All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

Another piece of this puzzle is that the sales tax is a little bit higher, too.  I grew up in Missouri and at that time, the sales tax was around 6.5%, plus or minus a few tenths, most everywhere.  I moved to Dallas for a year in the late 90s and one thing I noticed was that the sales taxes there were more like 9.5%, plus or minus.

If you're making $100K a year, this doesn't make that much difference - you just don't spend that much on groceries and other goods that have sales tax over the course of a year.  It makes a little bit of difference on big-ticket items, like buying a car.

Nerd mode...

For the e-books, make sure you have backup copies on media that you personally own and control (i.e. not "cloud").  This can be the hard drive in your laptop/PC, an external hard drive, a flash drive, or whatever, just as long as you can hold it in your own two hands.  There are a couple of reasons for this... that "free" cloud storage you get today will eventually turn into ransomware (pay so much a month or you can't get at your files anymore) or just disappear, and cloud is susceptible to bogus takedown requests.

Also, with e-books, make sure the file is in a format you will be able to read 20 years from now.  PDF is a pretty safe bet; there is so much stuff floating around in PDF that either Windows 20 and Mac iOS XX will still come with a PDF reader, or whatever they do come with will have an "import PDF" option.  Kindle format will *probably* remain readable for a while, but possibly not as long as PDF.

End nerd mode.  :)

I haven't used a product like this, but I looked into it for fixing the concrete back porch at my house.  It had indoor/outdoor carpeting glued to it, and when I finally pulled the carpet up, several big but thin chunks of concrete (like pancakes) came up with it.

Many of the reviews I found online seemed to say that it looks great when completed but only lasts about a year.  My conclusion is that it's designed to make something look good so you can sell the property and then get out of town, without having to spend the money on a tear-out and re-pour.

I looked at the material, but one thing isn't clear: is their "Kansas City" forecast talking about just the Kansas side of the metropolitan area, or both the Missouri and Kansas sides?

If it's only talking about the Kansas side, then be careful about assuming that their numbers will apply to the Missouri side.  The growth on the Kansas side of the KC metro area will come from Johnson County, and has for a while.  This is the southwest part of the metro area, including Overland Park, Lenexa, Olathe, and many other suburbs.  There may be a small contribution from western Wyandotte County (far west Kansas City, Kansas, Bonner Springs, and a few other suburbs), but most will be coming from Johnson County.

Kansas is also having some political difficulties.  The current state government passed large income tax cuts a few years ago.  This worked so well that they were in danger of going in the red this spring, and had to raise sales taxes statewide.  A couple of weeks ago, they had to shuffle money around between agencies again, in order to make it through the budget year.  The state is also under a court order to spend more money on schools.

Several months ago, for a posting on a different site, I did some comparisons of the 2010 US Census income data for Kansas and Missouri.  In Kansas, Johnson is the top county and makes 27.9% of the income in the state.  Wyandotte came in fourth, at 4.01% of the income in the state.  Total 2010 income statewide was about $74.0 billion dollars.

In Missouri, St. Louis County is the top county and makes 22.5% of the income in the state.  Jackson County (Kansas City, Independence, Raytown, and other cities) is second and makes 11.5% of the income in the state.  Total 2010 income statewide was about $148.1 billion dollars.

Here's what I did.

I bought some print-at-home business cards at the local discount store.  Office supply stores also have them.  They come 10 cards to an 8.5x11 sheet that you can feed though your existing printer (laser or inkjet).  You can download a template for Word that sets up all the margins and such for you, so the printing comes out in the right places.

On the front of the card, I have my name (in big type), my email address, and my user name here (MattR36).

On the back of the card, it says:

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New to real estate in 4th quarter 2015.

Looking to purchase and rent out a single-family home or duplex in Blue Springs, Lee's Summit, or south Independence, Missouri.

MAREI 13 Oct 2015

---

That last line is the local real estate investor's group, and the date of the meeting where I passed out the cards.  If I did it again, I wouldn't pre-print this; I didn't pass them all out at that meeting, so at later meetings, I had to cross that out with a pen and write in a later date.  If it wasn't pre-printed, I could just write on them as I needed them.

