One year ago today: November 16, 2022, this country is split.
Five years ago today: November 16, 2018, wip
Nine years ago today: November 16, 2014, I say yes, it changes.
Random years ago today: November 16, 2016, I still miss salt.
Sorry for the delays, but we have to get the Reb out of that hospital and home where she gets attention 24/7. Hospitals are okay but my opinion is they overmedicate and use generic criteria to do so. And nurses know sedated patients are quiet patients. I forgot the blog memory sticks at home. Unbeleievable chasing around today including locating the right doggie chow. I will catch up with the regular posting features soon, I did not bring a computer with me this trip. I left in kind of a hurry and forgot all kinds of things that will be missed shortly. I'll supply the ADDENDUM from memory, where I was talking about the overhead needed to protect investments.
Wasp nest.
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ADDENDUM
Real estate is a special case and needs special protection. My experience is the system exercises a special brand of control over homeowners. They know you cannot just pack up and leave. Let's skip the part where a house is a home and look at it as the biggest investment most people make. Yet how many give a thought to protecting it other than the insurance required when you take out a mortgage. The sad news is that insurance is not for the house, it is to the bank gets its money back when things go wrong and screw you. Those who say my buffer of 30% are normally supposing they will always have some form of "external income". I created that phrase to describe money you get for effort and that is paid to you by other people. That would include a pension. Ask the Enron people how well that worked out for them. I stress such income overwhelmingly depends on others to do the right thing.
The four factors I would protect most on a house are taxes, upkeep, utilities, and insurance on the replacement costs (although this form of insurance is becoming unaffordable). That house is never really yours until you can assure the income that will cover all four. My cabin was easy in the sense that total came to a 1/3 of what I was paying in rent--because I chose to live in a trailer court. This formula will not work on a house with a price tag twenty times higher.
Thus, real estate reserves should be more than 30%. Mortgages are not user-friendly. My first mortgage 12 10 years on a rental property. That's correct, my first house was not my residence, and let me tell you, I learned more about the real estate market from that than any book or course you'll find. The only encouraging note is that this money is tied up, it is not spent. It represents a pool of value that stabilizes your affairs. You have to change for the better to get there. You will always find "experts" who tell you to use the pool to pay down your mortgage, but doing that puts you in the same risk situation. Even if you can pay the mortgage completely off, the other three on-going expenses will be a constant threat unless you have enough investment income. The way I did it was three months on the mortgage payments, then double it. Also, write your plan down and post it where you can refer to it after EACH mortgage payment. If you cannot write it down, it is not a good plan.
One more thing. If you put these safeguards in place, you may conclude that ten years in a trailer court isn't such a bad idea.
