Any home based business success stories out there?

[WhiteCloud]

Real estate is great if you don't fall for the late night tv way of doing things. Buying a house with no money down and getting $20K (or whatever) at closing just means you took out a loan for 20K. House of cards waiting to come crashing down if you're not careful. That $20K at closing doesn't go far if you need a new roof and the place is empty for a couple months after you got burned by a tenant you had to evict. Rentals are a great thing to do, just don't fall in to that country club lifestyle silliness they try to portray it as. It's definitely work if you want to make money on it.

 

[Dave Benjamin]

I met a guy that makes a pretty good living with real estate investments. He buys and sells foreclosed properties and owns rentals as well. It's a lot of work. He said he might look at 50 or 100 properties before finding one that pencils out. He's been doing it for years and has many contacts at banks and construction companies. It's a full time job and then some. He get a laugh out of people that try those get rich quick programs advertised on TV. People underestimate the amount of work.

 

[WhiteCloud]

The only real threat to the real estate market is President Bush's plan to greatly reduce or eliminate the mortgage interest deduction and reduce taxes on capital gains and dividends. If that happens the bottom could fall out of the real estate market. I'm counting on a lot of opposition from Congress and the Senate to keep that proposal from becoming reality.

Certainly reduction/elimination of mortgage interest deduction would hurt home sales but I'm not sure how a reduction in taxes on capital gains and dividends would. One of the things fueling this real estate recovery/boom the last few years has been the ability to sell without getting reamed on the first $250K of capital gain. Lots of properties becoming available that otherwise would not have been sold.

 

[MINIME]

Very true,

I can honestly say that I've researched at least 80 properties since last year to come to the conclusion that the one I'm about get into is hopefully the right one. We'll see.... It's a little risky. But nothing compares to the risk we take by leaving our families' future in the hands of these airline management teams of now at days! Of course there are a few exceptions out there still.

 

[GVEtrucker]

LandGreen,

First, let me congratulate you for realizing the basic truth of an Airline Pilot Career. IT”S THE BEST TEMPORY JOB YOU’LL EVER HAVE!

Understanding this is the first step towards your financial freedom. The next is using your time off and the above average income, (well, it used to be above average) to get yourself in a position that you can walk away from your airline career on your own terms.

Real estate has been good to me too. I’ve parlayed a small nest egg by selling my primary residence twice now. It is tough of the wife. “Honey, don’t get too attached to the house, we’ll be moving again in two years.”

A good place to begin is reading the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” series by Robert Kiyosaki. Keep in mind; Robert makes a lot of his money off of selling people like us books. If you go into real estate, a must read is, “Real Estate Investing Loopholes” by Diane Kennedy and Dolf De Roos. They used to be part of Kiyosaki’s stable, but appear to have broken out on their own. One book that we all should have is “Making the Most of Your Money” by Jane Bryant Quinn. It’s the ultimate home reference for all things financial.

One captain from my old airline has done well appraising real estate. He started out doing the grunt work for a licensed appraiser making about $100 bucks a house. Now that he is licensed, he makes about $250 of the $350 appraisal fee still working for the original guy. This fellow has a stable of appraisers/appraisers in training working for him. If each appraiser/trainee does 3-4 houses per day times… Well, you do the math. A neighbor makes 600k a year selling real estate, but it’s his passion and it’s 24-7-365.

Mortgage brokering/processing has worked for several friends of mine. But I’d shoot myself if my income depended on filling out forms.

I know two captains at my present gig that have three crash pad for a total of 36 beds times $150-$175 a month. Lot’s of work though getting the money out of deadbeat pilots. The houses are in ATL where housing is cheap and foreclosures sales abound.

A low-tech business that allows you to get you foot in the door of your own business is stump grinding. (Don’t get your foot underneath) Lot’s of write offs on tools and mileage, set you own schedule, lots of cash transactions. Leave the tree climbing to those with few teeth and lots of tattoos.

