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Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Blanket Mortgage Use in Rental Properties
2008-04-11 21:37:00
As a fellow real estate investor, sometimes deals come along for multiple rental properties, and getting a blanket mortgage for those properties is an ideal situation. I just came over from doing some property rehabbing at one such unit today. The deal involved two duplexes that were several blocks away from each other, that had the same ...
More About: Rental , Mortgage , Blanket , Properties

Small Home Based Side Business Idea Part II
2008-04-10 15:36:00
Continuing on my article “Small Home Based Side Business Idea Part I“, I would like to demonstrate some ways to convert your newly acquired inventory to cash. Ok, so once you have cleaned out the unit, and concluded your business with the storage unit, then there are four ways I have for you to make money on the unit. These are options that have various time line for recapturing your investment, but the general rule of thumb is that if you can wait a little longer to get your money, you should be able to make more of it. So let’s look at some of these techniques: Running a Garage Sale Quick, simple. This is the easiest way to turn around your money quickly. If you price the items low, and focus on larger, more expensive items selling, you should be able to sell most of the unit on a typical Saturday. One Saturday that I did this, I was able to do effectively triple my money spent, and I still had items left over to be able to sell elsewhere. Using Ebay If you want...

Rent Formula and Positive Cash Flow
2008-04-09 20:25:00
If you are investing in rental properties like me, you need to make sure you have a rental formula that works for the property of interest and provides positive cash flow. There are several different formulas that you should consider. One is a formula for calculating an offer price based on expected rent, one is ...
More About: Formula , Cash , Positive , Rent , Flow

Small Home Based Side Business Idea Part I
2008-04-08 22:36:00
As I have mentioned in the past that there are only two ways to have more money, making money and saving money. So today I want to give you an idea for a small home based side business you can implement quickly, easily and cheaply. So the object of today’s lesson is to supplement your ...
More About: Business , Home , Idea , Small , Part

One Easy Way That I am Saving Money on Food
2008-04-08 05:08:00
It’s getting late, and I haven’t had a chance to get much done today, but I wanted to give you a quick tip. Building relationships and working deals are the key to getting anything done. In this particular instance, I have built a friendship with an older man, who likes to go fishing. I like going ...
More About: Food , Money , Easy , Saving , Easy Way

Simple Tips to Having a Birthday Party for Your Child on a Budget
2008-04-05 04:54:00
This article outlines some simple and cheap tips for creating solid entertainment for your young one on his or her birthday. With ideas for invitations, games, and goody bags, you will have a good start on throwing a quality birthday party on a budget. In this world of increasing inflation and stagnant or decreasing income, we all have to find ways to get the budget down, and save money. Even with something like a birthday party, it still makes sense to think smart before spending several hundred dollars for outlandish things your son or daughter may forget anyway.read more | digg story Internal Tags: Bookmark, Share or Email this article.
More About: Party , Birthday Party , Tips , Birthday , Child

Allocating Your Inheritance: A Specific Situation Addressed
2008-04-04 00:15:00
In this post, I would like to outline a question that I received via email. Someone very close to my demographic wrote back and forth with me, and basically wanted to know how to allocate a sum of money they received from an inheritance. The basics of the request are as follows: Hi there, was wondering if you could perhaps give me some advice. My mother passed away in 2005, leaving me with both a 401k inheritance and life insurance. However, the passing was unexpected as I now have a lot of student loan debt that she would have helped me pay back. Regardless, I have come up with an idea that I would like to assure is not a bad move. Me: 21 Assets: 401k ($125,000) and remaining life insurance ($80,000) Debts: $90,000 student loans ($4,000 of it Federal), $4,500 credit card I was looking to not even touch the 401k and begin adding to it once I began my career as a Police Officer in July. I wanted to use the life insurance to pay off the credit cards and federal loans in its entiret...
More About: Inheritance , Specific , Situation

Need Help Paying Medical Bills?
2008-04-02 23:58:00
It’s bad enough when a tragic accident happens, or a loved one gets sick and has to have an extensive hospital stay. But after all the turmoil with family and friends, in come the bills. And in today’s world, paying medial bills is an extremely expensive proposition. I want to dedicate this article to folks that need help paying medical bills, with a focus on a singular point - negotiating with the hospital/health care organization. I do not intend to provide any links to services, companies, or government aid in paying for health care, this is a self help focused article. America has drifted in to a price taking, lazy, “gimmie, gimmie, gimmie” nation. People do not want to work hard to earn money, and if they are able to make a little money, spend way more than they make. But enough ranting, I want to elaborate a little on what I mean when I talk about negotiating with the health care provider. Did you know that many insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, ...
More About: Medical , Bills