I chose not to put my mailing address or phone number on the cards.  If someone asks, and if it's someone I am interested in talking to, I will write my phone number on the card.

It's all in plain black laser print; I didn't get fancy with colors or a logo or anything.

My suggestions: 1) Try adding some electric lights to the cedar wall and fireplace and 2) Don't paint the brick fireplace.

For 1), maybe add something like a single-tube fluorescent fixture, or an LED strip light, at the top of the cedar wall or fireplace brick, shining down.  Hide the fixture itself with a couple of pieces of molding.  Some of the LED strips have a separate power supply and low-voltage wire to the strip; it may be easier to fish the low-voltage wire through the wall or around the corner or whatever, so you can put the power supply in a better spot.

You can "prototype" it by stealing the fluorescent shop-light from the garage, or getting a cheap used fixture at a ReStore or thrift store.  Put a plug on the fixture wires and use an extension cord to power it. Tape some tinfoil onto the fixture to approximate the molding/reflector, and hang it up temporarily to see what you think.  Once you have something you like, you can buy a real, official fixture that matches the prototype, and build it in and wire it up correctly.

For 2), everyone has pretty much cited the reasons - it's irreversible, and you *might* get some soot/smoke marks right above the fireplace.  If you do decide to paint, you can sort of "prototype" the color by going to the fabric store and getting a few yards of different colors of fabric - pure white, cream, whatever you think might look good.  Then, hang it up over the brick and see how it looks in the room.  You won't get the effect of the mortar joints and rough surface of the brick, but at least you can check it out a little before you commit.

I kind of dig the mirror wall, but that's just me.  :)  If you take down the mirrors, you probably want to paint the drywall a fairly light color.

Disclaimer: I am not a structural engineer or carpenter. 

I don't see any rain gutters in this picture.  Is it possible that when it rains, water piles up on that second-floor balcony, and drips down onto the sagging beam?  In other words, the beam might be sized OK, but maybe it has been rotted by water over time (if it's wood).

As has been said, either you or the engineer will probably have to take off some of that vinyl siding on the beam to check things out.  If it's a wood beam, looks dry, and is just cracked, then it may have been too small for the load.  But if it looks rotted, water might be a problem.

Disclaimer: I am very new to investing.  I haven't bought (or lived in) a mobile home before.

I *have* helped fix things in mobile homes for friends and family, and the thing I took away from that was that the mechanical systems in mobile homes are Different from regular houses.  I would be standing in the plumbing aisle at the hardware store, not finding anything that matched the pipe I had in my hand.  When I asked the clerk, they looked at it for a while, and then said, "Oh, is this for a mobile home?  You need the one from the mobile home aisle, over *there*..."

You might be interested in this thread in the "deal diaries" forum... a guy rehabbed a triple-wide mobile home in California that sits on a big lot (not in a park).  The numbers on that deal were a lot bigger than what you are looking at, but he did comment in one of his posts "The construction was very different from a conventional home, and it took about an extra 3 weeks to complete."

I'm not saying to not do the deal... I'm just saying to be aware that the rehab work will be a little different than that for a conventional house.

Disclaimer: I am new at this and have never bought a house near a school.  I *do* live about half a mile down the street from a local high school.

For a high school, if the buyer/renter has kids that are 16+, and kids can drive at 16 in that state, the kids may not like it, because then they don't get to be cool and drive a car to school.  :)  Okay, the kid probably isn't signing the check, but he or she *will* lean on their parents.

If the neighborhood isn't the greatest, though, being right across from the school might appeal to parents.  Their kids will have a shorter walk to school, and at some schools, there will be a cop at the school while school is in session.

You might also look at how much land the school sits on, and what happens if the school needs to expand.  At least around here (Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma), the schools usually sit on relatively large pieces of land, so there is enough room for several expansions without the school district having to buy any more property.  If the school district decides they need your property for expansion, you *hope* that they write you a check for 10% over the market value, but they *could* send in the building inspector to condemn it so they can write a check for 50% under the market value.

Also, General Delivery is still a thing, but you *do* have to get by the post office every so often for that.  Maybe you can stop by there when you're in town to get "100 pounds of yeast and some copper line", as the song says.  :D

Congratulations!