The five year plan in becoming a "Slum Lord"...

The world moves at its own speed. People and objects move around us in different direction. We learn to adjust and focus on ourselves without really understanding our impact in life. Many times we don’t know our influence onto others until many years later. I look at my little slice of heaven and wonder how my actions will influence those around me. I mention this because of my recent experience.

I promise I won't bore you with the specifics, but at the beginning of this year, it looked extremely promising in the romance department. It had occupied my time and caused me to neglected doing things around the house. Let’s just say, that little project is over... However, I’m truly not complaining. Seriously I’m not. Although it allowed me to catch up mentally and financially...

Around Christmas time I’d discovered that financially, I was running pretty thin. I had overlooked a couple of bills prior to purchasing some Christmas gifts. The break allowed me to catch up and refocus. Basically take control of my spending and get back on course with the house.
Since my last entry, things are starting to return to normal. The travelling for work has been helping. Kind of like a mini vacation from the house. So within the last two months, I’ve travelled to Boston, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Virginia. The mini vacations gave me a chance to clean out my mind and get away from things here. But most importantly catch up in the savings department. However, the traffic violation in New Jersey didn’t help.

Anyway, the projects around the house continue to stack up. But I’ve come to a point where I want to update the kitchen. I am truly ready to update the kitchen. So I think I’m going to pull the trigger and make it happen sooner than later. Before I talk about the kitchen, I guess it would be a good time to let everyone in on my five year plan. I feel like I’m reporting to the board of directors…

My goal is to rent out both floors and purchase a second rental property. Yes I said it, another property. But to accomplish the overall goal, I need to fulfill several things. Currently the schedule is to complete the first floor apartment this summer (I estimate sometime in August) and move to an apartment for a brief period of time. I recently spoke with couple of mortgage managers about this plan. Before I could get approved for a loan the banks like to see a positive cash flow for more than three years. Personally, I think the current economic situation doesn’t help. But I need to prove to the banks that I can generate a positive cash flow that is more than 75% of the current mortgage expense. Basically the rental income must be more than the mortgage, taxes and insurance.

So with me moving to an apartment, the new added income would cover both the mortgage and a good portion of the new rental. Depending of course on the cost for the new apartment. The benefits of having the additional income for one year, I will meet the three year positive cash income that the banks requires. After which time, I would purchase a second rental property and begin the process of possibly looking for a third home. Thus the five year plan…

Ok, to meet that plan, I need to finish several projects that are currently in progress. But the biggest project that I think that needs the most attention is the kitchen. Honestly I’m just tired of the prune hands after doing dishes...
Here are a couple of pictures of the current kitchen…

At first glance the kitchen looks pretty good… Right? Well look a little closer… First you may notice that there isn’t a dishwasher… The next thing you should notice is the drawer next to the fridge… Yes it’s missing… All of the drawers are off their tracks. Basically they are not working properly.

Yes the drawer is also missing in the above picture...

My plan is to replace the countertop and drawers. Install a new dishwasher, sink and faucet. The current faucet leaks pretty bad… For the cabinets, I think I’m going to paint them and update the hardware. They work pretty well. I hope to start removing the wallpaper and begin to paint this weekend… Ok until next time, happy building…