#the landlord wanted to increase the rent at the start of this current lease to about $500 more a month & thankfully accepted around $100

[ask-me-what-my-sideblog-is]

PSA: ALWAYS NEGOTIATE YOUR RENT

Real Life Scenario That Just Happened: My lease is about to end, I reached out to find out about renewal options, and my landlord told me he was raising my rent by $400 (~10%).

Now first off, where I live that's an illegally high rent increase (always know your rights!). If he wants to raise it more than 5%, he needs to give me 3 months notice (he did not). But I knew that if I replied with that information, he would probably adjust the rent increase to exactly 5%, which would be over $200 more a month.

So instead, I started even lower. I said look I've been in this apartment for over 3 years, it's not as nice as it was when I moved in, a lot of the appliances don't work as well anymore, etc and comparable apartments in the area are going for less. So I don't think my rent should increase AT ALL. (Quite honestly none of the "comparable" apartments were quite as nice as mine, but that didn't stop me).

Now I admit, I didn't actually think that would work. My plan was to start low, figuring we would compromise somewhere in the middle, but hopefully less than the full 5%. And worst case, if he wouldn't budge from $400, then I would start quoting legal code at him and force him down to 5%.

But you know what happened??? He just said "fine" and now my rent is staying the same for another year! That's $4800 saved because I gave him (what I thought was) a lowball offer to start and he caved.

Now some important context: I knew I had some power in this situation. I live in a 3-apartment building and the other two apartments are both currently empty, so I knew the landlord would be scared to lose more rent. I'm a good tenant who always pays rent on time, so I knew the landlord would have to weigh losing me (and all the costs associated with flipping the apartment, hiring a realtor to show it, etc) vs. the extra bucks he might be able to make on the free market. And as I predicted, keeping me around was more important than the $400/month!

BUT here's the kicker, if you try to negotiate and it doesn't work?? It is highly unlikely that the landlord won't accept the original offer. If he says $400 and you say $0 and he says "no way", in 99.9% of cases, he'll still accept $400! So there is literally zero harm in trying.

Quick Lease Renewal Negotiation Guide, for Recap:

Before you enter the conversation

Know your rights as a renter

Look up what similar apartments are going for in the area

Decide what your final # is (that you won't go above)

Consider if there are other things you'd be willing to offer that would sweeten the deal for the landlord (longer lease term, higher gross rent in exchange for some free months / lower net rent**, etc)

**This will likely screw you over for the following renewal, so only do this if you are planning not to renew again

During the Negotiation

Start Low! Don't start by offering your final number

Don't throw everything out all at once! Have some things in your back pocket

Don't Panic! I know this can be scary, but there's a good chance it will work and a very low chance it will make anything worse (landlords expect this!) so it's worth trying

#rent negotiation #for people with anxiety #life hacks #life tips

[noah0rueben]

Tips For Successful Real Estate Property Assets

Therefore you are considering buying a home but want a lot more house camping details? You may have currently begun searching for a house but you are failing to get quite much. In any event, what you really are planning to discover in this article will help you become a little more well-informed in the field of home acquiring. You will find main techniques that you could increase the value of your real estate property buy. A bathroom or kitchen redesign will heighten the benefit of your home, as will an add-on by means of a deck or sunroom. A straightforward issue like artwork the outer and sprucing the garden, whilst not adding excellent worth, will definitely boost its value somewhat. If you require initially several weeks hire, previous months lease as well as a put in, in order to hire a property, question the landlord about perhaps paying the very last a few months rent as time passes. By adding a few 100 dollars to every single month's transaction, you can get that new location, without needing to have all of the dollars up front. Be realistic inside your selection to purchase real-estate. The cost linked to property acquisition will go far beyond mortgage payments. You must element in insurance, fees along with the maintenance of the property itself once you determine the impact on your earnings. When you know what you could manage on a every year time frame, you are able to price range your hard earned money properly. When purchasing property, you need to be sensible in thinking about your reselling options. Should you are not likely to continue to be in your home for the duration of the house loan, like several first-time buyers are likely not to do, then consider the fee versus. reselling from the home, so there is a very clear concept of the lifespan from the acquire. When thinking about purchasing a house, will not retain the services of an appraiser who was encouraged to you through your agent. Due to a conflict useful, the appraiser might not be the very best man or woman for the position. Rather, find someone with a long period of expertise and that is condition-certified. One of the greatest errors individuals make when buying house when purchasing a property, is falling in love with the decoration that was there in the showing or open up home. You are investing in a property for it's construction, layout and design, not the decor. Make an effort to remove these images out of your brain and look previous them when touring a property. When choosing a property it's important to look over the home for troubles. But it's important too to look into the community. Traveling around looking at the circumstances from the homes and automobiles across the neighborhood can provide advisable how very good of any neighborhood it is. If you see properties falling apart, garbage automobiles, and junk, individuals are warning signs that this area will not be too wonderful. In conclusion, it is important to turn out to be well-informed about house purchasing, whether or not you have previously commenced the method or perhaps not nevertheless started off. The above post offered you important info that could help you get the perfect home for yourself and your family. All things considered, simply being educated in the home acquiring marketplace is a additionally! via

[atlanticcanada]

'I’m just lost': Tenant left without electricity, running water during dispute with landlord

Maimuna Sarah Malek says she’s at her wit’s end dealing with a dispute with her landlord that’s left her without running water in her home for more than a week.

“I’m just lost,” says Malek, “I constantly check to see if my water’s turned on, every morning.”

Malek says she, her husband, and their four children have been showering and doing laundry at a friend’s house and buying bottled water for everything else, including flushing the toilet and washing dishes.

The situation, says Malek, is the result of a tenancy dispute that's gone from bad to worse.

“It's an emergency situation. You have to live with water, you can't live without water,” she says.

Then on Monday afternoon, her power abruptly went off, forcing the family to stay with friends.

Malek says it started last May, when her landlord June Liao -- operating under Sheba Queen International Investment Consulting Inc. -- wanted to raise the rent at her Dartmouth bungalow. Liao appears to also use the name Qun Liao on some of the documents Malek shared with CTV.

Malek says when she received email communication from Liao about her intent to raise the rent from $1,400 a month to $1,600, Liao also attached a new lease for her to sign, which she did.

But after learning through her own research that the increase was higher than Nova Scotia’s current rent cap allows, Malek says she looked back at the first lease she signed in February 2021 to start her tenancy. It was then, she says, that she realized the water bill she'd been paying for a year was supposed to be included in the rent.

She took the matter to Nova Scotia’s Residential Tenancies Board. In November, the residential tenancy officer ruled in Malek's favor.

According to a copy of the decision Malek provided to CTV News, the lease signed in February 2021 was “deemed to have been renewed” on a yearly term.

That lease included water in the rent. The lease from May of 2022 did not. Malek provided signed copies of both to CTV.

The residential tenancy officer also rejected any rent increase on the same basis. The decision states, “in order to comply with the lease, the landlord is responsible for the water.”

“Any water utility paid by the tenant so far can be deducted from the tenant’s next rent payment,” continued the Nov. 8, 2022, order.

After that, Malek says she stopped sending Liao money for the water bill, and also deducted what she had already paid from subsequent rental payments.

So when Malek got a notice on the door from Halifax Water Feb. 10, stating service would be cut off, she was shocked.

Malek says the landlord stopped paying the bill and left her taps dry.

June Liao refused multiple requests from CTV for an interview and instead entered into a lengthy discussion via text message.

In the exchange, Liao alleges the 2021 lease provided to residential tenancies was a “fake lease” and had been forged, but would only provide a copy of the second lease when asked for the original.

She also says Malek can turn the water back on by paying the utility the outstanding balance and insisted the water account is in Malek’s name.

CTV asked Liao by text if she made a disconnect request with Nova Scotia Power to turn off the electricity at the address, but received no response.

Malek says none of Liao’s allegations are true, and that Halifax Water told her she can’t get the water turned back on because she’s not the account holder.

“Even if she thinks I forged the lease, why is she not going to the tenancy board? Why is she not going further? Show me the lease,” says Malek.

According to Halifax Water, 40 days after a bill is issued, regulations allow service to be turned off if the bill hasn’t been paid.

The utility says account information, such as the amount owing, can’t be shared with anyone other than the account holder. But it adds anyone can make a payment on an account if they have the account number.

Malek shared a photo with CTV of a Halifax Water bill for her address from September 2021 that shows Liao as the account customer.

“So now the Halifax bylaw, they're trying to work with the Halifax Water, what to do to get it on,” says Malek.

A spokesperson with the city of Halifax confirms municipal staff visited the home on March 1, and that at the time, “the unit did not appear to have access to running water.”

Public affairs advisor Klara Needler says an order was issued to the property owner that day “to immediately reinstate water supply.” Needler adds failure to do so would result in fines.

“How can we avoid situations where this is happening...to resolve disputes before they get to this point?” asks Joanne Hussey, a community legal aid worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid, “And how do we make sure that issues like water and basic utilities, and really, the basic necessity of housing are being provided for, and that those things are not being taken away from people as part of that struggle?”

Hussey says the orders made by residential tenancies can only be enforced by taking matters of non-compliance to small claims court. She adds such tenancy decisions are not public, so it can be hard to track if a landlord is under multiple orders.

When it comes to bylaw enforcement through a municipality, Hussey adds that process takes time.

“There isn’t a clear, quick way to address a situation like that,” says Hussey, “and I think it really speaks to the pre-existing power imbalance between landlords and tenants, that the landlord has control over your housing and oftentimes over things like your heat, or lights, or water. So that puts tenants in a really vulnerable situation.”

“I feel like the system has failed us,” says Malek. She says enforcement is too slow, and landlords in general need to be held accountable.

Malek says she plans to take the matter to court, while also looking for a new place to live.

“What I want, what my family wants, we just want to live somewhere safe, where we pay to live,” she says, “we want to be able to be respected as tenants and that we don’t have to worry about something like this happening again.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/vaIEbOl

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

[frankdowling]

Which Property Management Style Is Right For You?

Like many Firsts, becoming a landlord is exciting and daunting. It's an excellent way to earn ongoing income and take benefit of some of the tax leaves offered on property expenses.

A professional property manager? DIY property management? An online property management platform, which Property Management Strathmore style is right for you?

Professional property management aims to secure the property, reduce vacancies, find the best tenants, care for the investment, and help maximise rental return.

Here are some of the essential things you should consider before making your decision on who will manage your property:

❖      Secure The Best Tenants

Targeted marketing and thorough tenant cover help to find tenants, and clear, concise, and ongoing communication helps to keep them.

When landlords place trouble on their property without doing their due diligence, the mistake can be costly. If eviction notices are needed and action occurs, it can cost up to three months' rent plus the cost of any damage that the distressed tenant may have caused.

Consider when your preferred property management Strathmore service can devote the time and resources to secure the best tenants for your investment property.

❖      Minimise Vacancies

Tenant holding should be one of the top priorities for every landlord. Without tenants means, a landlord is without income. And just like in business, keeping great tenants is the most cost-effective than finding new ones.

Of course, all landlords will experience tenant turbulence. When this happens, you should understand the proper rent set and when to advertise your property – you don't have to promote it before you can access your property; otherwise, you won't know its current condition.

❖      Care For The Investment

Property inspections are essential in ensuring your investment is being looked at, and any necessary maintenance or repairs are addressed.

When performing regular inspections, you must know what to look for – are there any pets, are there more people living on the property than stated on the lease agreement, or has furniture been moved to hide floor or wall damage?

A well-maintained property increases its value. When it comes to improving the rent, it's a great idea to consider the property's condition.

❖      Maximise Rental Return

Every landlord wants their investment property to appreciate and their rental return to increase.

One of the best locations to start is your local rental market. If you understand the market rate and the type of tenant you wish to attract, you'll have a better chance of attracting them by setting reasonable rent.

❖      Know The Law

Managing a property is similar to managing a small business –therefore, professional property managers exist. To stay in business, landlords desire to understand their landlord responsibilities and duties, the rental law and stay up-to-date on fair trading laws and practices.

The landlord's most important responsibility is to guarantee the property's safety and ensure no damage is caused to the tenants and the neighbours.

❖      Conclusion

The critical outcome is that property management is more than an out-of-the-box and one-size-fits-all solution. Professional Property Management Strathmore service, done well, is about the landlord and the tenant and tailoring a service to meet the needs of people connected to each property.

[sellmyhomeforcashlosangeles]

L.A. moves closer to ending COVID-19 eviction protections

With a Los Angeles City Council committee voting to repeal the COVID-19 rules at the end of January, some of the country's longest-lasting COVID-19 protections against eviction moved closer to coming to an end. Under the plan, L.A. landlords will be able to evict tenants for unpaid rent and other reasons even if they have been hit by COVID-19 starting February 1st, in accordance with the previous restrictions on such evictions that have been in place since March 2020. Sell My Home Fast Los Angeles “We must put in place long-term protections for our tenants while still preserving the economic well-being of our small, mom-and-pop landlords,” said Council President Nury Martinez who also chairs the city’s Ad Hoc Committee on COVID-19 Recovery and Neighborhood Investment. “We can’t forget that these policies are intended to ensure that our homeless crisis does not become any worse as a result of the pandemic.” The plan will be presented to the Full Council for a vote at an upcoming meeting before taking effect. Following an hour of public testimony from landlords and tenants, the committee's decision was based on an appreciation for their input. Many property owners identified themselves as small apartment complex owners who have been struggling under the burden of eviction restrictions for years. Some said that They cannot move into their own units because of the difficulty to remove nonpaying tenants. Others described inflation-driven maintenance costs, increased city fees, and tens of thousands of dollars in back rent while trying to keep up with current rental prices. “The economy has fully been reopened. Vaccines are widely available. The president of the United States said the pandemic is over,” said Fred Sutton, a senior vice president at the California Apartment Assn., a landlord trade group. “The conditions of 2020 are completely different than today.” In comparison, renters claimed that the protections have been a saving grace while contending with the economic and health impacts of the pandemic. Arnulfo Soria, a renter in South L.A., said he lost work and contracted COVID-19 four times while living in an apartment with his four children and five grandchildren. The eviction protections “are the only thing that has kept us from becoming homeless,” said Soria, 52. “Lifting the protections is reckless and inhumane.” Soria, who is an organizer with the tenant group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and others pushed the council to add stronger permanent tenant protections before letting the emergency orders expire. Soria fought hard alongside others to make sure that additional measures were put into place to help protect tenants in California even after the expiration of emergency orders. On Wednesday, the legislature's Rent Stabilization Task Force met to examine a number of rental rules. One proposal would allow landlords to raise rents in rent-controlled units — around three-quarters of the city's apartment stock — starting in February 2024. Such increases have been prohibited in those buildings since March 2020. Committee members also want to consider extending citywide bans on evicting tenants without documented lease breaches to include additional apartments. The city's committee members stated that they were attempting to balance the difficulties faced by tenants and landlords, as well as emphasize that the city's emergency protections had outlasted those of other major cities throughout the United States. The city's housing department initially proposed eliminating the COVID-19 anti-eviction restrictions at the end of the year. However, Wednesday's legislation would extend coverage for another month.

