All Forum Posts by: Zach Ziskin

Quick question on subject to's (forgive me if this has already been answered elsewhere). Since on a subject to deal the property doesn't affect your credit, what happens if for some reason you as the buyer were to default on the property? Would the seller's credit still be on the hook?

If you have just lyrics, you can register the copyright by sending them into the Library of Congress with a small fee and registration form. They have the forms online I believe.

As far as licensing or selling them, there's not a huge market for just lyrics. What you would really need to do if your lyrics are good is to find a music writer or writers to partner up with and put the lyrics to music. Then once you have an actual complete song, you'd want to record a demo of the song, at which point you could start soliciting them to artists to record, or if the demo recording is good enough, you can partner with some TV and film licensing companies to get the songs placed in film and TV. Taxi is also a good service for those who don't have any prior connections for submitting your songs for various opportunities, as well as to receive feedback on your work.

Thanks! I'm still getting my "learn" on, but I hope to take the plunge on my first investment soon. Good luck to you with your lyric writing, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

Hi Jonathan,

As far as songwriting goes, there's really nothing to it but to "do it". It's like anything else, the more you do it, the better you'll get. Your first endeavors will likely be pretty amateurish, but the more you write, the greater chances you'll have a higher percentage of good stuff.

With that said, there are some things you can do to actively study or improve. There are some good books out on the market on songwriting or lyric writing that might be worth looking into. In addition, take a look at some of your favorite songwriters' material and study their lyrics to see how they put them together, their choice of words/imagery/etc.

Another cool lyric writing trick I sometimes use when I'm stuck that I learned from Diane Warren (one of the all time most successful songwriters) is to find an existing song you like. Then go through each line, and figure out what the question is that the line is an answer to, write down those questions, and then write new answers to each of those questions. So for instance, take the song "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles:

"I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph"

The question for each line might be:

What did you do today?
What were the details of what you were doing?
How did it make you feel?
How did you react?
What made you react that way?

By the time you're done coming up with new answers, you'll have yourself a completely new song!

A lot of people have that misperception when they hear the word flourescent, and they think of those awful long flickering cathode tubes that give off that nasty type of light. CFL's today actually look very much like incandescent light, in that they have the same warmth and softness of light that standard incandescents do, just with much less energy usage.

And of course, LED's are now becoming the rage, so that's another energy saving alternative.

Good points.

In my research there are a bunch of things, it just depends on how far you want to take it. Here in Florida things such as furnaces obviously aren't a consideration, so that's a locale dependent type of amenity, but a corn powered furnace up north is certainly one idea. Based on my research here are some of the other things that can be done to make a property Eco-friendly, all just depending on what your budget is and how far you want to go:

Compact flourescent lighting
Solar powered outside light fixtures
Cedar wood for studs, decks, joists, etc. (pressure treated wood contains pesticides)
Solar hot water heater or on demand tankless
Low flow faucet fixtures and toilets
Non-VOC (volatile organic chemicals) paint, caulks and sealants
Reverse osmosis household water filtration system
Recycled tile, bamboo or cork wood flooring with non-toxic underlayment, or natural fiber carpeting (most standard laminate and carpeting contains toxic sealers and chemical treaments/dyes)
Greywater recycling system for plumbing

What are everybody's thoughts on rehabbing properties with the angle of making them green/eco-friendly properties as a primary selling point? I know that this would mean more expensive rehab costs for materials, but I would think it would also mean the ability to ask more on resale, as more and more home buyers are becoming interested in green and eco-friendly properties that are both environmentally friendly and healthy to live in.

Does this make sense from a resale value perspective, as well as standing out from the crowd in terms of marketing?

Just curious, since the laminate flooring was $.97/sqft and the carpet was $2.30/sqft, why didn't you just do the bedrooms with laminate as well?

I'm a music producer/engineer/songwriter (a successful one, thankfully :mrgreen:) , getting into REI as a source of supplemental income, although the more I learn about it, the more time I'm interested in investing in it, so who knows, maybe one day the percentages will be reversed... :D

Thanks all! This is a great forum, and I've been reading a bunch of the threads and soaking up as much info as I can. It's great to see so many friendly and helpful folks here, as getting into a new investment field like this can be intimidating...

As someone living in what is considered one of the primary bubble markets, I'm a bit nervous about jumping in at this point in time, but from what I've been reading, as long as the numbers make sense, one can always find a good opportunity, even in a bubble market like this. At least, that's what I'm hoping for! :lol:

Forgive me if this is a really newbie question (well, I am a newbie :mrgreen: ), but what is the best option to go with when redoing flooring on a rehab project, both from a cost perspective and resale factor--carpet, tile or laminate flooring? Thanks!