Wolvie has hit Rock Bottom ,....I Believe,..

[fabsroman]

Val,

My plan after the wedding is to get involved with some rental real estate. A friend of my father did that when he was younger and now that he is retired he is making $80,000 a year without doing much work at all.

[gregarat]

Val is right! There is alot more work down here than in N.Y.

[Valigator]

Fabs I dont presume to know alot but I do know about Commercial Real Estate.......get envolved in an investor group...buy the high dollar high return commercial warehousing....that would be my initial advice....buy your home...of course....make that extra one or two mortgage payments every year...and try to do nothing more than a 10 year mortgage.....heck we could go on all night...but investor groups are key to people who dont qualify for over 750 thousand and up...but those properties flip fast with minimal input...maybe a new sign and new paint.....

[fabsroman]

Val,

We already own a home, albeit not the one we want to live in for the rest of our lives.

The rental property I am thinking about getting into to begin with is residential rental property (i.e., condos) around me. I can buy them somewhat cheap and I am only going to rent to people with decent credit scores and a decent job. That helps to prevent damage to the property and it also ensures that I can sue and recover for any damage or overdue rent payments. I haven't looked into commercial real estate yet, but might look into it after I get the residential stuff up and going.

[Valigator]

You might want to save yourself the headaches.......

of residential....just a thought

[Slim-Zippy]

Val has the right idea, if the work is not where you are -GO TO WHERE THE WORK IS! Don't try to fight a stagnant economic area. It is very hard to have the change of moving in your life, especially if you have a family, but it is better than watching yourself go under financially.

I hate to say it, Val will probably feed me to the gators, but ask her if her son could arrange something for you or give some ideas about Florida. If not, then go to the public library and get on the internet and look around where the country is booming and look for jobs over the internet in that area.

Hang tough Wolvie and best of Luck for you whatever you decide.

John

P.S. I apologize Val if I just put you on the spot.

[rubicon]

Wolvie, You are certainly getting some good advice here. I was griping about the closing costs on a house but that is just a temp thing. I can tell you first hand I was sitting in the mountains listening to the coyotes howling and wondering where the next $ was coming from ( and I owned 3 businesses and had two rental houses.) But area was so depressed people were expecting me to extend credit which I could not do. Anyway after being hounded by my sons I came to DC metro area to prove a 49 year old man could not find a decent job. As I planned I put in 3 job applications and ran back to the mountains. When I got home I had job offers from 5 companies. Seems they share their applications. Four days later I came here and started a job at $24.00 per hour (a far cry from the 10 thousand I had made the previous year) with benefits and locked in to their retirement. I found a house trailer and rented it , then moved near the water and am now buying a house. Hope to stay there until retire then head to Florida. Today while standing on a flat rooftop my apprentice and I counted 42 stationary construction cranes sticking up around the surrounding buildings. Problem is it is too easy for us to accept the bad conditions and we really dont accept how bad they are until we can get away from them and look back. Never hurts to see what is on the other side of the fence.

[fabsroman]

Rubicon,

You definitely took a turn for the better seeing as how you now have the Jeep, the new duckboat, a couple of new dogs, and a new house. Congrats.

[Valigator]

Your not puttin me on the spot darlin...the company has commercial contracts all over the country...my son is in St. Louis right now and headin for Oklahoma city next week..they work seven days a week on these out of towners but get 2-5000 dollar bonus's at the end....my kid has a beautiful apt 3 blocks from the beach...parties 5 nites a week...puts his feet under my table at least 4...and his boss is always lookin for someone who can speak English...and willin to work....e-mail me if you want a number...cant speak for the boss...but I'll always pass along help if I can.....on alot of different things...hey you guys are my friends...I have been in this town just about my ole life...I know alot of good people...I stress good....if anyone needs anything on this end of the continent...e-mail me ....you know my motto...you dont get if you dont ask....dont promise anything...but the world goes around according to the people you know.....and alot of us know each other well even if we never stood in front in front of each other.....

[gumpokc]

Hey Val any idea where he's staying in okc?

if he needs to know anyplace to go drop me a pm, i'm out of town alot on my routes and gettign ready to ripout the outside 3 feet of the house (joists and piers) but if he needs to know where anything is, hollar.

[Valigator]

I talk to him most nites didnt tonight...I thought he made mention of Oklahoma City...but I'll double check....they do those Beal's department stores....thanks and I'll ask and get back to you....all of them are a bunch of animals...and on the hunt all the time...especially my boy.....dont know where he got that from

[fabsroman]

Val,

I know residential can be a headache, and if it turns out to be, I will simply get out of it. However, another attorney friend of mine is doing it and doing pretty well even though he isn't a litigation attorney like me and even though he doesn't know how to do any home repairs like me. If I can get the residential up and running, I intend on venturing into the commercial side of it.