#sell my home for cash los angeles #sell my home fast los angeles #sell my house fast los angeles ca

[sellhousefastcolorado]

Don’t Get Duped! 5 Common Real Estate Scams and How To Avoid Them

Home-related hoaxes are unfortunately becoming more common. In fact, last year real estate cybercrime losses totaled over $350 million, which is a 64% increase from the previous year. If you want to keep your money and your worry, it's crucial to be aware and on the lookout for frequent fraud. Continue reading to learn about the most prevalent real estate scams taking place right now, as well as how to avoid them. Cash For Houses Colorado 1. Rental scams There are several forms of rental fraud, and they all have devastating consequences for your financial well-being. “More than 5.2 million renters in the U.S. lose money in a given year because of rental scams,” says Theresa Raymond, a real estate broker at Tennessee Smoky Mountain Realty. The number of phony rental ads has increased. In this scenario, a con artist or a group posts an incorrect rental ad and requests a deposit or lease payment from the potential renter. Keep an eye out for rental advertisements that look too good to be true, or are otherwise disconnected from reality. “It starts with an online listing for a rental property that is too good to be true,” says Shaun Martin, owner, and CEO of Denver Real Estate Solutions in Colorado. “The rent is significantly lower than market value, and the photos look amazing. When you contact the ‘landlord,’ they will say they are out of town and unable to show the property in person. They will ask you to wire the deposit and first month’s rent sight unseen. Of course, once you send the money, you will never hear from them again.” Working with a landlord or agent who requests money before you see the property is a red flag, according to Raymond. 2. Wire scams Most real estate wire frauds follow a similar pattern: they utilize a phony ruse. “This is basically a scam where someone pretends to be your real estate agent by hacking into or copying their contact information and calling you to deposit good-faith money or an earnest deposit into a fake bank account,” says Ron Wysocarski, a real estate broker based in Port Orange, FL. 3. The bait and switch The bait-and-switch swindle is as old as time, but it's gaining momentum among more novice purchasers who are attempting to navigate the ups and downs of the real estate market. “This is one of the most common scams I’m seeing, especially in large metropolitan areas,” Martin says. “The scam artist will advertise a property for sale or rent at an unbeatable price. When you call or email to inquire about the property, they will say it has already been sold or rented, but they have others that are just as good. They will try to get you to tour the other properties, which are usually overpriced or in poor condition.” 4. Faking interest Falsely advertising a property's positives is unfortunately common in the industry, but there are occasionally fraudsters who go too far and try to sell subpar homes. “The overhyped or pressurized offer process is happening with more regularity for some properties,” says Doug Greene, owner of the Philadelphia-based Signature Properties Philly. “In fact, I sometimes even see this for homes that have been sitting on the market for months on end. I’ll call and ask about the listing and current situation only to find that apparently there’s tons of activity and offers being drafted from multiple buyers. How can that be? Why all of a sudden is it a popular property?” 5. A lockout clause Lockout clauses are particularly dangerous because so much is at stake. “Home sellers in financial straits are a common target of this con,” says Robin Antill, director at Leisure Buildings. “A buyer, aka the con artist, who seems to be in a hurry to close the deal may pressure you into a contract with a holding clause that bans you from selling your home to anybody else. The con artist gambles that you will pay any amount to get the deal done quickly, and uses that knowledge to his advantage by asking for admin fees or even a drop in the agreed-upon price. ”

#sell house fast colorado #cash for houses colorado #sell my house for cash colorado

[cashhomebuyersatlanta]

How to sell your house with tenants in Atlanta

As part of your overall strategy for maximizing the returns on your investment in real estate, exit strategies are essential. Smart investors understand the importance of staying on top of changes in the real estate market, and whether they will need to exit earlier than expected, must be vigilant. The strategy we use to manage our real estate portfolios may be affected by changes in our personal lives, which could mean selling the property with a tenant. Whatever reason you may have decided that the timing was right for your sale, continue reading to learn how to sell your house with tenants in Atlanta .

Sale Termination Clause

The sale termination clause allows you to terminate your lease and legally end existing leases, as long as the property is not subject to any changes. It is always beneficial to offer the tenants benefits in exchange for the listing period. This could include a lower rent, flexibility with the move date, or payment of a portion of the moving expenses. It is important to ensure that the rights and interests of tenants are protected. A professional real estate attorney should verify the legality and compliance of any contract.

Notifying Tenants

If you want to sell your house, you must give proper notice, communicate openly and maintain a positive relationship with your tenants. You also need to comply with all local, state, and federal guidelines. Also, provide details about the intention to sell and information regarding cooperation with laws governing tenants regarding showing occupied units on the market. But, be considerate, especially if there are extenuating conditions.

Difficult Tenants

If your screening did not protect you, you might find yourself trying to sell your house with tenants in Atlanta . Many landlords are forced to sell their property when they have troubled tenants. They may then move on from being difficult to unreasonable. In the meantime, you may have to start costly eviction proceedings. If volatility increases, your chances of experiencing severe damage to the property can rise, sometimes costing thousands. You might consider keys for money if they are not cooperative with showings. It is an incentive that will pay the tenant a large cash sum to vacate the property.

Cash Homebuyers Atlanta

Are you looking to sell your house with tenants in Atlanta ? The fastest and easiest way to sell your house is directly to professional home buyers in Cash Homebuyers Atlanta. There are no hidden fees, commissions, or closing costs. Also, there are no hassles associated with showings and expenses for repairing, marketing, and prepping the property. Because we want you to make the best possible profit from your property, Cash Homebuyers Atlanta is completely transparent. So we will show you how much you could earn by selling your property on Atlanta market vs. directly selling it to Cash Homebuyers Atlanta. We’ll also give you all details about the expenses and profit of each method of selling so that you can understand our offer, which we believe you’ll find fair. Cash Homebuyers Atlanta purchases house as-is for cash. They also provide a guaranteed closing date. This is usually within a matter of days. Ask about our current inventory and the best investment properties in Atlanta if your goal is to defer taxes using a 1031 exchange. Call Cash Homebuyers Atlanta at 770-769-5295.

from Cash Home Buyers Atlanta https://www.cashhomebuyersatlanta.com/sell-your-house-with-tenants-in-atlanta/

#Sell your house fast #We buy houses

[kenney05becker]

Why You Should Invest In Commercial Real Estate

The prospect of purchasing a prime piece of commercial real estate is extremely exciting for investors. Unless you are very comfortable and familiar with the buying, selling, and maintenance of commercial properties, you may find the process somewhat confusing. Fortunately, the information found in this article is sure to clear up some of your most basic questions. If you buy and sell real estate as a business, avoid having any rental vacanies. Empty properties don't make money, they lose money. If a property is sitting empty for a signficant period of time, sell it. No matter how great an investment it was when full, an empty rental is worthless to you. An important tip to remember with rental real estate is to get the entire contract and terms in writing. This is important because this is your property and if anything goes wrong during the duration of rental, you want as much on paper to back you up as possible. One important tip to remember when investing in commercial real estate is to buy a property with as many units as you are able to afford. Casas en venta en Tuxtla Gutierrez is important because your income ratio will increase with the more units you are renting out. While you do have to pay more upfront, your return on the investment will be much greater. On the real estate market both buyers and sellers are well advised to remain open until a potential deal is well and truly sealed. It is tempting to commit to a particular offer or home when the sale process is just starting. There is a great distance between an interest expressed and money changing hands; homeowners who commit themselves to a deal too early risk getting taken advantage of. When considering purchasing rental real estate, keep in mind that if you invest in rentals near a local university your tenants will most likely be students. If this is appealing to you remember to write leases which include specific rules about parties and additional roommates. Also be aware that your tenants may not be long term, and vacancies in rental units will rise during the summer. When you lease a commercial site it is very important to that pest control is kept up-to-date. Casas en venta en Puebla is especially important when an area is known to have pest and rodent problems. Prior to signing a lease, ask your agent what the current pest control policies are. One tip to being a good landlord is to make sure you check the references of anyone you would like as a tenant. Sometimes people can put on a good show and seem like they would be good tenants when in reality they would create a lot of problems for you. Better to be safe than sorry. Be sure to do research on commercial lenders. You may be able to find a great deal somewhere you were not expecting. Also note you will be required to put up a hefty down payment. Keep in mind that if the deal falls through there typically will be no personal liability and commercial lenders may be lenient if you borrow a down payment from a different lender. Although the opposing party is not your friend, there are a few times when you will want to work together if possible. After you have both done your inspections, it can be worthwhile to get together for coffee to compare notes. If you find a discrepancy, one or both of your inspectors were probably not completely thorough. When purchasing a piece of commercial real estate one of the first things you want to consider is the purpose of it. Will it be for a retail outlet, or a service oriented business? Knowing what you are going to use the space for is half the battle when purchasing commercial real estate. One thing to think about when purchasing commercial real estate is why the previous owner is selling it. Sometimes, Casas en venta en Tuxtla Gutierrez are selling it because of a problem with the property itself. For example, it could be prone to insect infestation, or perhaps in a more bizarre scenario be the target of repeat break ins due to a vendetta. Now that have armed yourself with a variety of useful and practical tips on commercial real estate, you will be better prepared to be an effective buyer, seller, or both. Keep this advice in mind as you consider your next move in the game of commercial properties and real estate.

#Casas en venta en Tuxtla Gutierrez #Casas en ve

[panstellar-home]

8 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Own Mini House (As An Investment)

Renting a home has pros and cons. On the one hand, you won’t have to worry about maintenance costs or wait for plumbing repairs. On the other hand, you won’t have much control over the look and feel of your home. If you’ve been thinking of investing in real estate as an alternative to high rent prices and long lease terms, then starting your own mini house as an investment could be a good idea. We see many people renting homes these days because they don’t want to buy properties that need lots of maintenance or are located in undesirable areas with low resale value. However, renting is not always ideal either because it locks you into one location and makes it difficult to personalize your living space. Here are 8 reasons why starting your own mini house as an investment might be a good idea for you in this regard:

You can choose your own location.

When you invest in a mini house, you have the choice of selecting the exact location that you want. You can pick the neighborhood, the street, and the lot on which to build it. If you currently rent a home, you don’t have the same flexibility when it comes to location. That’s why some people who have rented for a long time have started to look into buying mini houses. They can build them in any location they like, and they can move them as needed if they decide to relocate to a different part of the country at some point in their lives.

It’s an easy way to build equity.

The mini house you build will probably increase in value over the years as you add improvements and renovations to it. That’s how you’ll build equity, which is an important component of the house-buying process. You can use your equity to secure a conventional home loan so that you can purchase a home of your own one day.

It’s a good way to get the feel of home ownership.

If you want to get a feel for what it will be like to own a home, then building your own mini house as an investment is a great idea. You’ll be in control of the design and the materials used to build it. You can also select the utilities and fixtures used in the house to get a feel for what the day-to-day responsibilities of home ownership are like. It’s a lot easier to make these decisions when you’re building your own mini house rather than purchasing a house that someone else built.

You can make it energy efficient.

Building your own mini house gives you the opportunity to make it energy efficient right from the start. You can select the right type of roof, windows, and HVAC system for your needs to help reduce utility costs over the course of a few years. If you rent a home, you don’t have the luxury of making these decisions when it comes to energy efficiency.

You’ll know exactly what you want when you buy.

When you build a mini house, you’ll know what you want in a future home. You can experiment with different floor plans, choose the best layout for your needs, and decide what type of amenities you want in the house. You can also experiment with different design elements to see what you like best. When you finally buy a house, you’ll have a better idea of the type of home that you want. This will make the home-buying process quicker and easier.

The rent you pay is an investment.

When you rent a home, you’re essentially paying money for the equity in the property. The landlord owns the property, and he’s charging you for the right to use it. When you invest in a mini house, the rent you pay is an investment in your own future. You’ll be building equity in the mini house as time goes by, and you’ll have a larger down payment when the time comes to purchase a home.

It’s a stepping stone to owning your own home.

If you decide to build a mini house, you’re halfway there when it comes to owning your own house. You’ll have gained experience with home improvements, design decisions, and the day-to-day responsibilities of being a homeowner. You’ll also have saved up a down payment thanks to the rent you’ve been paying during the building process. Having a mini house as an investment gives you a leg up when it comes to purchasing a conventional home.

It will give you practice for future renovations.

Building a mini house is a good way to get practice for future renovations. You can experiment with different types of materials and fixtures. You can also try different layouts to see what works best for your needs. This knowledge can help you save money on future renovations because you won’t have to hire a contractor to do work that you can do yourself. You’ll also know what materials are best for the job.

Conclusion

When you start your own mini house, you take control of the design, the location, and the materials used to build it. This is a great way to get the experience of home ownership without having to buy a house immediately. It’s also a great way to get practice for future renovations with a lower cost of risk.

[moonbeambucky]

Hey Neighbor (Part 1)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Word Count: 1907 Warnings: none

Summary: You had a plan and then life came along with one of its own. With your future almost derailed you worked hard to get yourself back on track and finally everything seemed to be going right… that is, until your new neighbor moved in.

A/N: What started as an idea back in 2017 is finally here and I’m so excited!! I hope you love it as much as I do! A huge thank you to my wonderful beta Sam @buckyofthemyscira​ and to Allie @all1e23​​ who’s helped me keep my sanity while trying to write. Feedback is always appreciated!

