My last 30-days of trading has been absolutely awesome.
I started trading more seriously and working harder in May, but hit a rough patch from mid-August until mid-September.
I had to take a step back, recalibrate, and reevaluate my strategy. Here are some things I learned.
Millennials love to complain that baby boomers had it easier.
This chart is the latest "proof" being handed around.
The problem is it's a complete lie. Here's why...
Two years ago we paid $740,000 for our new primary in California on a 5.75% 30-year fixed rate.
Everyone told us we overpaid and I had a number of folks tell me we should rent for at least a year, wait for rates and prices to come down.
Today interest rates are 7.00% and the
I paid $175 to have the grass cut at 5 of my Detroit rentals yesterday.
I'll do this every 2-weeks until the end of October.
That means it will cost me $4,375 to have the grass cut this year.
My attitude toward this has completely changed.
I'm happy to pay it. Here's why.
I have a slumlord friend.
No kidding.
He owns over 100 doors in D Class areas of Detroit and takes pleasure in squeezing every last dime out of them.
It's insanely profitable for him but here's the thing... 🧵
My buddy is heading to Detroit last minute for business.
As luck would have it, my short-term rental isn't booked this weekend.
Would you let a friend stay for free?
@FilledWithMoney
Absolutely.
12 years ago I had to commute to work. Could take 1-1.5 hours each way to go ~13 miles.
$200k/year to do that again... nope. Not worth it.
Before you make the mistake of buying a short-term rental today, consider...
Two years ago you could NOT get a Schlage Encode.
They were sold out EVERYWHERE except eBay for $600.
I just got this for $200 via 2-day Amazon delivery.
What's that tell you?
He's local, living right in the neighborhood.
He's growing his business and doing well for himself.
It's awesome to see and I'm sure other young Detroit kids are taking notice and inspired.
Furthermore, this money flows into the community, further strengthening it.
And that's what makes him such a great D Class operator.
He loves the sh*t storm of it all.
He lives for it.
He's a miserable human being but he'd be even more miserable if he weren't... well, miserable.
My lawn care guy sends me pics of the lawns when they are done.
Every time he does it puts a smile on my face. I live 2,000 miles away from my rentals.
I don't get to see them often.
But when I see these photos it makes me feel good.
There's some value in that.
In 1985 you were paying nearly 36% of your gross income to your mortgage.
In 2022 you were paying 30%.
That means baby boomers had it 19% HARDER than millennials.
Here's the graph that matters.
If you want to make it in D Class areas, for whatever reason, I am convinced this is the type of person you need to be.
I'm not judging.
It's just not who I am or who I want to be.
I've also witnessed:
- Him get into fistfights with tenants.
- A tenant literally burn one of his duplexes to the ground (you can bet he cashed in on that insurance!).
- The local news feature him on their 'Hall of Shame' segment.
I started doing this with just 1 house 2 years ago.
It was just one guy and a mower.
Last year I added 2 more houses, and I noticed he had 2 guys with him and company t-shirts.
This year he's got a nice trailer and sending out friendly reminder mass texts.
So what?
I've noticed other owners getting lawn service.
They're taking more pride in their home's curb appeal.
This pushes values higher and attracts homeowners that want to be part of the community.
And my guy's lawn care business is growing!
@realEstateTrent
That's odd.
These discounts are usually inputted in your Airbnb settings so it's all automated if someone books beyond the week.
Was he not offering the discount normally and just assuming folks would ask for one?
I've never had anyone directly ask for a discount.
The guy's life (let's call him Jack) is a constant reality TV show.
His days are spent driving around Detroit.
He's constantly putting out fires, shaking tenants down for rent, and yelling at people over the phone.
Finally, my tenants appreciate it!
We received this text from a tenant this morning.
I added 2 houses this year without even mentioning it to them.
It's nice to be appreciated!
What do you think? Would you do this in C Class areas?
This is the kind of guy that cheated on his wife.
Divorced and shacked up with the new lady.
And now hates her too and complains about her + her kids.
The dude is miserable.
He thrives on it.
If you painstakingly retrieve interest rates, median incomes, and median home prices back to 1965 your graph looks like this.
The worst year for home affordability was 1981 where buyers were paying 40% of their gross income toward their mortgage.
Ouch!
So I adjusted. I now focus on expirations 3-4 weeks out and buy at-the-money or slightly in-the-money contracts.
This has helped MASSIVELY because it reduces my drawdown through corrections, obviously, but it also allows me a luxury I didn’t previously have - patience.
All of my leases say that tenants are responsible for lawn care.
But they aren't great about it.
These are C Class areas where the median house price is ~$150,000
Now that I mow the lawns ever 2-weeks the houses look better, more appealing, and well kept. This ripples.
