One year ago today: March 22, 2023, mostly about doggies.
Five years ago today: March 22, 2019, coffee at the Billy Goat.
Nine years ago today: March 22, 2015, Freudian typo: Cape Code.
Random years ago today: March 22, xxxx , WIP
Caltier Fund is our headline today. This investment leads the pack by a margin of over 3%, so I’m happy with it. (For clarity, this fund is paying 3% more than anything else on my books.) I still find some of their operations mysterious. In general they meet my goal of not investing in anything you don’t understand. Caltier has some formula to calculate when a property has “completed its life-cycle”. Here are some of the units they have recently sold, some of which were good enough to impact the fund distributions. This is a luxury condo that overlooks a ball park, a 156 unit property in Texas (“The Vue”) that produced a whopping 120% return (about $47,400 per unit), and my favorite, the 356 units in Arizona (“the Solano”) that netted $25.6 million. (That’s the picture in the middle here.)
This [plan] has produced an imbalance in my overall standings. My big picture still says there is that slim chance I could make it another twenty years. This short-term success with Caltier, using my short-term equations, has attracted almost twice as much as I would normally put in one basket. I’ve mentioned this before. I did not plan to invest ever again and I don’t have the money to do it. I’m taking it away from other things, like a newer van, fixing up my sidecar, and the only place I’ve really traveled since 2017 is Tennessee. There is no magic to how these investments work. This is why I’m taking time now to sort out what’s going on.
Without Caltier, or its equivalent, investing in such properties is out of my league. Even then, some of the bigger funds have $10,000 buy-ins, although I recognize that as a weeding-out strategy. Caltier is likely dealing with small-investor problems, what with groceries alone going up 28% in the last year, they probably have a headache dealing with redemptions. I've calculated the average Caltier investor has less than $1,490 equity.) On the bright side, they [Caltier] would know which of us have never taken a penny out. Everything [I've made] has been re-invested. I know if I was Caltier, I would pay very, very, very close attention to who is reliably doing things this way. I would segment them off for special treatment.
And it appears they’ve begun this and done so in a manner that kind of tips us off that their core group is only around 2,500 people. I will not explain how I derived this, but if that number of people put in the same $20 g’s I have, there’s your solid group with the $50 million you originally asked for. So it was with great attention I went over the latest Caltier offering. A tiny fund, only $2.97million but offering bonuses attractive to more seasoned investors. Stay with me here, there is a different ratio in the way reliable people invest. Where most invest in stocks and bonds, the solid people have less than half the same proportions. That is, they have only around 35% of their portfolios in standard investments.
I’ve done well in the past planning things out “as if I were rich” It’s a poor man’s form of piggybacking, that is, copying what rich people do. When institutions buy, you buy, type of thing. I say if Caltier can crowdfund apartment complexes, they can manage assets I have only imagined were reachable before. Go to today‘s addendum and I’ll talk about a couple strategies I’ve tinkered with.
Abandoned Ukrainian palace.
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It (this latest Caltier fund) has the earmarks of an elite group recruited from the cream of the REIT people. For example, the offering cannot even be viewed unless you have an active account and are logging in to the porfolio page. It involves investing in what they call alternatives. This can range from technologies, patents, and startups. The Shark Tank of the fund world. Without deep pockets, this brand of investing is sealed off to mere mortals, but once again, Caltier is talking a language I understand. No fast moves and keep your hands were I can see them. All I’m saying is I’m very interested and refer again to today's addendum.
Next issue is my mail. I haven’t gotten any for 17 days. And on Tuesdays there is always junk mail. I know the rules since the incident back in 2019(?) whereby the postman can declare a property abandoned. But that is not the case here. The mail is picked up at least one per month, the yard is trimmed, there are vehicles in the driveway, and the mailbox is too big to ever get filled even a quarter full. I went to the post office and I got the same runaround, the explanation they can do this—which is not what I asked.
They can’t give me an answer until Monday, which is no good. Forturately my people are highly-trained and skillful, and the replacement check is on the way. The confirmation only arrives after it is in the mailbox, so that means some time next month. How sad one has to rely on such backup plans when dealing with people who have only one job. Put the mail in the mailbox and go home. Not too challenging.
Now about this blog. What am I supposed to think when I write a feature about a set of wheel chocks or roof shingles and my readership spikes 26%. Yet I compose a fine essay like today about investing, one of the most popular of American topics, and it doesn’t move the needle. I’m beginning to have doubts about people’s priorities, y’know.
Check the feeds. The Democrat woes increase ever more as lawsuits, ballot recounts, and convictions for voter fraud mount to historic proportions. The pulse of America is that only the borderline insane still support Biden and as this old blog predicted, the Democrats are getting blasted by their own dirty tricks. They cannot react to last-minute changes, never could, and it is small things tripping them up. Like a Florida law that says mail-in voters now have to request a ballot every election (no more mass mailings) or the action against Nevada’s impossibly high voter registrations. It’s all channeling down to the simple fact the Democrats intend to cheat again but the same old tactics are not working any more.
A series of consecutive Trump super-performances at recent rallies has upset all previous election statistics. The pollsters evidently thought they had the system under their thumb. The shrinking troop of Biden supportes are becoming obvious creeps who are trying to force us to accept them as normal. An emerging Trump tactic they cannot defeat or copy is when he departs from scripted speeches and talks directly to the audience in the vernacular. It is causing the Left obvious stinging pain for which they have no answer. And nobody but their own feels sorry because they brought this on themselves.
I sent a short note to Trent on this subject, how Trump is still a bit hesitant, almost as if he can’t believe how well it is working. Imagine, a President who acts and talks like real people.
ADDENDUM
Normally, alternative investments are untouchable. I don’t go near art despite the obscene profit potential. I’m not an expert, I have no place to store art (though some say my wooden boxes are pure art) and anyway it is a scam. The big price increases are the result of art galleries playing with the tax codes. Multi-family properties, such as Caltier, are already an alternative because they require so much up front, and 14 months ago I knew zilch about crowdfunding real estate. (Caltier still flings around terms like “open access” and “platforms” that I don’t really grasp.)
Behind the scenes for years I’ve been watching investments like timberland and hedge funds, but never had the capital to dive in. I’ve always contended once you get a million, you can’t lose. For the rest of us, there are Powerball tickets. I think the minimum investment in Berkshire-Hathaway has been a million for some years now. I never considered commodities directly because they require storage, but that was before crowdfunding. If Caltier continues to describe their motives, I will reconsider all, including crypto, which I view as gambling, but a form of that which I know a lot of the moves.