HEY NEIGHBOR MASTERLIST

For an August evening it’s surprisingly comfortable, devoid of that awful humidity that leaves you choking on the thickness in the air. Yet it’s still warm enough to quickly melt the ice in your glass; condensation pooling on the outside, leaving a ring of water on the small stack of papers your drink is settled on.

Golden toned clouds cover the sky as the sun begins to fade, each day decreasing its presence by a few minutes before giving way to the darkness that would envelope the evening. It wasn’t a dramatic change, nor was it something most people would pay attention to, though it was something you had been accustomed to taking note of.

You looked forward to seeing the sun, feeling its heat on your skin as you stepped out of the office after a long day of work. As other people on the street rushed towards the subway you stood off to the side, letting your spirit recharge with its warm glow.

These days you seldom had time for yourself, moments when you could enjoy the nothingness, where you could stop and breathe, and take in the world around you. The murmured voices of the passersby, the hissing sound of the bus as it opens its doors, the soft strum of a guitar, the endless car horns and the sound of traffic that keeps this city alive like a beating heart.

The heat of your laptop warmed your thighs as you thumbed through a textbook. You ignored your rumbling stomach that begged you for a real dinner but you were determined to finish up this last part of your paper before you gave in to its whining demands.

You were working towards your Master’s Degree in Social Work but it had taken a lot longer than you expected, and juggling a full time job while taking part time classes made it more difficult but you were determined to achieve your dream.

You thought it would be simple when you first moved to New York; go to college, get your degree and find a job. Well, life has a funny way of doing what it wants despite the plans you imagined. Halfway through getting your undergraduate degree your living arrangements changed. Initially you were sharing an apartment with a few other students but your landlord hadn’t told you he was months into foreclosure and suddenly you found yourself scrambling to find a place to live.

The first instinct you had was to ask your current roommates if you all wanted to find something else together but one of them planned on moving in with a friend temporarily since she was about to graduate and the other wanted to live alone. You scoured the internet for another room rental but nothing looked safe or legitimate, and searching through Facebook groups for student rentals was fruitless. Nothing was available considering it was the middle of the semester, so you quickly began an apartment search.

Your definition of expensive drastically changed since moving to New York. Even simple things like food and coffee had an up charge; a small, no– large price to pay for city living, and rent was no different. You thought what you were paying to live in a small room was a lot, but as you searched for apartments your heart dropped. Even the smallest studio cost thousands a month.

There was one that caught your eye, the price was decent but still more than what you were currently paying. You attempted to work out a plan, thinking you could use some money from what little savings you had to make up the difference for the first month or two and hope your part time job would increase your hours. Things would be tight but there was a chance you could make it happen.

Your hope was crushed the next day when you went to see the apartment, a five story walk up that reeked of musty water. The cracked plaster walls were very off putting as were the suspicious black spots along the baseboards. The bathroom was much smaller than the photos, with hardly any room to even turn around in. Still you debated making this work as long as the suspected mold was taken care of until you opened the kitchen cupboards and screamed. A dark mass of large cockroaches scattered away from the light cementing your decision that you could not live here.

That night you texted your friend from home, Wanda, telling her about the horrible apartment and crying on the phone as she called to comfort you.

Wanda had been your best friend since you met in middle school. You always hoped she would join you in New York but you understood her reasons for wanting to be close to home.

“Wan, I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” you cried.

The clock was ticking and you still hadn’t found a place to live. Every day you searched through all the listings on Zillow, Apartments.com and Craigslist, and every day your anxiety increased. It seemed like there was no way to be a full time student if you wanted to live in New York.

You called your parents to let them know what was going on and asked for advice. Through many tears you had come to a painful decision, you needed to get a full time job. They offered to help with rent while you finished up this semester which you appreciated, knowing they really couldn’t afford the extra expense either. Your idea was to go to school part time, taking whatever courses you could at night or on the weekends. You were still reaching for your goal, you would just be taking a slower path.

A new listing popped up for an apartment in Chelsea that was about three times your current rent. Walking into the building your stomach was bubbling with excitement. Everything was bright and clean and the moment you stepped into the apartment you were overcome with joy; this place felt like home.

A smile spread across your face as you looked around the studio. Walking in there was a small kitchen to the right, with a slim refrigerator, small stove and just enough prep space beside the sink. Checking the cabinets you were relieved to know it was free of any insect roommates.

The bathroom was behind it, looking newly renovated while still emulating a classic vintage style of black and white tiles. The main room felt large with the window on the back wall letting in a good amount of sunlight. The cream colored walls also brightened the space against the longest wall of exposed, worn brick. The floors were a beautiful dark walnut that made everything feel warm.

You always thought love at first sight was a myth but you were proven wrong, you fell in love with this apartment immediately. You signed a lease and gave a deposit and suddenly everything seemed like it would fall into place. There was still the daunting task of finding a full time job but you felt encouraged.

Two weeks later you moved into your new apartment, and while you should have been studying for a test you were more interested in unpacking and decorating, making everything perfect. With a few nails into the drywall you hung a curtain rod above your bed, stringing fairy lights behind delicate sheer drapery that defined a cozy sleep space.

Laying back against your pillow you imagined what your apartment would look like eventually when you had the money to fill it with furniture, but for now it was perfect.

You had been on a few interviews and nearly had a job or two before they realized you wouldn’t be able to start for another six weeks. It was disappointing but you didn’t give up and that’s when you found yourself interviewing for Stark Industries.

A confident smile held strong on your face when you told the interviewer Ms. Parker you would be able to start when your semester was over. This led you both into a discussion about college as she told you about her teenage nephew who was interested in the STEM field and had begun looking into college options. Ms. Parker liked you a lot, and the job was yours as soon as you were ready for it.

You became the administrative assistant to Maria Hill, Director of Research and Development who worked closely with the senior staff. You had seen the infamous Tony Stark only once, popping his head out of the conference room as Ms. Hill and CEO Pepper Potts continued to chat.

From your desk you admired the women you aspired to be as confident as some day. Social work was a tough field, one where you needed to balance composure and empathy with assertiveness.

While working at Stark Industries you managed to take two classes per semester, fitting them in on nights and weekends. You wished you would have been able to do more but even this was burning you out quickly. You had little time to socialize but knew this would be worth it in the end.

A few years passed and had life not derailed your plan you would have had your Master’s by now, instead you had one last class to finish before you needed to complete 1200 hours of an internship. You pushed that off until the end, knowing it would take you some time to find a place that would accept you. Even though you would be working for free most places wanted you there at times that conflicted with your paying job.

As the sun began its slow descent the noise of the city increased and you had to shut your window to block out the sounds. All but one.

The soft guitar had increased in volume playing a familiar tune you heard every night. It wasn’t a song you’d ever heard before but your neighbor had played it often enough it was in your head. Instead of writing about a social worker’s role as an advocate for protecting human rights your mind drifted along with the melody.

It was a nice song but not one you wanted to hear every night and yet, every night your neighbor played like they were performing a concert instead of being considerate to the fact that they have neighbors, some of whom are trying to write a damn paper!

You haven’t seen this neighbor yet but you heard him moving into the apartment about a month ago. The paper thin walls allowed you to hear everything, from the instruments he played to the various women. Oh yes, he played them too, using a different one each night. Unfortunately you were able to tell the difference between each one by the sounds of the shrieks and moans that were burned into your mind until you decided to wear headphones to sleep.

Any attempts to continue your paper are futile and so you pack up your laptop and books and head down to the cafe a few blocks away that stays open late. It’s unfortunate that on top of the expensive rent and the cost of school you had to leave the comfort of your apartment to spend more money while occupying space in the cafe just to do your homework; all because of that selfish “Music Man” that you couldn’t wait to give a piece of your mind to.

PART 2

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes series

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

Fortune’s Rule, Part 2

Here’s the second part of story. You can find the first part here. Damian does make his appearance in this one! I *think* the next part will be the final one.

Pairing: Damian Priest x OFC

Word count: 3,268

Content advisory: Nothing for this part, unless you count some references to the violent bits in the first part. 

50 days.

You spin the plastic coin on the table in front of you and sip your beer while you contemplate it. The coin says 30 days because it counts from when you first started Narcotics Anonymous, but really it’s 50 days since you’ve taken any kind of drug except alcohol. You know that you’re not supposed to touch that either but it’s not like you’re getting dead drunk. Just a drink to take the edge off. You work in a bar. It would be a bummer for the clients and the rest of the staff if you refused to drink anything at all. Besides, alcohol was never the problem. The other stuff was the problem. 

Still, you’ve avoided mentioning anything about working in a bar or having a few drinks a week to anyone at your NA meetings. You’ve told them that you’re a waitress at a restaurant. That’s almost the same thing. 

You look around the cramped room that’s become home. It came furnished and the landlord lets you pay in cash every week, which is the arrangement you need, but it’s not exactly thrilling to come back to at the end of a shift. There’s a small table that looks like it’s out of the seventies that just barely fits between the end of the bed and the wall. And you have to be careful to push the sole chair all the way in when you get up or it blocks the door. There’s one grimy window that looks out onto the fire escape and the alley below where homeless people and hookers come to relieve themselves or take whatever drugs they’ve managed to get their hands on. 

It’s irritating that you know you could actually afford a better place; not an expensive place but an actual apartment. Between the amount remaining in the bag you grabbed from the sinking car and the salary you’re pulling down from work (although that’s under the table), you’re doing better than the residents of this shithole building. But getting an apartment would mean putting your name on a lease, getting a credit check, declaring income. That’s still not safe. You don’t know if that will ever be safe. 

45 days ago, you’d come to in the night lying face down in the woods, moss and twigs and dirt stuck to your skin everywhere. You felt like someone was pounding a railway spike into your forehead and when you touched the point where the pain was centered, you could feel a cut. Your arms hurt. Your ribs hurt. Your knees hurt. You were soaking wet. But you were awake and you had a bag of money underneath you. 

The moon was so bright that it illuminated the area around you, not that it helped much. You were in the wild. After a few minutes, you became aware of some unnatural noise coming from near the river and squinted to see what was there. 

The commotion was coming from the far side of the river, the whirring of a heavy engine and the grinding of tires against the ground, followed by men’s voices. This repeated a few times and you crept forward, staying on your stomach, to get a better look. That’s when you’d seen the lights. Flashlights, the flashing amber light of the tow truck, the blue and red of a police car parked a little further back. You had to squint because the lights hurt your eyes but squinting hurt even more. But gradually, you’d been able to see what was happening: they were pulling the car out of the river. It was agonizingly slow work but inch by inch, your boyfriend’s car was rising from its murky resting place. 

“Shit!” yells one of the men. “Stop it, cut the engine, we got a body!”

A body. Just one? Or just one that they could see? Did one person escape? Was there another body in the river? Did they know that this accident was connected to a drug crime? Did they even know about what had happened at that downtrodden little house, the one you’d fled? 

You never knew. 

You’d curled up next to a fallen tree trunk and tried to stay warm for the rest of the night. The pain in your head kept you from falling asleep and early the next morning, you’d started walking. You didn’t go back to the apartment you’d shared with Johnnie. You didn’t even go back to the town. You’d kept walking parallel to the highway, occasionally checking road signs to get your bearings. You’d walked for five days. You rested as little as possible, although the longer you walked, the more rest you needed. You drank water from streams or springs when you could find them, or directly out of the river. You ate leaves. You ate tree bark. You ate dirt. You hadn’t known enough to try the berries or mushrooms you saw along the way.

After five days, you finally reached the city. You’d been there before but not in years. It was far enough away from your town to be a hassle to get to. It was far enough away for you to disappear and be safe. 

You’d sat down at a fountain downtown and washed yourself off as best you could. Then you’d gone to the first greasy spoon you found and ate a huge breakfast. Then you’d found your way to the part of town where seedy landlords rented rooms to people who didn’t want to answer questions. 

For two weeks, you’d barely left your room and even then, you only left after dark. You expected the police to arrive at any time and haul you back home to face charges or at least to answer a lot of questions but it never happened. After those two weeks had passed, you knew there was no chance that the story was still in the news, if it ever had been, and you’d started to look for a job. You also joined Narcotics Anonymous. You went to meetings in the evening. You worked at night. After a month, you still felt uneasy that people might get too good a look at you, that someone was going to come for you. 

You take another gulp of your beer and touch your forehead. The cut has healed but it’s never stopped hurting. The pain wakes you up some days, bad enough to bring you to tears. But whatever damage you suffered, it’s going to have to get better on its own because going to a hospital is too risky. In case of an absolute emergency, you have your sister’s old driver’s license that you used to use to get into bars when you were underage. 

Unconsciously, your hand falls to the leather bag at your feet. You’d replaced the satchel the day after you’d found this place. Nothing fancy, just an old messenger bag but it was sturdier and had a good thick double zipper. The bag went everywhere you went, no exceptions. You slept with your arms wrapped around it. It was a little lighter than it had been but there was still plenty left. You’d never even bothered to count it. You bought what you needed and very little else: cheap food, thrift store clothes, a few cans of beer from the corner store. 

Your head throbs for a while, enough that the vision in your left eye goes a bit blurry, but then it subsides, as it always does. You’ve got this, you tell yourself. You made it out of the car. You made it out of the woods. You’ve bought yourself the time you need to figure out what to do next, how to make your life into something. 

Rather than climb into bed, you open a second beer. You can tell this is one of those nights that you need to stay awake until your body simply can’t handle it anymore. If you let yourself drift off to sleep, you can tell that the nightmares are going to come, the nightmares where you’re back near the river, trying to lift yourself but your head hurts too much and your soaked body is too heavy. And as you’re trying to get up, you see them: Cynthia crawls from the river, her body shattered and bloated, her eyes opaque, and nearby you can see Johnnie staring at you. His face is unchanged, but there’s blood streaming from his nose and mouth. He doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes stay locked on you as Cynthia creeps ever closer, snarling and sobbing. 

*

The best thing about your job is that you get some actual human interaction. You’re happy to talk to the regulars and to the ones who just stop in. It’s not a glamorous place but it’s a few steps above a true dive. There’s a long-standing clientele, people who were coming here before the current owner bought the place. But young people are showing up with increasing frequency, people desperate to find cheap rents and willing to take a chance on a neighborhood that’s still pretty scary. In a few years, this whole area is going to be gentrified and places like the one where you work will be hip hotspots and if you want to stay unknown, you’ll have to move somewhere else. Perhaps by then, you’ll be able to live something like a normal life. Perhaps you’ll find a way to a decent apartment and you’ll be able to make actual friends. Until then, you make friendly chit chat with the motley mix of patrons and keep yourself to yourself. 

