95% of all Wealth


Details please. What was the greatest hurdle you overcame or lesson learned? Or does dumb-luck get all the credit?
*Your primary residence counts. Extra points for flips, building, or some type of land or commercial development.
Comments
-
Mom's Basement. It's hard to put a dollar amount on the ROI, but zero overhead, free wifi, xbox, and all you can eat bagel bites with mountain dew has made it a pretty lucrative venture for me.
-
I know yore being Sarktastic, but I'm not seeing any great hurdles or lessons learned.Doogles said:Mom's Basement. It's hard to put a dollar amount on the ROI, but zero overhead, free wifi, xbox, and all you can eat bagel bites with mountain dew has made it a pretty lucrative venture for me.
Sad! -
New laws are going to make it more difficult to build wealth at least on the residential real estate side of things. Rent increase caps, eviction hurdles, etc.
-
Most recently bought a house on the peninsula - turned an attic into a fourth bedroom, rent is 2.2x the mortgage and interest rate is 2.25% after buying points down. Today's rates are incrediblepawz said:... is made or held in Real Estate. What is your best RE investment to-date?
Details please. What was the greatest hurdle you overcame or lesson learned? Or does dumb-luck get all the credit?
*Your primary residence counts. Extra points for flips, building, or some type of land or commercial development. -
Enjoy it while it lasts. Dems/socialists are coming for your housing. Rent control, just cause eviction, bans on using criminal records to screen, forced payouts to renters who choose to move rather than pay a rent increase, oh, and COVID rules are insane.Sources said:
Most recently bought a house on the peninsula - turned an attic into a fourth bedroom, rent is 2.2x the mortgage and interest rate is 2.25% after buying points down. Today's rates are incrediblepawz said:... is made or held in Real Estate. What is your best RE investment to-date?
Details please. What was the greatest hurdle you overcame or lesson learned? Or does dumb-luck get all the credit?
*Your primary residence counts. Extra points for flips, building, or some type of land or commercial development. -
Per Zillow, my residence is 2.25x what I paid for it 8 years ago ... so that's good.
Lessons learned ... real estate IS an investment and needs to be treated as such, particularly with respect to home residence.
There will be lots of opportunities emerging from COVID and what will almost assuredly be a recession if Biden wins -
I think we are in a housing bubble, and it will burst. So definitely opportunity will be there, but the new laws will make it extremely stressful to be a residential landlord. Unless you own these properties free and clear, you are exposing your portfolio to disaster. Imagine these landlords that have mortgages on these houses and not being able to collect rent for the last 7 months.Tequilla said:Per Zillow, my residence is 2.25x what I paid for it 8 years ago ... so that's good.
Lessons learned ... real estate IS an investment and needs to be treated as such, particularly with respect to home residence.
There will be lots of opportunities emerging from COVID and what will almost assuredly be a recession if Biden wins -
Exactly ... I have no desire to be a residential landlord.greenblood said:
I think we are in a housing bubble, and it will burst. So definitely opportunity will be there, but the new laws will make it extremely stressful to be a residential landlord. Unless you own these properties free and clear, you are exposing your portfolio to disaster. Imagine these landlords that have mortgages on these houses and not being able to collect rent for the last 7 months.Tequilla said:Per Zillow, my residence is 2.25x what I paid for it 8 years ago ... so that's good.
Lessons learned ... real estate IS an investment and needs to be treated as such, particularly with respect to home residence.
There will be lots of opportunities emerging from COVID and what will almost assuredly be a recession if Biden wins
If I do buy additional locations it will all be in locations where it's more of an AirBnB type of set up. -
I haven’t gotten to the point of investing in real estate. I do watch a couple reality shows on real estate and saw that one of the guys on a show recently said August was the best month he ever had. If true (have no reason to believe it wouldn’t be) what are the reasons? What is causing people to buy right now?
-
These are great questions, and ones I've been perplexed by since the beginning of COVID (and lets not forget the financial crises that hit weeks before that). I sell RE in W Bellevue and we also had a MONSTER August. Usually August is one of the slowest months of the year as families get in the last vacation tim of the summer before school starts.RoadDawg55 said:I haven’t gotten to the point of investing in real estate. I do watch a couple reality shows on real estate and saw that one of the guys on a show recently said August was the best month he ever had. If true (have no reason to believe it wouldn’t be) what are the reasons? What is causing people to buy right now?
From a seasonal perspective, the normal spring home buying season was delayed 2 mos due to CV. But that alone doesn't really address your question.