[Valigator]

Hey you know me, I wish you the best in any and all you do....Val

[Lilred]

Virginia..Lord do i love my home state..cept fer the fact that everythin has gone up but the wages. Thanks to all them wonderful folks (yeah..right) movin down here at a rate of too-dam-many a day.
We are a werkin household, I werk 50+ hours a week, my hubby 45. I am a firm believer in the wife stayin home ( well, at least more than an hour a friggin day like me ) , takin care of the kids and cookin. I caint do that. Hubby will be takin a big promotion soon, and when he does, my butt is steppin down from the position I'm in, and at LEAST goin to 40 hours..if not part time, which I would much rather do. My average day is gone by 4:45am and comin home at 7:00 pm. Insane aint it? But, you do what you gotta do sometimes...but I tell ya..Id rather be as poor as a man sellin bags of sand in the desert, than to be rich and my child dont even know me.

But, every dern thing has gone up so bad here..I dont git it. Meanwhile we're pluckin along with 2 or 3% raises each year, and just a gallon of gas in 1 yr went from 1.39$ to 2.09$ a gallon. A dam gallon of milk went from 2.25 to 4.75 a gallon. It's insane.

It will hurt us when I step down, Lowes generally takes a HUGE cut in pay when you do that..20% is the average plus all bonuses and commissions will be lost..but it dern sure wont be the first time I ever ate a can of potted meat..and it dern sure wont be the last. At least I can be eatin that potted meat sittin on the back porch watchin my kid play in the yard w/ the dogs instead of eatin steak behind a desk in a store.

Anyways..Wolvie, my advice to you..did yer folks ever tell ya you gotta crawl fore you can walk? You aint gonna git no high-payin job and the world be perfect right offa the bat. Find what yer good at, take that God ferbid entry level position, and take the next couple of years to prove yerself and git that high payin job.
Stick with it and be patient..you'll git there.

[DaMadman]

I am going to throw this out there and say my peace and Wolvie and anyone else can take it for what it is worth. Could be nothing or could be a lot.

I started straight out of high school/vo-tech with an electronics company, building and testing military electronics, worked there for 7 years and got layed off. Couple different reasons behind it, one the company was growing way too fast, went from a small family type atmosphere to a big huge too much to do an no time to do it corporation Quick, and I wasnt fitting in. I was still working under the Small family plan and I was young and dumb and came to work everyday and did my job but I showed up hung over a lot and partied every free minute... Out the door not a minute late. Anyway I got layed of from a very good paying job was making over $11 an hour back in late 80's early 90's.

Went from there into contruction and floated from doing Sprinkler work (fire protection) to framing houses for a few years, Quit one place (too far to drive) got laid off from one place (not enough work) and was working for another place when I got hurt and broke my back (went a year out of work on injury) couldn't return to work in construction so i went back to work in electronics..... Different company, no partying this time and never came in hung over and I can tell you that If someone (higher up) asked me to do something I did it and in the Few months I spent at that company I got left in charge of the whole production area many more than times than I can count. Other people that had been there for years were pissed about it, but I was told I got the important stuff to do because If someone asked me to do something it got done, others in the company would tell the production manager flat out, they didn't know how, or that wasn't what they were "supposed to do" or some other lame assed excuse. I also got paid premium wage at that company a lot more than people that had been there a lot longer (there were 2 pay scale, standard and premium) Well I got the premium work and the premium pay and others didn't because I was easy to get along with.

I left that company to go to work for the gov't and they begged me not to leave and eventually invited me to run the night shift for them and I did that too after I got off from the Gov't Job.

Well the gov't job is another story. I started out as a grade 3
pee-on in the copy center, making copies Alll Day long. But I applied for anything I thought I had a shot at doing. I've been here at the Gov't for 6 going on 7 years and for the past 3 years going on 4 I have been a IT specialist and am now a GS-7 getting ready to make my GS-9 and just a couple days ago got an award for $1700 because I do a good job and my boss and her boss and his boss notices
I have no formal IT training before getting in the Gov't and very little after I got here but I took an interest and MOST IMPORTANT KEPT A POSITIVE ATTITUDE and everyone noticed and someone Higher up got the word.
So Lemme sum it up for ya. You can't get mad and quit every time you don't like your supervisor, you can't carry a sour attitude, and you have to work your ass off to get anywhere if you don't have a college degree, and you are going to have to be at the bottom of the poop pile once in awhile until someone recognized that you are the person that keeps the poop pile from crumbling, and if you keep at it and keep a positive attitude Someone will notice.

That's about all I can say. Like I said up there. Started at the bottom and screwed myself once maybe even twice but I learned from it, and While NOBODY walks on me and I don't KISS any ass I remained pleasant and busted my butt to get to the to the level I am now (not at the top yet) but..., Work hard, and work smart, my friends. Don't make excuses and don't let obsticles STOP you figure out away to get around them and you can get higher and higher each day too