Personal Finance Resources

I don’t have a whole lot of time today to share with you all that is happening (I have a couple of real estate appointments setup for later today), but I wanted to give you a quick update. I was able to successfully remove a slow/non-paying tenant out of one of my investment properties. A few days later, I was able to lease it back out. This is the first tenant that actually read all the through the contract, and point out some issues that she had with it. This came as a refreshment to me, in that most people don’t read it, which is not really the problem, the problem is, they don’t think they have to abide by it, or they don’t care. So hopefully with this savvy renter, there won’t be any issues with keeping up the property, or paying the rent on time.

Also, one of my appointments today will be with someone who is looking to lease out my doublewide just north of Belton. As you may remember, I had to ask the previous tenants to vacate due to non-payment of rent. It is amazing how many people don’t care about paying their rent. But, I digress…anyways, these people sound like they might be more stable renters, and I have introduced a price slightly above what the previous tenants were paying. So we will see what we can do.

All in all, things are kind of in a lull, but with the potential to ramp back up. Come back soon for more information on real estate investing and personal finance.

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It has been a little while since the last time I gave yall an update regarding our garden and growing your own food. Well, our garden is in somewhat of a bittersweet state. We have squash and green beans coming up very well, but some of our other vegetables, like our onions, romaine lettuce, bell peppers, carrots and tomatoes are not doing as well. We do have some growth in all of the struggling vegetables (except for the onions, they just don’t seem to be coming up), but they just are nearly as strong as the squash and green beans. But before I show you the pictures, I wanted to give you a few pointers that you can use in your garden, that I think will help you to do better raising your own food:

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I wanted to give y’all some basic tips to financing that home you’ve been wanting to buy. Getting a mortgage these days is not quite as easy as it used to be. With the fallout of the sub-prime loan market, banks are getting back to the basics in lending, i.e. people with strong credit, some cash, and a stable job. On the whole, we have been spoiled in being able to spend everything we make each week, and still being able to obtain financing on a house. I for one am glad that this has happened, for many reasons, such as this will teach people to be responsible with their money, it will limit my competition in buying properties, it will create more demand for rental properties, and it will provide some better tenants as well.

But real quickly here, I wanted to give you some basic pointers so that you will know and be prepared for the bank or mortgage company is going to want to see when you apply for your mortgage:

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Well, here we are again, with me giving you information on how I am getting burned, so that you won’t get burned. Just last week, while working on an addition for one of the duplexes we have, we had some materials and tools walk off the job site. Now, understand that I am in Belton, TX, and theft in the historic district where we live (and also, where this duplex is located) is extremely low. Often, I leave the door to my shed wide open, and have not ever had anything stolen yet. But, even so, we had some 2 x 4 studs and 1 x 4 pieces of lumber that walked off the job site in addition to a ladder, and pry bar. This is very disturbing, considering I did take some preventative steps prior to the theft.

When the delivery truck showed up on the job site, I had them deliver the materials into the back yard of the property, that was not fenced, but did however have many trees, a debris pile and other obstacles that prevented easy access by vehicle to the job site. So, these crooks must have gone on foot to retrieve the lumber, and carry it out to their vehicle. It is a sad day we are living in. So, since we don’t have a secure area to place the materials (other than inside the duplex) we have resorted to placing them on top of the roof. One other note that I will make, it is interesting that the materials didn’t disappear until I was on business out of town. So here are a couple of practical, but hopefully obvious tips:

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