Happy Friday, happy people! About 6 months ago, I wrote a blog post about plans to downsize my real estate assets. Specifically, the plan was to sell some physical rental properties and move that cash into more passive investments. Well, the mission is now half complete! We’ve sold 2 rental properties so far and have 2 left to go. Woohoo!
Real Estate
Raw Land Investing, Bill Gates, and the Stock Market Scaries
Good morning, wealth builders! How y’all doing today? Ready for a kickass long weekend? I got the following question from a reader and thought it would be good to share with the group... “Is buying raw land a good investment? I heard that Bill Gates is buying up a bunch of rural land and is the biggest farmland owner in the world. Maybe we should be investing in raw land
What’s a Real Estate Syndication? A Hypothetical Example…
Hey you. Do you want to invest in a real estate project with me? Let’s say I find a massive apartment complex for sale for $50 million. If we get a bank loan with 80% financing (borrowing $40 million), this makes our down payment only $10 million. To get the $10 million cash down payment, we just need to find 200 people to put in $50,000 each. To keep things fair,
2020 Review and ROI of My Rental Duplex
Hey there, money nerds! How’s your 2020 tax return going? Who else out there besides me gets turned on by a long 1040 Form, multiple 1099-MISC’s, sexy AGI, and itemizing deductions for their MFJ status? (and who has no clue what the heck I’m even talking about? → don’t worry, that’s what H&R Block is for!) Anyway, I just received my annual Profit and Loss Statement
How Big Should an Emergency Fund for a Rental Property Be?
I got the following note from a reader the other day... “Joel, I noticed you keep a big emergency fund for your rental property. 2 questions for you... 1) It seems like you have too much cash because shouldn’t you only need 3-6 months of mortgage payments as a cash reserve? 2) Also why do you keep this emergency fund separate from your personal emergency fund?” Great
2 Big Investing Mistakes That Actually Made Me Smarter
Back in 2013, I bought 25 shares of Tesla stock. I remember seeing electric cars starting to pop up around my neighborhood at the time and thought they were so cool! Like most beginning investors, I checked the stock price every 15 minutes after making the trade. (Actually that’s a lie -- I probably checked the prices every 5 minutes! 🤣). My $1,350 investment in
Why I’m Transitioning Away from Rental Properties
First, I must preface: this is not an anti-real estate post. I think real estate is an excellent wealth building tool, and don’t want to discourage anyone out there from buying rental properties. That being said, I’m thinking about downsizing my rental portfolio this year, and don’t have any plans to buy more properties in the near term. A few people reached out and asked
Should you include your primary home in your net worth?
I got a question recently from a reader about my net worth tracking... “I was curious why you're not including your primary residence in your net worth equation? I know many people say it's not an asset. It's your home, you have to have a roof over your head, etc. Just wondered the reason. I include ours in the equation but didn't know if that's the typical way. :)” This
How I Appealed My Ridiculous Property Taxes
Last week I got my property tax bill. $5,185. Booooooo. Many counties across Texas decided that 2020 was a good time to increase everyone’s assessed property value, raising bills by a whopping 10 - 20% for the tax year. It’s a kick in the groin... Because not only are many people under a financial squeeze this year, Texas was already ranked #3 for states with the highest
How and When to Hire a Property Manager for Your Real Estate Rental
Since I live in California and all my real estate rentals are in Texas, I heavily rely on property managers to look after the day-to-day landlord responsibilities. I get asked about this a lot… Who manages the properties? How do you find a good property manager? What stuff do they handle, and is it all worth the cost? This post is a brain dump of everything I know about
