Prolly one of the best Tickers ever.

Well that's just it, when will the market force the fed gov to cut back spending? Trillion dollar deficits (deficitis as I like to call it) is what is propping up the DC/MD/VA real estate market at all-time high prices.

Excellent advice Gen!

Chef, what happens when your current tenant hits hard times and can't pay the rent and it takes you over 6 months to evict? Who's paying the mortgage then? Who's going to pay for fixing the damages that ARE going to happen once they slip into arrears? My friend just had this happen to them, it will take you down with the ship when it happens. If you own the property outright, however...and that's the moral of this story.

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They did that in the 90s too. Put a friend of mine out of business that way.

This is how Dave Ramsey was forced out of the real estate business the first time (the debt payoff, total money makeover guy). He levered up in real estate and had his loans called.

Excellent Ticker Karl - most folks who provide business advice this cogent demand a substantial fee. I hope you don't mind if I copy it into my filespace for future reference. Back to the grind.

Some of my friends have tried to make money in rental real estate. It is almost impossible to get decent renters. Many stiff you on the rent, leave at midnight, and trash the place on the way out. If you try to evict anyone, it costs at least $500 for the attorney and court fees. This on top of not getting rent.

Gen, might this depression have started even earlier? At least in the 80s, there was some appearance of prosperity after the awful drubbing we got in 1980-81. But, I worked in manufacturing before that and we had a number of sharp downturns going back to the early 1970s. If it were not for the SNAP and Link cards, I suspect that we would be seeing even longer lines at soup kitchens than happened in the 1930s. Now, it is masked.

I dont have numbers but I suspect that the majority of solid debt free businesses more often than not have everything ripped out from under them by debt-backed leveraged-to-the-hilt competitors. And when your business is failing, and you are faced with the choice to take on debt and keep going, or throw it all away, who is to say the best thing to do is settle for nothing?

I am a pretty damned good networking and systems admin, and also own enough hardware to start a cash landscaping business tomorrow. If worst came to worst, there is such a vacuum of good systems people in the small business world that if I got laid off I could start two cash businesses right now, having enough of a cushion for the lean fimes of going out and obtaining customers to start up.

The best thing I ever did for myself was getting off the couch, redesigning my yard and doing all of the labor on it. Besides the weight loss and conditioning, it made me realize that I could do any physical labor I wished.

I am much better for it.

wrong thread.

I' ve skill at repairing 1970-ish control systems for nuke plants.
Might as well be a veterenarian specialized in Brontosauruses.

but i'm debt free

and gone galt in the Ozarks.

@ Jack Crabb
check out small towns in southern Mo and northern Arkansas.
Idaho is gorgeous, but winters brutal.

pardon me while i was out setting fire to my properties...err...walking my dog, i was noodling the new fact i learned today that the bank can change the terms of a 30 y mortgage without any cause such as missed payments etc.

i see the danger in "investment debt" and how you can lose your shirt. does this change if the mortgages are within an LLC and not attached to my "personal" finances? also, my rental has a very low mortgage ($400 per month) but is not slum housing. i guess i am struggling to grasp how bad it will be. sure in a SHTF scenario i will probably lose, but in that case i would be far more worried about the zombie biker gangs than mortgages. i guess i am planning for a downward class migration type scenario, where my current tenants would drop out but the "class" a rung or two above them on the ladder will fall down to replace them.

Hey Chief Bottlewasher,,,
Didn't you get the *Official*,, .GOV/FED Message?

This Is NOT a *Depression*....
It's called Now-a-Days, the *Great Recession*

Looks like I'm going to have to work harder and improve my Poker skills. It's one of the things I really enjoy doing.

Once this depression really takes hold and folks are short of cash, I might have be ready to go "ALL IN" where the pot might be for chickens, goats, guns, ammo, or vegetables. "Fun times" ahead indeed.

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Chef, what happens when your current tenant hits hard times and can't pay the rent and it takes you over 6 months to evict? Who's paying the mortgage then? Who's going to pay for fixing the damages that ARE going to happen once they slip into arrears? My friend just had this happen to them, it will take you down with the ship when it happens. If you own the property outright, however...and that's the moral of this story

Yep.

Chef, you've made up your mind and are looking for validation.

Sorry, you'll have to look somewhere else.

Money is going to become very rare and hard to come by. Any business that does not require its clients to come up with actual cash will have a big advantage. And while a business that attracts cash takes the cash away from other businesses, a barter business does not.

In some cases the barter is taxable, but not always. At least when I last checked, if you were *required* by your employer to live on-site, your free housing was not counted as taxable income (e.g. health care providers). If I found myself in an economic jam, the first thing I would look for would be a live-in position; good grief the country is full of vacant rooms and elderly people who could use a hand.

I think more tiny shoestring businesses will open in rural areas; there are so many empty stores around, and the prices are dropping where I check. When the places get cheap enough to buy for almost nothing, the owner can live upstairs over the store. Customers would be an occasional thing; local folks could drop stuff off on consignment; a net savvy person could trade internet help for a little booth space that s/he staffed once a week.

I have a ZILLION ideas for new businesses but no-where to post them (and setting up a website is not in my future): for instance, a place where people could go to have their produce from their garden canned for a reasonable fee. It's a real drag canning your own produce; both the process and the worries about contamination. I think that sort of service existed in years gone by. It's much easier to freeze food, but then you have to worry about keeping the freezer going. Paying someone to do the canning (in exchange for a little cash and some produce) would save a lot on your electricity bill.

