If you don't have exact comparisons within the neighborhood that sold in the last 3-6 months, take houses of similar square footage and characteristics, or perhaps go a bit farther back in time, b/c you don't get a lot of appreciation in most parts of Baltimore.

@Shamus QuirkThis is not an apples to applies comparison.

This is a very interesting question in deed....If you check out the book "Irrational Predictability" they have a very interesting case study on a subject similar to this one.Their findings were that if you decide to compensate someone partially for works they have voluntarily done then you cheapen the the entire scenario and actually leave the person being compensated more agitated than if you didn't compensate them at all.....Reason being when they do something voluntarily they get their pay from "Feeling good about doing something"....But when you introduce payment to the scenario instead of feeling good about doing something nice....They compare the pittance that you are offering to what they would normally be paid....and that serves as an insult....My suggestion would be to send him a note of appreciation with a gift card to an area restaurant....This allows him to know that you really appreciate his help and it doesn't set up a scenario of comparison to his normal fees.Eric Medemar

. - I like the comparison of real estate investment returns to bond quality.

@Jason Eyerly  I was trying to do the 70% 30% before I asked a RE Agent/Broker to help me out, the numbers were just not adding up, after she looked it over and then got me some comparisons we determine the best course of action at a lower price, once we figured the ball park price would be at, the numbers started coming together to where everyone would win, but he didn't want to play ball lol...

That's not a fair comparison.

This makes for a positive $439k in home equity plus the positive $214k from the Roth for a total gained equity of $653k vs the positive $619k solely in home equity I have today…but this is not quite a fair comparison as I became more aggressive in paying off the propertyIf a person was as committed to investing in market as we are in paying down our mortgages (>35% of our net pay or 360% mortgage payment) they could potentially have $846k for a positive $812k in equity through some type of market investment (this investing is more than the values allowed for Roth and traditional IRA limits) that would make for $812k in investment equity and $439k in property equity for a total of $1.25M.

By comparison - If a landlord has a bad year does he only have to pay 80% of his prop taxes?

Austin’s status as a technology hub along with its high concentration of venture capital, warm climate and vibrant cultural offerings lead to frequent comparisons with the Bay Area – and in fact, high-profile Silicon Valley companies, including Amazon, Google, Oracle and Tesla, have recently expanded their operations in Austin," the report reads in part.Articles below detail the economic growth of major metroplexes in the US and Austin comes in at number 2 on the list.  

@Joseph CrunkiltonExcel is great to track income and expenses on a annual basis.However, if you want to run reports or if you want to do a comparison, I feel like you want to run it through an accounting software such as quickbooks, stessa, etc.