All Forum Posts by: Chris John

@Chris Hill

I'm not a big fan of paying off early.  Those houses are already paid off on the Income Statement.

Regardless, if you are going to pay off early, please be sure to leave yourself some liquidity for the occasional speed bump that life throws at you.  If you lose a job, have an illness, etc. the bank isn't going to give you any credit for paying ahead.  You can have all of the equity in the world, but if you need cash and can't qualify for a refinace loan because of not having a job or something, you'll pretty much be forced to sell.  Just a thought.

@Ron Brady

Race in America is an extremely nuanced and complex issue.  I hope I'm being overly sensitive, but when I see my name tagged as the lead in a post that mentions "yea, it's illegal, anti-thetical to the concept of equal opportunity, inconsistent with the promise of the United States Constitution, but meh, no big deal" and "I appreciate being given a look behind the curtain of conversations among some white people with the capacity to deny opportunity to black people" that you are no longer referring to me and that my part ends with "It's not shocking to me"?

Best wishes

@Steve K.

It's shocking to hear that this is happening in today's world.  Honestly, I truly feel like if someone is brave enough to discriminate in such an overt manner, they deserve to be named.  What are their names and what exactly did you do to handle the situation?  I feel like naming these types of people will go furthest is ending this type of overt behavior.

@James Brewer

If your experience is anything like mine in terms of trying to find lending, you'll get much better terms on the fourplexes than you will on the small apartments.  Several commercial lenders didn't even want anything to do with smaller apartments at all.

Good luck

@Jim K.

"As interest rates rise, so does inflation."  

Is that actually true? I'm pretty sure it's the exact opposite.  Don't you raise interest rates to counter inflation?

@Jim K.

I agree with you, but I'll play along.  Here's my scenario:

Rising interest rates make profits in real estate less lucrative than other equities for institutional investors.  One starts selling, which leads to another, which leads to a flooded market of properties for sale.

@Jonathan R McLaughlin

Not at all.  I should've done the /s or whatever it is, but I'm not that cool.  haha

@Jonathan R McLaughlin

Haha.  Definitely being sarcastic, for sure.  I've always seen investing as a blessing.  

It allowed me to ignore the trappings of a lucrative career in terms of time and responsibility, but still have hope for coming out ahead.

Best wishes

@Eric Bilderback

"But throughout history real estate has been a safer investment than money in the bank."

This point can't be emphasized enough.  My old finance professor used to go on and on about the biggest financial fear needs to be the fear of inflation, not losing principal.  So many people are afraid of losing money that they don't understand that the simple act of saving money means they're losing money during the best of times inflation wise.

Calculating your rates of return without subtracting the inflation rates gives a very skewed look at your investments.  When you invest in "safe" investments that yield 2%, but inflation is 3%, you're actually investing at -1%.  Inflation of 7% makes saving money in a bank account at 1% worse then betting on black in Vegas.  Literally.  

I'll never understand how you can point this out to people, but they're still afraid of investing when they should be afraid of not investing...

@Anthony Zotto

Always choose money over time with family (especially your kids).  There'll be plenty of time to go back and recreate those childhood memories when they're older (and they'll for sure not resent you).