All Forum Posts by: Sharon Rolel

I second Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. She does repeat herself quite a bit about her philosophies, but it's kinda the point of the book, I guess she wants people to get her :P

One of the best books I have ever read, but most people either fall in love with it, or hate its guts.

I personally wish I could keep my student loans for life! Would never pay them off if I didn't have to :P

Personally, having no family of my own, I would not do any renovations which are not necessary. If it works, I won't fix it or replace it. This comes from the realization that 1000$ today have the potential to be a cool mil in a couple decades. Putting money into renovating your home which you are not planning to sell anytime soon is not REI.

In your position I would put in the bare minimum into renovations, perhaps sacrificing a bit of quality and luxuries .

on average, with 6 SFH that I own, the first 10 months were actually around 100%! They were vacant REOs so it took a bit of time to get all of them rented, and I had one very bad tenant. Right now I have 5 rented, to some very good tenants, 4 of which have been in for more than a year, and the expenses have been slowly but steadily going down. For 2011, it was 80%, but for the past 6 months it has been around 60-65%, and that is where I expect it to remain until I get all 6 rented, in which case, judging from current expenses, I will arrive at around 55%. It will take a while for the whole thing, from inception, to converge below 60%, but the rents satisfy the "3% rule" so I really don't mind :)

As for compounding interest, Einstein didn't call it the 8th wonder of the world for nothing :)

Been meaning to try this one for a while:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/urban-studies-and-planning/11-431j-real-estate-finance-and-investment-fall-2006/

Seems relevant :)

I have 3 credit cards, student cards which have annual rates of around 6%. Combined, the credit I can use is around 20k$ a month. They are international (though not American) cards. I use maybe 2k of that, and I never use credit to pay for anything, just charge the card and pay it off automatically each month.

Can anyone think of a way to utilize these (what I think are) outrageous terms?

Just to make it clear, this isn't a loan (I have taken everything I can at even better terms), just the amount of credit I can use monthly with the cards.

The only thing I can think to add is to remember to enjoy yourself, and not to get (too) upset if (and when) things go south. Unlike 9-5s, it is impossible to succeed without liking what you do in (any business as in) REI, even when it keeps you up at night.

Repairs under 100$? How does that work? Sounds like you would be bothering a lot with countering an "offer" a tenant has from a handyman.

I own several SFHs in the lower end of the scale (20k-after-rehab-ish) and while those rent for 550$ on average, some months I may see 20% of that in net income, and most of the time like Jon side, when I get hit with something "unexpected" it may take a big chunk of the gross since while the house is cheap, maintenance costs are high in comparison.

Will be willing to pay top dollas for those recordings, just saying.. ;)

Ryan, you are assuming no catastrophic events will happen. While I agree that the probability for something truly major to happen isn't high, it may happen. Why not play it safe? No one is saying to keep tons of gold, but it doesn't hurt to be ready just in case.

Putting silver aside, if you are scared looking at this graph:
http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_charts/yearly_graphs.plx

You should actually be looking at this, which gives a better picture, I think:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/47921-an-historic-look-at-the-gold-dollar-ratio

It goes higher from there.

About gold's value, I too always ponder about the value people give to it, but they have for thousands of years. There lies its true intrinsic value, which is more than anyone can say for any type of currency, other than time.