All Forum Posts by: Calvin Lin

 hi, I always use the Uhaul inbound vs outbound truck rate differential to see where people are headed in general as far as relocation goes.  You want to avoid those locales where there is a huge difference between outbound (a lot of) and inbound (very little of).  Of course this isn't everything but it is a good starting point.  As you can see below avoid NE or coastal areas due to cost, focus in inland locations.

BTC should be thought of as a call option on the reasonable chance that over the longer term the endless Fed QE/not-QE will debase fiat money including the almighty US Dollar.  Gold/silver falls into that category as well and is more stable, has a long history of value retention and can't be hacked or generated from a computer.  So if you are chicken little like me most of my investments outside of RE is in Gold, with a tiny % in BTC (< 1%).

Originally posted by @Shane Ussery:

@Calvin Lin very good. See it’s nothing magical it’s very disciplined plans thoughtfully carried out. 2014 was still a great time to be buying. Do you think it would be harder to accomplish in 2020? Mine was a wake up call.. in 2009 I overheard some bosses talking and they made a comment about some employees (they didn’t know I overheard). Made me so angry I started buying silver at 15 an ounce.. took a couple years but I sold silver at 45 an ounce and took the cash to buy my first rental all cash.

Great story.  Obviously RE had a good run since 2011 but it's better to start now than never and it is hard to time markets, you just can't throw darts and expect to hit jackpots.  Like you said have a plan, have discipline and have patience.  BTW that Silver/Gold space is rising steadily now given Fed's unlimited QE.

My retirement story isn't anything special but I will share anyway.  I left my W-2 job back on Dec 31, 2019 at 49 after working 27 years on Wall St in various technology jobs in NY and NJ.  I have always been a saver and every year I would save about 50% of my taxable income.  I started investing in RE back in 2014 because I wanted to have a steady CF after I do the early retirement thing and I felt that RE buy and hold was the best route for that goal.  As my W-2 income was relatively high I managed to accumulate a portfoilo of properties without using any leverage and now I live off that rental income.  I own my primary residence without a mortgage so my monthly expenses is only 50% of my monthly rental income (ie lots of wiggle room) and I have a 3+ year emergency reserve so I don't feel much stress at the moment.  

So nothing fancy or super exciting about it, just steady accumulation of capital then rental properties and carefuly bugdet planning over the years, like a lot of folks on BP and the FIRE crowd are doing.  Then one day you realze that your goal has been completed and you can walk away and then start enjoying life more, to spend time doing things you wanted to do and never had enough time to do.  One of my college friends died of a sudden heart attack last year in his late 40's, also after 20+ years of working on Wall St (lots of pressure) and it reinforced my decision to walk away as soon as financially feasible and still have my health.

Perhaps someone on BP have a story more exciting like buying bitcoin at $1 or win a sizable lottery?  :-) 

As of May 1st now I am 4 out of 8 paid, keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh boy, the Rent Cancellation movement is growing ever bigger now, coast to coast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...

"Groups from California to New York have amassed a sizable following of
renters who say they will skip May rent. They have also received a boost
from progressive members of Congress, who introduced a cancel rent bill.
"

Well it appears that most of us did OK for Apr rent based on the replies from many on this board, but now with May coming around now, let's see how we do as a group.  So far I have 2 out of 8 who paid and those 2 usually paid last day of the month so normal so far.  2 out of my 8 tenants did not pay on-time for Apr due to job loss but was able to make it up by end of Apr due to unemployment checks and stimulus payment so by end of Apr I was at 100% (I waived all late fees like most LL's did).

One 1 hand as more people filed for unemployment I expect worse non-payment #'s for May, but on the other hand elevated unemployment checks should be kicking in now for most folks so curious to see what happens for May.

Not so sure about Peter Schiff as he is kinda end-of-world guy.  Check out Raoul Pal on Real Vision / Twitter, he is excellent.  He predicted much of what happened this year regarding bonds, gold, oil prices.  I thought he was nuts when he said oil price may go negative last year and yet here we are.

Saw this today on social media generating quite a lot of buzz, and negative comments on landlords in general.  I have no idea if this really happened but I can imagine an aggressive landlord doing this.  This could be a violation of federal law to use the IRS website to check payments made to other people even if the tenant had given the LL his personal information like SSN previously.  A few LL's posted this is justified to ensure tenants aren't spending the stimulus money on something else, but refuse to pay rent, so nothing wrong with it.  Besides they already have the tenant's SSN and they didn't use any information that were not given to them previously by the tenant so no big deal.

Sounds pretty shady to me personally, and ill advised.

According to WSJ article below (behind paywall) only 2 out of 3 tenants paid their April rent nationwide and expect May to be worse as many of us here are expecting, possibly reaching 40% to 50% delinquency:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/n...

3/4 of SFH I own paid, 1 is in-progress so I expect 100% there. However on my college apartments 2 out of 4 are having issues due to the virus, so 50%. Working on a payment plan with them and waiving late fees. Too early to call it a victory as May maybe worse than Apr.