All Forum Posts by: Aaron McGinnis

You say that flipping is far beyond your capability - why do you say that? You certainly have the cash to go into that business.

J Scott -

I actually should be there next week... depending on how production treats me between now and then. (Presently building a house in Oakhurst. You should swing by sometime)

That being said, drop me a line if you'll be there and I'll give you a round of introductions.

J Scott -

Not even remotely. Officially speaking Haves and Wants is a Subgroup of North Metro REIA. realistically speaking it's a basically un-affiliated and is very liquid in terms of who shows up.

I go as my schedule allows, not because I expect to get a good contact out of each meeting but because I've gotten enough good contacts out of the group in the past 3-4 years that I consider it to be a good use of a Thursday afternoon. Like I mentioned - because it's open to all, you get plenty of signal and plenty of noise.

I'm not a big fan of either GaREIA or AtlantaReia. Both are mostly geared towards selling Guru courses... although the AtlantaReia free meetings are a hoot and a half.
Admittedly, though, some of the best meetings I go to are GaREIA sub-groups.

A place to consider checking out is Haves and Wants at the 5 Seasons (At the Prado in Roswell) every Thursday at 1:30. You'll meet some of the absolute brightest and most awesome people ever - along with folks that, uh, aren't.
Otherwise, the food is good and there's plenty of people worth talking to.

Getting utilities turned on is a crapshoot at best, and can be a outright fight at worst. Some asset managers are really good about it, and some will simply never do it at all.

I do hope that any and all unpaid bills were taken care of during the title search, or you could be on the hook for them. Check your HUD statement and call the utility companies to be sure.

SolidReturns -

I respectfully must disagree with you. If your goal is to learn about yourself and have beautiful self-actualizing experiences you can accomplish that goal without spending a lot of money.

To wit - I may love hiking, but I'll be darned if I'd want to spend thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars getting a degree in it in order to better know myself and learn about a field I find interesting. (Advanced shoe fitting 101, anyone?)

In my opinion, college is simply too expensive and too time-consuming to pursue frivolously in order to 'know thyself'... it is an investment of the self with a rather large fiscal component, and like all investments of that nature must be evaluated based upon the expected return.

That list looks a LOT like a summary report from a home inspector.

As as been said - honestly, 80% of the stuff on that list would be code violations where I am. I'd be pretty upset if there were hanging wires and mold growing and leaking faucets... in fact, I'd probably be looking for a way out of the rent...

Which may be what she wants. She saw all this stuff and is really saying, "I want out and I'm going to try and scare you into letting me out"

If I were you, I'd either fix it to her liking or offer the woman her money back, then get the health code violations fixed and try to re-rent the place.

Don't get a degree in advanced women's liberative chicken yodeling with a minor in theatrical basket weaving and expect a whole world of high-paying jobs which garner huge respect to open up to you.

On the other hand, some educations are very extremely worth it. Accounting, finance, prelaw, or any of the hard sciences (Assuming you intend to make a career out of it) are all excellent ways to spend tuition money.

On a personal level, I know far too many art majors who work retail jobs in order to starve with their 4 room-mates who also got useless, no-return degrees and work jobs that they could have gotten straight out of high school.

I can't really read the dimensions on your sketch, but I will say this - center the island to the space and create the open-galley style kitchen. Putting the island on one side or the other would be painfully 1990's.

The other option would be to make a horseshoe layout, which would have far and away the most cabinets but also be the most expensive and a bit out of "builder style"

Put the sink in the island and the stove on the wall. Lose the window.

OR, if you're really feeling spendy - put the sink on the wall and use a hanging island range hood and a slide-in stove on the island. We've done this before, but the hanging island range hoods are really expensive compared to a standard microhood or even a basic wall-hood.

Another option would be to make you island a bit smaller and have the cabinetry run along the wall that doesn't have the window - have a short run stemming off a corner lazy susan and put your refrigerator there and a pantry unit on the back wall in the left corner.

You say the job was small - how small was it, exactly?

Many of the contractors I know are avoiding small jobs right now because overhead is very high and few people really want to pay what is needed in order to make the job profitable for the contractor on small jobs... especially the guys who are competent and can get longer-term, higher-paying work.

Case in point, I know a good all-around guy who absolutely won't crank the truck right now for less than about $250. Got a light socket needs replacing? Sure, but it'll cost you $250 to get it done.

So I guess what I'm saying is - if it's a small job that is of the sort that goes, "Bring every tool you own so you can use each one of them for 15 minutes each", the guy may not be real interested in doing the work.

Solution? Keep calling folks out to bid the work until you find one who is up to your quality standards, but still starving enough to want to do a smaller job.