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Times Are Changing, especially as it relates to Real Estate
By JD Hawki | August 27, 2008
I have been involved in Real Estate one way or another for over 35 years (1973) when my father ask my brothers and I to go in with him and buy some wooded land in Southwest Missouri. We thought he was a little, well you know “off his rocker so to speak”. We all went along any way because he had never guided us astray before so why would we not trust him now. He kept telling us that, they don’t make land any more and if we would just buy and hold this land, it could be the ticket to our retirement some day.
We took the opportunity to buy several hundred acres for around $15.00 to $25.00 an acre. At that time we all thought that was a very expensive investment. I guess mainly the reason we all felt that way was because we all were trying to raise families and were all teaching and Coaching. We were in a very rewarding career but one that was (and still is not) not very lucrative as far as income is concerned. We all took on the burden of making those monthly payments.
Our father had told us that we would only have to make these payments with him until he was ready to retire and sell his farm. He was getting to the point in his life that he wanted to (needed to) retire. He had worked all his life on the dairy farm and had wanted to leave it to one or all of us. I guess in one since he wanted us to farm but in another he knew how hard the work was and how hard it was to make a living on a dairy farm that he would say stay, but pushed us out the door to get an education.
Even though we all turned out to be Coaches he never really liked Coaches before and had trouble understanding why we decided on Coaching for a profession. That feeling on his part came about mainly because we were all Athletic and the Coaches were always asking us to play or practice when dad thought we should be milking the cows.
He did go ahead and sell his farm a few years later. He received enough funds from that sale to have enough to live out his life and to pay off the land we had acquired a few years earlier.
Back to where this story all started in how Real Estate has changed. For many years we held the land and it’s value would go up a little and then something with the economy would go sour and down it’s value would go. Basically it never changed much and then suddenly in the 2000’s it’s value begin to go up to a point where to us it was turning out to be like our father had predicted.
Anyway to make a long story short now that we have all retired from education we decided to sell the land. In this year of 2008 it sold for, well lets say (lot more) more that what we payed.
The other area that I have been associated with Real Estate is in buying, rehabbing, and either renting or selling single family residential properties for many years on a part time bases. When I retired from education in 2004 I went into business with my wife who had her own business of buying and rehabbing and selling properties. We have stayed actively involved over the last few years buying and rehabbing (doing most of our own work). and now, well times are a changing. All you have to do is watch the media for a few minutes and you will have a good understanding about what I am saying if you don’t already know.
As my father always said you can only paddle up stream so long. You will either have to figure out a better way to paddle or another direction to paddle. We are taking our experiences and paddling in a new direction. We know and understand Real Estate and are putting that experience into helping others like you who may need to find a better way to paddle or another direction to paddle.
We have figured out another way to paddle and have taken out experience in Real Estate to another level. We are using our time to work with owners (like you) of Multifamily Apartments who need to move in another direction with their ownership. It begins with you contacting us and giving us a brief overview of your situation and what you see as your needs. We then use our experience to offer you solutions. It may be that you are a burned out landlord, economics has changed, want to retire, financial hardships with ownership (close to foreclosure). What ever we can help
Topics: Uncategorized |
April 26th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
This is great info to know.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Nerina, What was most interesting for you from these topics?