<p>I’m worry about Bill Gross, he seems to be mentally unstable, he should retire.</p>
<p>Thank you, stark. That makes sense.</p>
<p>Yes, I did miss your point, calmom, but I understand it now. I also have a small account, it’s the one that I actively trade. I don’t do options anymore, because those are rather stressful, even the covered calls I’m not crazy about, but that account is up 55% this year, so I’m happy with it. I figure paying attention to the penny ante account distracts me from messing around (and messing up) my retirement accounts, so I just dollar cost average them.</p>
<p>As far as a rental being relatively stress free, I would not feel that way if it was a place that I had a personal attachment to, like DocT’s beach house. It’s irritating when people mistreat your investment condo, but it doesn’t hit you personally. We’ve had some issues, mostly to do with water leaks, but they aren’t things that truly upset you. Losing a lot of money on a trade would be very stressful. And 2% return, I don’t think is that bad. If you feel like you purchased a property for a good price and the appreciation rate has potential, maybe it’s worth it. Or if you can fix it up and it’s a hot rental market. One positive we really hadn’t taken into account for is the potential for rents to increase significantly, even though your fixed costs are basically the same.</p>
<p>I dont see fixed costs staying the same. Prop taxes increase. Cost of repairs increases. Insurance costs increase. Hoas increase. </p>
<p>I hate water leaks. They stress me out.</p>
<p>I have two orders entered today and if I get filled, I wont be stressed out. </p>
<p>How did you make 55 percent? What worked out?</p>
<p>bus, honestly all this stock trading’s for fun. My best investment is still real estate and it’s stress free for me anyway.
You did well for it being up 55%. </p>
<p>“How did you make 55 percent? What worked out?”</p>
<p>Mostly by trading in and out of Apple, a little bit of messing around with a small cap ETF. I had one stock, ehealth that went up 20% in a day, so I sold it. Good thing, because right now I looked at the price, and it has massively crashed. Wow, so glad I got out of that one, it was speculative. I have absolutely no idea of what I’m doing, but I figure I’m playing with relatively stable investments, they go up a bit, I sell. They go down a bit, I buy back into them. I get 25 free trades a year on my account.</p>
<p>With the real estate, my costs have gone up and down. Property taxes started out higher than they are right now. Insurance started out higher, until I adjusted it appropriately. Maintenance has been higher on some than I expected, and lower on some. One condo is never empty for more than 5 days, so we’ve come out ahead on that. It’s really hard to plan exactly, but I guess if you’re conservative, you can’t go wrong. We are learning as we go along, but the main thing is that we bought them as shorts/foreclosures, so even if they were empty, we’d profit.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, When we talked about your condos as investments, I liked them, right? :)</p>
<p>There is nothing like that here. There wasnt anything like that in 2008-2010. The prices fell about 20 percent except for the dumps. They are still dumps. </p>
<p>I was not and am not going to buy condos 1,000 miles away as an investment. :)</p>
<p>All the costs in
Maintaining and owning property over time increase here. </p>
<p>Even prop 13 isnt as great as it reads. There are add ons like special school bond issues and building reservoirs and hospital bonds that get added to the prop taxes.</p>
<p>Your 55 percent return is great.</p>
<p>The dow is up 199 today? Wow!</p>
<p>The stock market is up during the last three days now.</p>
<p>I guess my orders are not getting filled.</p>
<p>Then I don’t know why you are looking at condos as an investment. The picture doesn’t sound too good. I would never own a condo that I couldn’t actively manage, that wasn’t nearby. You give too much of your profit to a manager, and too much trust involved. It seems like you’d be better off with something else that was just stable and a small increase in value, than condos. You sure don’t want to buy a dump, unless the condo unit is nice and you only have to fix up yours. Unfortunately, if yours is a dump, everyone elses is probably a dump and you can’t do much about that.</p>
<p>The situation here is getting similar to your area, though on a lower scale. The only reason we did it was because if one could stand the aggravation of short sale/foreclosures, it was worth it. </p>
<p>Busdriver11, it was worth it. I think you are doing a great job with your finances.</p>
<p>I am interested in a place for my daughter. Government does not adequately fund programs for my daughter and charities come up short.</p>
<p>I think the returns are going to be 2 percent plus some appreciation. </p>
<p>I may do nothing like usual. I am eyeing a couple of units. If they go on sale, I am going to have to put up or shut up. :)</p>
<p>Well thank you, but I actually haven’t given you the full picture. There are some things we’ve done that others would consider breathtakingly stupid. But I still don’t regret them, it’s just choices that we’ve made. We would have been retired by now, had we not made them.</p>
<p>Finding a place for your daughter makes it completely different. You certainly can’t buy a dump, and appreciation and return are just a bonus. And doing nothing is definitely better than doing something wrong.</p>
<p>I did stupid things too, breathtakingly stupid. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have to work anymore.</p>
<p>Do you regret those things, DrGoogle? I’m sure we all regret the little things (should have sold or bought xx stock at a different time, invested more, etc). I still don’t regret some of the big ones. Though our bank account would look a lot better, some decisions you can’t even think about monetarily.</p>
<p>I wish I had the opportunity to buy put spreads today.</p>
<p>Bus, maybe 10 years ago but not anymore. After the housing bust a lot people had it worse.</p>
<p>What’s your take on this,</p>
<p><a href=“Tapes prove regulators cozy with Goldman: Report”>Tapes prove regulators cozy with Goldman: Report;
<p>and this,</p>
<p><a href=“Smart Chart: It's Never Been a Better Time to Be Rich | BillMoyers.com”>http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/26/smart-chart-never-better-time-rich/</a></p>
<p>So yahoo had a link to an article that states Tim Cook sold most of his stocks before the AAPL stock went down 3%. He only has 1% left.</p>
<p>I finally made some money shorting Tesla. But I must admit it was hard. I had to calm my nerve for a week. I was hesitant so didn’t buy many contacts and that’s made it harder. I also should hang back when I decide to purchase the put. Sometimes I got carry away.</p>
<p>I am short the iwm 106 puts that expire Friday. iwm looks pretty weak. I dont know about this trade.</p>
<p>I talked to a money manager that manages over $2 billion and he told me that he thinks the stock market can return 8-9% including dividends over the next 10 years. Kind of shocked me. I thought he was usually gloomier. He thinks we are due for a correction. (Not that he knows).</p>
<p>I haven’t funded any mortgages for awhile but I am thinking of doing that instead of this selling put stuff. Maybe invest in an apartment building with a couple of friends. Can get 7-8 percent on mortgages but there is a lot of time when I am in cash as I wait for a good one. so the returns are less. The apartment building should return 7-8 percent unlevered…otherwise we aren’t going to buy the building.</p>