Blog Archives

After 11 years of owning investment property, I’ve made some great decisions, made some mistakes, experienced an up market, and experienced a down market. After all this, I’ve developed 5 core rules of buying investment properties. Most of these rules can be applied to any type of investing too. Educate yourself Learn all you can Read More

Many of you know I have some gripes with the how the media represents politics, current events, and the real estate market. Last night  financial advisor, Suze Orman, aired a new episode about “real estate reality”.  There were some major points in her show that I disagree with. Suze said that if you bought a Read More

I find today’s stock market drop (512 points in the dow) quite humorous. It seems to be entirely irrational and fear based. How have the governments decisions over the past few days really affected you? My guess is not at all. Did Caterpillar really loose 10% in company value over the past 3 days?  Not Read More

Thirty-nine percent of US households have dogs. If you have a dog or are considering getting one, make sure you consider your K9 friend when buying a home. Kinsey and I have been dog owners most of our lives. Here are the 6 major considerations for us. Commute: This is the number one thing you Read More

Lately I’ve had several people ask “How much less than asking price would you typical offer on a house?” Well, I could answer that question with statistics that the average sale in a particular neighborhood may be 5% below asking price. Although, the true answer to the question is, it depends, every seller and every Read More

The past week has been a very busy real estate week. We have had lots of showings, a closing, we put three properties under contract, and we are waiting to hear on another counter offer (all in a matter of 5 days). I’ve talked to other real estate agents that suddenly got just as busy. Read More

We are firm believers that you should give a portion of your income. Why? It makes a positive impact on someone or something, it makes you feel good, it makes you appreciate what you have, and (for the Christians out there) the bible tells us too. Whether you give it to your church, a charity, Read More

January 2011 Wisconsin housing statistics as well as  2010 year end  statistics are now available here: Market Update Jan 2011 .  We are very lucky here in south central Wisconsin to have sustained a relatively stable market in comparison to other areas of the country.

There’s many different theories on how much home you should buy. Some experts say leverage yourself to the max, others say limit your mortgage to a 15 year loan with payments less than 25% of your take home pay. My opinion tends to be somewhere in the middle of these two theories but a little Read More

In the past few years there’s been a flurry of new electronic devices such as laptops, cell phones, ipads, iphones, etc.  All these devices are suppose to make our lives more efficient; we can now look up a phone number or email address in seconds, we can keep our grocery lists on our phone, and Read More