All Forum Posts by: Kevin C.

Agree with Harvie, I took up REI because I have little faith in the stock market. I still have money in the market, but it's a secondary investment.

I'm treating my current job as the means to an end - dumping as much as I can into RE, RE that I plan to pay off as quickly as possible to build a nice passive income stream for the future.

I'm late to the game, but have a solid plan and the income stream is building.

I opted for the HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan) through work as well. Every year I max out the HSA deposit, then pay any medical expenses out of pocket, leaving the HSA to grow. Wife and I are both healthy and annual medical expense are very low.

My plan is to continue adding the max allowed to the HSA over the years and just let it continue to build.

At some point, perhaps the HSA will grow enough that it can cover most if not all medical expenses without needing additional deposits.

In other words, I'm treating the HSA as a retirement account that I plan on not touching until well into the future.

By the time I start pulling from it, I'm hoping it will be self sufficient, or close to it anyway.

557 units - that should allow plenty of space for whatever toys you might accumulate, and still have plenty of units left over for some cash flow to boot.

Nice!

Rich,

I'm really surprised there seems to be so little interest in this topic.

I want to hear about part 3, if there's little interest by others then PM part 3 to me, but don't leave me hanging.

Thanks!

Yeah, it's a pretty nice place, not your typical home by any means.

Original owner was a car nut, so it has plenty of garage space (11+). 3 car attached to house, 8 car+ across driveway with full bath and attached diner.

All of the garages are fully insulated, the 4 car part of the 8 car garage has central heat and air.

Flooring in the 8 car garage is all black and white tile in checkerboard pattern. The finish out in these garages goes well beyond the finish out of most homes.

Home has an attached fully enclosed Pool/Spa with retractable roof.

We use the 4 car portion of the garage (could easily hold 6 cars) as a huge gameroom. Bath is in that portion of the garage, diner is connected to it as well.

Original owner put a boat load of money in the place, market couldn't come close to supporting what he had in it.

It for sure wasn't the best financial move with regards to retirement. But it's a home that exceeded every expectation we had for a place.

This should be our final personal residence. Only way I can see selling it would be if our finances fell apart or at some point we decide it costs too much to carry (taxes etc).

It's a one-off property that just happened to exactly match what we wanted in a property (and then some). Market conditions put it within our reach.

Are you kidding, of course I'm interested in Part 3!

Great topic Rich, good to hear that the conventional wisdom regarding retirement is a bunch of hooey.

I was on track to have our personal residence and both rental properties paid off well before I hit 60 (I'm 53 now). The goal was to have 0 debt and a decent pile of cash and equities, then live off rental income and savings/investments.

Plans changed when we found and purchased the home we had always dreamed of - suffice it to say that someone else's loss was our gain.

This change in residence has really put the squeeze on my plans since we went up about $230K in home.

Plans have not changed, still shooting for 60 at the latest to have everything paid off (all we owe on is Real Estate - all cars, toys etc are paid for and all charge cards are paid in full every month).

Worst case, we can downsize when the time comes to cut the living expenses, but we really like our new place, as do the kids and grandkids. New place is in the country on a couple acres, with huge trees, a creek in the back, open ground for playing, horse stalls and pasture, unbelievable amount of garage / shop space and a nice house for the wife.

It's a little slice of heaven, but it's really put me behind the 8 ball to get it, along with the rentals we own, all paid off before I hit 60.

I'm confident I'll get it done, and maybe even add another rental or two along the way.

If you're concerned the economy in the US is headed for a complete meltdown, then stock up on water, food and ammo.

I don't think anyone would care about precious metals, stock certificates, real estate, or stacks of cash - what they will care about is food, water, shelter and protection.

A few bottles of water and cans of food would be powerful bartering items.

Micro-cash flowing - lol!

My goal is to avoid those type investments in the future.

Indeed, finding decent cash flowing properties is the challenge - I'll be happy if I close on at least one this year.

The Homestead exemption has nothing to do with the assessed value.

The Homestead exemption gives you a small break on a portion of the taxable value, I believe $5K of the valuation is exempted from some of the taxes. I'd have to look at my records to confirm.

Taxes are high and appreciation is low, but on the bright side, for the most part, the RE bubble skipped TX.

Edited to add - Both of my rentals had their assessed values lowered for 2009, that happened automatically with nothing done on my part.