.- Total rental income: $2,300.- You’re still responsible for a $500 gap each month.Add in maintenance, unexpected expenses, and vacancies, and your costs can climb even higher.

Here are some key highlights from the report, which compares January 2025 with January 2024:The median sales price for the greater Austin metro fell 4.7% to $409,765, while the City of Austin saw a 4.7% increase to $553,465.Total sales in the metro rose 1.1%, whereas the city saw a 4% decrease in closed sales, demonstrating continued demand in spite of economic challenges.Pending sales under contract dropped 7.5% in the metro and 1.4% in the City of Austin, suggesting a slight decrease in demand at the start of 2025.Listing inventory increased 16.5% in the metro and 15.5% in the City of Austin, resulting in 5.6 months of available housing inventory in the metro and 6.2 months in the city, approximately one month more than in January 2024.According to the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, a balanced real estate market has around 6.5 months of inventory.

All that said, depending on the size of your RMDs, liquidity needs, and total income, you may consider making deductible contributions to your own IRA ($7k limit, $8k if above 50).

I recently condensed the pre-qual questions into one screen and only like 15 fields/questions total (more reading but less clicks).

Theres a lot of content on here about house hacking.

It was still under $38K in total. 

Kept the 22 and built my house, sold the other 2 lots for a total of $405k or so.

The market I'm working in is totally locked up.

got out of flipping to new construction in our market in columbus ohio. licensed general contractor. when interest rates got high single family existing went down by 30% new builds sold at a 6% increase that year which demonstrated the desire and premium that new construction commands. never looking back. total control, rinse and repeat. we can get permits in 28 days. we can buy land cash in 21 days. we can build in 120 days to 140 days and keep moving. super scalable and easy and no risk. we build the same 2-3 Floorplans 

Explore my personal favorites, Set For Life by Scott Trench or The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, for invaluable financial insights.3.