Tentmaking Tips

Staging is the process of furnishing and decorating a house to appeal to current retail buyers.

One mistake people make when they sell their homes, in my opinion, is selling it vacant or with furnishings/decor that won’t appeal to buyers.

Sometimes people think that moving all of their furniture/decor out & selling it vacant is best because the buyer will see it as a blank slate. In most cases, this isn’t true. Or people think that they have great taste & just leaving their stuff in there should be fine. This can also be untrue.

Most buyers will pay more for a house that is professionally furnished & decorated, also known as being “staged.”

A seller in my neighborhood, who is also a real estate agent, recently had an updated rental property he wanted to sell. The tenant had just moved out, so the house was vacant. He also believed it was not ideal to sell it vacant. He told me he

There is such an investment that I’ve used over the years and I love it!

It’s called a Health Savings Account or HSA for short.

You can invest in an HSA if you have a qualifying high deductible insurance plan with your employer (or with your own insurance provider if self-employed). You should check to see if your current health plan has an HSA option or if it makes financial sense to switch to another health plan with an HSA option.

The contribution limit for an HSA each year is $7,300 for a family (this is the 2022 rate & it usually goes up each year).

So, check this out:

- When you contribute $7,300 over the course of the year, it reduces your taxable income by that same amount - awesome!

- Then as the $7,300 grows in a good, low-cost index fund, you’ll not pay taxes

Longer Answer:

Retail real estate and investment real estate are two different businesses.

In retail real estate, you are representing clients who are buying or selling houses.

In investment real estate, you are buying and selling houses for yourself for some investment purpose.

In retail real estate, you need a license because the state regulates the industry to ensure you are a qualified fiduciary for your client.

In investment real estate, since you are working for yourself, your activity isn’t regulated in the same way.

Getting a real estate license is typically for the purposes of engaging in the retail real estate business.

Quick Flipping is buying and selling houses yourself for a profit which is the investment real estate business.

The reason I’m making these distinctions is two-fold:

1. Sellers who are selling you a distressed, off-market property at a discount are usually looking for an inve

I’d love to help.

By tentmaking, we mean earning money to support your ministry from outside your ministry. This could be supplemental income if you already have a ministry income. Or it could completely replace a ministry income and you could derive all of your income outside of your ministry.

Here are 4 steps to begin a tentmaking journey:

1. Determine how much extra income you need

Are you just needing an extra $5,000 each year? Or are you needing part-time income? Or do you need full-time income? This will help you decide what types of tentmaking opportunities to pursue.

2. Determine how much time you have to generate this extra income

Do you only have a few hours available each week or could you spend more time? Depending on the type of ministry you’re in now, you may either have quite a bit of flexibility to pursue tentmaking on the side or you may have very little. Knowing

My wife & I enjoy Broadway shows as well, and although we’ve been to NYC several times, we started getting the itch to go again.

We had actually planned a couples trip to the Caribbean, but due to some fairly stringent COVID restrictions in the place we were going, we decided to rebook to NYC. This was somewhat last minute, so the point totals I’m going to share are likely higher than you might pay if you booked further out. But I wanted to give you another example of how we booked this trip for “nearly” free.

Flights:

• We fly Southwest as much as possible because we have the Companion Pass. That allows a companion to fly with you free.

• My wife used 42,526 points (because it was last minute) on her Southwest account for a flight to La Guardia Airport in NYC. And
...

I encourage my students to find buyers way before marketing to find deals from sellers. What good is a deal if you don’t have someone to sell it to?

In most markets, there are many investors looking for properties they can flip or hold as rentals.

Here are 3 of the best ways to find them:

1. ListSource.com
   
   1. This is a website where you can generate lists of property owners in certain states
   2. Choose your City & State to narrow the search
   3. Then choose Last Market Sale Date of 12 months back
   4. Add Equity Percentage of 100%
   5. Filter this list for Absentee Owners only
   6. This will produce a list of people that have bought investment homes with cash in your area in the last year
   7. Contact those people to see if they want to be added to your list of buyers

2. Facebook
   1. Many cities have Facebook groups for Real Estate Inve
   ...

How would you like to earn 9.62% virtually risk-free on some of your money over the next 6 months & probably close to this amount virtually risk-free for another 6 months? Too good to be true?

Believe it or not, the Series I US Government Savings Bond (I Bond) is offering an initial interest rate through October of 2022 of 9.62%. Yes, you read that right. 9.62%!

These bonds were introduced in 1998 & this is the highest inflation rate the bonds have earned since then. The highest in 24 years! Wow!

The reason I say “virtually” risk-free is because the US is not likely to default on its debt. These are backed by the full faith & credit of the US government. Treasuries are considered some of the most conservative investments out there. Much like a High Yield Savings Account.

The I in these Series I Bonds stands for inflatio

I’ll give you one guess which situation the housing market is in right now.

People are greedy!

The market has been incredibly hot.

The median home price in the US has increased around 15% from this time last year. 15%!!!! In some markets, it’s way above this! Whoa!!

You’ve probably heard that many homes are selling far above the list price. And, often, there is a bidding war that decides who wins.

In our part of the country, I’ve heard of homebuilders having auctions to sell their new houses. And the highest bidder has to waive the appraisal contingency to win. In other words, the builder knows you are paying so much money, the bank will never appraise it for that price. So they make you waive the contingency so you don’t opt out when the appraisal comes in low. You have to come up with the difference in cash.

It’s a great time to be a seller and a tough time to be a buyer. The p

This is a great question.

When most people talk about real estate investing, they think in terms of long-term rentals. And you haven’t heard me mention it much here.

There’s a reason for that.

I’m going to share my personal opinion. Clearly not everyone will agree with me, but you’re reading this blog because you want my perspective. So, I’ll give it to you.

In most cases, I think you should only buy long-term rentals if you can pay cash.

And since most people can’t pay cash, I focus in this blog on income producing forms of real estate that don’t require you going into debt.

Now, having said that, I think rental properties are great. My wife and I own rental properties. I just happen to agree with Dave Ramsey. If you want to invest in l

Many people assume they can’t get business cards because they don’t own their own business.

But, credit card carriers aren’t as picky as you might think about what constitutes a business.

You don’t have to have an LLC or a corporation or a partnership formed to be a business in the eyes of the credit card company.

You can simply be a sole proprietor.

Here are some examples of businesses you may already have (or could start) that would qualify:

• Real estate agent

• House flipper

• Airbnb host

• Landlord

• Blogger

• Tutor

You get the idea. The list could go on.

And if you don’t currently do anything that would qualify as a business, why not start something small on the side? It would provide another stream of income in addition to qualifying you for these business card bonuses.

Even if you don’t have a long business history,