Another business idea: meat is going to get costlier, at least for a while. I don't eat animal products for ethical reasons, and some people don't for health reasons (whether they're right is irrelevant here). And presently fake meat products are entirely vegetarian. They've improved a LOT over the years, but they still won't make a meat eater happy.

But there's BIG niche for products for people who want meaty stuff but can't afford much meat. That is, "meat" products that are e.g. ten percent meat, and 90 percent stuff that has the texture and feel and most of the taste of meat but is much cheaper. Imagine going to the store and going to the ground beef section. You see costly ground beef, and then you see stuff that cooks up like it and has many similarities in flavor and taste but that is only ten percent meat and is A THIRD the price per pound, and not as much goes away as grease. I'd bet a LOT of people would go for the "partly meat" meat. If you've ever had a Bocaburger, you know that non meat things can be tasty (and a rip-off, price-wise); with *some* meat added it wouldn't be dreary deprivation.

It doesn't take much meat to set off "I just ate meat" neurons (I can say from experience, having gagged a few times because it's easy to tell if something contains just a little meat if you don't eat the stuff).

Here's another business idea: a fenced-in construction site that is not just kid-friendly, but *designed* for kids. Little boys LOVE construction equipment. They can stare at it moving all day. The machines don't have to actually move from place to place; they can be attached to the ground for safety. But some of the buttons could still work; you could cause the lift thing to lift, or whatever.

In one seat, could be an unemployed construction worker, supervising. In the next seat, the little boy with a hard hat on. In the third seat would be Mom, with a complimentary sushi plate, a wine cooler, and ear buds with music going. Or, the third seat could contain Grandpa, who would LOVE to bring the kid to there. There could be a spa nearby for Grandma.

This could be a local business - each town could support one. There could also be a big destination version. The Sacramento area would be excellent; there's land, and airport, and lots of unemployed construction guys.

My dad wants there to be a version for grown-up guys, so he could go. It would attract adult males, and women whose estrogen levels are not typical.

Yes, you would need legal advice and there would be safety issues to deal with. But it would be less of a big deal than many similar things like ferris wheels, since the machines themselves wouldn't move from place to place.

I have suggested this business idea to several people, but no-one I know wants to do it. It's not their sort of thing. But it would be GREAT!!!

Okay, here's another business idea (I hope you're not finding this annoying Karl, but really if it helps any of your readers it would be good and I do think it's on topic): a virtual Christmas tree that you project on the wall. You would use a powerful projector; they're cheap. It would come with basic virtual ornaments; you could buy extras. You could hook it up to your computer and a family member across the country could hook on their own projector, and experience your Christmas tree on their own wall! The projector itself could be shaped like a Christmas tree.

People are much more mobile now, and don't have space. A virtual Christmas tree wouldn't take up space (just the projector), and you could add features each year. You could have a projector for each room, for each wall! For each holiday!! Imagine the Easter bunny hopping up and down on your wall! The ornaments could dance, move around, be personalized.

I would actually NEVER own such a thing, myself. Yech. But I know lots of people who would. And even people who would buy it in addition to a regular Christmas tree.

Um, I have more business ideas, available to all, gratis. But I think I'd better make sure this isn't annoying before I post more of them.

Love that construction playground idea! not sure how financially viable it would be but it shows you have a good imagination.

Karl likes imagination, ok I don't really know that but I'm hopping he does...but he's been pretty cranky lately.

:)

I've never liked debt either, but am also surprised that a 30 year mortgage can be called whenever the bank likes. Are all loans like this now? When did this occur, or has it always been like this?

its weird I am in the middle of a political storm in a industry that is getting crushed i mean crushed by regulations. Im 29 so quite young so watching it unfold and most are oblivious what is occurring. I made a lot of good friends and they don't see it at all. I decided the writing is on the wall. If Dem's get re-elected this place probably won't exist very quickly.... IMHO i think thats the case at the moment. I can't back it up just how I chart the data and what has occurred lately.

I am not disclosing where it is at, I would get canned for sure...is that normal?? Maybe I'm naive about that.. I know it happens for sure.

Anyhow putting together a list of skill sets and moving on is where I am at I figure i should have about a year and this is plenty of warning. Freaks me out to start in a new career field, but ill figure it out.

Great post Gen!

You've said it all before, but I like seeing it up in one place.

Going through that list, I've got a few pros and a few cons...

Skills: Software engineer (current business, 0 debt, maybe $500/year in overhead...yes, you read that right), network engineer, A/V technician (secondary business; maintained my contacts in the industry), welding, basic electronics and electrician skills, animal husbandry (dogs and horses; Mostly training and vet work).

Personal debt: 0.

Savings: Not much, but a mix of cash and physical metals. No trading activity (likely to stay that way).

Assets: Again, not much, but I may have enough to purchase some land very soon, so that could change.

Here's where it gets tricky for me...

Intangible asset: Dual-citizenship (US/Canada).

Which gets me wondering: I'm looking at buying 300 acres nearby, but maybe I should take advantage of that Canadian citizenship?...

I'm in California and, while I could afford the 300 acres I was talking about and the *CURRENT* property taxes, what's keeping the county from raising said taxes by a substantial percent?

I've discussed this idea with my parents and brother (he's got solid skills in the permaculture/gardening area), and we are all in agreement that a 'family compound' is looking like a good idea, but I'm just not sure where.

Saving this one. Good time'n for the bobby family.

Thank you