All Forum Posts by: Steven Westlake

From car and driver:

“With the smaller 98.0-kWh battery, Ford claims a driving range of 230 miles per charge; upgrading to the larger 131.0-kWh pack boosts driving range to 320 miles. During our own 75-mph highway range test, the Lightning Platinum managed 230 miles of range.”

“During our own tow test pulling a 5100-pound double-axle trailer, the range of our Lightning Platinum dropped to just 130 miles at 70 mph.”

And that folks is with the big battery

It gets worse.

With the Standard-Range battery, the motors combine to make 452 horsepower but with the Extended-Range battery the horsepower rating rises to 580; peak torque is an impressive 775 pound-feet with either setup.

So on the f150 lighting the standard range battery is rated for 230 miles, and the extended range battery is rated at 320 miles. Below is the almost 20k price hop to get that battery.

I’m trying to get my head around electric vehicle choices and if the math now makes sense with $5 gal gas, or $7 diesel. I’m only looking at if the math can make sense, not environmental issues.

So I currently have a 2003 f150 4.2 v6 2wd, its gets around 15 mpg, and has 250k miles, so it’s eating parts pretty regularly. I burn around 50 gal per month, which right is about $250. I’m guessing oil changes and etc add another $50 per month. No clue how to estimate repairs.

I think as long as the gvwr is at least 6000 lbs, I could take the accelerated depreciation. Add that to the $250 in gas, etc. minus some estimated electric added usage, then add in the monthly cost of a similar gas version. If gas goes to 8 to 10 per gallon, I’m ahead, I don’t think the current government will let it drop down.

This would be a mostly a local vehicle, as my wife’s Honda CR-V would used for trips.

Does this seem like a sane approach? Or how would you all look at it?

The question you need to be asking yourself is how is this my fault.

Because nobody else is going to fix this for you, you need to ask why did this happen and how can I fix it.

About 2/3 of our properties are metropolitan housing (similar to section 8). So i take a whole different approach on the lease length thing. I only go month to month if possible. It’s much easier to evict if they don’t pay, yet still choose to stay, because they are no longer under a lease. I have seen courts take months to get some one with a long lease out, think about 3 to 6 months still in there without rent and trashing the place because they’re getting evicted. 
I figure 25% of rent won’t get collected, it’s never been that high, but it’s always been above your numbers, probably about double your numbers on average. And that’s since the 90’s. The numbers will always be worse right after a new property is acquired while you work through inherited bad tenants and deferred maintenance.

Wait till the day your cleaning cat poop out of kitchen cabinets, or dead fish out of a fridge because the electric bill did not get paid, or a dirty toilet because the water bill did not get paid, or rolling up carpet to burn so the exterminator can kill the fleas, or a renter turns the water back on while the plumber is working in another room so they can flush the toilet. This game ain’t for sissies.

 Also if some poor bullet dodging devil dog is being moved from camp L on Parris island to camp Hollywood or wherever. Say thank you for your service, offer them lunch or at least a beer, and move on.

And as far as the government paying the rent, i heard a DI say “the corp did not issue you a wife, kids, car, or a house, therefore you don’t need them.”

FYI 

 I Ended up doing nothing at all. Did not want to give up any time. 

 If fact I’m going to start looking into hiring a property manager to hopefully gain more of my time back. So thanks for getting me thinking in that direction. I’m thinking i can bump rents more than enough to cover the management cost. I’ll start with the worst unit, as far as my time goes.

@Joe S. - i was thinking I might match their down payment. Assuming the bank or whoever wanted 25% down, so based on a $150k sale price, that would be $37.5k, split in half would be approximately $19k each.

I would not even consider putting someone in without something to lose if they walked away. I would be better off buying it outright then bumping the price, then asking for something down, land contracting it out to someone. In fact that may be the direction i head, need to sleep on that idea. Thinking out loud, buy at $150k, sell on land contract at 200 (or 225), maybe only 10 % down, I already have 20k of my 150 back. So I’m risking $130, but they still owe me 180 plus interest. Thinking I’m good with this plan.

@Patrick Drury - no time to deal with it, to many irons in the fire now. I have not had a w2 job for a few years. A new custom home going together now, 2 of my rentals under remodeling as well, normal issues on the rest of them. 8 grandkids and another one coming. My mom is 81, and wife’s dad is 76, both having issues.