The coffee shop is quiet for a change. The normal morning bustle has yielded to a lull, giving the baristas a chance to enjoy a break and catch up on some cleaning before the lunch rush.  I’m only partially aware of what’s going on around me, because at the moment, I’m busy obsessing my Ameritrade...

In 1978 a good friend of mine got me to joint venture with him on the purchase of my first single family investment property in Colorado Springs. We continued to buy several other houses and a fourplex together. We hired 3 different management firms to run our small portfolio. Sadly, all three firms failed miserably,...

Years ago, when I was just a wee little newbie, there was a guy who belonged to my local REIA group who always wore a button to the meetings that said YAFTAX. This fellow was one of the big dogs—owned lots of rentals, had been in the group forever, was on the board, all that...

Yes, 2020 was an unusual year. But it was probably ‘normal-ish’ in the sense that you set a lot of goal and resolutions that didn’t get reached, right? Because that’s what happens EVERY year, right? That’s because you can’t do big things—like start or grow a successful real estate business, or drastically improve your income,...

Lawmakers all over the U.S. are tearing their hair out over the lack of affordable housing, and trying desperately (generally through lots of restrictions of property rights and lots of taxes that lead to a lot fewer new units than the private market could have built) to make housing more affordable for both renters and...