January Quarter-ish Review - Numbers & Investments to come
I love how you can see the difference from when I don’t sign in for months and then when it’s all up to date — look at that spike!
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Hello Friends,
Welcome to my Quarter-ish report. I think if I was truly official I might have tallied things up Dec 31st, but who is working during the holidays? Not me!
As you may have noticed, things are a little informal around here, thanks for giving me the space to share in the best way that I can.
SO what’s new?
A Prosperous Fall
Since the Oct report, we had an unusually prosperous October (in the Boulder area) and a slow as usual Winter, that I am excited to crawl out of unscathed. I think this was the first Winter in awhile that I didn’t need to check my bank accounts and manually oversee some payments due to tight margins. It’s not always what people want to hear but I like to tell it like it is. If you are smart (i.e. don’t get too excited invest all your money in projects, like I do) you can usually budget with the padded accounts from the high seasons, to ride out the lows of the slow seasons.
Moving!
Life is especially crazy these days because Ben and I bought a home and are closing on Thursday! Not only is this Ben’s first (my 7th) but it is also the home we will be living in, so it requires selling stuff, moving and getting our former place rented as I am property manager at the place we are leaving. Woof! Even though I am very excited, I am also a house cat and uprooting my nest is very unnerving for my system. Hopefully moving into a place that we own means that we will stay there 4-5 years. Yay!
Our main impetus for buying this 3/2 condo is to have a space we live in that we can Airbnb. In Boulder, the rule to Airbnb is that you:
1. Must own the home
2. It must be your primary residence
3. You must live in it 120 days+ (6 months) a year
We plan to do exactly that, travel up to 6 months a year and rent out our home! How are we affording to travel so much, you ask?
Petsitting
Right around Thanksgiving I finally joined Trusted House Sitters. This is the top website for Pet Sitting that friends have been telling me about for a few years. I had always gotten my pet sitting gigs from friends or friends of friends and didn’t think I needed to pay for a membership, boy was I wrong?
All I had to see was the sheer quality of the homes and the incredible inventory of sits and I was sold! Since November we have done 4 sits, some in multi million dollar homes. We were able to stay in Denver in a brand new home while Ben was at a training (saving us an 1hr+ commute each day) and giving me a doggy hiking buddy. Next we are going to stay in a few other homes near the Ski Slopes included on our Ikon Pass. Ski condos can be $300+/nt, we are getting large mountain homes for free AND we’ll be able to make money renting out our home. Double win!
A Quest for More Homes + Research.
I have been on a mission to help Ben turn his savings into a solid retirement plan, by helping him buy long term rental properties. To do this, I have been investigating some Turn-Key Providers around the country who can help us buy out of state and then manage the tenants for us. As you may have read in my last post, I started a local group with some friends called Finances & Friends where we come together to chat about optimizing our finances, share financial hacks (Credit Cards, House Hacking, Bank account Bonuses) and talk about Real Estate. Most of the group are interested in buying and are newbies so I feel invested in coming back with some solid leads for them.
The blessing and the curse of being in this industry is that I get tips and contacts in many markets. The hard part is choosing which one to go with! Last weekend I was in Atlanta looking at new builds (which even though they are more expensive, are my preference because there would be next to no maintenance for 10 years). I am fortunate to fly for free on Southwest so my next trip will be out to Florida to check out a 3 markets there and go to a provider showcase covering 14 markets, then probably Ohio to scope out 3 cities. Dallas is also on the list, but I may not go out there as these are for Ben and he has said that he would prefer more cash flow than a new build with potential for appreciation.
My goal is to help him purchase 3-4 rentals in the beginning of this year, so we can start him on his cash flow journey and make him feel more secure in transitioning in his work and hopefully working less. Wish me luck!
Orlando
A property manager who organizes all my cleanings for a home in Utah, called me one day to see if I was interested in buying his turn key Vacation Rental in the booming market of Kissimmee near Disney World. Coincidentally, Orlando was already a stop on my whirlwind tour of US markets so I will be checking it out in just over a week.
It looks like I will have a lot of exciting updates for you by the next report!
The Numbers
Here is my current breakdown as promised (1/27/20):
Assets
Cash: $40,170: UP 30K from last time
Investments: $75,871 (73K index funds): DOWN 18k
Homes: $694,000 (this is just my portion of ownership value of the homes, if owned with a partner): UP 29K
Debt
Credit (statement balances paid in full each month): $4766
Mortgage / Loans: $116,717 (down 10K)
Net Worth: $688,558 (UP $54,601)
Wow, 54K in 4 months, what changed?!
>Cash: I pulled 25K out of a 3 month investment to prepare for our upcoming down payment / closing costs.
>Investments: This is Down from the lateral cash move but it is also Up as my Vanguard funds did a big jump (7K in the last quarter!). I realized that my HSA is also invested in index funds, so I decided to include that in the “index funds” total.
>Homes: Even though markets have softened a bit, Personal Capital uses home value estimates from Zillow that I think are grossly off. I went in and manually adjusted the home values based on comps sold in the area. I believe them to be conservative.
>Credit: Less business spending in the slower months
>Mortgage: Paid down 10K! Yay!
For our slowest months of the year (Nov-Feb), I feel quite pleased with the gains. 2020 feels like a great year with lots of possibilities ahead, I look forward to reporting in on our future acquisitions soon!
Have you begun tracking your Net Worth yet? If not, why not? What you focus on takes on energy and can grow in magnificent ways! Get started below today.
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Upcoming Events (See me Speak Live!):
Q&A event @MMM HQ in Longmont, CO - March 10th, 6pm-7:30pm.
Financial Freedom Summit - May 1-2, 2020, St. Louis, MO
Events I’m Attending
Best Deal Ever Conference - Feb 20-22, Keystone, CO
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