Poet, out of sheer laziness I have discussed options ?'s over on Voltaire's porch--they were interesting, about covered calls. If it keeps up, I'll direct 'em over here. They were about selling covered calls: Voltaire wrote an interesting post about his philosophy of always selling cc on half your position--it's not about attachment to a stock, it's about income.
As for rentals: the absolute key, as you can see from everybody's posts, is to pick a good tenant. Better to sift and wait and be careful. I found I could get a feel for them after a while, it was usually 1 out of the 200 who called (yep that's NY). But I always made sure I had a reference from a landlord who said something like this: "Ms or Mr X always paid on time, sometimes early, they were an excellent tenant, I'd rent to them again in a sec." Credit checks are totally mandatory--as PAL noted. Feels funny for me to give advice to a real estate maven...as for the tax break with kids that PAL noted, I never knew about that. That could be very useful for you! |
