All Forum Posts by: Chris John

@Eric Bilderback

"But throughout history real estate has been a safer investment than money in the bank."

This point can't be emphasized enough.  My old finance professor used to go on and on about the biggest financial fear needs to be the fear of inflation, not losing principal.  So many people are afraid of losing money that they don't understand that the simple act of saving money means they're losing money during the best of times inflation wise.

Calculating your rates of return without subtracting the inflation rates gives a very skewed look at your investments.  When you invest in "safe" investments that yield 2%, but inflation is 3%, you're actually investing at -1%.  Inflation of 7% makes saving money in a bank account at 1% worse then betting on black in Vegas.  Literally.  

I'll never understand how you can point this out to people, but they're still afraid of investing when they should be afraid of not investing...

@Anthony Zotto

Always choose money over time with family (especially your kids).  There'll be plenty of time to go back and recreate those childhood memories when they're older (and they'll for sure not resent you).

@Taylor Gaylard

I'm with @Scott Johnson.  If the property can pay for itself and you can hold through a downturn, what difference does it really make if a downturn happens or not?  You'll come out way ahead on the back end whether there's a correction or not.

I'd be more leery if you put yourself in a position where the property doesn't pay for itself and your only way to make money is through appreciation though.  That could definitely get rough if there's a downturn.

I don't know why I'm anti-government intervention.  In the early aughts, the government forced lenders into loosening their standards which led to the housing crisis.  That created the opportunity for people to buy houses for pennies on the dollar.

Now, the government has caused rampant inflation through monetary policy (I'm not even going to get into the local housing shortages that some locales are creating through fees, zoning, etc.).  That created the opportunity to purchase properties at historically low interest rates and wait for the inflation to catch up to us as it was so obvious it was coming.  Rents are up 30-50% within the past few years and amazingly, since these properties were purchased.

The more government intervention, the more opportunities to benefit from the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Short of a French Revolution and my head ending up in a guillotine, this has all been great for me, so why do I continue to be frustrated by government intervention?

@Annie Balagot

I think the best description I've ever heard of carpet is that it's the biggest filter in your house.

We've always had good luck installing a nice, but cheap tile from Home Depot, having a talented handyman install, and throwing an extra case or two in the garage in case a tile breaks over the years.  So easy to turnover new tenants as years go by and the costs are very reasonable. 

Originally, we started with carpets, but the constant cleaning (and less than stellar appearance after even one turnover) led us to the tile. 

Good luck with whatever you choose!

@Michael P. Lindekugel

My government has assured me that this inflation is transitory, so I've been making all of my decisions based on that advice...

@Duncan Hayes

I'm a little confused.  So, instead of selling to Person A for 200k that I receive now, I can sell to you for 200k that I receive in monthly payments for the next 20+ years?  And then, if I ask for interest since the payments of $800/mo in 20 years will be worth half or less than half of $800 now, you'll ask for even better terms?

I really don't want to misstate what you're saying, so please correct me if I'm wrong.  I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly.

Thanks

@AJ Satcher

I'm definitely not an expert on anything, but we put in some gfci outlets at the lead outlet in each string for an ungrounded house we had.  It's my understanding that although they're not quite as safe as grounding the house, it offers a lot of safety for very little price.  I'd at least do that with an ungrounded house.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

@Javier Rosales

I think it's a mistake, but the current economic system rewards borrowers and punishes savers, so I would borrow as much as I could at fixed rates as prices of everything (including real estate) should be going up for a while.

I think Soros had it removed...