Budgeting for a Future Purchase
2008-04-01 19:29:00
Whether you want to go on vacation, get that big screen TV, buy a boat or a new car, or anything other high dollar item, you will need to begin budgeting for that future purchase. In this edition of Personal Finance Resources, I want to give you some simple tips that you can implement to help you budget for a future purchase. Anybody that has a little bit of income can put aside enough money to buy most any one item they want, but the key is being disciplined and diligent to get there. And bottom line, you will have to WAIT. No…I said a dirty word…wait. The problem we face in America is our lack of patience, we have to have everything right now; there is no discipline or patience. This leads to debt, and more debt, and ultimately for many, bankruptcy. But let’s get into some of the simple ways of budgeting for a future purchase: Making small sacrifices to put back a little extra. This is very hard to do. Not buying the coke at the vending machine, eating lunch a...
More About: Future , Purchase , Budgeting

Real Estate Investing for the Long Run, and Taking Action
2008-04-01 05:28:00
This is a good article on getting into real estate investing, and it lines up very similar to my strategies regarding buying and holding. There is an interesting point about today’s lenders looking at the title history on the house you are trying to sell. If it is only a few months ago, it could be flagged as a flipper, and according to this article, that could be a real problem. It would be worth doing some investigation of your own to find out if you lender would have any problems with you flipping a house, or if they have any problems in general with a house that has been purchased recently when evaluating the loan of a new buyer. read more | digg story Internal Tags: real estate investingreal estate investingBookmark, Share or Email this article.
More About: Estate , Action , Real Estate , Real Estate Investing , Investing

Buying Mortgage Points Follow Up
2008-03-28 17:31:00
Yesterday, I talked about Buying Mortgage Points and the potential money that could be saved using this loan structure. I received a comment basically stating that you would be better served by investing the money you would have spent buying mortgage points into something else that would yield a better return on your money. While ...

Buying Mortgage Points
2008-03-27 21:58:00
Ever thought about buying mortgage points when you go to your lender to buy a home? You should. Buying mortgage points is a fantastic and easy way to reduce the total amount of interest paid to the bank over the life of a home loan. I have been involved in more than one deal where ...
More About: Mortgage , Points

When to Refinance
2008-03-26 21:44:00
If you are on the fence about when to refinance your home mortgage, then consider these several factors. I have done a lot of real estate investing and property management, and have a good deal of knowledge when it comes to mortgages as well. There are many things you need to be careful to consider ...
More About: Refinance

Grocery Shopping on a Budget
2008-03-25 22:48:00
If you have ever needed to go grocery shopping on a budget (and who hasn’t?), then this post is for you. I wanted to give you several tips to help you meet your shopping budget, as food expenses can get out of control. Even if you are meeting your current grocery budget, there is always ...
More About: Shopping , Budget , Grocery

Motorcycle Gas Mileage
2008-03-24 18:50:00
As gas prices continue to climb, I find myself considering more and more to move a motorcycle, gas mileage being the most important factor in considering the change. But at what price does gas have to get to before you will make a change in your vehicle? Just check out this list of Honda motorcycles ...
More About: Motorcycle , Mileage

Car Depreciation
2008-03-22 01:46:00
Whether you want to face it or not, when you buy a car, count on car depreciation, or a continual loss in value over the life of the car. With older used cars, the rate of depreciation is a lot less to you, because they have already lost most of their value. But with new ...
More About: Depreciation

Lease with Option to Purchase
2008-03-20 21:36:00
You may remember the articles I wrote in the past on Residential Lease Option and Residential Lease Purchase . These were how to articles to give you ideas on how to further your marketing effort of a particular property by opening up more options for you to get into buyers, and not just renters. And often, ...

Real Estate Rehabbing
2008-03-19 17:21:00
Have you ever asked yourself, what is rehabbing? Or been to a meeting, and wondered what real estate rehabbing was? Some people talking about remodeling, and other ways of fixing up a house, but they are using the terms incorrectly. Simply put, real estate rehabbing is the act of restoring a house to its previous ...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Real

Best Used Car to Buy
2008-03-18 18:27:00
That headline may be a bold statement, but I am going to give you, in my opinion, the best used car to buy. If you have followed this personal finance blog very long, you probably already know what I am going to say. But I assure you, this is real, I have actually owned one ...