Like your airline career, read all you can and network with people that have been sucessful.

Best of luck.

GVE

 

[Dave Benjamin]

Certainly reduction/elimination of mortgage interest deduction would hurt home sales but I'm not sure how a reduction in taxes on capital gains and dividends would. One of the things fueling this real estate recovery/boom the last few years has been the ability to sell without getting reamed on the first $250K of capital gain. Lots of properties becoming available that otherwise would not have been sold.

It's not home sales I'm concerned about. It's home values. For the vast majority of Americans the largest asset and core of their net worth is their primary residence. Between both places I own I write off in excess of $20K/ year. Take away that tax writeoff and I can't afford to keep both properties. If the mortgage deduction was eliminated I'd be in deep doo-doo because that tax deduction fuels the real estate market. I would suddenly find my property devalued. For some people the combination of market devaluation and loss of tax deduction would force them to literally walk away from the property and default on their mortgage. Amplify that by hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions and you'll see the worst recession ever. However, as in previous recessions, the richest of the rich would not suffer. In fact they would likely prosper by picking up some real bargains. Soon the interest deduction would be reinstated by Democrats that would be elected by a landslide and some of the wealthy upper crust would enjoy huge gains.

For an example of my prediction happening on a smaller level look at what happened when Reagan instituted the luxury tax on aircraft and yachts. Boatbuilders and aircraft manufacturers went bankrupt or out of business practically overnight. Now we have our government fighting to achieve conflicting goals. They want to preserve tax cuts for the rich and fund the war in Iraq as well as continue to subsidize large corporations through their corporate welfare program. So they're doing things like freezing potentially "fraudulent" tax returns submitted by lower income Americans and reducing expenditures on food stamps and other subsistence type programs. Of the frozen tax returns only a very small percentage are actually fraudulent but it's a lot easier attacking poor people who can't afford lawyers than going after the tax cheats that are scamming millions. Of course a lot of those folks donate to the GOP so they'd be the last ones the administration would go after.

 

[4fanman]

Kiyosaki is nothing more than a book seller...

LandGreen,

A good place to begin is reading the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” series by Robert Kiyosaki. Keep in mind; Robert makes a lot of his money off of selling people like us books. GVE

If you do a search on Kiyosaki you will find he is pretty much a fraud. He is nothing more than a guy selling books. He is a good writer and is able to get you really pysched about real estate, but when people started looking at what he really has, his background, his questionable military service, they found a lot of questions that he could not answer.

I'm not knocking real-estate, it's something I'm interested in as well, but I wouldn't waste any money on Kiyosaki's books. Do a search and decide for yourselves.

While looking up Kiyosaki I found this guy's web site. He pretty much discredits RDPD page by page. Again, read and decide for yourself.

http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html

 

[psysicx]

How does one find foreclouser lists?

 

[Dave Benjamin]

What does Kiyosaki's "questionable military service" have to do with real estate? I'm not defending the guy but that's irrelevant. Besides the POTUS has questionable military service and that hasn't held him back. I can't imagine what he'd be doing if his Dad wasn't HW Bush. Perhaps he'd be managing a pizza place or 7-11. Or writing real estate books like Kiyosaki.

I think you can find foreclosures through court records.

 

[Floyd R. Turbo]

For an example of my prediction happening on a smaller level look at what happened when Reagan instituted the luxury tax on aircraft and yachts.

Reagan? Big guy, liked horses, First in line for the open spot on Mt. Rushmore, THAT Reagan?

No. The luxury tax was introduced as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconcilation Act of 1990, passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed by Bush I when he reneged on "Read My Lips." It was repealed in 1993, after even most Democrats realized what a bad idea it was--too late for a lot of boatbuilders, but hey, at least we stuck it to those rich guys, right? While I found lots of people willing to take credit for the repeal, I couldn't find any references to who introduced it, and I gave up looking, but I'd bet the farm his or her name was followed by a D.

No disagreement with your larger point, just giving credit where credit is due.