Escape From Pianosa

Me: “So, are you ready to get this deal done?”

Buyer: “Well… we were, but I drove by the house yesterday with my partner and we witnessed a drug deal right in front.”

Me: “Like, right in front of the house, or on the corner?”

Buyer: “No, right in front of the house. The guy pulled up in a car, handed over some money, and another guy ran over and gave him the drugs.”

Me: “Well, you see, that’s the funny thing about Baltimore.. Some neighborhoods… Really, it’s normal; I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

Buyer: “We’re gonna pass on this one.”

Me: “Is there a better price that would work for you?”

Buyer: “Yeah. Zero.”

At some point, every landlord has to set the rent, and finding rental comparables or comps can be so difficult. Usually it involves looking through the classified section of a newspaper or searching CraigsList to see what other landlords are charging for their properties.

RentoMeter.com is the first website I’ve seen that provides this type of information in a one-stop shop. It’s a great little service, but I suspect that it has the same problem as other methods, which is that you can’t see what houses are actually rented for; you can only see the advertised rent.

HT to biggerpockets.

Forbes.com interviewed several of this year’s top billionaires, and as I was reading through some of them, I noticed three things that repeated over and over again:

1. Exercise daily.

2. Follow your passion.

3. Read. A lot. At least two hours a day, but many said they read four or more hours a day.

Great advice, and by the way it might help you to live longer as well; many of them are in their 80s.