From a national perspective the RE market should be getting hammered. And in my opinion still will. With 25M people permanently out of work and the end of stimulus/unemployment insurance at the end of July, people flat aren't making their rent and/or subsequently their mortgage payments. I've heard from multiple sources foreclosures are stacking up at the banks, however they can't do anything with them yet as there is still a moratorium on foreclosures. Eventually these properties will flood the market.
I'm not sure these antidotes answer your questions either, but they should be pointed out nonetheless.
-The downtown Seattle condo market is crashing. Apartments in Seattle are lucky to have 85% occupancy rates and good luck with that amount of revenue coming in. People are door.ass.out to closed-quarter living.
The Eastside is a Tale of Two Cities. If properties are are priced well, they are FLYING off the page still. There is a huge push for people to buy New Construction OR Waterfront (lulz that there is any waterfront available). It's a couple times per week that I'm amazed by a sale in our market.
For example these two New Construction homes went Pending this past week at record prices for their location and without any view:
https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/10605-SE-22nd-St-98004/home/510599
https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellevue/9841-NE-15th-St-98004/home/506002
The only conclusion I can draw is we? are the beneficiaries of the upper-leg of a "K-shaped" recovery. The push on the Eastside is based on FANG stocks being UP in a post-covid environment. Amazon is up 60-80%? It seems every other week Amazon purchases or leases another 1M sqft of office space. Facebook just bought the REI corporate building in the Spring District. Microsoft is going through the largest expansion of it's campus in decades. Google bought Kirkland Urban for $435M, then promptly bought the dirt next door for another $40M. In short they are ALL still hiring in BIG ways.
Add to that the these FANG execs and employees are fleeing CA and Seattle-proper in droves to get away from the politics and failures of it's governance. I'm not trying to make a political statement here (in spite of my Tug poasting history), it's just something I see and hear from clients/buyers on a daily basis.
Another factor in the post COVID environment is people who can work from home, are chosing to GTFO of the greater Seattle area all together - to the San Juans, Idaho/Sun Valley, Colorado/Vail/Aspen, Montana etc etc etc.
One thing that completely boggles my mind in light of the 25M who are never getting their jobs back, is how many people CAN - and ARE - writing checks for 8-figure residential homes. Every single day it amazes the sheer volume of people who seemingly come out of the woodwork to do it.
Lastly, and from a Macro investment perspective, (I will need to find the graph that supports this) but in the last half-dozen recessions this country has gone through Real Estate stays up or even when the stock market/economy are getting slaughtered. (The notable exception being '08 when it was a real estate bubble that popped.) Thus, you can make the case people with swelling stock portfolios are trying to move their holdings to RE in anticipation of a large impending/inevitable crash.
*I'm sure I'll have more thoughts to add as I ruminate on this poast.
-
*And real estate is a fantastic hedge against inflation.
-
Oh, when I sold my chateau in Normandy.
Made a couple mil’ on that deal.
The key is making the necessary renovations when you’re getting ready to sell: caretaker’s house, outdoor pool, the moat...they all really added to the “curb appeal”.
-
Did you have trained gators in the moat?
-
Naturally.doogie said:Did you have trained gators in the moat?
-
TDoog_de_Jour said:
Naturally.doogie said:Did you have trained gators in the moat?
Did you throw in your piss boy or did the new owners need to BYOPB?
-
7 years into our current house, which we purchased as a short sale, ~75K
below its appraised value at the time and way below what any single family has sold for in my hood since. Got it because a neighbor told us it was going back on the market, mentioned it to our realtor quickly, he got in touch with the seller agent, who said it was a short sale and he didn't really feel like putting it through the MLS and listing it, so if we would write a contract that night it would be ours. Done.
Needed that to counterbalance the previous house purchase at close to the height of the bubble -
Buy high/sell low, that's my motto, hence buying my current palatial estate in May of 2008, two months after Bear Sterns went TU. We bought anyway, though, after a year-plus housing hunt that had left us frustrated and pissed off. The house we bought was the first to fit our needs and was only slightly out of our price range, so even though I could already see the economy crashing, I pulled the trigger anyway. I am ratard.
