All Forum Posts by: Aaron Taylor

 That part in bold is why exactly why I said it didn't make much sense to me financially...so you're saying your labor is more expensive there than anywhere else?  The company isn't paying for housing, but they're paying for salaries.  :)

From a pure financial standpoint when you can pick anywhere in the US to build, those two areas seem like odd choices.  It's kind of like having the whole US as an option to buy rental property and then buying in the most expensive areas.  Obviously it must be non-financially driven to some degree.  But what do I know, lol.

I also think that huge headquarters may start to go by the wayside in the future.  I live in the midwest, and I've noticed that companies in expensive areas are starting to recruit people to work from home remotely rather than pay someone locally.  Like a person in Kansas might be 25% to 50% cheaper than someone in Cali doing the same job.  I think that trend is going to continue in the future as companies shrink their offices and hire remotely.  I know of two engineers in the last month that were recruited to work at home from now on.

You and her both might try reading The Millionaire Next Door and Set For Life.  They give a really good perspective on getting ahead in life and not digging yourself a hole you can't get out of.  My wife loved both of those books and really changed her personal perspective on things.

 As an FYI those going through loans backed by Fannie Mae, you can only wrap 2% of your house value in closing costs into the loan.  This mostly affects low priced houses under 100k, but it's something to note.  So like if you had a 65k house, you could only wrap $1300 of the closing costs into the loan or something along those lines.  Couldn't tell you the exact guideline, but it's something like that.

About 5 years ago I made the decision to do p90x and get myself in better shape.  Ever since then I've made an effort to stay in shape to set a good example for my family and to feel better overall, losing weight can do wonders for all parts of your life.

Now I mainly do elliptical machine while playing on my xbox.  Yes, I combine playing video games with exercise, makes it go WAY faster.  In fact a couple weeks ago, I figured out the Costanza trifecta, I worked out on the elliptical machine while playing Forza Horizon 4 racing while listening to real estate podcasts.  I'm always trying to combine multiple things together because honestly I don't have that much free. time.

I would agree that there isn't a deal there. Selling on the MLS would cost $13.2k in realtor fees (at 6%) putting you at 206.8k from $220k, so there's really nothing there.

Thanks for the replies, that really helps.  Didn't think about doing a skim coat, that's actually a pretty good idea since that damage is apparently 20 years old.

Looking for some opinions on some damage found by the inspector today on a house we have under contract.  Evidently there is some old damage where it was treated a long time ago in 1995 (the pictures in white) according to the owner and then an active spot by the garage door interior.  No other spots were found.  It was an older lady who owned the house so I don't think she ever went through the trouble of fixing anything cosmetic.  Obviously the drywall stuff looks bad, but not being experienced with termites I wasn't sure how much something like this would cost to fix?  Looks like removing the drywall and then probably replacing/adding support inside?

The garage looks like you could just treat and be done with it almost.

Obviously the first thought for some would be to 'run' but if the repair opinions aren't high I don't think it would be a deal breaker, unless people think otherwise?  There's room in the budget to fix this unless it's going to be a $5k+ thing.

Thanks

I grew up on a farm and looked into it some a while back, basically it doesn't make a whole lot of sense from an investment standpoint unless you personally have some project where you can generate much higher yields than normal from it (like a pumpkin farm or something, or oil wells, lol).  Just renting it out you'll probably lose money for quite a while before rent comes up enough to cover it.

I couldn't see any way that it would be a good investment.  Your only play is appreciation due to a crop price spike like 10 to 15 years ago.

Ok, so I'm thinking about buying a trailer to help haul stuff (mowers, appliances, etc).  It would be used for primarily for real estate, but I'm guessing I would use it personally sometimes as well.  From a tax perspective, how exactly does this work?  I assume that if it was 100% real estate related I could write it off, but being 80% to 90% I wasn't sure how that would work.  Thanks!