Patience has been my other game changer.
I have to credit
@traderstewie
and
@AOTtrades
for driving this into my brain literally every day. I joined early September and the “no panicking allowed” mantra has been invaluable.
Far more valuable than the trade alerts.
After a full day of tough labor our little boy had to come into the world via c-section. Both he and Mom are healthy and happy.
So proud of the wife for her strength and bravery all day.
👶🏼
Millennials do NOT have it harder.
Sorry that doesn't fit the narrative but the data doesn't lie.
So let's stop making excuses. Get out there and get to work and be thankful it isn't worse.
The boomers endured tougher times.
After an innocent post about why I'm grateful I decided to buy instead of rent and wait for prices and rates to come down here's a summary for the nearly 250 comments:
- A shocking number of people will hate you simply because you're a homeowner 🤯
- People REALLY hate
Two years ago we paid $740,000 for our new primary in California on a 5.75% 30-year fixed rate.
Everyone told us we overpaid and I had a number of folks tell me we should rent for at least a year, wait for rates and prices to come down.
Today interest rates are 7.00% and the
Real estate investors think their property taxes only go up.
Nope. Not true.
I have a 100% success rate on reducing property taxes on my rentals, on average, by over 50%.
Here are some tips if you plan to appeal yours... 🧵
@brockoli65004
It’s amazing how people say, “ok ok I was wrong boomers had it harder with this ONE thing but my life is DEFINITELY harder in all other aspects”.
Nope. Stop crying and get to work!
Why would you EVER decrease the price by such a small amount?
I think the logic here is you're freshening up the listing by pinging people (like me) w/ alerts.
But I really think it does more damage than good.
A "drop" like this screams unreasonable & unmotivated seller.
@dtmorgan18
We did this.
CA -> MI -> CA
The cost of our house and gas was the only real cost of living adjustment.
Property taxes on our $460k MI house were actually the same as our $740k CA home.
I had a great trading day today, one I never want to forget.
@BiIIGains
mentioned I should commemorate it by purchasing an NFT, so I’m finally part of the cult.
Looking forward to going down the
@forgottenrunes
rabbit hole.
Thanks, Bill!
@Mitchell_Rosen
I didn't choose those years. They were the ones from the realtor .com graphic.
I did, however, go back and do the exercise from 1965 to today.
Much harder in the 1980's
This chart tells us absolutely nothing about true affordability.
Why?
It doesn't account for the monthly mortgage payment.
To do that, you need the average 30-year mortgage rate for each year.
In 1985 you could get a mortgage for 12.5% interest.
In 2022 it was an average of 5.5%
Your payment toward your mortgage:
1985 = $703/mo
2022 = $1,884/mo
Still looks ok, right? Not quite.
I have a ton to still work on. My style is still very risky and vulnerable to a prolonged or very aggressive correction.
I’m aware of that.
I plan to de-risk my trading style more and more soon. But the things I’ve mentioned above have made big strides for me.
Hope it helps
@GuyDealership
I learned on a stick shift, it's like riding a bike, and I would love to have one again.
Fun story... the wife and I rented a car in Mallorca years ago on our honeymoon.
We didn't speak the language and the guy ran us through a bunch of side streets, dumped us off, and gave us
My win rate is 72% and my wins are 2x my losses. It’s great to know those stats and it builds my confidence.
In my daily journal I quickly summarize what happened, went well, poorly, etc.
It takes me 5 min but it’s amazing to read back on it.
Tenant of 4 years has ghosted me all month.
The last few months have been rocky and she's had sporadic late payments in the past but it always works out.
We started the eviction process for the first time ever the other week and now have our initial court date on April 4th.
In
The late 1960's and (very) early 1970's were great times to buy.
So were the years from 2009 through 2011.
If the 1980's are any guide, it could be a decade before affordability gets much better.
First, my trading is heavily options focused. It’s been that way since May. But I noticed that I’m great at identifying solid setups but not great at honing in on when exactly they’ll breakout.
Until a month ago I was still trying to trade weekly (or the next) expirations.
@RealCoreyWilton
It saddens me you need to take this stance.
Team building is work. Time off is needed. People criticizing for this have no idea what it takes to actually build something.
You shouldn’t have to defend yourself. Hope you all had some time to recharge. Keep it up!
Today we saw 4,032 Pegas purchased in the marketplace, an amount bested only once before on Feb. 15th (the day after the Valentine's breeding event).
Will tomorrow set a new record for Pegas sold in a day?
Regardless, people are massively buying this dip.
@meetmikehiggins
@Thefrugalgay11
I would much rather eat the cost of my MIL living in one of my properties than having my MIL live with me in my primary.
