch on eight acres. We purchased this house for $40,000 and did a jam up rehab, including custom tile, hardwoods and new counter tops. We put a new roof on it, installed…
I’m so sore right now. My hands hurt, I have bruises and cuts all over the place, and my back is killing me. This is all from doing something I haven’t done in a long time: I’ve been framing on a house. Sometimes I get asked if having a contractor’s background has helped us in our investing career. To begin with, it did. When it was just…
Boy, do we have a full plate right now. We have four active rehab projects, plus three rentals houses we need to fill. Put it all together: yep, that’s seven open properties. Woohoo! Rehab No.1 is located on Rush Chapel Road. Painting and light installation was completed Tuesday which meant I had to get cabinets and flooring ordered and delivered so the guys could keep moving forward. …
So, you’ve been telling everyone that you buy houses, and you’ve finally found someone who needs to sell their property quickly. After you inspect the house, you realize it needs work. But there could be a good profit if you fix it up and sell it. You get the seller to the kitchen table and structure the deal of the century. The seller accepts, and you close the deal….
We’re doing a property right now that has a propane furnace, so we went to see Ms. Sue over at Calhoun LP Gas. She got me taken care of and scheduled their guys to bring me a tank the following week, weather permitting. As we were doing the paperwork, Ms. Sue noticed I was reading everything and remarked that that was fine, but that it was just their…
One of the biggest mistakes I see beginning investors make is buying a property a long distance away from where they live. And trust me, I understand. It was a great deal. And you hadn’t seen anything that cheap around you. Ashley and I did the same thing when we bought a place for $8,000 45 minutes (one-way mind you) from where we lived. And that…
I wish you could hear the voice of the character I have inside my head. It’s that of a Scotsman. I’m not sure if it’s from a cartoon I watched as a kid or if it was one of Robin Williams’ alter egos. Either way, when something unsavory would happen to the Scotsman, his expletive of choice was “Ah shillelaghly!” And with what we just learned on a…