Updates:

Occasionally I will update you on what I am doing to make money and give you my incite on the economy (see post above) as it relates to planning to make more money.

This past month: We rented the little blue house (see Gem rental articles) That little house made my phone ring off the hook (you do remember when phones had hooks?) Our payment on the mortgage is $335 and the rent is $650 netting us $315 a 40% return cash on cash, not bad. We will have all our cash down payment and repairs cost back in 24 months. Not to mention the $29,000 equity added to our net worth.

The remodeling on our Guadeloupe street 5 unit property is going along, abet slowly. This property cost $66K for 5 units and we will spend $40K on it. The income is covering the nut but not the work being done. We are paying cash as we go for that. The income is $1,125 now, by the end of September it will be $1,775 (a 3- bedroom house comes on line) then we will update the one empty 2-bedroom apt, that will add another $450 later this year. Then on to updating the three occupied 2-bedroom apts. When they are done another $225 coming in. By the first of the year this property will produce $2,450. Our payment is $778 a month. The equity will be $114,000 when the work is done.

The Gem projects outlook: We started Gem rentals LLC this year (Jan. 2010) with $40,000 we will end the year with equity of $143,000. Not bad for a part time job. We will be borrowing against this equity to buy more properties. Remember the goal is to get to $1,000,000 in five years. That means doubling the equity every year. As you probably figured, things do not always go as planned. If you doubled the equities every year, in five years the $143,000 would be $2,4 mil. One can always hope.

 I use "we" because I have a partner in this venture and we will take on other partners if the opportunity arises. The more cash we have to work with the faster we can grow our money machine. The next buy in for a 1/3 interest is $75K. That number will get bigger and the percentage may get smaller each year. If we do not take on a partner in the next twelve months that same buy in will be $125K to $150K (1/3 of the equity plus ½ of the next years cash flow).