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Category Archives: Strategies

Save Money and Lose Weight

Would you pass up a pizza a month to pay off your mortgage seven years ahead of schedule?

Most of us make at least one mortgage payment every month. It’s not one of our favorite things to do, but we do it so that we can continue to have a place to live. Those of us with rental properties probably make a mortgage payment every month for each property.

This week, I learned of a painless way to pay off your mortgage—one or many—early. According to Kristen Berman, co-founder of Irrational Labs (a behavioral economics company), one simple hack can help you pay off your mortgage up to eight years early. That’s right. One simple behavioral twist can save you thousands of dollars in interest on your mortgage…painlessly.

Would you like to know what it is? Continue reading →

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Book Review: Going Tiny

A small book full of useful ideas.

I promised to share more about the interesting book I was reading, so now that I’ve finished it, it’s time to share!

The little book I read is called Going Tiny: Failure + Opportunity in the Future of Affordable Housing  It’s written by a guy named Davis Richardson, who is apparently the age of my youngest son. But, he’s more ambitious or more lucky. Anyway, his age is a real advantage in this book, and his perspective is just what I needed as I looked for books that gave honest assessments of how tiny homes REALLY would work in communities.

If you are a professional book person, you have to ignore some of the obvious signs of self publishing, like random blank spreads in the middle of chapters, and headings even on the first blank page. I also get a little irritated trying to make out the legends on his illustrations, which are in his charming but hard-to-read handwriting. Really, though, you should focus on Richardson’s words, instead, which are written in a colloquial Millennial style that I enjoyed.

Continue reading →

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House Size and Occupancy Trends

Here are some modular apartment buildings in Europe.

One of the many things we’ve been looking at as we change our focus is the changing landscape of housing size. I think the part that has fascinated me the most is that there isn’t just one trend. It’s a bunch of trends that work for different demographics. I’m not sure why that would surprise me, but that’s because I wasn’t looking at the big picture, I guess. Just thinking about the needs I see in greater Austin I can identify these:

Tiny houses: This would work great for people who are displaced (disasters, etc.) or have been homeless. Minimalists also love living in a small amount of space, as do people who really only use their homes for sleeping and spend most of their other time elsewhere. Tiny house communities with communal space for entertaining, group meals, exercise, and storage of bulky items can be appealing to people who like to socialize. A real negative is that people do need to have storage for their bulky items (bicycles, kayaks, books).

Container homes: I have to admit I’ve been interested in building residences out of shipping containers for years. You can link them together or use them as a basis for adding on living space. What we would need to do is look at whether it’s cost effective. Continue reading →

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How to Ru[i]n a Business

Over the past few weeks, our sister company, Hearts Homes Hands (Hearts, for short) has been trying to get some promotional items with the lovely helping hands logo embroidered on them. Since Hermit Haus has previously purchase such items from the big online vendors, we knew that the quality of the items they provide tends to leave a bit to be desired. So we decided to buy the shirts from Lands End and have a local company embroider them. This decision provides the quality we like while supporting local businesses, a win-win.

Based on our experience so far, here are a few rules to follow if you want to avoid doing business. Continue reading →

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A Numbers Game

This table presents the same numbers as described in the text.

This is a summary of the numbers presented in the text of this blog. The project does not show enough potential profit for us to take on.

When you’re looking at a deal, it’s really easy to get excited about the raw numbers. In fact, if the basic numbers—how much the property will sell for minus how much it will cost to get it ready to sell—aren’t great, run!

In this case, we were looking at a house that would sell for about $375,000. We could buy it for $225,000 and it would take about another $65,000 for renovation, based on our average cost per square foot on a house in this market. That leaves about $85,000 in gross profit. Not bad for six months work. Right?

That gross profit number means that we should take a closer look, not that this is a good deal. It’s really easy to forget about the other costs, which can add up faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100 meters. Continue reading →

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