By law, you’re allowed to stay open until two but by about twelve-thirty or so, it’s always empty. Your boss has told you to lock up whenever it gets dead and trusts that you won’t just keep the place open to get an extra hour or two of pay. And you’ve never once taken advantage of him. Your nest egg means you don’t have to. 

But sometimes, you’ll lock the door and pour yourself a drink (that you pay for) and sit in silence, watching the streets through the tinted windows, the cars of hollering college kids, the prostitutes hurling insults at drivers who disrespect them, the occasional wide-eyed suburbanites and tourists who came because a couple of edgy websites recommended a couple of nearby restaurants for a sort of “authentic” experience of the city. 

Mostly, though, you find yourself watching for Him. 

You don’t know who he is. You don’t even know his name, much less his back story, but the second you see him, it’s like there’s nothing else that exists. He seems to own, or at least be in charge of, the place across the street, the shop that advertises tarot, palmistry, charms, amulets, books of secret knowledge, and more. It has an inappropriate-seeming neon sign that screams “FORTUNES TOLD” and there’s a collection of strange trinkets in the window in front of a black curtain that obscures the interior. 

Whatever goes on in there, the place keeps the weirdest schedule you’ve ever seen. You’ve taken to casing it, dropping by work when you’re not really needed so that you can try to discern a pattern, but there is none. Sometimes, the place is open in the afternoons. Sometimes, it opens in the early evening, around when your shift starts. Often, it opens during the night, or right at the end of your shift. Sometimes, it stays open all night, which you know because a couple of times you’ve sat here waiting it out. Other times, it’s like the place only opens for an hour or two. 

The erratic schedule doesn’t seem to bother customers, though. They’ll show up whenever, sometimes visiting the bar and waiting until they see the sign flicker to life. Whenever he’s there, people show up. Especially women. 

You can’t blame them for that. The first time you saw him, it was like all the oxygen was sucked out of your body. Your head started to throb a little and you shivered, despite the fact that it was summer. There he was, tall and muscular, his sleeveless shirt showing off his powerful arms, marked with tattoos. His dark hair was shaved at the sides but cascaded past his shoulders. He’s given to running his long fingers through it, the movement consciously slow and sensual, as if he knows he has an audience. Sometimes, he’ll come out and smoke a cigarette on the doorstep, stretching out every part of his long frame in a way that leaves your throat dry. 

He seems to know a lot of the people who come to see him, or perhaps that’s just part of the act: he wants people to think he’s been waiting for them. 

Tonight, it’s close to one when he shows up, casual as ever, and your eyes are fixed to him as he opens the security door and disappears inside. A moment later, the neon sign flickers to life. You bite down on your thumb as you imagine yourself crossing the street as if you’re just curious because you work so close, telling him that there’s a man you’re intrigued by but are too shy to approach, and asking him to do a reading to tell you if there’s a chance for you. 

You’ve imagined this before. You’ve imagined this a lot. It’s a fantasy you’ve thought about many nights in your gross little room, thinking of how he’d grab you and throw you down on the table, tarot cards scattering everywhere, maybe The Lovers falling next to the two of you as you indulge your wild passions… 

Once he’s been inside for a few minutes, you finish wiping up, packing the bottles into boxes for return, counting the cash, and starting the dishwasher. Your tasks completed, you head out, locking the door behind you. It’s only when you cut an inadvertent glance across the street that you see him on the step, eyes fixed on you. 

He takes a drag from his cigarette and smiles at you, and you give him what you hope is  a natural looking smile in return. 

You start to head down the street when you hear a deep voice behind you. 

“Nice night.”

He grins again when you turn to look at him, like he’s pleased he caught your attention. 

“Yeah,” you answer, “very nice.”

The two of you lock eyes for a long moment and just as you start to leave, he speaks again. 

“You should come by sometime. I’ll tell you your future.”

“I don’t know if I believe in that,” you stammer. 

“Give it a shot. It’s on the house.”

He drops his cigarette and grinds it into the pavement with his heel, giving you another wicked grin as he steps back into the shop. And part of you wants to go rushing in after him but you stop yourself, because on the off chance that he is the real deal, you don’t want to risk anyone finding out who and what you really are. Better to go back to your dank little room and imagine what could happen from the safety of your bed. Which is exactly what you’re going to do. 

*

A couple of nights later, he ups the ante. 

Around eleven, he saunters into the bar like he owns the place and gives you a look like he can’t believe you haven’t taken him up on his offer. 

It’s not busy but there are a few guys lined up along the bar and two or three clusters of people at the tables, and you’re on your own, which makes it tricky because all you want to do is crawl on top of him and tell him all the nasty thoughts you’ve had about him. This is made worse by the fact that he doesn’t ever seem to take his eyes off you, shifting however he has to in order to make sure he’s always got you in his field of vision. He’s being incredibly obvious and doesn’t seem to care. 

“So what can I get you tonight?” you greet him brightly, trying to choke back your nervousness. 

“You know how to make a whiskey sour?” he asks in a voice that’s almost unnaturally deep and earthy. 

“Yeah, honey, I think I can figure it out.”

“Well, give it a try but I’ll warn you, I’m a pretty fussy guy when it comes to cocktails.”

“Oh good,” you sigh, “a critic.”

Truthfully, you don’t remember exactly what goes into a whiskey sour and you have to Google it. Then there’s the fun of finding the right ingredients, although you’re pleased to find out that the bar actually has them. You resist the urge to make a test one for yourself because you wouldn’t know what it was supposed to taste like anyway and whiskey has never been your thing. 

When you go to place it on the bar in front of him, you feel a soft tremor run through your body, like you’re afraid of his judgment but also because, looking into his dark eyes, you feel this sense of fate. Yes, you’re attracted to him. You’re very attracted to him and you haven’t felt that in a while. And you have a bit of interest in what it is he does, whether he believes there’s magic and power in the things he sells or if he’s just making a few bucks off gullible people. You even catch yourself wondering if he could be the real deal. 

He notices your hand shaking and gives a wry smile. 

“Am I scaring you?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” you snap back, more curtly than you intended. 

He raises his glass to you. “Here’s to the power of a good, long rest.”

Your head starts to throb a little and unconsciously, you touch your forehead, willing it to stop. 

“Must have been a hell of an accident.”

That’s enough to distract you and you turn to face him again. “I’m sorry?”

“You just flinched like you were in pain and you touched your head. There’s a little scar where you touched it. So I’m guessing you were in an accident not too far back.”

You’d thought that the scar was healed enough that other people wouldn’t notice. No one had mentioned it to you but now you figure they were just being polite.

“Just a bump on the head. I made out ok.”

“But maybe someone else didn’t?”

Once again, your whole body shakes and this time, it’s like your skeleton becomes hot, burning hot, your ribs especially pressing with the force of iron tongs into your chest. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” you hiss, hardly able to make sound. 

He keeps smiling his mysterious little smile and takes a long sip of his drink. “This is pretty good. Especially for someone who hasn’t made one before.”

“I never said that I hadn’t made one before. Just like I never said I was in an accident with someone else.”

He takes another deep swallow of the cocktail and rises to leave. “But I’m right about both, aren’t I?” Seeing your scowl, he continues, “I’m Damian and I have a gift for knowing things about people. If you wanna see how much of a gift, like I said, you should come by and let me read your fortune.”

“Yeah, maybe.” You try to sound casual but you know, even before he smiles triumphantly, that you’re going to accept his invitation as soon as you close up for the night. 

#damian priest fanfic #damian priest imagine #nxt imagine #nxt fanfiction #wwe fanfiction #wwe imagine #wayward wrestle writing

[alexuslawrence1]

Gentrified

1) Key Ideas 

New York City is a city that many refer to as home .Unfortunately, our home is changing every year at a rapid rate . We are losing our homes to white upper class people because Investors care more about the money than the actual  people in these neighborhoods. People of New York City call it “home” because in every neightborhood there is a community that has been built for decades . Local deli stores, laundromats and supermarkets are essentials for these neighborhood residents. Many of these buildings have been around for a years and residents have grown accustom to this way of life. However, gentrifiers see no significance in what the current residents are accustomed to because they want them out and new & rich tenants in . These neighborhoods and communities that raised many generations are rapidly turning into purely residential areas.

   Initially, I wondered why the Real Estate Scammers target low income areas because it is “ ghetto “ and full of violence . Who would want to move there?.... No one ,right ?

Real estate scammers target low income communities because theyknow they can “buy” million dollar brownstones off of low income residents without them knowing . in addition , they target low income communities because most of the residents are financially illiterate. Therefore, it is easier to buy “free” brownstones or offer loans for their property. Some people are fall into the gimmick and offer their houses over unknowingly ; Others , stay but eventually leave due to the financial strain and/or the lack of resources within the neighborhood .

All in All the key ideas in these 3 resources is that financial illiteracy is the main cause for minority communities fall victim to gimmicks in real estate . In addition , communities are gentrified because the people within the communities are not seen as residents but temporary subjects - because they are replaceable.

2) Short Interview with Latinx ( My mother ) 

Me : Mommy were there ever any signs of gentrification in your neighborhoods during the 80′s. 

Mommy : Well yes , I grew up in the Bronx , Ny ; home to most hispanics and blacks. However , the block I grew up on was predominantly hispanic. I would always witness homes getting renovated and rent prices increasing .. sometimes double . 

Me: Wow ! did gentrification ever happen to you personally . 

Mom : [tears ] , Yes , I had I lived in an apartment on Halsey Street . I loved that apartment because we would always have block parties , play double dutch and even cookouts .. it was a real community  there. However , the landlord started raising the rent after the first lease (1yr lease ) was up . My mom couldn’t afford the rent of the place , so we had to move . I was so devastated and I didn’t really understand why . Until , I noticed a lot of white people moving into the neighborhood while people of color were moving out . What’s crazy is that a few weeks after my family and I moved, friends of mine had also moved out for the same reasons . 

Me : That must’ve been devastating to see your hometown invaded by white people . You basically were replaced just for money . Besides gentrification , do you feel like there was anything that was happening during the 80′s that led to the downfall of your communities ? 

Mom : Of course ! The burning of the buildings. During The landlords or owners of the building would set their apartment buildings on fire for insurance money .. also to rebuild . With the new buildings they could attract the race they wanted ,.. the whites. My childhood building got burned down , all of my clothes , drawings , jewelry , burned down with that fire . I wasn’t surprised when the fire happened because I would always hear about fires happening throughout the bronx. There was speculation that the owners of the buildings paid little poor kids to burn their buildings down , so they wouldn't get their hands dirty. 

Me : Their own houses ? That is insane ! So the tenants are clearly just a number to him because he was willing to risk it all just to have new tenants ? 

Mom : Yes , we are just investments , the cheap investments until the expensive investments ( white people) start pouring in . 

Me : Any last thoughts 

Mom: Yes,

        Communities are our second home . Most of grew up fatherless, little to money and other problems . Therefore, we looked to our communities to raise us . These deli stores or buildings within our neighborhoods are essential for our daily life because they bring us together. It helps your mental health as well because you have someone to look forward to speaking with ( store cashier/ members on the block  ) or places to go (deli / laundromat ). It is sad , that I see history repeating itself in today’s day in age in neighborhoods like east New York . 

Me: Ok , thank you for your closing thoughts ! 

[notebooknebula]

Tim Bratz - Building Legacy Wealth Through Apartments & Commercial Real ...

https://www.jayconner.com/tim-bratz-building-legacy-wealth-through-apartments-commercial-real-estate-investments/

Building Legacy Wealth Through Apartments & Commercial Real Estate Investments.

Legacy Wealth Holdings is a trailblazer in the commercial real estate investment world. We are headquartered in Cleveland OH and invest in apartment buildings nationwide by joint venturing with local operators and passive lenders. Our investment strategy is simple: only invest for cash flow, only buy at wholesale prices, and create (never speculate) appreciation through value-add improvements and sweat equity.

Legacy Wealth Holdings was launched in 2009 as a socially conscious real estate investment company. Founder Tim Bratz was drawn to real estate because he saw the long term benefits of a solid investment.

Tim began his career in the competitive New York City real estate market working as a broker leasing ground floor retail units. Here, he saw the true potential of real estate to transform lives. Although Tim was limited in means, he spent his time reading, attending workshops, and networking with accomplished entrepreneurs learning that being resourceful was the ultimate path to becoming successful.

With this knowledge, Tim embarked on building his real estate company in Charleston, South Carolina, where he had relocated in search of a better quality of life. Arriving in 2008, after the real estate bubble burst, Tim quickly adapted and using a credit card, increased his limit and then wrote himself a balance transfer check to acquire the cheapest property he could find. 

Armed with his personal investment and plenty of sweat equity, Tim transformed a rundown duplex and turned a profit on his first deal. He then took those proceeds and reinvested them, while seeking private capital to expand his growing company. 

Today, Tim still uses this formula for success, which all starts with being resourceful and having the right mindset. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay Conner (00:02): Well, hello there! And welcome to another episode of Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner. I’m Jay Conner, your host. Also known as The Private Money Authority. And here on the show, we talk about all things that relate to real estate investing. Single family houses, commercial deals, self storage, land, small apartments, big apartments, flipping, rent to own, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We also talk about how to get your deals funded without relying on local banks or mortgage companies. How to sell houses fast. How to automate your business. To where you’re running your business and your business isn’t running you. And I have fantastic guests here on the show. Today is no exception. But before I introduce my guest today, I’ve got a free gift for you to check out. And that is if you’re looking for more funding for your deals, particularly here in the midst of COVID-19 and you don’t want to rely on banks, mortgage companies, or any kind of traditional funding, then I have got an on demand, free training for you right now on the internet.

