All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Find your calling (your niche in the economy).

An ant that goes up against an elephant is going to get crushed. An ant that finds its calling between the toes of an elephant has the opportunity to thrive.

Follow the "millionaire next door" strategy: start a business or career you know (perhaps it's plumbing), live below your means, and save and invest the rest. Both high-end and low-end real estate has plumbing that needs servicing periodically.

When I shop for groceries, the checkout staff never asks me if my money comes from interest and dividends (which it does), rents (which it doesn't), or paychecks (which it doesn't). The store is happy to have my business.

Also, never compare yourself to other people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MPG-aLD-EY 

I grew up in rural Upstate New York. In the 1960s, the Johnson Administration declared the area an economic disaster zone. Today, it's part of the larger Rust Belt. The town where I graduated from high school in the 1960s had 3,000 people. Today, it has 2000 people. I went to California to seek my fortune.

I read where the Amish are moving into the area. At one point, one of the local villages wanted Amish horses to wear diapers, but the two sides got together and worked out a compromise.

http://www.timestelegram.com/article/20091028/NEWS/310289917

The late 1970s were also a wild time for California real estate prices (the voters responded with their Proposition 13 tax revolt to restrict how fast property taxes could be raised each year).

At the time, I was working in Los Angeles. One of my homeowner co-workers bought a condo unit in a development still under construction for $40K as a speculation. He said six months earlier, the condos were priced at $25K; then that number was crossed off and replaced with $30K; and so forth. He turns to me (a renter) and tells me I need to buy one before prices increase further (I wanted to hit him, but I didn't).

The story keeps repeating ever since Silicon Valley was founded decades ago. There have always been insufficient housing and insufficient roads. The boom-and-bust cycle probably started in 1849 with the California Gold Rush. My neighbors were astonished when they found out for how much my house had sold, but they had reasons why they couldn't sell right now (one had children in school, another had a decade to retirement).

If history is any guide, Bay Area housing prices will likely be higher a decade or two from now, even if there is a serious decline long the way. When the Cold War ended and President Bush declared a peace dividend, for example, the California economy was hit hard. Bay Area home prices dropped 20% and LA home prices dropped 40% in the early 1990s. Prices recovered by the late 1990s and have reached higher highs since.

SF Bay Area experiences mass exodus of residents, leading to a shortage of U-Haul trucks and sky-high prices for scarce outbound trucks

http://www.aei.org/publication/san-francisco-bay-area-experiences-mass-exodus-of-residents-reflected-in-one-way-u-haul-truck-rental-rates/

I first heard about the "U-Haul Index" in the mid 2000s when record numbers of people were leaving the Bay Area. Back then, it was hard for investors to find income property that would cashflow positive. If you want to move from outside the state to San Jose, however, the U-Haul truck won't cost you much.

As a long-time homeowner who wanted to retire and leave, now is a good time to be selling real estate there. Although I'm a techie, I went through engineering school using the slide rule because electronic calculators hadn't been invented yet. The job market for "slipstick jockeys" doesn't exist anymore.

Three years ago, I sold my San Jose home (Santa Clara County) and retired to Pensacola, Florida.  It didn't take me long to get used to Pensacola's high humidity and lack of traffic.  I'm learning now how to deal with named storms rather than named seismic events.

I've never been to a RDPD seminar. I read the RDPD books, which I thought were OK, and I played the Cashflow board game about 50 times (mostly Cashflow 101) over a 4-year period back in the 2000s. I highly recommend the Cashflow game.

I felt uneasy with how Kiyosaki would associate with other investment guru types who I concluded were shady. One stormed out of the room, telling me I would "come around" when I refused to move all of my money from the stock market to the SFH investments he was promoting. I came around instead to the conclusion he was trying to swindle me out of my life savings and thankfully I kept my money where it was in the stock market.

The CBC secretly sent a reporter with a hidden camera to a RDPD seminar in Canada and you can come to your own conclusion about whether these seminars are a good deal or not.  I conclude the RDPD seminars are a scam.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1404600019

One of the topics I haven't seen discussed on BP yet is house sitting. Homeowner retirees who can get on the list of trusted house sitters find a world of travel on a shoestring budget (if that's something they want to do):

http://retireearlylifestyle.com/aaa/house_sitting_page.htm

Some traveling retirees don't like the idea of moving their furniture back and forth from storage if they want to rent out their home while they spend part of the year living in another part of the country (snowbirds, sunbirds):

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/your-money/selling-the-family-home-is-liberating-for-many-retirees.html

Combining these two ideas, perhaps you can find a trusted house sitter to live in your Lake Oswego home while you're living in Las Vegas. Perhaps a below-market rent for the trusted house sitter might be worth the peace of mind.  Whatever. It's something to think about.

One of the issues that came up in my San Jose, California neighborhood 25 years ago was the half-way house. Local judges were being encouraged whenever possible to "sentence" some offenders to a half-way house for a few months instead of jail. Some of these facilities took out business licenses, but many were operated illegally without a license (yet were still put on the list of facilities judges could use).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway_house

People at our neighborhood association were up in arms over this. Some people reported an increase in crime ("there's a half-way house behind me"), while others said "it's just a bunch of guys" lounging around quietly in the backyard.

When STRs are being used as a one-day hotel, street traffic will increase. But if they're being quietly marketed as one-week hotels (perhaps because of a local event), then the street traffic could be less. People at the neighborhood association didn't mind many people living at an address (which would also increase street traffic) if they were all related by blood or marriage.

The test I use is I want to be notified in advance of this stuff so I can decide to live elsewhere if I don't like what's in the neighborhood. If the activities in the neighborhood don't intrude on my life, then I give them wide latitude (as long as it's not blatantly illegal such as drug dealing or sex trafficing).

https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/05/07/san-jose-marijuana-grow-houses-have-hidden-dangers-for-residents-police-firefighters/

Of course, illegal businesses should be given a citation whenever they're discovered. But I would want the police to focus on the "serious stuff" rather than the minor stuff. For example, San Jose has a garage sale ordinance: only two per year and they must be at least six months apart. If someone holds three garage sales in a year, they are in technical violation and could be cited if discovered. But I don't expect the police to "keep book" on this activity. 

My stock broker is telling me I need to establish an estate plan. When the brokerage receives notice of my death, my accounts will be frozen until the probate court tells it what to do with the money.

Beneficiaries on my retirement accounts will be paid independently of what might be in my will.

https://www.thebalance.com/beneficiary-designation-for-retirement-accounts-4047008

Payable on death (POD) accounts are used to avoid probate on bank accounts.

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-a-payable-on-death-or-pod-account-3505252

I don't know what happens to my personal property (my car and computer are old and not worth much) and I'll likely not provide the necessary 60-day notice of my departure to my landlord. I could not find any mention of "deceased tenant" in my lease, but there are "under any other circumstances permitted by state law" catch all phrases.

Nothing may be certain in this world except death and taxes, but both really suck.