An interesting economic event occurred late last month. I say “interesting,” because it is of interest to some people (the way the shape of clouds is interesting to people who study the weather). The event is called a “yield curve inversion,” and its occurrence is seen as a strong predictive indicator of a coming recession.
Click the image to read more about the yield curve inversion concept.
I wish there really were a secret formula to determine how much to spend on a renovation. We have systems that help, but each house is different. As you probably get tired of hearing me say, “It depends on what you want….”
We all want to get the most out of our renovation dollar.
A friend of Sue Ann’s recently sent us a couple of questions. Since these questions came from a real person, I’m going to answer in the second person. You know. Like I’m really talking to you or something. And I’m going to assume the backstory.
I love how graphics always make a process seem so much simpler than it really is. But seriously! Wholesaling is the best way for many people to get into this business. Those who are great at marketing choose to make it the only thing they do.
You knew I’d eventually bring this thread back to real estate investing. Didn’t you? Well, of course I would. Let’s not talk about the fact that it takes me three posts to describe a two-part solution.
Long after I graduated from university, I started investing in real estate again. I get to meet a lot of wonderful people from very diverse backgrounds. I once met a young woman who wanted to be a lawyer. Her family could afford the tuition, books, and dorm expenses for her, but it put a real strain on her parents’ finances. Continue reading
Many people graduate university with enough debt to buy this nice starter house in Cameron, TX. Now add the stress of finding a job and starting a career so that you can begin to repay that debt. There has to be a better way!
One of my younger friends once told me a staggering truth while recovering from the party to celebrate his graduation from the University of Texas. “Yesterday, I knew who I was,” he began. “I was a college student with a 3.7 GPA. I lived in a dorm and had a meal plan. This morning I’m homeless and unemployed.”
Being homeless, unemployed, and facing a mountain of debt with no real hope of ever paying it off is not an uncommon situation in this country.
Unless you are born to wealth, there are only a few options to obtain a degree without also acquiring ridiculous amounts of debt. The most obvious way is to work and pay as you go. That’s what I did. I graduated with honors from both my undergraduate and graduate programs without debt by working full-time while being a part-time student.
You can see things growing in the gutters. But that balcony must have been so cool!
Now that we are getting known as people who are interested in fixing up historically significant properties, we are occasionally called in to support other renovators’ projects. That’s what happened last Friday, when a colleague asked our team to come take a look at a former mansion in Cameron that her family purchased not too long ago.
We’re really interested in looking at local properties, to get ideas for the Gillis house, so of course Lee agreed to take a look. We brought along Melanie Reed, from the Chamber of Commerce in her role as a member of the redevelopment committee in Cameron (and she’d also been in the house during its glory years).
The house looks really cool from a distance, like a haunted house (which it actually served as for a few years). It definitely had fallen on hard times with its previous reclusive occupant, who was repeatedly pestered by vandals. Thus, most windows in the house are gone, and there have been people more recently going through searching for copper wiring and generally making a mess.
The current owners have done a lot of work on the property, getting rid of vegetation that was hiding the house, and making the grounds safe. The reason we were brought in to consult was to give the current owners feedback on what can be done with the house itself. They were wondering if the house could be saved or not, and wanted an idea of how much it would cost to renovate.