Jay Conner (01:14): It’s only about 60 minutes long, but this training will show you the five easy and quick steps to get the funding for your real estate deals. Again, without relying on your, any of your own money, your own credit, et cetera. So you, after the show, you can check it out at www.JayConner.com/MoneyPodcast. That’s JayConner.com/MoneyPodcast. Well, my special guest today began his career in real estate in the competitive New York city. Can you believe real estate market? And he was working as a broker leasing these ground floor retail units. Well, in that experience, he saw and learned the true potential of real estate that can really transform lives. Now, although he was limited in his means and the amount of money that he had available to him at the time, he spent his time reading, attending seminars, networking, and hanging around very accomplished entrepreneurs, which by the way, is good advice for all of us.

Jay Conner (02:23): And he was learning that being resourceful was the ultimate path to becoming successful. What do you mean by resourceful? He’s going to tell us. So with his knowledge he embarked on building his real estate company and empire in Charleston, South Carolina, where he had relocated in search of a better quality of life. Now he got in Charleston back in 2008. Wow! After the real estate bubble had burst and he quickly adapted and he was using a credit card, increased his credit card limit, and then wrote himself a balanced transfer check to acquire the cheapest property he could find. We’re going to get him to tell us that story about how in the world he was able to use a credit card to buy his first house at only 23 years old. Well, anyway, armed with his personal investment and a lot of sweat equity. He transformed a rundown duplex and turned a profit on his first deal. Then he took those proceeds, reinvested them, and while seeking private capital to expand his growing company. Well, my special guest is the CEO and founder of Legacy Wealth Holdings, which was a real estate investment company that acquires and transforms distressed apartment buildings into high yield assets for their own portfolio. So with that folks, I’m so excited to have as my guest today, my friend, fellow mastermind member and real estate investor, Mr. Tim Bratz. Welcome to the show, Tim!

Tim Bratz (03:56): Hey, I appreciate you having me here, Jay! Excited to be here, man. I always looked up to you and I’m super pumped to be here and be chatting with you and sharing some knowledge with your audience. So appreciate you having me, man.

Jay Conner (04:08): Absolutely. Well, I’m so excited to have you on, because I mean, in just a few short years, you’ve got such a wide variety of experience. You have put your portfolio. I mean, my lands! Your current portfolio exceeds 4,000 units and is North with a valuation of about more than $350 million, Right?

Tim Bratz (04:32): That is correct. It’s kind of crazy. Right?

Jay Conner (04:35): So I’m not going to ask my questions in logical sequence. I’m just going to do stream of consciousness with you. How long did it take from you starting in commercial, doing commercial deals to going to a portfolio of 4,000 units? I mean, is that a 10 year stretch? Is that a five year stretch? What is that?

Tim Bratz (04:59): First started studying real estate and learning about it in 2005 when I was in college. I became a real estate agent 2009 or a 2007. Invested in my first property in 2009. Bought my first apartment building at the end of 2012. And it was an eight unit building.

Jay Conner (05:17): Wow. You answered my question. That’s fast!

Tim Bratz (05:21): Since I bought my first apartment.

Jay Conner (05:23): Yeah. And now you’ve got 4,000 doors or units, right? Yeah. That is amazing! So let’s start with, let’s start with your journey. Tell us your story of getting into real estate and how it has progressed your journey. And how has it grown.

Tim Bratz (05:44): Yeah, I think we all want it to go faster than it usually does. Right? And that was not any different in my case. I was going through college 2003 to 2007 when the market was going crazy before and everybody’s making money in real estate. And I was a money motivated kid at the age of 20 years old. So I had one of these painting companies in the summer rent a bunch of crews with my friends. We did a bunch of landscaping also. And then I interned for one of the largest home builders in the country and just realize I wanted to be a real estate investor, but I thought everybody got started in real estate and owning real estate by becoming a real estate agent. And so I’m from Cleveland, Ohio originally, but I moved out to New York city cause my brother was living out there at the time.

Tim Bratz (06:23): And after college I got my real estate license and I started brokering just like you had mentioned in the opening. Commercial and retail offices and retail spaces in Manhattan. And I, listen, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just kinda like doing the labor of going and finding, you know businesses that wanted to expand and then handing them off to somebody who knew what they were doing or finding a landlord who wanted to lease their space and then handed them off to somebody that they knew it was doing in our brokerage firms. So I was just really the workhorse, right? And so I knew enough that when I closed my first deal, it took about eight, nine months to close it. And it was 400 square feet.

Tim Bratz (07:06): And we signed a lease for $10,000 a month on this retail space. 12 year lease term, 4% annual increases. And I started doing the math and I’m like, Holy cow, this landlord’s gonna make almost $2 million from doing something once. And they’re gonna get paid on it for the next 12 years. Like I’m on the wrong side of the coin. I need to be owning real estate instead of brokering it. And so I moved down to Charleston, South Carolina for better quality of life and some good weather. And when I got down there is when the market crashed and everything was crumbling. And I was going through all these courses and seminars and learning as much as I possibly could. And when I was right, when I was about to pull the trigger on buying something that, you know, the market crumbles and I was like, I just showed up to the party and everybody’s leaving.

Tim Bratz (07:50): Right? And so nonetheless, nobody was giving money to a punk 23 year old kid. Who’d never done a deal before in the worst housing economy ever. And I had to get creative. And I think a lot of people say, Hey, I can’t do something because I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money, I don’t have the knowledge, I don’t have the resources. And I heard Tony Robin say, one time he goes, resourcefulness is the ultimate resource. You’re resourceful. You can find time and money and knowledge and all the other resources. And I think that’s something I’ve always kind of done is I don’t let somebody tell me I can’t do something. I asked questions about how can I do something. I think when you ask good questions that leads you down a path of getting good answers. It’s like Google, right?

Tim Bratz (08:35): I could Google search restaurants in Ohio. It brings up every restaurant in Ohio. And then I could Google search restaurants in Cleveland, Ohio, and it refines it to only Cleveland, then Italian restaurants in Cleveland, Ohio, it refines it even more. And so the more defined of a question that I think you asked, more definitive answer that you’re going to get. So I said, Hey, I can’t get money from the banks. I can’t get money from traditional lenders. All my friends are drunk in bars right now, cause they’re all 23 years old at the time. And not they’re blowing all their money at the bars. And nobody’s gonna lend me money. Like how can I get access to capital that I already have access? And I thought, well, I have a couple thousand dollars saved up in my bank account.

Tim Bratz (09:17): That wasn’t enough. But maybe I could get my credit card company to increase my limit. And I called them up and I said, Hey, I’m about to make a big purchase. Are you guys willing to increase my limit? And they said, how much do you need? I said, $100,000. And they said, absolutely not! Like, you’ve been a great customer for about 15 months, but that’s just not gonna happen. And I said, all right, well, how much are you going to give me? And they give me 15 grand. One five. And so I found the cheapest house in all of Charleston. This is after the market tanked in 2009 now. And I bought it essentially with a balanced transfer check on my credit card, bought it for $14,000 and put on sweat equity

Jay Conner (09:57): To make sure everybody understands, tell them about it. What is a balanced transfer check? Cause we’ve probably got some listeners that might want to use that strategy.

Tim Bratz (10:05): Well, it was, you know, it’s essentially something that credit card companies use in order to say, Hey, go from your MasterCard over to visa. And if you transfer your balance over to us, we’ll let you, you know, give you a balanced transfer check to go write a check over to your MasterCard. And then we’ll just put that balance to overhear on your visa. And so I don’t know if they still do it. I haven’t used one in a while, but that was like a big thing back in 2008, 2009. And so I was able to get my credit card limit increase. I got them to send me these perforated checks and I just wrote it to myself instead of like transferring a balance or anything like that. I just wrote myself a check for $14,900 and I maxed out my credit card.

Tim Bratz (10:48): I put all that money in my bank account. And then I went and bought this house. It was, they were asking 25 grand. I got it for, I offered 12, right? They came back at 20. I came back at 14, we ended up cutting a deal on it. So, and then I personally did all the work, you know, of YouTube and how to change out carpet and light fixtures and plumbing repairs, and all this stuff. And I turned around and sold it. And a little over a hundred days and I made about $14,000 on it net. And I was like, I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m making money, the worst housing market ever. So then I got into wholesaling, right? Wholesaling. I learned a little bit more about that. And I met amazing people in wholesaling who had money and were buying deals from me.

Tim Bratz (11:27): I could make a couple of bucks on it. And eventually what happened was they said, Hey, this kid’s got a decent work ethic and he knows how to find a good deal. Hey Tim, I can’t, I don’t have the bandwidth to take on more projects myself, but I still have more money. How could I lend you money? We just come up with some sort of like equity split on the deal. And that’s how I started doing several deals. Probably. I don’t know, the first 250 deals I did with some sort of equity split with private investors. And so, built up a small portfolio and ended up moving back from Charleston, South Carolina, back up to Cleveland, Ohio, and partnered up pretty much exclusively with a couple of guys who had a traditional business, made a lot of money in it and invested with me.

Tim Bratz (12:09): And so from 2012 to 2015, built up a portfolio, I don’t know about 130, 140 units in Cleveland. That’s when I bought my first apartment building. That partnership though went South in 2015, 2016, and we ended up liquidating everything. So I had to press the reset button on my business and it’s not exciting to do when you can. You know, I think that takes a lot of work to kind of get the, get the plane off the ground. And I’m like, Oh man, I got to start all over. But really it was a blessing in disguise where it allowed me to really spread my wings and do some other stuff. And people came out of the woodwork saying, Hey, man, I want to wanting to partner with you and want to do some deals with you. I’ve been wanting to lend you money.

Tim Bratz (12:50): And it just, it opened me up big time. Started to got into a mastermind for the first time in 2015, and that was just like mind boggling the opportunities that, and the connections that came from that. And so I liquidated my whole portfolio and in August of 2015, I started building my current portfolio. Although they took all my property away or not took it all away, but we liquidated all. They couldn’t take the insights, right? They couldn’t take the mindset, they couldn’t take the information. And I think that’s a really a key piece of once you learn, you get educated to how to do this stuff, you could do it over and over and over again. So I started from scratch and in August of 2015 and here we are five years later and I have a $350 million portfolio. It’s 90% apartments. And about 10% of some other asset classes. Office, a little bit of mixed use like retail. I have several self storage facilities. And a couple of vacation homes too.

Jay Conner (13:46): So really these 4,000 units, you’ve built all that in just the past less well, less than five years?

Tim Bratz (13:54): Yup. Just shy of five years now.

Jay Conner (13:56): So you’re starting from scratch. Well, you’re not starting from scratch, cause you still own the real estate in between your ears. Right. And the experience you’ve got, et cetera. So tell us that story. How do you start from scratch? You know, looking for and attracting capital. So, you know, I’ve done a ton of that myself. I teach it myself. I really want to hear your story. So how do you start raising the capital and all these commercial deals? How do you start finding the deals? And then if you can keep it to the 30,000 foot level, what’s a structure of a deal look like? How do you structure a deal? And I’m assuming you’re looking, at this portfolio, this portfolio were those all existing apartments, et cetera, that were distressed and you turn them around?

Tim Bratz (14:48): For the most part, we do a little bit of new construction also, but most of it I’d say North of 70% of it is definitely existing property. Maybe 75%, 80% is existing.

Jay Conner (15:02): Let’s start with raising the capital. What’s your strategy on raising the capital? Cause that’s a lot of capital.

Tim Bratz (15:09): Yup, we’ve raised. I mean, I have, and I don’t raise money from institutions or hedge funds and REITs and stuff like that. I raised money from individuals, right? Somebody who’s got a hundred thousand dollars in 401k or some entrepreneur who just exited their business and they’re sitting on a couple of million bucks.

Jay Conner (15:24): Yup. That’s what I do.

Tim Bratz (15:25): That’s everybody that I raise money from. They’re easy to work with. They’re too busy to complain or like breathing down your neck about what’s going on with the deal. As long as their checks hit and their deposits are made. They like going back to doing what they’re really good at and they understand leveraging other people’s efforts. And they’re really good at making money. They’re not that good at investing it. So they put it with somebody who does know how to invest it and then I can help them deploy it, make a good return. So here’s what I found because I’ve done a lot of different things. I had a big turnkey business. We were flipping about a hundred. Like when I get out of that, that past a business partnership, I went back into wholesaling and I got into like turnkey of flipping houses because I needed to build up my cash reserves again. And so while I was doing that whole process, I learned that there’s some people, there’s essentially two types of investors out there, that are looking for two different types of returns.

Tim Bratz (16:18): One is like a debt return, which is a very predictable, I deploy my money and I make 12% return on my investment at like clockwork. And I invest a hundred thousand dollars with somebody. I make a thousand dollars a month and I make 12% annual return on my money. That’s great. It’s very predictable. There’s no surprises there. And, but at the end of the day, they’re not building wealth, right. They’re making a good return and their army of money has a bunch of other soldiers now that they can then redeploy and they can make more and more money. And that’s one way of doing it. And then there’s other people that I found that like the equity investment side, where there’s equity upside, they can sell the property, double their money, but there’s also equity downside where they could lose money.

Tim Bratz (17:01): And there’s not a lot of predictability in consistent monthly payments in that regard. So I’ve realized there were two types of people, two types of investments. And there wasn’t really anything in the middle. When I started doing on the single family side is I started structuring the way that was a no brainer. I said, Hey, listen, I’ll pay you either 12% on your money. Or 15% of the profit, whichever is greater. That’s a no brainer. Worst case scenario make 12% of my money and potentially there’s equity upside in this thing without any downside on the equity. So that was a no brainer. And then when I started investing in apartment buildings, I did something similar. I realized that I couldn’t pay somebody 12% cause we’re talking about big dollar amounts and it would really eat up the cash flow, especially on these not performing apartment buildings that are heavily distressed.

Tim Bratz (17:51): So what I ended up doing is I offered a little bit less, you know, 8% to 10% fixed return on their investment. And my whole model is based on flipping houses, right? Like I never went to a course. I never on commercial real estate. I never, I didn’t get a real estate degree from some Ivy league school. My grandparents didn’t know what a bunch of commercial real estate I just learned about it from the school of hard knocks. And so what I ended up doing was I took the formula of, I gotta be all in for 65% of the after repair value. And that’s what I needed to be able to buy and renovate these houses for in order to sell it and make a profit. I took that exact same philosophy and formula and put it into apartment buildings. So in apartment buildings, very predictable of what it’s going to be worth because it’s all based on the income approach, not on sales comparables.

