[Dale Wiley]

geographical considerations willl affect decisions...

There is no 100 K homes anywhere in Oregon, even in the biggest hole you could find.

For me 50K would finish out my planned infrastructure plans, with 2 new enclosed trailers, a used pickup, generator, some shop equipment, and a much needed addtion to our shop and office.

A greenhouse with hot water bottom heat, finish out our pot in pot growing system, line our new pond. If there was anything left, I would troll for some more nursery stock and seedlings.

I bought 200 maples, cedars, spruce, pines all at least 8 feet tall some balled and burlapped, some in pots for
$ 1,000. They will bring me about 12K gross in the next year.

For me, nursery stock is like real estate.

[GLAN]

Ya know what is amazing about Barstow and the surrounding distant towns there......well as best I could remember was that they were in some kind of time warp and time just stood still for about 50 years.


I have a couple arm pit town near by. What is puzzling me is that this one town which is so awefull.......I mean it's like a plague town........and yet I see in the paper homes selling in the 300K range. Imagine that........a crack, junky whore town, where the homeless don't even want to live.........300K homes

[r schipul]

Dale, What percentage of your revenues is from growing vs. install? How much useable land do you have available to grown on?

[r schipul]

Not to change the subject but there is a lot of talk about real estate in this thread. Has anyone ever thought about taking advantage of the 2 in 5 rule? Buying a fixer upper living in it for at least 2 years and selling with no capital gains taxes. A lot of handy people are making a lot of money by taking advantage of the tax laws. Sounds good but I don't think I could convince my wife and son. I also met a owner of a landscape company who purchases a house every fall. His entire landscape crew works on the house through the winter and they sell the houses each spring.

[Bill Schwab]

We try to do a fixer every year, but, instead of flipping them, we hang on and let equity do what it will.

My point by saying with a spare 50K what I would do is this. Drop 50K on equipment. Yes you need ot to make you money. However, at the end of a year, take 30% minimum from the original 50 and flush it down the toilet. Instead, invest in something that gains money each year and finance your equipment so you can take full advantage of the tax breaks.

[r schipul]

Bill
Good for you. When do you find the time to do a fixer upper in southern Cal.? I would imagine there is no slow season. Do you rent these houses out? I just got into the rental business. Our first tenent has been in since Dec. and keeps the place cleaner than my wife and I ever did for the 10 years we lived in the place. I am paranoid of a future tenant from hell.

[r schipul]

Stone,

have you ever tried one of those little articulating Gehls? They've caught me eye in the past but I ended up finding a used dingo which I couldn't pass up.

[Stonehenge]

Never did - they looked like they were too light-duty for what we do. Short wheelbase, possibly prone to tip. They looked more like a garden center machine than a real workhorse. They may not be, but that's the impression I got from the literature.

Though the 3000 series skidsteers have always looked like a toy that might be able to contribute to what we do.

[Bill Schwab]

We have one foreman who is like a handy man type and provide him with the labor he needs to get the job done. My wife is a realtor and between her and I and the Nextels, we tend to get alot done. Every house we have is rented out, and we try to work the financing so we can create that positive cash flow. With little or no money down, we usually end up going upside down for a few months, then pull a refi to make the numbers work. Typcally, we try to make all of our money entering the deal rather than waiting for appreciation to do it's thing.

We are working on another foreman's credit so he can qualify for a loan, and as soon as he gets his scores up in the high 600's we will do a lease/option with him. He will be a citizen next year and one of he and his wifes goals is to own a home. He never thought he was going to be able to do it on his salary because where he comes from, they pay cash for everything, there is no credit. So, my wife sat him down and showed him how to get creative. Ater he closes the deal we are going to give him a the bricks for his driveway.
That is one of the coolest things about diversifying your income. You get the chance to give some of it away to see it appreciated.

Now if I can only find a commerical property fr our shop that they don't want a leg and an arm for.....

[cutntrim]

50 large would help me move out of the suburbs and into the outskirts into a home with some acreage and storage for my equipment. Saving on storage costs, and having more space for it, is what I'd like to realize in the near future. Another landscaper here just did the same thing and managed to hang onto his suburban home so he could rent it. That's be sweet, but I don't know if I could swing it or not.

[r schipul]

Cutntrim

I established my business in a different area where I now live to get exactly what you talk about. I bought a 10 acre piece of property with a barn and 3 car garage with 500 sq ft of living space an hour away from where we typically work. The drive gets to be a drag at times but the property was worth it. There would be no possible way I could have afforded a property like the one I purchased in the area I started the business. I've been chasing a dream for 16 years of owning a large enough property to live and work from the same place as well as start a farm/retail nursery. The plan was to establish work in this area (where there is a lot of NY weekend homes) but it still has never happened. It's not that I haven't gotten any calls. I believe the main problem I face is that the more rural you go the cheaper the services get. I have since built a house on the property and rent my original apartment .

[cutntrim]

One thing is for sure, if and when I find a property, I'm definately going to set up my office out in the shop. My wife and kids drive me crazy in the house. My "home office" consists of a 50sq.ft. area of the basement, and there's no door or walls to shut out the household chaos created by two boys under the age of six.

[r schipul]

Been there, still do that. If I didn't no any better, I would think a line of elephants were grazing upstairs. How could someone under 30 lbs be able to make so much noise. Here's another dilema. Little boys love equipment. It seems like ever time I'm in a rush to do something the battery is dead because the flashers, lights, keys etc were turned on. My wife constantly tells me my son was no where near the truck or tractor but it seems to have only been a problem for the last year. You tell me. There is definitely benefits and downfalls of running a business out of your property.