Animated slum-lord gif.

[flexagon]

Probably, the world didn't really need another childfree icon. Probably, nobody but me cares that I've finally learned to make animated GIFs. And yet, surely a tiny bit of creativity is better than none. :)

Last night I was starting to think seriously about how much nicer real estate has been to me (so far) than the stock market, and wondering if it would make sense to get out of the latter and buy another condo within the next year or so instead. We couldn't afford another place like the one we live in, for two reasons: it would be very tough to afford the mortgage payments on months when we didn't have renters for some reason, and right now the rental market here is soft enough that renters wouldn't pay for the whole mortgage on months when we did. But it should be possible to get property in some other town entirely (say, Quincy, or somewhere even less urban) where the down payment I'd have could combine with lower prices to make for a much smaller mortgage. Though admittedly I don't know as much about the rental market* in those areas, a small mortgage would make it a lot more likely that whatever rent we could get would cover it. And the farther-out towns might not suffer as much from whatever flattening-out there might be in the housing market over the next few years.

I think what I would really want here is a business partner. HLM is out, bluechromis would be perfect but she's all wanting to go back to school (tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking it's unlikely that makes for good timing on a venture like this), my other friends in town are sort of doing their own things with their own places. Say, webrat, what're the housing and rental markets like in your bit of the galaxy?

* and taxes... let us not forget taxes. Bleh.

Ambitions of this sort tend to come and go... as is probably obvious, I've been financially lazy for quite a while now while recovering from the shock of buying the condo we have now. Intellectually, I do think that (beyond a rainy-day fund), people's money should be out and about and working for them, and it would be good to work toward the goal of having more income streams. Realistically, it's hard to scrape up the time, money, nerve and down payments to make any of it happen (which is why the stock market is easier... you can play with any amount). Ah well -- this is all a fine direction of thought, and I may come back to it over the next year or two.

Comments

Leave it to me to pick the most trivial part of the post and comment on that.

[jg26.livejournal.com]

Probably, nobody but me cares that I've finally learned to make animated GIFs.

I care. Something I've wanted to do for a while. I'd heard kool things about ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php)... a nice scriptable open source tool. I thought it'd be cool to have an animated gif which pans through MRI's of my brain. Or to take mpegs and convert them to animated gifs.

Re: Leave it to me to pick the most trivial part of the post and comment on that.

[flexagon]

I used Photoshop Elements, which (like the GIMP, I'm told) just lets you loop through the layers of a layered document at at a constant speed. It's enough for what I wanted to do, but sucky nonetheless.

[webrat.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're kidding, but it depends on which section of Pittsburgh you're talking about. For example, the suburbs is going to be cheaper. Then, there's living in the city itself, then there's a whole other section of Pittsburgh we try to ignore, but can't called Oakland / Shadyside. Shadyside is very upscale / preppy area. Oakland is where Unversity of Pittsburgh is, so real estate around that area is always primo money.

[flexagon]

I'm sure you're kidding

Not in the slightest, actually. A cheap property in a town I have a business partner in would be a fine thing -- if anything, it would work unfairly in my favor, since the local person would naturally end up doing more work when tenants had trouble, etc.

it depends on which section of Pittsburgh you're talking about

If the idea is to have a minimal mortgage, so that whatever rent we got could cover it + taxes + possible condo fee, we're definitely talking cheap property. If together we could put $30K on a $70K condo for example, that would be ummmmmmmm, probably under $300/month for the mortgage, which I'd imagine we could get in rent easily. I may be daydreaming since unlike you, I haven't done my research in your area recently. A more expensive place would obviously bring us closer to the edge of any comparisons between income and outflow. But the really important thing would be just to hold steady for a few years while the place appreciates.

[webrat.livejournal.com]

Well, johnish used to do the same thing. Still does actually. He moved up to NY, but he still owns 2 lots here in Pittsburgh that he collects rent on.

So, it's certainly not a bad plan/thought and will definitely make you money over time if you're patient enough.

[flexagon]

Doesn't sound like you're very interested though. Oh well. Another year.

[webrat.livejournal.com]

It's not that I'm not interested, it's just that I'm financially not in shape to pull something like this off. :) You didn't really come out with what you expected out of said business partner, so... what are you expecting?

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

I'd love to, obviously, and it's definitely a goal of mine, but I'd want my own place first I think (though we could talk about a two family investment that I could live in), and yes, school puts a damper on the cash flow.

I'm digging the icon...

[flexagon]

Sigh... yeah, I figured. I'm not quite ready for this step either, but close enough to start going hmmmmm. The real estate market will still be around later, so keep me in mind in a few years, kay? :)

You changed your icon too. It's so... so... shaded.