How Does a Reverse Mortgage Work?
2008-03-17 18:07:00
Reverse mortgages are a great way for retirees to supplement their income using the equity in their home. The simplest way to define a reverse mortgage is to think of it as the opposite of a traditional home loan. When a homeowner executes a reverse mortgage, the bank will pay them for the equity in ...
More About: Work , Mortgage , Reverse Mortgage

Amortization Calculator with Additional Payments Applied
2008-03-14 20:38:00
I noticed some of you that found my free amortization calculator were interested in being able to input additional payments to see how it would shorten the life of your mortgage. So I took the time to come up with the additional calculations to automate the process for you. This amortization calculator is still based on a standard 30 year mortgage with monthly payments, however I added a column called “Additional Payment”. In my example, I defaulted the additional payment column to $50, and as you can see, on a $90,000 loan amount, the additional $50 takes the 30 mortgage down to about 23 1/2 years. Not bad for a little bit more paid each month. Now, in order for this to work for you, you must instruct the bank in writing with each additional payment that you intend for the entire amount to go towards principle only. Without this instruction, they may apply a part of it to interest, just like your regular payment. Here’s a quick look at the first ten payments in th...
More About: Calculator , Applied

Calculating Withholding Allowances
2008-03-13 20:12:00
Whenever you get a new job, or if you are in a job and always end up with a large tax refund check, you may want to consider re calculating withholding allowances for your w-9 again. But Jeffry, why would I want to lower my tax refund check? I like getting that big check back ...
More About: Allowances

Gas Money Saving Tips
2008-03-12 19:32:00
With the price of gas expected to top $4 on average across the US the summer, some small gas saving tips are beginning to become more important. Recently, I was talking with my wife and thinking about what we could do to drive less, and other ways to save on gas. Upon conclusion, I wanted ...
More About: Money , Tips , Saving

Realtor License Commentary
2008-03-11 19:56:00
If you have been following this personal finance blog, you know that I work in real estate, and hold a realtor license. I had received some feedback from post Realtor License via email that I think would be helpful to the community. In this article I explain my thoughts on why you should consider having a realtor license, regardless of whether you intend to become active in real estate investing or any other realtor activities. This email came in from a person who was thinking about getting his license here in Texas. The following is an excerpt from the email he sent me: Just read your realtor license post and couldn’t agree more w/ the benefit of holding such a license.  You mentioned that it cost you about $800, did you use take an online or traditional class?  Also do you have any resources that you found really useful while going through the process?  And how long did it take you to obtain the license?  I am in TX and really considering getting my license specially sin...
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Budget Tips and Ideas
2008-03-10 21:17:00
For some folks, coming up with a budget is hard enough. But assuming you are following some kind of personal budget guidelines, you may still be unhappy with your results at the end of the month. So today, I want to give you some further budget tips and ideas to save more money, and look ...
More About: Ideas , Tips , Budget

How Does a Contract for Deed Work?
2008-03-07 20:22:00
If you have ever thought about selling your house via an owner financing arrangement, you may have thought about doing a contract for deed.  But just how does a contract for deed work? It may be easy for a realtor to advise you to use a contract for deed when you are making inquiries, but ...
More About: Work , Contract

Investing in Certificate of Deposits
2008-03-07 01:01:00
I’m going to try and keep this short today, but if you are thinking of investing in certificate of deposits, think again. Though safe, these investments yield little to nothing in interest. Even if you can get 5% on a certificate of deposit (which is unlikely in today’s market), you will still only be doing ...
More About: Investing

Tips on Buying a Home
2008-03-06 00:49:00
If you have followed this personal finance blog very long, you know that real estate investing is near and dear to me. I am a licensed Texas realtor, and have rental properties of my own as well as managing property for others. But how does that benefit you as a residential home buyer? It means ...
More About: Buying , Tips , Home

Checklist for Choosing a Bank
2008-03-04 21:05:00
There is a lot of hype around choosing a bank these days. Lots of promotions and other corporate-like strategies to induce you to give a particular bank your money. But be careful - many of the larger banks that offer free checking, free online bill pay, free this and free that have the worst customer ...
More About: Bank

Investing in Mobile Homes
2008-03-03 20:36:00
Investing in mobile homes? You are probably thinking, yeah, I would never do that. But the honest truth is, you can make a lot of money investing in mobile homes, especially with today’s market. Today, I just want to give you some key points as to why investing in mobile homes is good, and how ...
More About: Mobile , Investing , Homes