If you have one, what is your 5 year plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2013 - survive the fiscal cliff
2014 - assess the impact of the fiscal cliff and develop new plan

Sigh. Brothers in arms you and I

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My plan is to maintain my status quo, in terms of income (w/ slightly above COLA increases), savings, housing value growth, etc. I should be able to hit the 100K mark for my emergency savings, have retirement continuing on track, and I should clear more than 300K if I decide to sell my house and downsize. Not very sexy but 1000x better off than most.

Sounds very sexy to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2013 - survive the fiscal cliff
2014 - assess the impact of the fiscal cliff and develop new plan

Sigh. Brothers in arms you and I

Unless you're making around 600K and live paycheck to paycheck, you should be fine.

[Anonymous]

I do badly want to buy property as an investment like this. Problem is, even the crappiest places are $500k+. Hard to see how you make money on the rental (or even break even) unless you can put $200 or $300 down. When did you buy?

(I'm the guy who wants to buy a rental from above)

I'm also looking at buying in FL. We have some family down there that could do prop mgmt for us - a 3bd home night run $150k and rent for $1,000 a mo. It's a smaller gamble with a smaller return but more achievable for us right now.

Real estate is a cash flow business and has always been so, except for the last decade. It's math, that's all - return on investment. You won't find property in the DC area that has "cash flow." It's a lousy investment - stay away. Long distance landlording is also a big risk, but if you've got family in Florida that can truly be counted on to manage your property, you may do well there indeed.

[Anonymous]

PP can you elaborate what you mean when you say the cash flow in DC is really bad? I would have thought quite the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP can you elaborate what you mean when you say the cash flow in DC is really bad? I would have thought quite the opposite.

I'm not PP but I suspect it's what the previous poster was alluding to: to generate significant cash flow you need a 2 or 3 bd unit, which in DC, means a sizeable investment. That is, the ratio of rent to sales price is too low to warrant investment. The places you want to rent are the ones that throw off $1,000 for a $100k investment not the ones that throw off $2,000 for a $500,000 one.