All Forum Posts by: John Montgomery

Battle of the blue and red media bubbles!

Can't we all just get along?...nope:(

The biggest problem in our society, in my opinion right now, is all the misinformation that's being presented by corporate media. Please, please, please check out the views of the other side and then do some fact checking. With a little bit of research, it's not hard to see who is being misleading, or simply lying.

There's a concept called the Turing Test (a test to see if someone can tell the difference between a real person and computer AI) i.e. when you can't tell the difference between the computer and the person, then the computer has passed the "Turing test".

There's another concept called the "Ideological Turing Test". It says that if you can argue either side of an ideological debate to where people can't tell which side of the debate you actually believe, then you pass the test. It's only at this point when someone is well enough informed to have a valid opinion on a subject. This is a philosophy that I try to live by. So many people that I talk to that hold different views seem to only look at things that reinforce the opinions that they already hold. This is so harmful in our current media environment. Don't fall into the trap.

Knowledge is power!

Have you ever been in a power outage and walked into a room and flipped the switch? I have. My point is that you cannot be "responsible" about your own behavior in a situation like this. You can't see where the virus might be. We don't really know what would happen if people were allowed to get back to their lives. It could end up being even worse than shutdown. 

I think you should have the freedumb to do what you want if you waive medical treatment and have everyone who you infect also sign that waiver. We need to wait for testing and even then people will get sick and die, but it will be more reasonable and that is when I can consider your argument. 

Nice job, looks like a total win! Did you net $87K or were there other expenses?

Just curious (I live in Sac also), where was this property located? Did you do the work yourself, or did you contract out?

You could request to investigate the possibility that there is too much noise transmission between the units and have an associate of yours walk around normally upstairs while you listen to the noise downstairs. It may be that noise transfers easily through the units. If so, then you will have to consider weather or not to do an expensive sound mitigation retrofit. If not you will know definitively that they are doing it on purpose, and they'll also know they've been found out. At that point you'd have to decide how you want to confront them or just walk away giving them the stink eye. 

Thanks, this helps me look at it a bit differently. I wasn't really thinking in terms of payback or return on investment, because the costs are rolled into the loan and I want to be able to save more in the short term. I think I will try to negotiate the points or at least shop a little more.

 I have quite a bit of experience with the Zinsco panels but not the Fed Pac panels. I have "shorted" out circuits with them and the breakers often will not throw; cutting the power and providing the protection that they are supposed to. One time a neutral wire got so hot that some of the insulation melted off and probably would have started a fire if I didn't pull the wires apart. If the Fed Pac panels have similar issues then it is a serious danger. If you're not working on electrical then the dangers are much less likely but circuit breakers are there to protect against unlikely but serious events. I would hate to be responsible for a tragedy because I avoided a $50k renovation.

Hi BP,

I'm refinancing my mortgage and am wondering if the closing costs seem reasonable. We are going from a 4.25% to a 3.37% interest rate and will be saving about $150 per month, so that seems nice. We're going through Quicken Loans and they are charging us 2 points on a $280k loan with a total closing cost of $13,300. I'm happing with the monthly savings but wondering if I should shop around and try to find it for cheaper. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 A job with a W2 that helps improve your debt to income ratio would go a long way to getting you better terms on your cash-out refi. but you should be able to pull some money out of a property that you own free and clear.

I'm in Sacramento too. I'd love to see the details of the deals that you closed. I'm working on getting my financing in order and will be looking for potential flips in the near future.

Congratulations! What made you decide to sell?