This Is Why I Like Passive Income

Last Friday, I was driving back from lunch and my co-worker noticed steam and liquid coming out from the front passenger side of my car's hood. A check of the temperature gauge showed my car was close to overheating. Luckily, there was a Toyota dealership nearby, so we pulled in there and dropped it off for repair. Turns out, I need a new radiator and some other repairs. The estimated cost is just over $1,200.Yesterday, I came home from work and...

Multi #1 First Payment Arrived

A couple of days ago, I received the monthly investor's accounting report for the apartment complex in Houston via email. About two days later, I received my first quarterly profit distribution. The amount was what I expected - the equivalent of a 9% annual ROI. That was our guaranteed minimum return. The good news is that the occupancy, as predicted, has risen another point to 95%. This is the third month in a row that occupancy has gone up and...

More Problems For Those Being Foreclosed On

I wrote two weeks ago about what appears to be a burglary ring that targets people who are losing their homes to foreclosure. Now another scam targeting people in foreclosures is hitting the news. Truth be told, this isn't a new scam and I've heard about it before, but this is the first time I've seen some serious media coverage of the issue. This scam involves stealing the equity out of people's homes. The article details how this is done, but in...

Hurricane Ike Damages Multi #1

Regular readers may have guessed this, but for those readers that don't also read Kenric's blog Live Learn Invest, I should point out that both he and I have invested in the same apartment complex in Houston. On his blog, it's Houston Apartment #2 and here I called Multi #1. I was out of town for the weekend, so he beat me to the punch on posting pictures of the damage Hurricane Ike did to this property, so I'll just link to them instead of reposting...

Details of Rental #1 Repairs

As I mentioned Monday, I was waiting for the hardcopy paperwork and refund check from the property managers for Rental #1 in Tulsa. Good thing I saved the scanned images they emailed me, because they did not mail me the actual invoices, only a check. Here's the breakdown of what they did to get the property ready for sale. Figures have been rounded to the nearest dollar.MayManagement fee - $75 - This was for a partial monthMaintenance - $30Lawn Maintenance...

Many Updates

The big news in the real estate market this weekend, of course, is the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'm not sure what to make of this, other than the fact that I think they waited too long. If they were going to do something, I think it should have been done long ago and maybe some of the damage to the housing market could have been avoided. I think we'll have to wait to see how things play out before we know if this is a good...

Kicking Them When They Are Down

Late last year, I wrote about a co-worker of mine who jumped on the real estate bandwagon and bought a house and rented it for negative cashflow, assuming it would eventually go up in value. Of course, the market crashed and he lost the house. He managed to sell it for a loss, but unfortunately, the losses were too great and he ended up getting behind on the mortgage payments for his residence too. That went into foreclosure and the auction date...