home renovation

If you’re already a homeowner, or plan to be you may at some point consider improving your home. Most homeowners have a mile long list of small improvements like painting rooms, fixing squeaky doors, or replacing worn-out flooring. The big projects, like remodeling the kitchen, and adding another room are the ones we dream about. [...]

I began investing in single family homes with a good friend and business partner about 4 years ago. In that time, we’ve purchases and remodeled 5 single family homes, all of which are rented by reasonably reliable tenants. Over that time we’ve learned a thing or two about investing in real estate. In this article, [...]

The other day, I wrote about getting cash through reverse mortgages.  Today, I want to explore refinancing to access money locked up in your home equity. I think it’s a good idea to learn about these options in face of the economic crisis and record high unemployment rate.  You never know when your home equity [...]

Aside from the big dip on October 19th, this was another good month for the stock market. The S&P 500 index rose +1.48% from 1,526.75 to 1,549.38 — again, the Fed cuts rates by another quarter point. After I entered all my information into NetworthIQ, the result was +1.75% net worth improvement. My liquid assets [...]

I hope this will be our last renovation for a very very long time. Our horror story began in late August when the contractor came to our house and quoted $6,000 (labor only) to repair our clogged backyard drain, hang new doors, and overhaul our bathroom. The estimated time was 1 week to complete. Obviously, [...]

September was a good month for the stock market. The S&P 500 index rose +3.58% from 1,473.99 to 1,526.75 — thanks to the boost from Federal Reserve interest rate cut by half a point on the 18th. However, consider that the U.S. Dollar lost about -2.26% against the global currencies [1], most Americans are actually [...]

Thanks to the positive stock market close on the 31st, August was not as bad as anticipated. Last month, I started using NetworthIQ to track my net worth. After I entered all my information, the result was +0.19% net worth. My liquid assets went up by +2.71% from 21.74% to 22.33% of $1 million goal; [...]

Right now my house is in the midst (mess?) of a renovation project. We are updating our bathroom which recently sprung a leak due to an array of broken and rusty pipes. We are also converting our dining room to a dual purpose “home office-guest bed room” combination in anticipation of the arriving baby.
We figure [...]