Archive
Should we keep it or kill it? How would you like to go over a real-life deal we are working on today? Would that be beneficial? Actually, you might even be able to help me with it. Because we are having a hard time deciding if we should keep it or kill it. I get the idea of “keeping it” versus “killing it” from Aesop’s Fable about the Goose and the Golden Egg. And if you aren’t familiar...
The price of doing rehabs We just spent $100,000 on a rehab that we thought would cost $60,000. That means we went over budget $40,000. How do you like them apples? To be honest, we were shocked that we went over this much, especially since at the time we calculated our offer to purchase I was thinking I overestimated the rehab. This house was a three-bedroom, one huge bath...
Are you handy? Do you have construction skills? If you do, that’s great. But just because you do, does that mean you should work on your rentals yourself? For me, the answer to that question is ‘yes’ … most of the time. Now that may come to you as a shock, especially since I just wrote you last month in a column titled “Should you do it yourself” where I left you with the conclusion that it’s...
The best way to maintain your assets Let me ask you a question. Is a rental house an asset, or a liability? I ask this question a lot and most of the time people say a rental house is an asset. When I ask them why, they kind of shrug and say that they just assume that it is. Well, for us to decide one way or the other, we need to know the difference between an asset and a...
We don’t do short term rentals “Mr. Insurance man, we don’t do short term rentals.” This was an actual conversation I was having this week when we got approached by an insurance company looking for a rental for one of their clients. The client’s situation was they had had an accident that had destroyed their home. And when I say destroyed, it was a total loss. They were...