What I have learned through experience, and what I teach, is that purchase price is only one of many negotiable terms which establish the validity of the investment and the magnitude of the investment returns in real estate. What is a real estate deal? It is a meeting of the minds – an agreement which […]

Question – when going into battle, would you rather have one soldier on your side or a thousand? Hopefully you didn’t answer one. Income streams are your soldiers in the battle against the cost of living. Wouldn’t it be better to have several, so that if one soldier goes down, the others will keep your […]

I do not have television in my house which helps with being able to get away from the news cycle, but not entirely. Every time I log onto the internet or turn the radio on in my car I am privy to the clichés of current politics, and one thing is for sure – people […]

On August 2, 2012 a tweet from Money Magazine came across my tweeter page @JustAskBen which read as follows: 1.3%: Annualized real return on real estate, 2000 to 2012. I feel compelled to elaborate on this tweet since while Money’s assessment is likely statistically true in terms of an inflation-adjusted growth in equity over the […]

In a recent editorial entitled “Higher Education Bubble Will Pop,”  George Will examines higher education relative to the concepts of value vs. quality, and makes the point that the two no longer co-exist within higher education.  Truly, most students pay the money for a piece of paper, not so much the knowledge that comes with […]

According to Wikipedia, “entitlement” refers to a notion or belief that one (or oneself) is deserving of some particular reward or benefit. In a previous blog, I shared my observation that an entitlement mentality for the “bling-bling” life style has taken over the entire USA, so it seems.  Entitlement drives people to living outside of […]

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up… ~Thomas Edison   Hope Yen, of the Associated Press, reports in an article entitled A Higher Degree of Uncertainty that 1 in 2 recent college graduates is either unemployed or underemployed.  More specifically, about 1.5 […]

  “If you hang out with chickens, you’re going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you’re going to fly.” Steve Maraboli Power of thought cannot be underestimated!  Thought is the unquantifiable force which causes action.  When you believe something strongly and without equivocation, it has the effect of causing you to act […]

5 Drivers for Your Financial Success   Define financial success in measurable, quantifiable terms.  Financial success must be achievable.   The liberal arts definition of success is in terms of the process – as long as I am moving in the right direction.  I disagree.  Success is a destination, while moving in the right direction […]

Entitlement mentality for the “bling-bling” life style has taken over the entire USA, so it seems. Entitlement drives people to living outside of their means. Every time I pull up to a stop-light in my beat-up ten year old Honda Civic, I am certain to see a late model high-end luxury car or SUV next […]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if you don’t take care of yourself, no one will! Published today in CNN Money: Retirement scare: 60% of workers have less than $25,000 saved

I am absolutely amazed at how much time and energy is being wasted on complaining. Some complain about their job, others about not having a job. Some blame the current president for our economic problems, while others blame the previous. And the list of complaint topics just goes on, and on, and on… Maybe some […]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve been saying for a while now that if you ever had any thoughts about buying some income-producing property, now is the time to do it.  Never mind that the prices are likely to continue to fall for some time still.  It appears that Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, and Robert Shiller all […]

O.K. – I know I’ve said before that I don’t care when real estate values are going to stop falling and begin to rise again. And I mean it – I don’t! Nevertheless, for those of you out there who are just itching for a better answer, I do have one. According to an story […]

On Wednesday, February 22, 2012,there was a story in my local newspaper, THE LIMA NEWS, entitled “Wapakoneta Students Play Stock Game for Congressman“. Turns out that Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Urbana, Ohio, visited a high school in Wapakoneta where the senior economics class students have been participating in the “Capitol Hill Challenge”, a […]