June 6, 2017

VERY little work completed on my paper this morning. Will need to wake up early tomorrow morning to get my hour in before mowing Derm's throughout the day.

Investment Research:

• Going through the numbers will be exceedingly important when doing my research for a property. Income (rents, garage, laundry, vacancy, allowance, etc.); Expense (mortgage, taxes, utilities, insurance, water, garbage, repairs/maintenance/cleaning, rental advertising/management expense, exterminators/pest control, legal/accounting/professional services); determining cash flow; depreciation tax deductions
• The key will be figuring out who in my network can and would be willing to assist and, subsequently, how I should compensate them. For example, having David and Dad work as maintenance men is only a single piece of my expenses. 
• Setting up a rental firm rather than act as a sole proprietor so that cash flow could be split rather than I pay them on an individual basis for services rendered.
• Setting up a rental business or acting as a sole proprietor. (Is there a difference? Worth asking Taylor about how ownership is structured.)
• Advantages of this type of ownership investment are:
• Potential income stream from monthly rent 
• Build-up of equity paid for by tenants. This component is determinate on the strength of the market at the time of buying. 

Additional Questions:

• Property in Holden is expensive, Worcester is cheap, Hubbardston is cheap, how are the other towns? Lots of cheap with lower number of qualifiers (i.e. they don't necessarily have land or garage to store bus.)
• What kind of cash flow makes this investment worth my time? 
• How strong is the real estate market right now? Is it a buyer's or seller's market? (Probably a good question for Taylor.) 
• Maybe I should just pull the trigger on Investor's Business Daily...

June 5, 2017

Began reintroducing myself to my Master's paper material since a hiatus of moving and traveling to Canada. Will need to refine outline again tomorrow.

Investing Research
General Impressions:

• Initially, this seemed like a suitable business venture for my goals of traveling if my family was willing to help with a lot of the work; however, this would essentially be exploitation of my own family members unless I compensated them enough to kill my own profits. The only real return I would see under this scenario would be the appreciation on the value of the property, which is obviously higher risk as the housing market could take a hit. 
• Could be a solid long-term strategy for the retirement option rather than high yield stock market investments. 
• Thus far, I have $40,000.00 invested in a bond ladder (which I honestly don't even understand...) and have $40,000.00 remaining for investments. I could potentially separate it into $40,000.00 for the bond latter, $20,000.00 in investment rental real estate, and $20,000.00 in index and mutual funds. 
• What would $20,000.00 do for me in real estate investing? How much could Dave, Dad, and Mom expect in managing the property? Would monthly rent even cover a worth-while time investment on their part?