All Forum Posts by: Tom C

My best squat to date on the smith was only 325. I am not big on legs, have a very hard time keeping them up with my upper body. Like a lot of lifters, we concentrate more on our upper body and neglect the lower, then fight to play catch up toward the end of the cycle.

As far as tenant.. $50.00 bucks, if they stay 6 months or more.

I talked to a guy the other day, that claims that he can get the new style units that are electric for $400 bucks per unit out of Chicago. I asked him about having to install several per SFH and he said that the one he installed in his house has no problem providing enough hot water for his entire family. He said the old unit did have problems, but the newer ones work great.

He wasn't trying to sell me one, so I don't think he was being dishonest.

Mike,

"10,000 in decent neighborhoods that involve only minor renovations" in my area this means, drywall in good shape, house not full of mold, but will need a furnace, all new plumbing, waterheater, new roof and all new plumbing fixtures.

"Decent neighborhood" means crack dealers and prositutes only come out a night and no recent shootings

Yes, summer is the best time for rehab. I was rehabbing one over the winter and when it gets dark at 6pm, it sure makes much harder to get things done. Also living in the snow belt doesn't help.

What are you located. I am smack in the middle of a rehab right now and I am sure I can find all kinds of work for you to do. :)

Here is some unorthodox advice that I am sure many of the old timers around here will disagree with.

Speaking from experience and 40K in debt with student loans. I discovered property investing toward the end of my degree program and realize that it was a huge waste of money. I do not want to be part of corp. life, as I am now. I have no interest in climbing anyone's ladder but my own.

My advice is to finish your RN, keep your license current, whether you work as a nurse or not and forget about obtaining your degree. Your backup is nursing, if you should need to rely on someone else for a paycheck. The time of our parents telling us that a degree is a necessity are over.

I have been in the corporate world now as a software tools expert and computer programmer for several years without a degree and I can tell you now that I have a degree, that my BSB/M means nothing . My company, like many others are shipping their work over sea's for an extra buck. I have seen many of my degreed co-workers walked out the door after giving the company their life.

The best advice I can give you is to save your money and time and focus that on creating yourself a job that you love to do. There is nothing worse then to sit at a job that you hate every day, working 24/7, making someone else rich, only to be walked out the door one day due to downsizing when you're in your 50's. T

here is no loyalty from either side anymore. There is no job security. The days of working your butt off and being rewarded and recognized by the company are over. There is nothing that you will learn in college that will help you be successful at running your own business. You can learn more by on the job experience or by teaming up with someone who has done it in the real world.

It has taken me 30+ years to realize that my parents advice was based upon their understanding of the world around them. Some of it reflected reality, while much of it did not. Their advice is no longer relevant in our times and I am not to sure that it was when I was a kid either, considering where they are both today.

Good luck

I would look at comps in the area and estimate what the house would be worth after rehabbing just enough to get it rented. Then figure out if you can rehab it and get someone in it before everything is stolen again. You also need to do some investigating on rents right in that area. It sounds like a 350 a month rental.

In my area, rents change drastically from one road to another. I invest in 600+ per month homes, while just across the highway, the best rents are 350 per month.

If you have the time and the patience, you could alway buy up 4 or 5 of those 1K homes within the same block and this way you control your comps while controlling the environment. That is a dream of mine. I want my very own community of rentals.. :)

Another thing to keep in mind and I see out of town investors do it all the time. Who is going to protect the property as you are rehabbing it? You know as soon as you try to replace something that was stolen, it will be stolen again. The day you hang new drywall, they will break in and knock big holes in it.

You have to check the condition of the house and determine the type of area you are in. If the copper is gone, that is the basic rule anymore, but if the siding, furnace, water heater and windows are missing, then you can bet that area is not worth investing in.

I hate to admit it, but I have had to use them when I was fresh out of BK. They have their purposes. I needed money to buy parts for my car. Without my car, I wouldn't have been able to work. Of course I was able to pay them back when I got my check, but they do come in handy for emergencies. Ohio now has put a cap on what they can charge in interest rates and most of them will end up going out of business.

Sure the rate sounds bad, but when you consider, a 20 dollar fee for borrowing 200 bucks for a week in an emergency, it isn't all that bad. I guess we will see the return of the loan shark standing on the street corner. This is just another example of the government sticking their nose in our business.

But then it's ok for the rental companies to charge people 5 times the retail price for a big screen tv. This is for something that people really don't need and are being completely taken advantage of.