All Forum Posts by: Soh Tanaka

I'm not a good negotiator. It's not what I do naturally. But I know that it's important. 

I had this wall mount range hood vent hole that needs to be moved. One contractor gave me a quote of $550. I just wanted to say, "OK, go ahead." But I decided to negotiate. He also quoted me for refinishing this floor. I told him, "I can understand the price for the floor. That sounds right. But I'm not sure about the hole relocation. $550 for just moving a hole? You really don't need any material. Work with me here. What can you do to lower the price?" I intentionally didn't ask yes or no question. He replied with, "Let me see what I can cut here. OK, what if I knock down $100?" I said, "OK." I didn't really care about the price. I think $450 may be still too much. But the point is I overcame my uncomfortableness and negotiated and won. Yes I know it's a small win, but I'm happy. I moved forward, just a little bit. That's what I want.

Thanks for reading.

Soh 

Generally speaking, $30k house will require a lot of work compare to more higher price houses. I rather put $30k down on a house than to buy a $30k house.

I like both the property manager's idea and what you mentioned. Evergreen takes little maintenance, and mulch is a cheap way to make the property look nice.

One of the big benefits of using the same lender is, besides building relationship, they have all your information already, so you don't have to spend hours trying to submit all the necessary documents. Also, when you ask questions, like trying to get some quotes, they'll respond quickly.

Great! Looking forward to join the group.

Soh

If one method of communication (email in this case) doesn't work, you need to try another way (phone call). 

It sounds like a nice idea, if the numbers work out. Or you can sell the lot and use the money to buy some houses are are already built. Sometimes it's hard to make the number right with new construction. Also, you have to wait for months till the house is built. 

Just some thoughts.

Hi all. I would like to share my spreadsheet (I call this RENTAL NUMBERS) to a few people. If interested, please PM me. I will go over step by step.

Thanks.

@Lane Kawaoka - The beauty of my spreadsheet is that just by entering your data, it'll populates the summary page, just like the Schedule E, so you can just print that page, and give it to your CPA. It probably need some tweaking, and that's one of the reasons I'm working with my CPA.

At least for the small time investors, Excel spreadsheet is one of the best tools to keep track of the money, in my opinion. I have no problem sharing my file, except...

• Every time I shared my file, I'll never here from them again. I'm not looking for a compliment or appreciation but just simply some questions. Although my spreadsheet is pretty easy to use, it's still need some training in order to use it right. The fact that no one ask me anything makes me think that people just give up using it at some point.
• My spreadsheet may have too many information that most of the people may not find it useful. I want to create a lighter version, so that people don't get overwhelmed. I want to make one that everyone can easily use.
• I want to make a manual, so people can just receive it and use it by reading it. 
• I showed my spreadsheet to my accountant, and he was very impressed to the point that he wanted to share it with his clients. I want to work with him first to make it even better, before I share this with everyone. 

Thanks for the interest, and once I fine-tune and polish this up, I'll come back here and post!