Tim Bratz (18:35): So I know what it’ll rent for. I know exactly what the expenses are. And so I can just figure out if I improve it and I get a fully occupied, put good management in place. It’ll generate this much money of net operating income. And in that area, it’ll appraise it, this sort of cap rate, which is kind of like a multiple on the NOI. And so it’s very predictable. If it’s gonna be worth $10 million, I need to be all in for six and a half million. If it needs a million dollars worth of work, I need to be able to, my maximum allowable offer is five and a half million dollars. Does that make sense? So the difference is I don’t sell the property. I turn around, I refinance it. So I’ll go to the you know, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or an insurance company or CMBS.

Tim Bratz (19:16): And I’ll get a loan once the property is stabilized, meaning it’s fully occupied, good managements in place. And then I’ll put a loan on it for 70% of that new value. So if I’m all in, it’s worth 10 million, I’m all in for six and a half. My new loan is 7 million. That means I’m able to pay back my investors able to pay off my short term construction loan. And I just put longterm debt, fixed interest rate debt in place. And now all my chips are off the table. Right now we can just sit on this thing, let the tenants pay rent covers all the operating expenses covers all the debt service pays down our mortgage property appreciates over time. And that is how real wealth is built. So when I, when I got into apartment buildings, I took my investors and I just, I started paying them 8% to 10% of a fixed return while their money was invested.

Tim Bratz (20:03): And then they get all their money back at the time of the refinance. Let’s say it’s 18 months later. And then I give them equity in the deal forever. Even though all their money’s back in their own pocket, they keep maybe 20% of the deal forever. And so that then incentivizes them where now they see me as a longterm partner. They see me as somebody who’s like, you know what, if somebody dangles a 12% carrot in front of their face, they’re not going to go with it because they’re like, no, Tim’s my partner. Right? I have equity and deals with him that we’re gonna be partners for the next 10 years. And it allows them to just keep on rolling their money forward with me, where they make a good fixed return. Plus they have the equity upside and it’s a win-win all around them.

Jay Conner (20:43): So do you structure the deal with your private lenders? Are they investing in a fund?

Tim Bratz (20:51): Yeah, so it’s not like a general open-ended fund. Every deal that I do, every apartment building I buy is its own investment, a registered sec investment with the federal SEC, Securities Exchange Commission. So every deal I do is its own. It’s its own entity, it’s its own registration. So I only raise on a deal by deal basis. So people aren’t, you know, it’s not like a stock where it’s or a mutual fund where it’s spread across many different properties. It’s a single property. So one, two, three main street will be owned by one, two, three main street, LLC. Here’s what the numbers are on one, two, three main street. What it’s going to look like, and what’s going to generate for income to the LLC. And then the investors, they invest in that LLC and they’re actual equity owners in the LLC. So they get a K1 at the end of the year and yeah, works that way.

Jay Conner (21:43): So you raise capital for its own project every time. Right? So, does most of your capital for a project that you’re looking to do, do most of those funds come from existing private lenders that you might have recently paid off from a refinance deal?

Tim Bratz (22:08): Yeah, so you know, we were joking about it before we kind of came online and we said, Hey, you’re either deal heavy or you’re money heavy and very rarely both at the same time. Right? So I think, I think the most important thing you can be doing as a real estate investor, the only three activities that matter are Sourcing Deals, Sourcing Money, and Refining your Operations. Right? If you’re doing those three things at all times, those are the revenue generating activities that you need to be focused on all the time.

Tim Bratz (22:40): So we are always sourcing deals. We are always sourcing money. And we are always trying to refine our operations and tighten up that ship. And so, sometimes we have a refinance and we’re heavy on liquidity and we can roll all of our investors into that new project without having to raise any outside capital. Other times, like we got a bunch of refinance that were supposed to pop during this whole COVID mass. Right? And they all got delayed. And so now they’re all looking good, right? Knock on wood. But there was a timeframe where we were still buying some deals early part of this year. And we had these refinance that were supposed to pop it didn’t. So we had to raise a bunch of outside capital. But you know, it also happens where somebody invest with you in one deal, they have more money set aside. They want to diversify across multiple different assets, multiple different properties. And a lot of our existing investors came in on all those other projects, knowing that there are other funds are going to be pretty liquid over the course of the lateral this year.

Jay Conner (23:40): So, when you’ve got a project that you’re getting ready do, what’s your, the logistics of getting the word out to, like when you’re raising new capital? And what’s your funnel look like? Like with me, my funnel is all the time educating. In fact, you may have heard me saying that in the past time, I’ve never asked anybody for money. I raised a ton of capital without asking for money. I educate and I teach and once they get taught and enlightened and they know about self directed IRAs and they know about private money and how the program works, if they’ve got investment capital or retirement funds, they’re going to be chasing me. Right? But where do you go and what do you do?

Tim Bratz (24:28): Yep. So I’m very active on social media. So if you follow me on social media, I know we’re connected on social media. You’ll see me always talking about buying apartment buildings. How I structure the deal. What the returns look like for the overall project. When you’re syndicating capital, you gotta be very careful to stay in compliance with the SEC guidelines. You can’t just go out and tell people, Hey, I’ll pay you 12% because it’s not secured with a first lien position on a property. So because of that, you can’t go out and just generally solicit, you know, and as soon as you take two investors and put them into a single deal, you’re creating a security. So it needs to be registered with the SEC. Does everybody do it? No. Do I do it? Yes, because I have a lot of eyeballs on me cause I do the education stuff too.

Tim Bratz (25:13): But I think educating people is the purest way of showing what you do, how you do it, and just naturally building trust and building relationships with people. And confidence and respect that they respect you as the authority of private money. Right? And so those are the two keys in order to raise capital. You need somebody’s respect and you need somebody’s trust. If you don’t have those two things, it’s gonna be very, very difficult to raise money. And educating people, whether that’s through social media or through formal courses, creates both of those things. You’re spending time with them. They know you, they know your core values, they know what you’re all about. And you’re obviously teaching, you’re standing up in front of the stage. You must be an authority. You must be an expert at what you do.

Tim Bratz (26:02): So there’s a lot of respect that comes with that as well. So I think the whole education piece is a genius way of doing what you’re doing. So I do some of that on social media. I do have, you know, a coaching platform on teaching investors, how to scale from residential into apartments. And that generates a lot of capital. But I also just hang out in masterminds and I hang out with people who have capital who have money, who are really good at making money, but not good at deploying money. Right? Like most entrepreneurs are really, really good at making money. And then they blow it on stupid stuff. They’re not good at saving it. They’re not good at investing it. So I’m able to come in and be like, listen, man, you buy as many liabilities as you want, but first you gotta buy assets, right? Like here’s what system, what the process looks like to generate real wealth instead of just getting rich, let’s get you wealthy. And so that’s, that’s what I do.

Jay Conner (26:50): Yeah. You just said that you know, you just hang around people, that’s got money and you know, I’ve been saying for a long time, the more money you wallow in, the more sticks to you. So I planted this and I also teach people to go where the money is. You know, sometimes they’ll say, Jay, you know, you talk about your warm market or relationship money. All my people are broke. I don’t know anybody with money. Well, wake up and smell the roses. How about let’s go meet some people that’s got money. And so obviously along with the education piece, networking is critical. Networking is critical to you know, to speak to the point of what you just said. Well, Tim, we are just about out of time, but thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show here.

Jay Conner (27:38): And I know that there is a percentage of my audience that would like to follow you and learn some more from you. So let me ask you for two things. If people want to learn how to get into commercial investing themselves and learn from you and your education company, how would they, where would they go to learn more about that?

Tim Bratz (28:00): Yeah. Well, I appreciate it, Jay. Thanks again for having me, man. And again, I appreciate all the value that you continue to put out there and your abundance mentality. So thanks for having me here. Yeah, if you guys want to connect with me, I’m very active on social media. Find me on Facebook and Instagram. And follow me, connect with me, send me a friend request there. And then my website is LegacyWealthHoldings.com LegacyWealthHoldings.com. And you can learn more about the coaching side of things and how we can potentially do deals together. I’m always buying properties, selling properties, joint venturing on projects. So if you guys come across a good deal and want to talk about something or just need some insight, I mean, we’re happy to support and offer education any way that we can. So yeah, appreciate you having me, man.

Jay Conner (28:44): Absolutely! And for everyone that is listening in on iTunes, Google play and our other audio platforms, the spelling of Tim Bratz, his name, of course you got the TIM. But his last name, if you’re looking for him on social media is BRATZ. That’s TIM BRATZ. Well, Tim, I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming mastermind meeting, which hopefully is going to be in person. I haven’t heard the definitive word on that yet, but in any case, it’s been a pleasure to have you on, man. I appreciate you so much.

Tim Bratz (29:17): Thank you! Thank you for having me. Take care.

New Speaker (29:19): There you have it folks. Another show. I’m Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority. Wishing you all the best! Here’s to taking your real estate investing business to the next level. And I’ll see you on the next show.

#Jay Conner #Private Money Lender #Real Estate Business #Real Estate #Real Estate Investing #Real Estate Investor #Real Estate Profit #The Private Money Authority

[lyricfulloflight]

Everything For You

This one is for you @pinkoptics.  You sent in my first prompt: picking fuzz off their clothing From a list of ordinary things that become intimate when you love someone and this is what happened ;).  I hope you enjoy it!

Everything For You

“Stand still.”

Erik gritted his teeth and picked a spot on the wall to stare at as Charles examined him from shoulders to ankles, brushing off lint and picking off extraneous pieces of… well something… as he went.

“How long has this thing been stuffed into the back of your closet?”  Charles asked.

“Um… a while?” Erik answered lamely.

Probably more than a while really.  He might have pulled this suit out for his sister’s graduation, but that had been years ago, before he’d even moved into Charles’ place.

“You should have told me about your show sooner.  I would have sent this to get cleaned.”

“When exactly would you have had time to do that?”  Erik queried.

Charles had to be the busiest person he had ever met.  Teaching classes at Columbia, spending absurd hours at the lab doing research, staying until the janitors kicked him out of his office typing up journal articles, and still accompanying Erik every weekend to the Mutant Youth Center to volunteer, teaching teenagers everything from chess to how to control their mutations.

“I have my ways.” Charles replied, brow arched.

“There’s no way I would have bothered you with cleaning the suit, but I should have told you about the show earlier.  You are coming, right?”

“Of course I’m coming.  I am annoyed that my roommate and best friend didn’t tell me about the biggest show of his professional career until, oh, four hours ago – but there is no way I’m missing your triumph.”

Looking down at Charles, picking bits of fluff off his old dusty suit, doing his best to make Erik as presentable as possible, Erik felt his heart lurch in his chest.  He couldn’t quite figure out why he hadn’t told Charles about the show until today, scant hours before he had to leave to meet with the gallery director and make sure everything was perfectly set up for the show tonight.  Charles was, however unbelievable it may be, his best friend and biggest supporter.  By all rights, they should never even have met.

Erik, a thirty year old ex-mechanic who’d quit his job to start a new career as an artist and Charles, twenty six year old academic genius and one of the youngest professors to ever be employed at Columbia. Two opposites living together because of a combination of luck and misfortune.

The luck had been Erik’s.  Finding a posting on Craigslist for an ‘Artist’s Apartment’ listed with a very reasonable monthly rent, Erik had jumped at the chance to see the place. He’d arrived to find what had to be the most perfect space for an artist – huge open living area, giant windows, concrete flooring, brick walls, 16 foot high ceilings.  He’d also met Charles, in all his khaki pants and cardigan wearing academic glory.  Charles had happily prattled on about how his sister was an artist and had been using the apartment, and how she’d kept everything open to make it accessible for him, but now she was in Paris with no plans to return to New York for at least a year.

That had been over two years ago.

The misfortune had been Charles’.  He’d been in charge of renting out Raven’s apartment and had been happy to lease it to Erik.  He’d been the perfect absentee landlord; never bothering Erik, always on top of sending a repairman when needed, never unexpectedly increasing Erik’s rent like some of the shady characters Erik’s had dealt in the past.  Then, six months into his lease, Charles had shown up on Erik’s doorstep one night, soaked to the bone and dragging one sad looking suitcase and a backpack.  It was one of the most pathetic sights Erik had ever encountered.

After ushering Charles in, giving him time to change into dry clothes and making him a hot cup of cocoa, Erik had found himself on his couch with Charles, who had explained, cheeks flushed, and voice apologetic, his current unfortunate circumstances.

Apparently, Charles was rich.  Erik did not find this piece of information particularly surprising.  Charles looked rich, he talked like he was rich and he dressed like he was rich.  Charles’ wealth was a given.  That he had horrible relatives who had kicked him out of his home and were suing him for all was worth, which had left him with all his assets frozen and no where to live was more of a shock.  Charles owned Erik’s apartment – outright.  He’d bought it for his sister five years ago and it was currently his only option for living accommodations (Charles’ words, not Erik’s).

Erik couldn’t have kicked the man out if he tried.  Charles looked like a puppy, a small blue eyed puppy, who’d been kicked out into the street and left to fend for himself and had no idea what to do with himself.  Erik might not have been the most friendly, easy going guy, but his mother hadn’t raised him to be a jerk.  He’d told Charles in no uncertain terms that he was more than welcome to stay as long as he needed to and had then gone to clear out the spare room (which had until that moment been full of sculpting tools and materials). Charles had thanked him profusely, sworn up and down he wouldn’t be a bother and then passed out on the bed within minutes.

Two years later, they were still living together.  Perhaps at first glance they were unlikely roommates, but somehow it all worked.  It worked kind of perfectly, if Erik was being honest.  Erik got up early every morning to run and by the time he got back to the apartment, Charles was always up, a cup of tea in his hand and a steaming hot container of French press coffee on the counter for Erik.  Charles didn’t care that Erik didn’t own a television and took up most of the living room with his sculpting work.  Instead, Charles would coax Erik away from his work in the evenings and they would watch documentaries on Charles’ laptop, propped up on Charles’ very fancy hospital grade bed, eating popcorn.

Charles was the best roommate Erik had ever had.  He was also the best friend Erik had ever had.  When Erik wanted to quit sculpting because he was sick of taking commissions for things he wasn’t inspired to sculpt, Charles was there to sit beside him and pull him through with encouraging words and a glass of delicious scotch.  If Erik’s mom stopped over to fuss over him, take over the apartment, and complain about both Erik and Charles’ single status, Charles was always there, effortlessly changing the topic and making his mother smile.

