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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: accountclosed who wrote (34852)	10/30/1998 6:42:00 AM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

>>The cruelest difference with a house is that if you miss the perfect house, it may not be on the market again in your lifetime.<< paul, be careful with the "one of a kind" mentality. rarely is it true, though it often seems true. that is an agent's great selling point to extract the most dollars from the buyer. broker's use it too. "this may be the one of a kind deal that gets you to retirement...." imho, bid like it was a business (i do this and hate competing with emotional homebuyers!). how much is rental value? figure in some repairs and depreciation. more than likely you will have to buy above that number but if you buy too much above it then you may take a huge loss in the future. you may anyway, but we all understand the concept of reducing risk. it is ok to buy something smaller that you can easily afford. why? well, my wife and i started out with a small condo. now we rent it and own a nice one story home. we plan on paying off the condo (and doing without a lot of other stuff until we do - no $15k mortgage payments here ;-) and saving enough in about 5 more years to buy a nice two story home (the one we origianlly wanted! ;-) while renting the condo (and receiving the proceeds) and about breaking even on renting the home. we will have three homes then. eventually they will all be paid off and be tangible asset income producers. we didn't get what we wanted at first but, imho, we will get a lot more in the end. one caveat, don't be as dumb a landlord as i was in the beginning. it is better to let a property sit idle waiting for the right tenant than to rent to anybody just to get some immediate cash. that lesson cost me a little. but, i've learned (the hard way as usual ;-). just another perspective. btw, the two story rests on the premise of continued personal employment ;-)

To: accountclosed who wrote (34852)	10/30/1998 9:47:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 132070

Hi Paul, are you an early bird, or do you have insomnia? My dream house is sited on a gentle hill, overlooking the ocean. It has timber framing, open architecture, huge windows all around, and about 3,000 square feet. The house I am looking at is not my dream house, which I am not going to buy, for several reasons, primarily due to the fact that the commute from the ocean would take 4 hours. In the meantime, this house is a nice house, but I won't pay more than I have to. There is no such thing as a "fair price." There is no such thing as the "right price." Prices are fluid, based on multiple factors that are frequently too slippery to elucidate. I wouldn't pay top dollar for my dream house, but, on the other hand, I know that you get what you pay for (if you're careful). I think it's a mistake to base investment decisions on emotions. Seems like a lot of people base their decisions on such irrelevancies as personal preferences: "I don't like the management, so it's a bad investment." "I like the company, I like the products, so it's a good investment." "I wouldn't be seen dead in those clothes, so I won't invest in the manufacturer." "You couldn't pay me to shop there, so I won't invest in the retailer." Can't argue with preferences, but you miss good investments that way. Even worse, on projections based on religion: "These are bad people, they deserve to do badly, so I'll short the stock." "I don't like these people, and they have too much money, so I'll short the stock." "I like these people, they are nice, they deserve to succeed, so I'll be nice and help them out and buy their stock." Even worse, "If my investments don't go well, God must be punishing me." Foolishness! The best general investment advice I have ever read was written by Caroline Bosley, "Rugs to Riches, an Insider's Guide to Buying Oriental Rugs." I don't know anything about her except that she has brokered oriental rugs for many years. Trading is trading. I won't paraphrase her techniques, get the book, but I will say that whenever I have to settle a case, I re-read the chapters on haggling, and always come away inspired. Well, this is somewhat off topic, I guess. CobaltBlue