All Forum Posts by: Jean Bolger

I HATE those things. Have so many in the rock borders of the lawn at our house (former HUD foreclosure- the yard literally "went to seed")
You can't weed without embedding them in your fingers. We've resorted to a big propane flame torch

@Ben Leybovich perhaps you missed my point about violin majors not really being the recipients of a quality education. We are products of a vo-tech training program for a dying industry. I don't think it's fair to draw the conclusion that there is no value in the university system as a whole because it's not churning out high wage earners.

My husband is a native of Ireland, and was educated at an English university. He still tells a story from the first year he was in the US; he was talking with some other guys his age at the local pub, when during what he thought was a fun and lively 'debate' one of the Americans in the group stood up and said "F**k you and your fancy education-- I've got a million dollars" and stormed out. 

That's a sad summation of so many people's attitude towards education. But the point of education is to make your life rich, not to make YOU rich. I don't know much about Trump University, but I'd bet it was offering the latter.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes that the point of a liberal arts education is to get a well paying job, rather than to become a well-educated, well-rounded person who has been trained in critical thinking. If someone is, in fact, well-educated and well rounded and a good critical thinker, they should be able to land a job.  And having well-educated, well-rounded people that can engage in critical thinking in our society is actually pretty important.

You and I both know that a B.M. is really more of a vocational degree, with a laser focus on developing a skill. It does not result in a well-educated person. It is in reality more akin to sports than academics. Plenty of people train for years as athletes and don't get well paying careers in sports. 

Education has become totally devalued by American society. But that doesn't mean it has no intrinsic value. 

I see in your profile you mention acquiring 5-10 units a year. That's a fantastic goal! It's a little tricky to scale up very fast right now in the Denver metro with the inventory so tight. But there are still deals to be had. 

Welcome Enoch! There is a wealth of great info here on BP.
And you're right, our Denver market is pretty nuts right now. Still, there are some deals to be found. I've helped three clients find duplexes in the past 4 months, so they are out there.  You just need to be both prepared and patient!

Looks good! congrats!
how was the HOA to work with on this? Just curious with it being an age-restricted complex. I guess they had no problem with you buying to resell?

@Zakaria Moumen I recommend Insider Secrets to Financing Your Real Estate Investments by Frank Gallinelli . The title makes it sound like it's just about financing but it's actually a great overview for people thinking of getting into investing. It's available on Amazon

How sure are you on the 238k value? what is that based on?

Also the projected 1800/mo. That's still a lot for a 2bd. Is that what other units in the complex rent for?

Hey, does anyone have some recommendations for a reasonably priced roofer for a small job? It's a teeny little house in west Denver (under 500 sq ft) and my client just got a quote for around 9k. That's crazy...

The roof right now isn't terrible, but it was put on by the same guy that did the gutters (see photo)

LOL

@Elena Jobson What sort of things are going wrong? Big things (furnaces?) small things (cabinet knobs?)

It may be hard to get the inspection items taken care of after closing, but if the seller is a decent person (not guaranteed) they should try to do what they said. It may require leaning on them and being persistent. I would definitely look in to what you can get taken care of by the home warranty.

Whether you could get out of it soon without taking a loss really depends on where it is and the price you paid. Prices are rising, so if you got a decent price to begin with it might not be as bad as you think. If you want me to look into that I can run some comps for you and (depending on whether it's an area I know, of course) tell you what I see as the prospects.

On  another note- moving is super stressful. If this is one of your first property purchases, that adds a lot of stress too. It's going to feel chaotic no matter what. So give yourself a bit of time to relax and adjust before you make any big decisions about it.