I would try to purchase two properties in pretty rough shape with 2/3rds of the cash and use the rest to fix them up myself.

Then I spoke to some local residents/realtors and examined some stats on zillow for recent sales, and their prior sales - and the market has stayed flat, or even declined while the rest of the country has enjoyed the recovery last 4 years.I have some rentals in California, and while I dont expect CA type appreciation, the flat to negative trends seemed worrying, and indeed puzzling given the beauty I find in the area, the high quality of construction, and the solid employment fundamentals.Any opinions on why prices are falling?

. , when you have the ability to put up 20 percent or 25 percent and borrow the rest, that can really amp of your returns.

So paying less that $200 a month for "rent" in NYC is still pretty great :-)Plus this leaves the rest of our W2 income to save for our wedding, school, and the down payment on the next house hack (which we will close on together, this first one I closed on by myself).

With the strange shaped crown you will cut ( to match the angle of the slope), once installed and caulked - the eye will see the bottom of the crown molding line up with the rest of the room.Another method to do this: hold the crown up against the wall, with the right side flush with the ceiling and straight across to the left wall ( make sure the right side bottom is in line with the molding from the wall to its immediate right).

I make about 3.5k gross give or take in cash flow from my REI business and I've supplemented the rest of my goal with my E-Commerce earnings.Also, I recently took a trip to the Philippines where I realized I could live pretty darn well for about $1k/month and do all of my online work (REI and E-Commerce) and just live it up and travel.

That being said, I am NOT comfortable twiddling my thumbs, counting on the VA income for the rest of our lives, because, well, it's federal and I have little faith in our govt's support of vets and their families.

My 10-year old son has recently become obsessed with learning how to solve the Rubik’s Cube.I’m uncertain how he became enamored with the toy.He was grounded from electronics for a week.I think it happened during that time.I watched him become very, very frustrated with the puzzle.On his own, without any guidance, he figured out how to solve one side.It took him 13 days to do this (and he practiced a LOT).Finally, he got it.He got the algorithm in his head.First, before I go on, what he did gave me great hope for his future.He persisted.Even on such a silly thing, through extreme frustration, he persisted.He’s ahead of the vast majority of his peers.Now, here’s what happened after this.He got better and better of course, continuing his practice.Once he “mastered” the one side, he became frustrated again.He had an extreme longing to learn how to do the rest, which is, if you don't know the algorithms, almost impossible to do on a routine basis.So, I looked up how to solve the thing.As it turns out, there are very specific moves that will help “easily” solve a Rubik’s Cube (even though it has a massive amount of possibilities).He sat down this past Sunday to learn the first (of many) algorithms.He learned it and had a breakthrough.By the end of that day, he was flying through that portion of the puzzle.Indeed, he had solved the puzzle four times by the end of that day, but didn’t know the algorithms by heart.

I would say do the 5% down and use the rest foe investments.

That's all that matter to me, the rest, if it comes, is icing.