All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Regardless of the law or lease, tenant expectations are important. Regular lawn care is something they expect. But when an unknown person shows up in their yard, they don't know if it's the landlord (or the landlord's hired contractor) installing faucet covers or a burglar looking to enter the house. Giving them a courtesy heads up lets them know something out of the ordinary is going to be happening soon.

One idea I thought about for awhile (and then lost interest in) was seasonal tax preparer at H&R Block.

Back in the day when we were on the dead-tree standard ("pre Internet"), I wrote freelance articles for industry-related publications such as High Technology Careers Magazine and the monthly newsletter sent to members of the American Electronics Association. I made a few hundred bucks doing so over the years, but today, everyone blogs.

On several occasions, I tried multilevel marketing and learned much about direct selling (which is a valuable skill to know). I also learned that if I ever had to depend solely on sales commissions to put food on the table, I would never have had a problem with becoming overweight. At least I know what to avoid trying to do now.

The authors of the books published by BiggerPockets are subject matter experts monetizing their know-how.

The job market is constantly evolving. If you are an experienced rock climber, for example, there are ways you can monetize your skill while getting paid for having all that fun.

My bathroom scale is my motivator. I weigh myself the first thing every morning and if the number is too high, I take corrective action (eat less, move more).

I wasn't so disciplined in the past. My weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels got out of control. After a couple of mini-strokes, which are warning signs something really bad is about to happen, I started taking my health seriously. I made lifestyle changes after talking to my doctor.

I walk a couple of miles every day. Not only does it feel good, but I also notice things from the sidewalk I might miss while driving a car. For example, I see vacant homes and commercial buildings that have been on the market for months or years, which tells me the area might not be a good place for investment.

What I hear you saying is in real estate, there is no such thing as one size fits all. I would say the same is true for careers and businesses in general. Success is an individual thing measured by individual metrics.

The wealth-building procedure you describe is the one outlined in The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. The operative words are "automatic" and "millionaire." The rest of the world doesn't care how you got there.

Something is amiss with Crudefunders. It's FAQ page says Crudefunders is a Reg CF funding portal. All Reg CF funding portals are regulated by FINRA (http://www.finra.org/about/funding-portals-we-regulate) and I don't see Crudefunders listed.

Either the FINRA site has not been updated or Crudefunders is operating illegally.

I would like to see a dedicated subforum that covers both asset protection and estate planning. As a perpetual student, I've read where optimizing one means giving up something in the other and I want to understand the interrelationship.

What about ERISA accounts for asset protection?

Would a SD401K, SDIRA, or SDHSA work as an asset protection vehicle?

I read where a court held inherited IRAs are not protected from creditors. I also read when a retirement account becomes too large (for example, greater than a million [in some states]), it starts to lose its protection from creditors. I'm not an attorney; I just read personal finance articles in my spare time.

You can Google "New York Times debt collection" to learn about the lucrative business of debt collection. Debt collectors must follow a set of rules and procedures; otherwise they will find themselves in a lot of trouble. But since most debtors don't know their rights, they end up letting debt collectors walk all over them.

Make your business decision about whether to settle or to fight (my default is to fight). If you decide to fight, remember that a creditor cannot seize your property without a court judgement (although a bank does have a right of setoff). To get a court judgement, they need to provide proof, as discussed by other posts above.

I've had my own issues with creditors over the years. When I refused to pay a couple of credit card bills once (I used two credit cards to cover the cost of a purchase), I believed I didn't owe the money. The credit card with the higher balance managed to figure out I was right and resolved the issue (which involved offsetting a service purchase, which is easier than offsetting a product purchase because no merchandise has to be returned). The credit card with the lower balance didn't want to go through the hassle and wrote off the debt (and then sold the debt to an outside debt collection agency).

The debt no longer appears on my credit report, but the bank originally "sold" the debt to its subsidiary, which then sold the debt to an outside agency. The subsidiary remains on my credit report as an "existing creditor" that can do a soft pull on my credit report at any time (even after I've frozen my credit out of an abundance of caution). This subsidiary system, I understand, is the mechanism banks use to track people they consider to be deadbeats. I still have a credit card with this bank, but it's one they inherited afterwards when they acquired another bank.

Just remember to follow the rules at your end. When I moved to Florida, my health insurance company here somehow entered the wrong date of birth for me in their computer. The insurer collected my premium payments each month (which leaves a paper trail), but refused to honor the doctor's bill, saying my policy had lapsed. When I tried to get the problem resolved with the insurer, I kept getting the "we'll take care of it," but it never got taken care of. The doctor finally turned the bill over to a collection agency, which sent me a collection letter. I had 30 days to protest the claim or the debt would be considered valid (the agency told me they were taping the phone conversation as I explained to them what happened with regards to my date of birth [the taped conversation becomes evidence in a court trial]). I called the collection agency a couple of months later to find out the status (I was gearing up for a fight) and they told me the doctor had cancelled the collection. Somehow the doctor and insurer managed to resolve the issue. My takeaway is to stick to my guns when I believe I'm right rather than pay the disputed amount, which in this case was so small that it amounted to penny change for me.

I use ApartmentRatings when I'm looking for a place to rent.

When I lived in California, I would check the Contractors State License Board to make sure the person was licensed and to find out what kind of trouble, if any, the person had with the regulators in the past.