Off and on, I’ve been thinking about buying a rental property but for some strange reason, the idea of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) never crossed my radar. Over the weekend, a conversation with a former coworker sparked my interest in this sector again, and this time, I decided to compare a rental property with REIT. After a bit of research, let me share with you what I learned.
First, The Real Estate Conversation
Over the past year, one of my co-worker bought an income property for $140,000. According to him, he is getting $1,500+ in rent a month and after calculating all the association, property taxes and such, he is getting a 9% return on investment. With a strong cash flow like that, he can afford to wait until prices of housing finally go back to a normal upward trajectory, which is rather impressive. (now you know why I was interested…)
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The book that I wrote, The Little Budget Travel Book, is out as you know, but many of you have some questions and emailing me for answers. Here are some of the more common ones for those of you wondering the same thing.
Note: This is already circulated within the frugal newsletter. If you read this already, don’t worry because you are not imaging things 🙂
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I often find myself wanting to pay less for a purchase. Be it a gadget, clothes or my wedding, I always spend time looking for a bargain after I figured out the average costs. Most of the time, I end up looking for alternatives because so many products have set pricing. My theory is that while it’s not exactly the same thing, it’s usually good enough for every day (my) use.
When I bought my camera, I looked for a lower end model because the newest one was just too expensive. And when I bought my laptop, I bought the 15 inch model even though the 17 inch looked more attractive.
Sometimes though, I would deviate from this behavior. My bed for example, is the one that I found the most comfortable. My office chair is the same way, and so was my car, although I must admit that I quickly eliminated every vehicle that wasn’t affordable from the get go.
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The Fair Credit Reporting Act entitles everyone to access credit reports from each of the three credit agencies – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion every 12 months. While there are tons of places that offer free credit reports for a free trial of their service, the only federally authorized source to offer free reports with no hidden agenda is AnnualCreditReport.com.
Some people like to order all three credit reports at once, while others like to order one report from each agency every four months. The former allows you to compare all three to see if there are any discrepancies, while spacing out your orders allow you to keep on top of your reports in a more frequent manner. Personally, I find that it’s more beneficial to space out the orders, so I will order a report from Experian in January, another from Equifax in May and TransUnion in September. That way, I think about my credit reports more frequently and if there ever comes a time when there’s an error on one of the reports, I will go ahead and order all three to see if I need to dispute the mistake immediately.
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TradeMonster is another player in the already very crowded online broker industry. Launched in October 2008 (I know, the best timing ever), this stock broker hopes to capture traders with a more intuitive trading platform that just makes sense. There are some TradeMonster promotion codes floating out there but is it worth our time otherwise? Let’s find out in this review.
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Even a banker’s advice could be totally wrong.
I can’t believe what I heard, but a banker told me that carry a credit card balance can improve my credit score. In fact, there are many people who give the same advice – don’t pay your credit card balance in full to raise your score. So today, let’s clear up all the smoke. Pay off your credit card balance regardless of what people say. Let me explain why.
It’s true that having a balance and showing that you can pay it off can increase your credit score, but you can have the same effect even if you pay off the balance in full every month. Below is an illustration of a typical credit card usage pattern:
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