All Forum Posts by: Chris Szepessy

Marcus Johnson you hit the nail right on the head. These travel teams around me allow you to make payments for the registration fees. You’re basically financing your children’s sports. I feel the line needs to be drawn somewhere. It’s not worth going into debt for. I totally understand parents wanting to do all they can for their kids, but when it starts interfering with saving money or paying other bills, that’s when it becomes an issue. My wife and I just had this same discussion with other parents of kids on my sons travel soccer team. We all agreed that the chance of scholarships and/or going pro, wasn’t worth the amount of money and time that some of the other travel teams required.

I just had a tenant ask about replacing the flooring in their kitchen as well. They are great tenants and had already put new flooring in one of the bedrooms (at their expense), so I told them that I would replace the kitchen flooring. This time at my expense. They wanted pergo or vinyl plank wood flooring. I figured it’s something that would need to be replaced anyway if they were to move out, so why not just do it now, keep them happy, and not worry about having a vacancy. In your case, if it’s just linoleum, it’s pretty inexpensive so I would probably just do it. However, ripping up the old stuff can be a pain, so if you’re paying someone to do it, it could get a little pricy.

It seems like a good idea to me to “break even” for 4 years to have a fully paid off investment in such a short time. My first rental (next door to me) was offered to me by the owner with zero down, no interest for 10 years. I didn’t ask why...I just took the offer. A little over a year later, he offered me another house he had with the same terms except with a 12 year loan because of the higher price. I never asked why, but I assume he did this to lower his tax penalty on the sale of the houses. I’m allowed to refi the houses into conventional mortgages, but I chose not to for a couple reasons. First, the idea of 2 free and clear houses in 10 and 12 years sounds great and second, I feel the guy did me a huge favor by offering me the terms he did, so I don’t want to “screw” him into paying a ton in taxes.

Sourabh Bora I know a few contractors who are acquaintances/friends but I haven’t personally used them for any work. I haven’t had any real renovations that I couldn’t handle where I would need a contractor. I can recommend them to you, but I would still suggest getting references and whatnot prior to hiring them. I also have a plumber I use, but I’m not sure if they service your area, even though you’re only about 10 miles from me. They are actually doing some work for me today so I can ask them and let you know. Feel free to PM me if you’d like and I can send some recommendations your way.

Both of my kids play baseball, soccer, and basketball in rec leagues. The older one did a travel baseball team for a while and still does a travel soccer team. I feel your pain on the cost of sports. Why do you pay for coaching? Is it private one on one coaching? Does the school have a lacrosse team they can try out for? School teams are usually free to play for. My older son wanted to play on a different travel soccer team, but the cost was over $1000 more for the year, plus they do weekend tournaments hundreds of miles away. That meant extra for hotels/food/fun while traveling. We told him that wasn’t happening and he was ok with playing on the local travel team, instead of not playing at all. Anyway, the point of all that was that maybe you need to let your kids know that you can’t afford for them to have all the “extras” that go with playing lacrosse but they can still play. And as posted above, look into FHA financing which requires only 3.5% down. You’ll probably have to pay PMI but it will probably be worth it.

John D. has a good point about zoning. My son’s friend lives in Palenville and his parents were telling me how difficult it was for a dollar store to get permission to build there. It might be a lot different than what you’re doing, but definitely still something to keep in mind.

I'm a short distance from Palenville.  Nice little town.  Keep us posted on how everything goes.

I'm also not a lawyer, but it seems to be a civil matter between the tenant and the lawn service company.  I would just let them figure it out however they see fit.  If it gets ugly with them, you may want to consider hiring a new company.  You don't need them out there fighting/arguing every time they go cut the lawn.

I’d probably just politely tell them no. If in a few months they turn out to be great tenants, I might spend the money and get it done for them. I hate hanging doors of any type and I think a lot of contractors may feel the same way so it could be a little pricey to have done. It obviously wasn’t a big enough issue for them to not take the place, so I’m sure they’ll learn to live with it.

The problem is (most) people care way too much about what other people think of them.  They buy everything they can and don't save or invest a dime, then it comes time to retire and they can't. I've always been made fun of for being cheap and I used to sit back and take it.  It never bothered me and I would even throw in a few jokes about myself, too. Lately I've started telling these people that they need to make some changes if they ever want to retire.