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

[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?