Ever seen the movie The Money Pit? It's a documentary about the happenings since 2008 with my primary investment vehicle. Since our house lost something like 30% of its value in the first year, we were stuck at a somewhat high interest rate and with no ability to sell or refinance. On top of this, almost immediately, this 1925-built house started showing signs that it had had some lipstick slapped on it before being foisted upon the suckers that were myself and Mrs. 1to345466. In the first half dozen years of homeownership, we dumped about $125K cash into the property. The kitchen remodel was optional (in my opinion...), the rest was all just repairs and maintenance: Mandatory city sewer hookup; two re-roofs; replacement of the living room wall because the chimney had no footing under it and was sinking and pulling away from the house, allowing water in; basement bonus room flooded, requiring a complete rebuild after digging and installing a functioning footing drain; foot-through-porch rot situation requiring new porch; and plenty more.
Then, just as we caught up, were in a good place financially, had refinanced to a far lower interest rate, the market had turned, and our investment was looking like an investment again, the garage burned down. Five years later, I have a new garagemahal/man cave, but we're back in debt. So what happens? A simple master bedroom carpet replacement turns into a forensic "how not to build a house" mystery, ending in our bedroom floor being ripped out right down to the crawlspace, the roof being temporarily supported, and the wall of our bedroom laying in a pile in the yard. Luckily, I framed it back in and got it covered a day before this rain hit, but now my back is fucked up and I can't finish the job.
Knowing what I now know about what's in our walls (hint: not any window or door headers, I can tell you that!...) and under the siding, it's easily a six-figure project to get our house where it needs to be, so we're in the process now of yet again borrowing against equity (of which there is plenty for now) to get further into debt. While all of my coworkers (at least the ones who haven't lost half their shit to divorce) are buying second or third properties for investments, I'm about to be broke again from being over $600K into a house I bought for $330K at the peak of a bubble.
On the bright side, it's looking increasingly like our house will be totally badass and desirable in a few years, just in time for the bottom to fall out of the market. I'm available for financial advice at any time, guysm. The line forms on the left. -
It may be too late but your house sounds like a tear down. Sometimes it is cheaper to start over if the whole thing was built by retards.1to392831weretaken said:Buy high/sell low, that's my motto, hence buying my current palatial estate in May of 2008, two months after Bear Sterns went TU. We bought anyway, though, after a year-plus housing hunt that had left us frustrated and pissed off. The house we bought was the first to fit our needs and was only slightly out of our price range, so even though I could already see the economy crashing, I pulled the trigger anyway. I am ratard.
Ever seen the movie The Money Pit? It's a documentary about the happenings since 2008 with my primary investment vehicle. Since our house lost something like 30% of its value in the first year, we were stuck at a somewhat high interest rate and with no ability to sell or refinance. On top of this, almost immediately, this 1925-built house started showing signs that it had had some lipstick slapped on it before being foisted upon the suckers that were myself and Mrs. 1to345466. In the first half dozen years of homeownership, we dumped about $125K cash into the property. The kitchen remodel was optional (in my opinion...), the rest was all just repairs and maintenance: Mandatory city sewer hookup; two re-roofs; replacement of the living room wall because the chimney had no footing under it and was sinking and pulling away from the house, allowing water in; basement bonus room flooded, requiring a complete rebuild after digging and installing a functioning footing drain; foot-through-porch rot situation requiring new porch; and plenty more.
Then, just as we caught up, were in a good place financially, had refinanced to a far lower interest rate, the market had turned, and our investment was looking like an investment again, the garage burned down. Five years later, I have a new garagemahal/man cave, but we're back in debt. So what happens? A simple master bedroom carpet replacement turns into a forensic "how not to build a house" mystery, ending in our bedroom floor being ripped out right down to the crawlspace, the roof being temporarily supported, and the wall of our bedroom laying in a pile in the yard. Luckily, I framed it back in and got it covered a day before this rain hit, but now my back is fucked up and I can't finish the job.
Knowing what I now know about what's in our walls (hint: not any window or door headers, I can tell you that!...) and under the siding, it's easily a six-figure project to get our house where it needs to be, so we're in the process now of yet again borrowing against equity (of which there is plenty for now) to get further into debt. While all of my coworkers (at least the ones who haven't lost half their shit to divorce) are buying second or third properties for investments, I'm about to be broke again from being over $600K into a house I bought for $330K at the peak of a bubble.
