All Forum Posts by: Angelo Behar

@Michael Olson Hello Mike! A man with a plan, its has to be all the years of SMEAC. Sounds like you're going to cover a few areas of real estate between you and your wife, very cool. Best of luck, and congrats on your military retirement. 

Definitely check out the Learn Tab. BiggerPockets has some awesome free resources. See ya around.

@Account Closed You are in essence funding real estate ventures. When interest rates rise, your REIT will not necessarily lose money. Especially given the fact that most of the companies in the REIT are commercial properties on 15 year leases so on and so forth. A REIT is nothing like a fixed income security/bond. REITs don't have a maturation date for the money you invest like a bond/fixed income security.

VGSLX has performed at 11.92% yield since inception (2001) the dividend yield is separate from the return percentage. Keep in mind, if you invest in VGSLX and the value goes down because its volatile, in the time that you keep the fund in your portfolio, the price will increase once again at a higher level than when you initially invested. You only lose money when you sell shares at a loss. If you hold onto the shares for 25 years, the value will increase and decrease, but ultimately as the stock market has proven over time, it always goes up. 

And given that VGSLX is comprised of 138 major companies, the chances of all 138 companies going bankrupt are pretty much non-existent. If you think like Warren Buffet and have an investment horizon of forever, if you invest in index funds, and this particular REIT, you will have more money than when you started when its time to pass your investments along to the next generation.

@Jeff S. Stocks will always be volatile, regardless of the holding. VGSLX is an index fund to offset manager trading and volatility. It will nonetheless still be volatile. But a note to take into consideration, even in 2008, vanguards REIT index was still paying a 4% dividend. The higher the dividend the lower the growth normally. Apple isn't paying a 4% dividend and probably never will. Coca-cola on the other hand can only do so many things with their cash, so they always pay a dividend.

@Account Closed Hi Kimberly, I personally love REITs. They do seem too good to be true, but its not. Vanguard has unbeatable expense ratios. VGSLX is what I have, if you invest of 10k you will get a discount on their already low expense ratios, 0.10% for VGSLX. 

top ten holdings;

$43 Billion dollars invested in over 138 different companies. Super passive awesomeness. And no, I don't get any proceeds if you take the plunge, I simply love Vanguards awesomeness :)

 That is one of the solutions we tried and she refused to allow it. There were no other credits and I was putting 20% down. She had the addendum stating I was supposed to be reimbursed. The agent and I both sent the addendum to her at the time the termites and electrical work needed to be taken care of, and it was uploaded on the website. No matter how you spell it, given in this situation, her actions are unsatisfactory and the bank will know of this once the deal is done.

i tried calling and offered all the solutions mentioned on bp (aside from another extension and lowering the price) but it was too little too late. Along with the fact that the agent tried most of recommendations to get reimbursed.

@Andrew S. I second that. I would pay someone back too. 

 This was my point. Why the heck did she wait so long, she had the sales contract with the addendums for almost 45 days.

@Greg H. This is the first time in his experience an underwriter would not allow for the reimbursement after initially accepting the seller contributions. The biggest problem was in the timing of her decision. If she wanted it out from time we made the addendum, we would have adjusted the sales price. Waiting until the day of closing is completely unsatisfactory. She had the HUD before the closing date and waited until 5 pm the day of closing to inform us she wasn't going to allow the reimbursement.

I know moving forward to avoid this mess in the future. Too bad I didn't chat with you before the deal! 

@Account Closed I will heed your advice good sir, I will make sure that this fiasco doesn't happen again. Kind of reminds of fighters in the UFC that let the judge decide the outcome, you just never know... Thanks!

@Jon Gom Hi Jon! I'd like to surf in Hawaii one day, but I hear things can get quite territorial on some beaches. Maybe if I went with a local *hint hint* I always thought the wave que was universal until I heard some stories about the fights that took place over waves in Hawaii. I was there before, but didn't surf at the time. Being from Florida it was painful to admit, but Hawaiian beaches are the best I've ever been to, and I've been to quite a few.

There are some great books out there on real estate. The biggerpockets guide is pretty amazing, it covers a ton of info quickly and efficiently. Other books I enjoyed that would help you are: Investing in Real Estate, by Gary Eldred, The ABCs of Real Estate Investing by Ken McElroy, and probably my favorite was Landlording on Auto-Pilot, by Mike Butler. Mike Butler is hilarious and you can learn a lot from his mistakes and experiences.

You should also keep in mind depending on your real estate goals should dictate which books you concentrate on. Landlording on Auto-Pilot probably isn't the best read for a wholesaler. ABCs of REI concentrates on apartment buildings, but its still a great read.

Good luck!