Hello again to all of the BP nation,
An Alaskan investor here looking for your input and advise.
To bring you up to speed on our situation here, Alaska is very much a “one horse” economy: OIL. Now we also have tourism, the U.S. government/military, and State government (which gets at least 90% of its funding from OIL). So with the recent downturn in oil prices, the oil companies are laying off, and the State is looking at unprecedented deficits, in the 50% of last years budget ballpark. All of us (here) know we are in for a downturn if not an outright recession. How long it will last, and how severe it will get is anyone’s guess.
As to our personal situation, my wife and I are what I would call “journeyman” investors. We’re not newby’s, but we’re not “master” investors by any measure. We have 17 multi-family units in 4 properties that we’ve self managed for going on ten years now and are happy with what we’ve been able to achieve (don’t get that wrong, we love this business and still want to expand, BTW, many thanks to @Brian Burke for the recent thread on 2016 markets, Great Stuff!). The majority of our property is about 75% leveraged, but we do generate and keep reserves for each property, as well as paying utilities ahead and having some small lines of credit for emergencies, and of course our net cash flow (for now).
So My question is this:
What would be your Strategy for “Hunkering down”, or “Weathering the storm” if you knew it was coming? Of course the obvious answer is sell, and it is a good time for that, but what if you couldn’t, or didn’t want to? What else would you do?