On the bright side, it's looking increasingly like our house will be totally badass and desirable in a few years, just in time for the bottom to fall out of the market. I'm available for financial advice at any time, guysm. The line forms on the left. -
This is actually my dream, and if a pile of money fell into my lap, I would do just that. The property/location/shop are too amazing to leave, but the house has been a disaster. Complete tear-down would be too expensive, but re-side and repair what's behind in the process is doable, especially at going interest rates.RaceBannon said:
It may be too late but your house sounds like a tear down. Sometimes it is cheaper to start over if the whole thing was built by retards.1to392831weretaken said:Buy high/sell low, that's my motto, hence buying my current palatial estate in May of 2008, two months after Bear Sterns went TU. We bought anyway, though, after a year-plus housing hunt that had left us frustrated and pissed off. The house we bought was the first to fit our needs and was only slightly out of our price range, so even though I could already see the economy crashing, I pulled the trigger anyway. I am ratard.
Ever seen the movie The Money Pit? It's a documentary about the happenings since 2008 with my primary investment vehicle. Since our house lost something like 30% of its value in the first year, we were stuck at a somewhat high interest rate and with no ability to sell or refinance. On top of this, almost immediately, this 1925-built house started showing signs that it had had some lipstick slapped on it before being foisted upon the suckers that were myself and Mrs. 1to345466. In the first half dozen years of homeownership, we dumped about $125K cash into the property. The kitchen remodel was optional (in my opinion...), the rest was all just repairs and maintenance: Mandatory city sewer hookup; two re-roofs; replacement of the living room wall because the chimney had no footing under it and was sinking and pulling away from the house, allowing water in; basement bonus room flooded, requiring a complete rebuild after digging and installing a functioning footing drain; foot-through-porch rot situation requiring new porch; and plenty more.
Then, just as we caught up, were in a good place financially, had refinanced to a far lower interest rate, the market had turned, and our investment was looking like an investment again, the garage burned down. Five years later, I have a new garagemahal/man cave, but we're back in debt. So what happens? A simple master bedroom carpet replacement turns into a forensic "how not to build a house" mystery, ending in our bedroom floor being ripped out right down to the crawlspace, the roof being temporarily supported, and the wall of our bedroom laying in a pile in the yard. Luckily, I framed it back in and got it covered a day before this rain hit, but now my back is fucked up and I can't finish the job.
Knowing what I now know about what's in our walls (hint: not any window or door headers, I can tell you that!...) and under the siding, it's easily a six-figure project to get our house where it needs to be, so we're in the process now of yet again borrowing against equity (of which there is plenty for now) to get further into debt. While all of my coworkers (at least the ones who haven't lost half their shit to divorce) are buying second or third properties for investments, I'm about to be broke again from being over $600K into a house I bought for $330K at the peak of a bubble.
On the bright side, it's looking increasingly like our house will be totally badass and desirable in a few years, just in time for the bottom to fall out of the market. I'm available for financial advice at any time, guysm. The line forms on the left.
And when we're done, we'll still be paying less than we would to move somewhere else equivalent. Which is sad. I don't know how it's even possible to be a first time buyer these days unless you're born into a trust fund. Half a million gets you a two-bedroom with an outdoor bathroom in my neighborhood... -
BYOPB, of course. Mine received special training at the Sorbonne and good help is so hard to find these days.PurpleThrobber said:T
Doog_de_Jour said:
Naturally.doogie said:Did you have trained gators in the moat?
Did you throw in your piss boy or did the new owners need to BYOPB? -
From what I've seen, the K shaped recovery is a big driver of what's happening at the moment and @pawz hit the nail on the head with respect to a few of his comments.
I know lots of people who didn't get hit by the shutdown who are moving from big cities to smaller or mid-sized cities or rural areas. The ability to work remotely has allowed people to execute against their retirement plans 10-15 years earlier than planned. I have a bunch of brand new neighbors whose thinking was why stay in DC when you can get paid your same salary and live in a place that you enjoy and costs about half as much. Our neighborhood is setting records for sale prices every single month, with no end in sight. Every one of them have said that their employers finally gave the greenlight to them working remote 100% of the time. It was always their plan to move here, Covid just helped them move the timeline way up. Also, when you can't go on vacation and out to eat for months, you end up with a shit ton more disposable income and thus want to stop living in a shoebox that costs you $5k a month.
On the flip side, I think that right around when the vaccine shows up there are going to be some deals in big cities. Younger people aren't the ones moving, mid-career and senior people are the ones moving to the suburbs. Reduced prices are going to lead to a big inflow of younger people, who were hit a lot harder by the shutdowns. The allure of cities still exists, particularly for the younger professional demographic. Lower paid service workers are struggling a lot more, and that's who is getting killed right now. I have some service industry friends from high school that got killed this year, and are barely hanging on right now, especially those that had the extra $600 disappear in August. They don't like hearing how the stock market is booming when they can barely make rent each month. -
I hate this post more than anything I've ever read here.Woof said:From what I've seen, the K shaped recovery is a big driver of what's happening at the moment and @pawz hit the nail on the head with respect to a few of his comments.
