All Forum Posts by: Brian Mathews

I'm not an attorney and I would not take legal advice from anybody on here that is not a lawyer.   I will assume you have an attorney working on this?   If you do, then they should be able to help you  navigate this situation.   If not, then you need to hire one.   The one thing I do know about lawsuits is that he who has the most money typically wins as they can afford to hire lawyers the longest.   Especially if you're fighting against an insurance company.  

 I must politely decline.   My mother who is a retired insurance agent, the guy she worked with for 20 years and the insurance agent in my networking group all have said to never buy whole life as it is a bad product.   I obviously know these people very well and trust them implicitly.   

 So if I put in $100K, I have $200K growing and earning interest?  Somehow I think you missed what I said.   If I were to invest $120K I would  get a very achievable return of $80000 in 10 years at 5% in the stock market totalling $200K.  You spoke of if investing the full $120 you only get $100K of cash value. (85%) I could take the remaining $20K and buy 23 years of term life insurance with $500K of coverage.  I spend roughly $60. a month on term life.   What are the returns in 10 years through whole life?  

@Thomas Rutkowski  So you say if you funded $120K you'd have $100K available to you and some level of life insurance I'll assume.    You're losing $20k of your money immediately.   And I'm not trying to be a smart ***, I'm curious.   Why would you do that?   At my current rate of term level insurance of $500K I'd have 23 years of premiums with that $20K difference and not have my money.   Why not just take the $120K and invest it?  Rather than lose $20K right off the bat?  As many suggest on there.   You could buy 5 properties valued at $100K with a $20K down payment.   Or invest it in the stock market.    If you achieved a modest and very achievable 5%, your money would grow to around $200K.   

Probably a whole life policy.    Stay away from them, they are horrible investments.   Term life is much cheaper and you can get better returns on the difference in price on whole vs. term in the stock market or real estate.  

Regional law and code will dictate what you install   Above the mason dixon line is supposed to be 90% and above with 13 seer a/c.    South is 80% with 14 seer 

I was listening to the radio yesterday and they said the median price of a home in Austin is $400K and our unemployment rate dropped from 3.2% to 3.1%.   I think we added 140K people from 2010 to 2014.   Unfortunately the city and regional planners haven't figure out we need more roads to accommodate these people.   

You're being setup for something.  No, no and no.  Find another tenant.  If you decide to hold the property and they've done a bunch of stuff to the house, they will hang you out to dry.  You'll have hell getting them out and likely will end up hiring a lawyer

It doesn't matter if they are a referral or that neighbors know them.   Rent it at market rate to qualified tenants.  And no modifications, short of planting flowers.   You're not going to make it long if you start conceding and giving discounts out of the gate.  

Never let tenants do repairs in exchange for reduced rent.    They will do a crappy job or will do a small amount of repairs to justify their low rent, even though the reduced rent will be more than they actually spend on the property.   Or they will value their labor at a higher rate than the street rate.