All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Are there recommendations of personal finance books for kids? I am looking for books that kids would not read for fun or be assigned through school, which could include money management, investing, business, self-improvement, etc. I am planning a program for my children to get them reading and thinking about wealth creation, personal finance, and so on. I am blessed with kids that LOVE to read, however I want to leverage that reading appetite to get them reading books they would never choose on their own. The only book on my radar so far is Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens and the cash flow board game. The program for my kids is a summer reading challenge while they are out of school. The challenge will be to: - Read books that I pick (or approve of). - Write a short summary of the book, including the main theme, any major lessons learned, and their candid thoughts on whether they liked the book. - After reading the book and turning in their book review, they will get paid $20 or some other amount that is fair. The way I see it, I am willing to pay them to explore ideas they would otherwise choose not to. Any thoughts will be appreciated!

Tom Reid Could you go with the 50/50 approach and do something like ... - Investor pays 50% of acquisition and you (or the LLC) mortgage the remaining 50% of acquisition cost. - Investor funds all rehab and holding costs. (This assumes you are not going into the deal with substantial capital to fund rehab or reserves.) - You manage everything, get the property rented and seasoned, and earn your sweat equity. In the meantime, you and the investor split net cash flow 50/50 or at other agreeable terms. - After seasoning, refinance the property, cash out the investor (with a solid return on the investors capital) and you hold the property from there on. - Repeat the process. With a proven track record maybe the investor will loosen up on terms or do multiple investments concurrently with you. Until you have enough investable capital accumulated, it will be a challenge controlling the terms of any investor or lender. If the deal you have in your sights is phenomenal (like it could appraise for way over your purchase price), you may have luck finding a HML to fund acquisition + rehab but the terms will likely be ridiculous.

Chris Martin I agree with your summary Chris, but would suggest the following naming conventions: - Western NC (new)
- Charlotte Metro
- Triad (rename from Greensboro) - Triangle (rename from Raleigh) - Eastern NC (new) - Coastal NC (new) This approach roughly follows the economic development regions defined at https://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/extension/regions.html

1 - You definitely need to remove the glue residue before laying any new flooring. Your base (concrete) needs to be as clean and level as possible, especially if you are installing hardwood or vinyl. 2 - Install flooring before painting. You will inevitably bump or scuff the walls while installing flooring, and if sanding is involved the walls will be a challenge to clean. 3 - Pull all baseboards up and reinstall or replace after the new flooring is installed. I did a similar project, removing carpet and parquet from a concrete slab, but came back with tile instead of hardwoods/vinyl. Depending on the type of adhesive originally used, the parquet glue can be a real challenge to get up. There are YouTube videos that can give you guidance on tools, techniques, and adhesive removal liquids to help remove that glue. In my case I had about 200 square feet of parquet and it took a day just to get the glue residue removed. After removing the glue residue (primarily with a scraper tool), some areas of the concrete were damaged and I had to patch-repair those in order for the concrete base layer to be level before laying the new flooring.

Patrick Smith Would the HELOC have a higher interest rate than the existing 4.25% 30-year mortgages on the three rentals? If so, it would seem counterintuitive to use higher rate debt to pay down lower rate debt. If you are aiming to pull the HELOC from your primary residence to pay down mortgages on those rentals, have you considered just keeping the rentals as-is and using the HELOC funds to then acquire additional rentals?

Justin Sumulong My perspective is I would rather invest my time in building real estate investing experience and invest my capital in building a return on that capital. Sure, you can achieve quantifiable returns on solid MBA programs, however I would rather build a business and hire MBAs than be one myself. You can also get the equivalent of an MBA by reading real estate investing books, tapping the deep wells of resources here on BP, developing relationships with successful real estate investors, and putting that "free" education into practice. The vast majority of successful real estate developers and investors I have encountered are home-grown and hustled their way to success with no MBA.

I am not experienced in such developments, but your situation made me think ... to fit as many parking spaces on the lot as possible without sacrificing building square footage, one option is ground level parking underneath the structure. This is similar to construction methods for condos near the beach, only your area would probably necessitate higher end design/aesthetics. Just a thought ...

Hi Lisa. To clarify, are you looking to sell the land as-is or to develop on it?

Laura H. Based on one of your follow up comments, it sounds like you and your husband need to get aligned on goals and investing mindset. This is critical! You both need to be in complete agreement with your long-term goals and what actions you plan to take to achieve those goals. Next, I would try approaching your duplex with a new mindset, like that of an investor that is analyzing the property as a potential purchase. If your duplex is marketable to another investor that can create a way to make it cash flow, you have to ask yourself what is they can do that you have not. If it were my property, I would lay out my income statement and challenge every line item. The "challenge" is to identify changes that can increase rents and decrease operating expenses, which will increase cash flow. Aside from operational expenses, you have an opportunity to affect cash flow through how you have your property leveraged. You mentioned refinancing a few years ago to shorten the term, etc. If you were to do another refinance in the near future with a longer-term note at a great rate, that simple action should lead to a substantial cash flow increase from the duplex. It may be a stretch, not knowing all your numbers, but you may even be able to do a cash-out refinance that increases cash flow from this duplex and liquidates some of your equity to use on another investment. If it were my property, I would hesitate in selling just to harvest the equity. I would shift my paradigm and look at opportunities to further leverage a successful investment I had held for 20 years. If a year of trying tons of ways to increase cash flow does not yield any results, then I would reconsider selling the property. The thing you would need to avoid is selling the property only to reinvest in another property that puts you in a similar situation. I wish you the best of luck!

Jon S. This is a heavy subject! While I do not share your sentiment that tech and AI advancements equate to the demise of the "worker" there are many impacts that can negatively effect those that are not adapting. In my trade, I am certainly not working more for less. It is the exact opposite; I, along with millions of other workers, am adapting and leveraging tech to do exponentially more work while growing my wage. Even in real estate, investors and workers are exploiting tech to their advantage. Many of the tech tools are becoming the new norm in workers' tool chests, but they are not the demise of the worker themselves. One leading figure in this area worth studying is Peter Diamandis. Peter wrote a book titled Abundance that spins a very positive outlook on humans' future cohabitation with tech. He has a website www.diamandis.com with links to the book, blogs, etc. Definitely worth a read and recommended by Elon Musk, Richard Branson and others.