Just saying ☺️
Find something or someone that can do that for you.
I also started keeping track of EVERY trade I make in a spreadsheet. I started that on September 15th alongside a daily journal.
Coincidence? Doubtful.
Pretty easy $BTC long here IMO. We've had a nice trend developing over the last ~48 hours with clear support below.
Hidden bullish divergence on this bullish pennant. I think we'll see at least $7,000-$7,200 in the next 1-3 days.
I didn't truly start building wealth until I invested in real estate.
Why is that?
It's a pain to sell!
Push yourself toward illiquid assets and let time do the work.
We are our own worst enemies.
@Thefrugalgay11
This is brutal and I've seen it before. It's like throwing good money after bad.
I think the best solutions in these situations is to give equally to all. That way nobody can complain.
That said, if I know I'm going to be dead and gone I'd probably exclude the folks I thought
Yesterday's short squeeze hasn't done much to reverse the overall $BTC downtrend. Price was rejected right at the upper channel resistance.
If it hangs here for another 12+ hours, I'll likely open some shorts.
One of the strangest things I've been witnessing in the crypto currency trading space is people posting their return on equity (ROE) and amount of leverage used.
Last week I completed an eviction on one of my Detroit tenants that's been with me for over 4 years.
Everyone is always afraid of damage done after an eviction.
Here's how I found the unit once she vacated.
Guess how much this is going to cost me to turn over?
I FINALLY had this roof done.
What a job.
🥴3 layers of shingles
🥲 Cedar shake underneath
🟦 24 square roof w/ lots of slopes
🪵 Full re-decking
What do you think it cost me?
@GrulkeLamonte
Dude, I've seen quotes for roofs like this go up to $30,000.
I've stood on them with friends, scratching my head...
"This is not complicated, I don't get it!"
Never had to do one but always wondered if there's something I'm missing.
One of the biggest problems traders battle is their own bias for a desired outcome.
A perfect example right now are folks pointing to an inverse head and shoulders pattern on the daily bitcoin chart.
Most of my trades were also slightly out of the money contracts.
My wins were strong enough to balance out my mediocre hit rate. That wasn’t really the problem.
It was when the market went against me. My losses would mount quickly and I couldn’t afford to wait out turbulence.
Let me start by saying I get it.
After a mega pump to ~26.5c VIS has dumped to a low of 1.2c in less than a month.
That's enough to shake almost any investor. And it's why you should always understand why you're getting into any project/investment.
@ikoikoikoiko
Yeah, I'm hoping he starts offering snow removal for the winters.
He hasn't done it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the year!
I've been reading
@EpsilonTheory
for quite a few months now, slowly digesting and making sense of it all.
Last night, I read Ben's latest piece and it felt like it all just clicked. Woke up this morning still thinking about it.
Then I joined The Pack.
I see so many people wanting to "scale quickly" in real estate investing.
Most of them have $50k or less.
It doesn't work that way.
You either take your time and put in the work over decades, or come to the table with a pile of money.
Can't have it both ways.
@leadlagreport
This is the wrong take. You’re confusing true wealth with artificially inflated asset prices.
Powell hasn’t destroyed any true wealth, he’s simply unraveling silliness.
Few understand this, clearly.
For those interested, here is a link to a Google Sheet with every trade I made from 9/15 until yesterday.
Some of these setups were tweeted, some were not.
Spring is in the air!
Just learned I received this gorgeous airdrop from
@FlowerGirlsNFT
commemorating the changing of the season.
As always, spectacular
@VarvaraAlay
Need to dig in on the entire collection & do the math, but pretty sure airdrops have paid for my entire mint.
As someone who got into Pegaxy in late December after waiting for the initial hype to cool off, I am more confident in the project and game than ever.
I'm not going to go into all my reasons, but I do want to look at what's happening in the economy right now.
I've been working hard to not gloat or ridicule those who have been ridiculing others during this current leg down.
Neither is productive, but rather destructive. And it's not always easy.
Put out to the world what you wish to receive back.
This house has a section 8 tenant in it paying $900.
My investor client got it for FREE.
How?!
1️⃣ They paid $65,000 cash for it
2️⃣ Spent $500 cleaning up overgrowth
3️⃣ It appraised for $90,000
They did delayed financing & had their 💰 back in a few weeks.
I ❤️ real estate.
Another big concern I was hearing was there would be diminished and/or little demand for Pegas now that the game was "dead".
But there is no evidence to support that. On the contrary, demand is starting to come in in a big way.
It's amazing how well $DCR has held up through this crypto crash. It's now nearly challenging recent highs.
Take note of projects that are exhibiting similar behavior. These are the ones you want to hold long-term.