Posted on May 31, 2008 @ 8:57 pm - Written by BawldGuy
Just looked at our next Texas location and it rocks. Too early to spill the beans, but we’ll be putting our boots on the ground very soon. Hint: It’s on the A-List of areas having appreciated more than 7% in the last 12 months.
Also, a buddy living in another region has convinced me to fly up there to check out the ‘unreal deals’ available. Gee, haven’t heard that one before. Worth a flight and a day or two to find out though. We’ll see.
Off the cuff — follow me on twitter, I’m @BawldGuy. Just go to twitter.com — it’s free, and you’ll like it. Go to my profile and see who follows me and who I follow. If you do the same, you’ll find out what folks in the business around the country talk about with each other.
Also off the cuff here — so many of my clients have been sorely disappointed by the performance of mutual funds in their 401(k) plans. They complain how they’ve heard most of their adult lives how the returns were in the range of 8-12% annually, when their real life results haven’t reached even 5% yet. Now we have a 20 year study which proves just that. (More on that this week.)
No time here to expand on the thought, but it’s nice to finally have a 20 year study on which to fall back, know what I mean, Verne? Verne’s not laughing — guess he’s in mutual funds. Here’s the last train to Capital Growth for those San Diegans interested.
I’d love to talk with you about getting started with your own Purposeful Plan — one heading straight for a very cool retirement. You can find me by clickin’ here, then waiting for my always quick response. I need a fix, so hurry up, wouldya? Much appreciated.
So it’s Saturday, which means there’s a video, right? Then I put ‘train’ in the title, geez. Settled on The Monkees, a band for whom I’m still in the dark. How in Aunt Millie’s old robe did they ever do so well? Dateline should do an investigation, ‘cuz there’s gotta be a conspiracy buried somewhere. Anyway, it so happens they did have a song about a train, so that’s the one I’m usin’. Sorry in advance.
Posted on May 30, 2008 @ 10:56 pm - Written by BawldGuy
To my friends and all real estate investors in San Diego/California, here’s the tune you’ll be dancin’ to once yer Outa Dodge.
Not only does it rock, but so does your capital growth rate since you saw the light. Massively increase your net worth, tax shelter, flexibility, and best of all? Your retirement income. Purposefully Plan your way to the retirement you deserve.
Step away from the local real estate San Diego. Yer just a 1031 exchange away from jump starting your future back to life. Your retirement is dying a slow death here. Hhellllooooo!
Crank this one up to 11, kick back, and try to remember where you were the first time you heard this one.
Posted on May 30, 2008 @ 12:06 am - Written by BawldGuy
San Diego and (California in general) has been the best girlfriend ever. Loyal, always thinking of just us, enriching our lives almost without fail, and bringing additional commas to our bank accounts. Talk about having it all, we sure did.
She always played our song. Happy days? The status quo. Even when she was down, we knew from experience she’d bounce back — and even more lovable than before. Well, as happens in real life sometimes, that perfect mate has tired of us and left us high and dry. She’s walking away, and she ain’t comin’ back.
People, that’s exactly what’s happened in California. Investment property has taken a different path. The days of buying, holding for a few years, then selling or executing a tax deferred exchange yielding splashy results are gone. I think they’re gone forever. Why?
Glad you asked.
Your property is now worth, after this market correction, 150-300% of competing markets in out of state growth regions. In San Diego for example, a 35 year old duplex in a decent area sells now for $425-525,000 (often more) give or take. Also, in order to break even every month the investor must put down at least 30% and usually 35-45%. In NoCal 40% is considered wicked good leverage — no kiddin’. The Kool-Aid they drink in Palo Alto and the Bay Area in general is phenomenally effective. They’ll realize too late their lovingly loyal maiden has decided they’re not the Knight in shining armor any more.
Surveys show — capital growth rates fall when leverage is severely depressed. (anonymous smart aleck) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 28, 2008 @ 9:14 pm - Written by BawldGuy
Among the many key factors in the ultimate success of any real estate investor’s retirement is the ability to remain objective while analyzing opportunities. I know yer wondering why I didn’t add a ‘duh’ at the end of that sentence. There are so many who don’t realize the impact of a biased analytical conclusion. Your Purposeful Plan becomes campfire kindling when relying on subjective analysis.
I’ve been in San Diego since ‘67 and seen the phenomenal changes the area has gone through since. Seriously, compared to today, San Diego circa ‘67 was Mayberry RFD. I remember how excited we all were, when as home agents someone listed a $35,000 home! We all wanted to see up close and personally what a house that expensive looked like. When, in ‘71 Dad sold his home, and combined the net proceeds with proceeds from another small project to buy a home ‘up on the hill’ for $115,000! OMG! Lord knows what it’s worth today, 37 years and a three booms later, even with the market correction.
When I made the switch from homes to investment property in the summer of ‘76 we’d just begun the huge run-up of real estate values. It went from about late ‘75/early ‘76 to the fall of ‘79, when it hit an immovable object at 110 mph. It was ugly. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 27, 2008 @ 3:44 pm - Written by BawldGuy
I’m proud to introduce David Shafer, a very smart guy. Today’s topic, EIUL’s have been a subject close to my heart. Though I’ve written about it several times here, and at BloodhoundBlog, I thought it was time to bring in an expert.
NOTE: David used numbers even more conservative than I would, which is just fine by me. For example, even though the performance of the S & P over the last half century is around 8%, David uses 6.5%. Why don’t I care? ‘Cuz I’ve never had a client complain when real life performance exceeds projections. Duh.
When BawldGuy asked me to blog on equity indexed universal life insurance (EIUL), I thought no problem, since I had been blogging on it for a couple of years on both my site and others. Then he asked me to look at the archives from Bloodhound to see his previous blogs and I knew I had to write something a little different. In order to make sense of EIUL contracts you really need to understand the misinformation that underlie the arguments being put out by folks in books, the mass media and blogs on both sides of the issue. You need to be clear on what your wealth creation plan is and what it isn’t. So bear with me for a few paragraphs as I burn down the straw-men arguments before we get into the mechanics of EIUL’s.
Usually these discussions surround a common theme, EIUL’s versus mutual funds inside a tax deferred wrapper (401K, IRA’s). First let’s talk about mutual funds. Mutual funds were designed to reduce risk or as financial experts describe it variance. They were a boom to Wall Street as mutual funds induced many folks to invest in stocks, something they were not inclined to do in the past. They have been around for 2 generations so we have plenty of data to tell us accurately how people do investing in mutual funds. Read the rest of this entry »