When Erik had first heard he’d succeeded in getting his first major gallery show, Charles had been the first person he’d wanted to tell.  He’d come home that night with every intention of telling Charles and then… he hadn’t.  He didn’t say anything the next day, or later that week, and then it got to a point where it was weird that he hadn’t said anything, because he clearly should have, and that had made Erik lock the information about his show away like it was a forbidden secret that Charles could never know about.

Today, the day of the show, he’d finally cracked.  He needed Charles to be there.  He couldn’t imagine the night without him.  He was finally showing the world his art, not replicas, not commissions, not what someone else wanted, just his own creative visions as a sculptor, and he was proud to be showing that off to anyone who wanted to look, but the truth was, well the truth of it all was, the person he really wanted to show it to was Charles.  

The thing that had been holding him back, the thing that had almost caused Erik to never tell Charles about the show at all, was the idea that Charles might not like Erik’s work.  That all those hours Erik had spent, working in his separate studio space he’d been able to rent this last year because of his success with commissions, all the pieces Erik had created with Charles in mind; that they might not even appeal to Charles was terrifying.

When he’d finally told Charles about the show today, it had been a relief.  Charles knew.  And Charles had looked… incandescent.  He had glowed with pleasure when Erik told him, his whole face alight with happiness. Erik had desperately wished he was in his studio right at that moment so he could capture the expression on Charles’ face in clay, or stone, or even sketch it in charcoal. He’d probably never be able to do it justice, but damn if he didn’t want to immortalize that look – surely no one had ever looked so impossibly beautiful as Charles had in that moment.

“You don’t have to go to the lab?”  Erik asked, because frankly, any other Thursday night Charles would have ensconced in his lab work until at least nine o’clock.

“I can miss one night.”  Charles shrugged. “I think you may finally be presentable.”  He wheeled back and gave Erik an appraising look. “Yes.  No lint, no dust, no pieces of god knows what.”

“I should get going then.”  Erik was reluctant to go, he’d much rather stay here with Charles, but if there was any night he needed to be timely and professional, it was tonight.

“I shan’t keep you a moment longer.”  Charles smiled, looking up at Erik. “This is your night and I am so very proud of you, Erik. I’ll see you at seven o’clock.”

***

Charles sat in front of the sculpture and stared.  

The gallery was packed with people milling about, chatting, drinking wine, and gushing over Erik’s work.  Charles had arrived half an hour ago, only ten minutes later than he’d planned (which was rather good by his own personal standards), and had yet to see hide or hair of Erik.

He had, however, seen quite a bit of his art and it was astonishing.  Oh, he’s always known Erik was talented.  He never doubted for a moment that those long, graceful, yet calloused fingers could mold clay into anything they wanted.  He’d seen Erik’s sketches, he knew the man had talent. Being in a room full of Erik’s art, large, imposing, never afraid to shock an audience, was another thing all together.

Charles had been stuck in front of this particular piece for ten minutes.  He couldn’t seem to make himself leave, and since he was in a wheelchair, no one had had the gall to ask him to move.

“Do you like it?” A deep voice behind sounded behind him.

“Do I...” Charles whirled around to look up at Erik, struggling past the lump in his throat. “I...Erik, it’s… gorgeous.  It’s gorgeous and profoundly moving, and… is it… this might be ridiculous, it is ridiculous, but is it supposed to look like me?” Charles asked incredulous.

Because the sculpture behind him was a man, a serene, soulful looking young man, leaning against a tree and he might have been any young man, but Charles could see, from his positioning, to the overly thin nature of his legs, that the man sitting on the ground, book in hand was not capable of walking.

“Of course it’s you.” Erik replied, typically blunt and forthright.

“I’ve never looked half so handsome, of course.”  Charles joked.

“You look twice as handsome right now.”

Charles gaped up at Erik, his mouth hanging open.  Had Erik just said… he couldn’t have meant…  Charles was certainly in love with Erik, and had been almost as soon as he’d moved into Raven’s old apartment with him, but to think Erik might feel something for him… it was simply unfathomable.

“You inspired every piece here, Charles.”  Erik continued. “Every one.  I wouldn’t be here tonight without you.”

“Of course you would be!  You’re the artist, Erik, not me.  If I helped in any way, well, I’m very glad of that, but this, all of this, is you.” Charles argued.

“No.”  Erik shook his head and then knelt down so were face to face. “This is for you, Charles.”  Erik insisted, taking Charles’ hand in his. “You are my muse.  I don’t sit down to make a piece and not think about you, about how you make me feel.  I love you.”

“You love me?” Charles winced as his voice broke like a teenager.

“I love you.” Erik repeated and squeezed Charles’ hand. “I know you don’t feel the same way and that’s fine -”

“I feel the same way.”  Charles interrupted breathlessly. “Of course I feel the same way.”

“You...what?”

“I love you.” Charles said, and he couldn’t keep himself from smiling. “I love you, you incredible man.”

And he reached forward, cupping Erik’s jaw with his hand, pulling him forward and kissing him, slow and sweet and deep.

“So,”  Charles whispered when he finally pulled himself away from Erik’s lips, “am I going home with my boyfriend tonight, then?”

“Yes.”  Erik grinned his gorgeous toothy grin. “Yes, you are.”

#lyric writes #cherik #cherik fic #pinkoptics prompt #erik the sculptor #charles the professor

[mmyproperdeets]

Understanding home insurance

Homeowners insurance can be seen from many different perspectives, but regardless of whether you are required by your lender to have home insurance or not, this is a piece of the home-ownership puzzle you do not want to miss out on. Policies are largely customization and can be molded to fit what you are personally in need of to get the best homeowners insurance for you and your family to feel safe. As a landlord, aside from securing your investment with property insurance, you should also require your tenants to get their renters insurance as part of the lease between you and your tenant. This is imperative for your tenant to secure their personal belongings as your policy will not cover loss of damages for them.

If you are purchasing your property through a mortgage lender, they will most likely not lend without proof of home insurance coverage making this a requirement before approving your loan. Aside from that, this coverage provides your home and other personal property with much needed protection against liability in the event of an accident that can injure others or your property.

However, there are many aspects that aren’t covered by standard policies which you should add on to your home insurance policy should specific situations apply to you.  In addition, there are several types of coverage available, so getting familiar with each coverage and what exactly is included before purchasing your coverage is recommended. If you currently have your coverage you can also update your policy to reflect any revisions you feel you may need.

While insurance is highly customization, there are some tips for how to always be on your A-game when it comes to home insurance. We have included some quick but helpful tips at the end.

Understanding home insurance starts off with knowing that your policy is a legal contract which clearly states your rights and responsibilities as well as those for the insurance provider. It is in your best interest to research the company, take a look at the home insurance reviews, and be knowledgeable of their process for claims before choosing one home insurance company over another. Once you purchase the insurance you will receive the policy: take time to read through its contents, store it in a place where you can easily access it, and of course, know the name of your insurer.

Homeowners Insurance Coverage’s Explained

Before you get coverage or change from one home insurance company to another, you need to decide how much coverage you need. More than likely your lender will give you some specifics of what they are looking for at a minimum; any additional coverage is up to you to decide what would be the best homeowners insurance. Generally, your home insurance policy will cover damage to a property’s interior and exterior, the loss of theft of possessions, and personal liability for harm to others.

One significant differentiation between coverage’s will be the different types of coverage available. While the homeowner industry has standardized to range between HO-1 through HO-8, there are essentially 3 levels of coverage: the actual cash value vs. replacement cost vs. extended replacement cost/value. This is an option you will likely see when shopping around for insurance and is key to understanding home insurance. 

·         Actual cash value is the amount it would take to repair or replace damage to your home and your belongings after depreciation. In other words, this would be what your items are worth in the present, not how much you paid for them.

·         The replacement cost would be dollar amount it would cost to replace, rebuild the home, or repair damages using materials of similar kind and quality, without deducting for depreciation.  What this means is that if your home was completely destroyed, you would be able to replace the rebuild the home up to the original value. It is important to insure your home for at least 80 percent of its replacement value.

·         In a guaranteed (or extended) replacement cost/value policy, the inflation is basically buffered, and you are covered for whatever it costs to repair or rebuild your home – even if that amount exceeds your home insurance policy limit. Insurers may offer an extended replacement (offering more coverage than you purchased) but this is typically capped between 20% to 25% higher than the limit.

Liability coverage protects you, your family, and even your pets from lawsuits filed by others for personal liability on damage or injuries. We’ve heard of cases where dogs bite neighbors; a situation like this would be eligible to get a claim filed for your neighbor’s medical expenses – regardless whether it happened on your premises or on theirs. If your child accidentally shatters your neighbor’s entrance chandelier, you can file a claim to reimburse the neighbor as well.  If the neighbor steps on the glass and sues for pain and suffering or lost wages as well, then you can be covered for that as well.

Of course, the better your coverage the less you will be paying out of pocket when disaster strikes – as well as the higher your premium will be which would translate to higher payments on your monthly escrow. The deductible is the amount that you pay out of pocket when the time comes to use your insurance. When shopping for a home insurance policy make sure to compare what is covered and how much you would need to pay in deductibles. If your deductible is $1,500 and total damages are $2,500 that means you would have to pay $1,500 before the insurance dishes out their $1,000 portion. Higher deductibles will likely cost less in your monthly premium, but you have to be comfortable paying the deductible when you make a claim. 

The different coverage types and what is covered will of course make the pricing of the home insurance policy fluctuate, but the biggest determining factor in the premium for your property will be based on the likelihood that the insured (read: you, the homeowner) will file a claim. This is based on several factors including:

·         Past history on the home: any past claims on the home and the severity of it. If they insure a home that has had a number of claims over the last three years (even if it was from a previous owner) the home will be seen as a higher risk.  In some cases, if there are an excessive number of claims, some insurance companies may even be ineligible to coverage. 

·         The neighborhood: data on crime rate in the neighborhood will also affect your premium as vandalism would of course increase the likeliness of a claim being filed and therefore be a riskier property to cover. Along those lines, being close to a fire substation or having a fire hydrant within 100 feet of the home will likely lower the premium

·         The home’s condition: if a home is not well maintained, then the insurance company will see this as an increased chance of getting a claim filed. 

Other aspects will create differences in pricing including the insured’s credit, whether there are animals in the home and what kind, as well as oil tanks on premises. You must understand that while covering loss is the insurance company’s objective, they also need to make a profit. 

What Does Homeowners Insurance Not Cover

As a general rule, homeowner’s insurance covers most scenarios where loss can occur including during a fire, in the event of a hurricane, lightning damage, vandalism, and other disasters, but coverage is limited when it comes to other natural disasters (such as floods and earthquakes), poor home maintenance, and acts of war – these will require additional riders and therefore increase the cost of coverage. For example, if your home is located in a flood zone, your lender will typically do a FEMA flood search and see the risk; a requirement for flood insurance will be part of the loan package requisites. Along those lines, if a home is in an area prone to earthquakes, this home will also have an additional earthquake insurance coverage requirement. 

In addition, while your home insurance can provide you with off-premises coverage (for example, if you lost a pair of diamond earrings in another state, you would be able to file a claim for this) insurers will put a limit on the reimbursement amount, which typically ranges between 50% to 70% of the amount of insurance you have on the structure of your home. What this means is that if you have your house insured for $100,000, your personal possessions would be limited to $70,000 in coverage. So if you have a lot of expensive possessions such as art collectibles, fine jewelry, antiques, or designer clothes, the best homeowners insurance for you may include adding a rider to your home insurance policy to cover these items separately.

Another additional coverage which you can investigate is the additional living expenses coverage. While unlikely, there is a chance that something may happen to your hone where you would need to stay in a hotel or rent a house while your home is being rebuilt and replaced. If that does occur, attaining the additional living expenses coverage would be the best decision you could’ve made. This would cover rent, hotel room, meals at restaurants, and other incidental costs associated with not being able to inhabit your home for some time. While there are strict total and daily limits which depends on the coverage you select, this also can be adjusted and increased if you’re willing to pay more in the premium.

One key coverage that is not usual in standard homeowner’s insurance policies is sewer protection. While your home insurance may say it covers a sewer line break or collapse, the amount of coverage you would actually get is very limited as damage from overflows or backups from your sump pump, sewer system or drains won’t be covered. To get the most protection, there are companies that offer a backup rider which is a separate insurance policy to protect you in case of issues with the sewage line that have the potential of becoming very expensive. Something like a tree’s root blocking your sewage pipes, or sewage damage from a flood, earthquake, or hurricane would not be covered under the standard homeowners insurance.

Additional structures in your property aside from the main house including garages, sheds, or others, will likely be requiring a separate coverage as well.  So if you have a shed that may be close to the backyard fire pit or in any way may see damage which you want to cover, make sure you get an additional rider in your policy to have this structure covered.

Lastly, identity theft will not be a covered loss when it comes to home insurance. You would need to get this as a separate coverage as damage caused by anyone who may steal your personal information would have zero coverage from your home insurance provider. General damage resulting from failure to upkeep the property will not get covered either – including rust, rot, mold, and general wear and tear.

Understanding home insurance coverage’s and what they do not cover is getting the insurance you may need. Next, we will explore what the best homeowners insurance is and where to find it.

Best Homeowners Insurance

You do not have to purchase insurance from the company your lender recommends, but determining which is the best homeowners insurance for you fully depends on what you are looking for; make sure to shop around with the resources available online and over the phone to make the best decision for you and your family to get quotes from at least 5 companies. The best way to do this is to speak with an independent agent instead of speaking to a traditional agent within the company; since they are knowledgeable and unbiased towards a specific company, getting their input in your journey to understanding home insurance will be valuable. While these brokers do get a commission which you need to factor into your premium cost, you will be able to get more options from a variety of different companies.  

Also, take the time to get educated and understand the differences in pricing for similar products and services between companies using unbiased sources including your state insurance department, consumer publications, neighbors or friends, and your public library. You can also look at group coverage options such as through credit or trade unions, employers, or association memberships.

