After last week’s three-part series on rental property investing, several readers posed fantastic and hard-hitting questions. I answered most in the ‘comments’ section. But one question deserved its own post. How did you come up with the your maintenance cost estimate? I would expect much higher on such a large and old house. You’re probably…
Note from Paula: This is the final installment of my three-part series about my building my real estate empire, one lopsided rotting house at a time. Check out Part 1 — House-Hunting — and Part 2 — Funding — before you read this conclusion. **** NOTE: This article was last updated in 2014 (and all…
Note from Paula: In my last post — Part 1 – I described how I searched for a rental house. In today’s post, I’ll spill the details of how I put the deal together. **** To say that the house is a “fixer upper” is too polite. The house is –- well, it’s safe for…
It started in October 2010. I had just moved to Atlanta and didn’t know a thing about the city. I picked a neighborhood at random – eeny-meeny-miney-moe – and rented the first listing on Craigslist. I struck gold. I moved two blocks from Atlanta’s most beautiful park, a rolling greenscape with spectacular skyline views. It…
Several days ago I received a Tweet from a reader named Carolyn saying: “I’m an ex-newspaper reporter in Atlanta who just found your (old travel) blog. Would love to ask advice if you don’t mind!” Well, I’m a sucker for helping ex-newspaper reporters in Atlanta 🙂 (My regular readers will understand why!) So I emailed…
Let’s take a look at a typical American worker — and figure out how much she earns. Lisa starts prepping for her work day the night before, when she irons and lays out her clothes, packs lunch and cleans her car. She meets with clients throughout the day, so she must present a polished appearance….
Note from Paula: A HUGE thank you to all my readers who helped little ‘ol Afford Anything win the Plutus Award for Best New Personal Finance Blog this past weekend! This award belongs to you, my readers. Afford Anything is dedicated to you and it would be nothing without you. Cheers to you! ******** Last…
For the past week and a half I’ve been in the middle of the desert, far removed from internet access, mobile phone service, electricity, running water or sewage. (Sorry if I haven’t responded to your comments yet!) Regular readers to this blog might notice I’ve taken a huge number of trips this year: I spent…
Yesterday I learned a colleague from my newspaper was found dead in her Colorado apartment. I learned the news, ironically, by stumbling across her obituary while I was reading the same newspaper for which she and I both wrote. It struck me, for the first time, that the final consequence of working at a newspaper…
Anyone with a pulse – your co-workers, your neighbor, your third-grade teacher – is fretting that stocks nosedived this week. Actually, “nosedived” is an understatement. It plummeted. Plunged. Tumbled. Crashed. You get the picture. From the Associated Press: Gripped by fear of another recession, the financial markets suffered their worst day Thursday since the crisis…