Welcome to Chez Cliff!

My ignorance of the stock market is unparalleled.  Mastering the "Buy Low, Sell high" concept evaded me.  A few years back, I opened up an Ameritrade account.  I reasoned that nothing would be learned if I didn’t try.  An investment of a couple thousand dollars into the account was made.  Armed with my ignorance and a cup of coffee, I cried "Let the education begin!"

Penny-stocks entered my field of vision.  These volatile beauties became my favorites after reading Kiyosaki’s discussion on them.  While you can really lose your shirt, the upside can be just as great.  Research is key when picking these stocks.  A few good leads were found: eLoan being one of them.  I purchased it at $2.15/share and sold when it hit $3.  In true Warren Buffet style I made a few hundred bucks.

Then the houses popped up on the radar.  Stock investing went dormant.  During this past year, Ameritrade sat stagnate.  OK so I’m not perfect.  I can sense mOOm removing me off the blog roll.

A few months back, my first issue of Barron’s arrived.  It profiled various companies and talked about which ones were performing poorly or were doing well.  Also it included which one’s will be doing great. 

These profiles immediately caught my attention.  Would these companies be all big companies?  Or would there be smaller ones.  To my surprise, profiles include very large companies to very small companies: stock prices up at $100/share down to $3/share.

Using Barron’s, two companies which fit my penny-stock model (<$10) have surfaced.  I’ve googled these same companies. Material was everywhere: periodicals, stock analysis reports, quarterly filings.  After a few hours, I decided to go with both.  And both have done really well.

For anyone moving down an investing path, I recommend Barron’s.  I justified paying the slightly higher price by making myself a promise.  This magazine was to be a tool not only to increase my education but to aid me with my assets.  So far, it has done both quite nicely.  And without sounding like an infomercial, you can too!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Finally.

My head has been cracked open like a cold water melon on a hot day.  And I love it.

This last Sunday, I had breakfast with my Mentor and a good friend.  My Mentor has this way of educating and chiding me all at the same time.

He starts, "If you were a hitter . . ."

Implying that I’m not.

That burns me up like nobody’s business.

This story unfolded during our breakfast.  A few weeks back, I was angry and frustrated because this entire process is moving slowly.  Too slow.  My finger hovering over the mouse button.  The "PURCHASE" button pulsated on the screen, just waiting for me.  What was the purchase?  A five day jaunt to Paris: airfare and hotel for $1,100.  Last minute special.  Frequent flyer miles put me in business class.

Hey, when some people get stressed they go to the gym.  Others smoke.  Me?  I go to Paris.

Anyway . . .

I didn’t pull the trigger because the appraiser was suppose to do a walk-through.

Imagine my shame.  I allowed some guy I didn’t even know to directly impact my life in two ways.  The first was this trip to Paris.  The second is these houses.  They’re not on the market because we’re waiting for him. 

My mentor looked at me and said "You have people to handle this.  Why are you getting in the way?  You need to stop that.  If you were a hitter, you would have went to Paris. Actually you got me thinking.  I think I’ll go to Paris."  With that, he picked up the phone.

I was so beside myself, I could barely breath.

I still can’t.

the witch is gone.

I have to say that the entire house feels different without that dark, foreboding figure lurking around.

I swear that painting was haunted.

I’m eating crow today.  Why yes I am.

How is that for starting out a Monday?

It appears that I had all of the steps but just not in the correct order.  This is what we are doing (in the correct order).

1. Appraisal
2. Houses on the market
3. If necessary, refinance

Here is how it goes.

The appraisal is good for 90 days.  As I stated before, Wells Fargo has that weird policy about not refinancing for a year after the houses have been put on the market.  When the appraisal is done, one of the aspects of the report is whether it is (or has been) listed on the MLS at the time of the appraisal.

That is the part I missed.

The appraisal gets done now, before the houses go on the market.  Once the appraisal is done, then the houses go on the market.  If there’s no sale within 90 days, the appraisal report will be used to refinance the houses.

Here’s a tidbit.

It seems that the appraiser has already done his appraisal.  He did a drive-by.  Grrrrrrr!  He was suppose to do a walk-through but didn’t.  And his appraisal was good, what we were asking for.  But we were wanting the appraisal to be higher than what I’m asking.  So the loan officer is appealing to the appraiser to do an actual "walk through".  She believes, as do I, that if he got in to actually see the kitchen he may bump the value up.

We’ll see.

In any event, thanks to you guys for screwing my head on straight.