In his last post, Ryan compares two Phoenix neighborhoods, ‘85031 – Maryvale’ and ‘85212 – East Mesa’ to ask which is the better investment. I appreciate Ryan’s insight and detailed knowledge of the phoenix housing market. His detailed and specific knowledge of the ancillary elements (demographics, growth patterns…) allows him to discern trends in [...]
May Day is the International Distress signal, asking for help in a life-threatening situation. May Day is also the celebration of communism. Apparently, Mayday has many meanings. But May Day (May 1st, 1975) was also when the SEC deregulated commissions on stock. Commissions fell 95%, almost overnight. In fact, you can almost trade stocks [...]
Our results to date are reported on a monthly basis on the “Score” table on the Home page. We give you the current total value of TheMonopolyProject (TMP) as a combination of cash held (bank deposits) and the estimated equity of the real estate owned (= estimated value minus liabilities). To determine how well [...]
Thank you Jeff for your first-in-a-series “Great REALTORS are Great Dancers!” What looks easy from the outside, is carefully ‘choreographed’. Jeff has gone beyond dancing to choreography: Another Day of Sun - La La Land Opening Scene, Listen to the warning from the great Aretha, the Queen of Soul:“You better think about the consequences [...]
Previously, we explained how we got a loan from “The Bank of Michelle” to finance the purchase of our first TMP house when the lender could not meet the close date. Here’s the comparison of using a 30-year fixed loan at 4.99% versus a 15-year fixed at 0.625% less. The rate differential is per Wells [...]
Previously, we had to buy our first house on Valencia St in Phoenix for ‘all cash’ when our lender could not fund the loan in time for closing. It was an error of closing dates on their part, that we did not catch in time to correct, due to more ‘opportunity costs’. How are we [...]
In the middle of escrow for the house on Valencia that we eventually purchased, Jim and Michelle left for a 12-day trip to Europe to celebrate the 75th anniversary of D Day. We went with the Concordia Wind Orchestra of Concordia University, Irvine who were invited to play on Omaha Beach at 4 pm [...]
The “Rent Vs Buy” question has been discussed/analyzed/argued ad infinitum:[...]
I’ve been reading “FIRE” blogs for years. Wikipedia says “The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement is a lifestyle movement whose goal is financial independence and retiring early.” I already gave a shout out to JL Collins in my very first blog post. Now my go-to FIRE guy is Sam at FinancialSamurai.com. I started [...]
We’re coming close to buying our first house for TheMonopolyProject.Previously we had to specify three fixes to the house on Valencia. Then the appraisal came in $11,000 UNDER the sales price. As you learned, we turned that to our advantage and negotiated a reduction in price of over $5,000. That $5,000 goes directly into our [...]
