Welcome to Chez Cliff!

This is national “Prepare for Taxes” week.  Didn’t know that?  Probably because I just made it up.

Picking through all the mail from my vacation, a letter from Tax-man was waiting for me.  It always surprises me how he keeps up with my addresses.  I certainly don’t tell him where I live.

As usual, I look forward to doing my taxes.  Actually I look forward to Tax-Man doing my taxes while I sit and dream about a fat pay-day.  By having two properties, I wouldn’t be surprised if I received a full refund (ie paid no taxes).

Buried in my stack of mail: four letters from Wells Fargo.  I have all my tax information from them.  Printing online to get my INGDirect account, Bank Statements, Ameritrade Account . . . it’s almost too easy.

I’m thinking this refund already has a home.  The houses need to be painted.  All over.  That will definitely improve curb-appeal.  And the picky tenants up front will definitely be slightly happier.

For those that recently joined us: I’m one of those freaks who enjoys getting their taxes done.

Let me be perfectly honest.

After all that work last year, and this month, the REI thing was burning me out something fierce.  For nearly 7 months, all my brain obsessed about the houses.  I put in nearly 40 hours/week during the months of November and December. 

In other words:  how many times in a row can you eat PB&J before it is the most vile thing in the world?

Chatting with the Real Estate Agent the other day, the topics of the economy, the complete and utter disaster of the sub-prime market blah blah blah and suddenly we were talking about purchasing my next property.

Once a house goes into foreclosure, it usually winds up at an auction house.  The trick is to catch the house before it gets into foreclosure.  Well, thanks to that legislation passed by congress and signed into law this is possible.  The legislation I’m referring to allows a home owner, in financial distress, to do a short sell on their home before it goes into foreclosure.

For Long Beach, the MLS showed us dozens of properties in the Long Beach area which fall into this category.  Properties that were bought at $470,000 are now being sold for $325,000 due to financial hardship.  That’s a morgage payment of $1900/month (30 year fixed at 5.75%).  Renting out a three bedroom in these areas is $2100 to $2200 per month.  Positive cashflow?

My thought: purchase one of these units and live there during rehab.  Once complete, rent the house out for $2200 per month.  Once the market turns around, convince the tenants that they can purchase the property with a monthly payment of $2200 per month.  This means the purchase price would be $375,000 which is $50,000 more than what I bought it.  Or maybe convince them for $100 more per month, they can afford the property which is $390,000 in asking price.  Or $65,000 more than my purchase price.

The marbles are rolling around in my head.

As a customer, some business experiences exist that we know are not going to be pleasant.  For instance: the dentist office.  No one enjoys going to the dentist office.  We go because it’s good for us; we also understand the experience will not be a pleasant one.  So, when entering the dentist office our Customer Service Alert (CSA) Level is set quite low.  That way, when the dentist says "I need a new BMW.  So you’re getting two fillings, a root canal, and a crown" your heart does not sink.  Rather you were expecting the bad news and solemnly open your mouth to exposure to weapons of mass destruction.

Keep that in mind.

It is now day 7 since I reported the melt-down of my hot water heater to the home warranty company.  No plumber has called.  No emails have been sent.  AHS has not followed through.

american home shield has met my expectations of their service.  For those that are just joining us, my CSA Level for AHS is Level Brown.  Poop Brown.  Baby-Poop brown. 

Alas, AHS’ performance was expected therefore I’m not disappointed.

A call was placed to my contractor.  As of January 1, hot water heaters have been redesigned and now cost $500 instead of $300 (Labor not included).  Something about being more efficient, more environmentally friendly.  I asked him if it was bio-degradable.

December 31st, in Paris, cork-popping celebration with thousands of other revelers.  At 12:01 am January 1st, the environment sent me a bill for $200.  How is that for an inconvenient truth?

Oh calm down.  It hasn’t been 7 days since I’ve taken a shower.  That’s what the local gym is for.  But I’m probably the only member who shows up, showers, then leaves without performing a single exercise.

Clifford’s CSA Level:  Mr. Cranky Butt.

Lord Google is doing an excellent job of assimilating me.  Releasing of new cool products has become a regular occurrence.  Then from atop Mount Googleplex new product is heralded "Team Google is proud to release Google Toilet Paper.  It’s cool and you will use it.  Resistance is futile."

Now Google has assimilated my blog reading with Google Reader.

For the uninitiated, Google Reader is simply an RSS Reader which allows a drone reader to collect all the RSS feeds from their favorite blogs in one place.  Too complicated?  Think of it this way: the hundred blogs I read are now on one single webpage.

How I read blogs before may sound archaic.  Actually it was stupid.  Upon finding a blog, it would be "book-marked" into a folder.  Soon this folder had dozens of blogs in it.  The folder was broken down into various groups.  "Real Estate", "Blog Favs", "Friends".  Some folders were created to be looked at based on schedule:  "Friday" and "Monthly".

Yeah, that system sucks.

Now all the blogs I read are on one page.  The "time savings" comes from the fact that Google Reader indicates which blogs have been updated.  Rather than spending 30 minutes, looking at dozens of blogs which may or may not have new material, I spend 5 minutes only looking at those blogs which have been updated.

If you have a blog without an RSS feed, what are you waiting for?  A burning bush?

Thanks to Tim over at 4HWW for the idea.

Today we go dark.

Uwe left this link on my blog. 

Seth Godin’s article is right on the money.  One point I want to accentuate:  “ . . .we still live in a world that’s filled with opportunity. In fact, we have more than an opportunity — we have an obligation.”

Damn right.

Obligation – (1)  An act or a course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound (2) the condition of being morally or legally bound to do something.

This goes beyond real estate.  This goes beyond starting a business.  This falls squarely into the realm of trying to do something great, something extraordinary with the one precious item we can truly call our own: our lives.  Our opportunities were bought and paid for by someone who came before us and it is to them with which we owe the honor of taking advantage of those opportunities.

To whom do we owe it to?

We owe it to that first generation of our family, who immigrated to the United States searching for more opportunities and a better way of life.  We owe it to our grandfathers and grandmothers.  We owe it to our mom’s and dad’s.

We owe it to every POW or every soldier killed in combat.  We owe it to every person who died in concentration camps or in mass graves.  We owe it to that younger family member who was eaten alive with cancer.  Or that best friend killed by that drunk driver.  Or that older mentally handicapped brother who never had a chance to even try.

We owe it to them.  We owe it to them to at least try.  Try to do something extraordinary, something special.