We have covered what to look for in the coverage in the section titled “Homeowners Insurance Coverage’s Explained”, so review that section as well. When you are ready to look into the individual companies to decide which is the best homeowners insurance for your specific situation, you should take the below steps:

1. State check: you want to make sure the company you are speaking with is legitimate and creditworthy. Check the Department of Insurance for your state to see what the rating is and whether they are cleared to business in your state. This information should be available online and should also provide the average insurance costs in different counties and cities.

2. Insurance company rating: now that you have confirmation that the company is legit and that they are legally allowed to do business in your state, you can look up information in regards to their good-standing. There are resources available for you to research insurance company scores on the websites for the top credit agencies such as Moody’s, J.D. Power, Standard & Poor as well as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and Weiss Research. On these sites you will find information about consumer complaints, general feedback, claims processing, and other important data. Some sites will even provide you with a company’s financial standing to indicate whether they have the resources to pay out claims.

3. Claim response: along those lines, you also want to determine how the company’s claim response works.  By asking your agent about their company’s handling of claims, you will be able to figure out whether licensed adjusters or third party call centers will be receiving and processing your claim as having outsourced teams handling claims can cause a delay in your reimbursement from the insurance company. Hold-back provisions (an insurance company’s stand on holding back a portion of their payment until the homeowner proves repairs have started) can also be determined by asking your agent

4. Home insurance reviews: you can also ask your agent what their retention rate is; averages are between 80% and 90% for insurance company customers staying with the same provider.  Online home insurance reviews, annual reports, and word of mouth from people you know will also be good ways to gauge their client satisfaction.

    Home Insurance Advice

Understanding home insurance doesn’t just stop at the kinds of policies, different companies, and the amount of coverage – you also want to know the tips and tricks to getting the most out of your insurance policy.  We’ve gathered some helpful advice which you may be able to apply to your specific situation when choosing the best homeowners insurance for your needs.

  1.    First: discounts!  Don’t be shy to ask the insurance agent for discount points. Below are some tips on ways you can reduce your premium:

·         Security system: having cameras as well as a burglar alarm monitored or tied to a local police station will automatically reduce your annual premium, typically by about 5% or more. The homeowner must present evidence of an active security system such as a bill or a contract.

·         Smoke alarms: while these are more common in newer homes, installing these in older homes can save you 10% or more in annual premiums.

·         Increase your deductible: this is not recommended at all, but if you are looking to reduce your annual premium and have home insurance on the cheap, this is a way to do it. Since the deductible would be higher, repairs that take a few hundred dollars wouldn’t be covered such as replacing the sheetrock around a pipe that was leaking – while these seem like small repairs they can add up so it’s best to really think hard before going down this route.

·         Bundling coverage: you can create a multiple policy insurance bundle such as car and home or health insurance and home (and car!). Insurance companies will provide you with a discount of around 10% on average.

·         Special discounts: request for a breakdown of special discounts that you can maybe apply to your home insurance policy; seniors and individuals who work from home are sometimes eligible for a reduced rate as these individuals will be home more often and therefore leave their homes less prone to theft.

·         Renovating wisely: if you have renovations in your future home plans, look into which materials you want to use. For example, if you are looking to build an addition to your home, wood structures will cost more to insure since they are more flammable and more durable than cement or steel framed structures. Other renovations or additions such as swimming pool and even trampolines can drive the annual insurance costs up by about 10% or more as those are seen as potentially injurious additions.

·         Loyalty pays: the longer you remain with your insurer the greater the chance of them offering a discount on the premium or reducing the deductible down the line.

  2.    Other things such as installing a new roof, adding dead bolt locks, CO2 detectors, sprinkler systems, and even waterproofing can lower your premium as well. If you’re in the financial position to do so, paying off your mortgage will also have a lower premium.

    3.      Check in with your agent every year to ensure you have the best homeowners insurance policy for your current situation as a lot can change in a year, or from the time that you attained the coverage such as:

·         Renovations: if you have made modifications such as added a room, upgraded your kitchen, or made other changes, these may add value to your home which would not be covered in your replacement cost in case of a claim using your old coverage.

·         Other updates: maybe you have disassembled the trampoline, paid off your mortgage, or installed a sophisticated alarm system; you may be able to get your premium reduced with proof of these changes.

  4.      Along those lines, if you live in an area where home values have risen since you purchased the property, it would be recommended to look into the extended replacement value policies and cover your home based on the current market value. Since your policy is likely just covering your mortgage, this would be around 90% of your home’s value at best; if anything were to happen to your home you would be highly limited to the rebuild.

5.      Personal liability can come in handy under a lot of situations as lawsuits have the potential to become very expensive. So while policies typically cover around $100,000 in coverage for personal liability, it is recommended to have at least $300,000 in coverage. The additional protection will increase your premium by a few hundred but can protect you with an additional $1 million thorough an umbrella policy. 

#home depot rental tools home depot rental equipment tool rentals

[dippedanddripped]

It has been a prolonged period of retail carnage: storied names declaring bankruptcy, mass market brands closing thousands of stores, tens of thousands of shop employees furloughed or laid off, garment workers in dire straits. More ominous still are the predictions that we will never shop the same way again.

For Jamie Salter and David Simon, however, it has been a time of great opportunity.

Mr. Salter is the founder and chief executive of the Authentic Brands Group, a company known for buying the intellectual property of famous brands at discount prices and then striking licensing deals with other companies that want to stick those well-known names on their products. Mr. Simon is the chief executive of the Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States with more than 100 properties. Together, they are reshaping the American retail landscape.

Last week, they closed a deal to buy the bankrupt Brooks Brothers, the 202-year-old American fashion brand and retailer, for $325 million. Last month, they acquired Lucky Brand denim, and in February, they bought Forever 21.

Together, the acquisitions will bring the global revenue generated by the company’s brands — a sprawling mix that includes Sports Illustrated and rights tied to Marilyn Monroe’s likeness — to $15 billion annually. And Mr. Salter is hunting for more.

“Look, if the world ends, which I don’t think it’s going to, then there’s no doubt about it, I’m not so smart,” Mr. Salter, a 57-year-old Toronto native, said in a phone interview. “But I don’t believe the world’s going to end.”

“Last year, we said within five years, we want to be at $20 billion,” he added, referring to the overall revenue generated from brands owned or jointly owned by Authentic Brands. “Another two to three deals could get us there.”

Many of the acquisitions are being made through a joint venture with Mr. Simon called SPARC, for Simon Properties Authentic Retail Concepts. Its roots go back to 2016, but it was created in its present form in January as a vehicle that turned out to be almost perfectly positioned to take advantage of the current state of the industry.

By teaming up, Mr. Simon, a press-averse Indianapolis real estate scion who declined to comment for this article, gets assurance that bankrupt chains and other tenants will remain in his shopping centers, while Mr. Salter gets a friendly landlord for his brands at a time when rent costs are crushing retailers, plus the chance to earn money by licensing the well-known names. Together, they own and operate 1,500 stores through their deals, which sometimes include Brookfield Properties, another mall giant.

The purchase of Brooks Brothers, where layoff notices have already started going out, has put a spotlight on this arrangement — and invited new scrutiny. Supporters say SPARC is saving the businesses it’s buying. Critics say it’s simply exploiting their traumas for fast profits in ways that cheapen the brands’ legacies. They say the SPARC strategy treats brands and stores less like hothouses of creativity that need careful tending, and more like chess pieces to be moved around for maximum, if momentary, gain.

That suspicion has been hard to shake for Mr. Salter. Authentic Brands’ purchase of the Sports Illustrated brand last year is viewed as a prime example of the company’s bottom-line approach to licensing. It sold the rights to operate the magazine and website to another company, which gutted the staff, while simultaneously putting the Sports Illustrated name on protein powder, CBD cream and swimsuits. And Authentic Brands’ purchase of Barneys New York’s intellectual property last year was fiercely contested by a group of investors who waged a “Save Barneys” social media campaign to avert liquidations and the licensing of the name, painting Mr. Salter as a villain who sought to dismantle a cultural institution.

“It’s not a long-term quality play,” said one retail executive who asked not to be identified because the executive had been approached about the Brooks Brothers deal. “It’s not about a love of the brand or the goods. It’s predatory and opportunistic.”

Understanding Authentic Brands’ business is crucial to understanding the tides of retail today.

The company, founded by Mr. Salter in 2010, bets on famous names in fashion and entertainment, often buying their intellectual property with the aim of striking licensing deals with those who want to use the brand names internationally or on new products. Authentic Brands tends to earn an estimated 4 to 6 percent in royalties through this model.

“History,” was one of the answers Mr. Salter gave when asked what he looks for in a brand. “Does it have good archives we can bring back, because the world repeats itself all the time. The longer the history, the better.” The potential to cut costs was another.

For years, Mr. Salter led a division of Hilco, a financial firm, as it snapped up the intellectual property of bankrupt retailers like Sharper Image. While the retailer’s stores closed, Hilco was involved with deals that put Sharper Image’s name on products like garment steamers that were cheaper than wares at the original retailer and then sold in chains like Bed Bath & Beyond.

At Authentic Brands, Mr. Salter pulled off an early coup by acquiring the exclusive rights tied to Marilyn Monroe, whose likeness drew the interest of everyone from Dolce & Gabbana to Walmart. His stable of 50 brands now includes Juicy Couture, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali and Frederick’s of Hollywood.

The Juicy acquisition in 2013, where Mr. Salter bought the brand but couldn’t secure its locations, made him realize the value of physical stores. Losing the stores, he said, hurt Juicy. “I can tell you unequivocally it’s easier to build brands with a retail footprint — touch, feel, try on,” he said.

Though Authentic Brands does not own the types of luxury retailers and labels as European conglomerates like Kering and LVMH, Mr. Salter said that LVMH served as “inspiration” and that they shared “similar ambitions.” He thinks of his company, where his four sons are also among the 200 employees (his eldest, Corey, is chief operating officer) as a family enterprise despite a roster of investors including BlackRock, Leonard Green & Partners and General Atlantic. The biggest individual investor after Mr. Salter, whose family owns about 20 percent, is Shaquille O’Neal, whose brand is managed by the Authentic Brands. Mr. Salter said that he has considered an initial public offering of stock but that the company has plenty of money and he doesn’t want to exit.

“Other people do want in,” he said. But, he added, “It’s a lot easier when you have two guys, and if there’s a problem, you pick up the phone and work it out in 10 minutes.”

Simon Property also holds about 7 percent after an investment in January, when it also increased its interest in SPARC to 50 percent, according to filings.

Four years ago, Mr. Salter said, “David came to me and said, ‘Why do you always close the stores when you buy the company?’” Mr. Salter replied that he was too nervous to operate the stores, worrying that the leases could become too expensive. Mr. Simon proposed teaming up with Brookfield to buy Aéropostale, which led to the formation of a venture called Aero OpCo. Mr. Salter owned 20 percent, and Brookfield and Simon the rest. (Brookfield, which is not part of SPARC, declined to comment.)

The mall operators wanted their tenants to stay and ideally resume making money. They were also interested in Mr. Salter’s marketing prowess and his brands, which they figured could eventually turn into stores at their malls.

“At the beginning, Simon just wanted ‘get my rent,’” Mr. Salter said. “But we started turning profits very quickly, and it started to be about building a business.”

Each side benefits. Mr. Salter’s brands have “variable rent” contracts with Mr. Simon’s malls, meaning their rent goes up and down with their sales and, in a lucrative arrangement, most don’t have minimums. Mr. Simon also receives a percentage of royalties from sales associated with the brand names. In January, Mr. Salter bought out Brookfield’s interest and the venture was renamed SPARC.

“Covid is a good lesson for all of us because thank God we had percentage rent,” Mr. Salter said. “We furloughed whatever number we had to furlough in Forever 21, and you’re only paying rent on a percentage of sales. It hurts a lot less.”

Still, some analysts say it isn’t good to see mall operators buying their own tenants out of bankruptcy at this pace.

There may be few options. As long as large retailers or hedge funds are unwilling to buy bankrupt chains like J.C. Penney, which could ultimately liquidate, “mall owners are the only viable acquirers,” analysts at Coresight Research, an advisory and research firm, wrote in a recent note. The firm estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 U.S. retail stores would close this year, and at least 50 percent are mall-based.

“Acquiring retailers raises questions about mall owners’ long-term viability,” they wrote. “Mall owners cannot buy every anchor retailer in their malls, and often they will have to let stores fail instead of propping them up,” the analysts wrote.

Mr. Simon bristled on a recent earnings call at the notion that he was buying retailers for rent. “We believe in the brand and we think we can make money,” he said. He compared critics of the venture to those who told Amazon to remain in the book business.

Still, rent is no small concern. In filings, Forever 21, a top tenant at Brookfield and Simon malls in the year before its bankruptcy, said the aggregate occupancy cost for its stores was $450 million annually. Lucky listed $66 million in rent and occupancy costs last year. Brooks Brothers said its 187 store leases and other corporate property leases cost about $86 million a year. On top of that, there are co-tenancy agreements, which can allow other tenants to break leases or demand rent reductions based on vacancy rates or the exit of certain retailers.

“I do believe that the strategy by Simon and Brookfield is to protect their co-tenancy in a lot of cases, but I think it’s a Band-Aid,” said Jackie Levy, chief business officer of Caruso, the real estate firm that owns California open-air shopping centers like the Grove. “It might solve the immediate issue of keeping some of their smaller retailers or shops in the malls, but long-term, those leases are going to expire at some point and there’s going to be a flight to quality.”

For his part, Mr. Salter sees opportunities to meld the brands that go beyond reducing corporate staff and sharing e-commerce capabilities. He can imagine, for example, Brooks Brothers teaming up with Spyder to make performance outerwear, and with Volcom for swim trunks. Saks Fifth Avenue still plans to introduce Barneys New York shops within its New York flagship and Connecticut stores.

“If I could buy anything, I’d buy Reebok,” he said. “Hanna Barbera. I like the Flintstones, Yogi Bear. Got big ideas for Yogi Bear. I love the Jetsons. They should be the delivery system for Amazon. Just call the Jetsons, they’ll deliver it to you in two seconds!”

Though Mr. Salter said he wasn’t joining a bid by Simon and Brookfield for J.C. Penney, he can envision pursuing a similar chain in the future.

“There’s no doubt about it that Jamie Salter’s dream is to have an A.B.G. department store,” Mr. Salter said. “And as David Simon says, maybe one day you’ll have your own mall.”

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