I know lots of people who didn't get hit by the shutdown who are moving from big cities to smaller or mid-sized cities or rural areas. The ability to work remotely has allowed people to execute against their retirement plans 10-15 years earlier than planned. I have a bunch of brand new neighbors whose thinking was why stay in DC when you can get paid your same salary and live in a place that you enjoy and costs about half as much. Our neighborhood is setting records for sale prices every single month, with no end in sight. Every one of them have said that their employers finally gave the greenlight to them working remote 100% of the time. It was always their plan to move here, Covid just helped them move the timeline way up. Also, when you can't go on vacation and out to eat for months, you end up with a shit ton more disposable income and thus want to stop living in a shoebox that costs you $5k a month.
On the flip side, I think that right around when the vaccine shows up there are going to be some deals in big cities. Younger people aren't the ones moving, mid-career and senior people are the ones moving to the suburbs. Reduced prices are going to lead to a big inflow of younger people, who were hit a lot harder by the shutdowns. The allure of cities still exists, particularly for the younger professional demographic. Lower paid service workers are struggling a lot more, and that's who is getting killed right now. I have some service industry friends from high school that got killed this year, and are barely hanging on right now, especially those that had the extra $600 disappear in August. They don't like hearing how the stock market is booming when they can barely make rent each month.
I can't argue with a single damn word. -
Woof said:
From what I've seen, the K shaPed recovery is a bIg driver of what's happening at The moment and @pawz hit the nail on the head with respeCt to a few of His comments.
I know lots of people who didn't get hit by the shutdown who are moving FrOm big cities to smalleR or mid-sized cities or rural areas. The ability to work remotely has allowed people to execute against their retirement plans 10-15 years earlier than planned. I have a bunch of brand new neighbors whose thinKing was why stay in DC WhEn you cAn get paid youR same Salary and live in a place that you enjoy and costs about half as much. Our neighborhood is setting records for sale prices every single month, with no end in sight. Every one of them have said that their employers finally gave the greenlight to them worKiNg rEmotE 100% of the time. It was always their PlAn to move here, CoviD juSt helped Them mOve the timeline way up. Also, when you can't Go on vAcation and out to eat for months, You end up with a shit ton more disposable income and thus want to stop living in a shoeBox thAt costs you $5k a month.
On the flip side, I think that Right around when the vaccine Shows up there are going to be some deals in big cities. Younger people aren't the ones moving, mid-career and senior people are the ones moving to the suburbs. Reduced prices are going to lead to a big inflow of younger people, who were hit a lot harder by the shutdowns. The allure of cities still exists, particularly for the younger professional demographic. Lower paid service workers are struggling a lot more, and that's who is getting killed right now. I have some service industry friends from high school that got killed this year, and are barely hanging on right now, especially those that had the extra $600 disappear in August. They don't like hearing how the stock market is booming when they can barely make rent each month.
Thanks friend!Pitchfork51 said:
I hate this post more than anything I've ever read here.
I can't argue with a single damn word. -
That is my walk-away.greenblood said:
I think we are in a housing bubble, and it will burst. So definitely opportunity will be there, but the new laws will make it extremely stressful to be a residential landlord. Unless you own these properties free and clear, you are exposing your portfolio to disaster. Imagine these landlords that have mortgages on these houses and not being able to collect rent for the last 7 months.Tequilla said:Per Zillow, my residence is 2.25x what I paid for it 8 years ago ... so that's good.
Lessons learned ... real estate IS an investment and needs to be treated as such, particularly with respect to home residence.
There will be lots of opportunities emerging from COVID and what will almost assuredly be a recession if Biden wins
I'm conservative. Even on the residential side, I've left money on the table waiting too long to move up the real estate food chain into places I could have afforded long ago, and watched the increases in value from the sidelines.
I'm long on Seattle for private residence home value, regardless of the doom and gloom about the city. I'll be right as rain on that point.
I can't see myself being a landlord. I'd rather own an apartment REIT and let them deal with it. -
Appreciation for the market my house sits in for 2021 is forecasted at an absurd 18%. There’s almost no 4 bedroom inventory and everyone still wants to GTFO of SFO, PDX and SEA for the Zoomtowns.