If You Had Money To Start a Business

[Nathans_Dad]

Ebola screening service.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

With $1M, I'd bring back FirstTime Dad magazine.

[CalPersFatCat]

simple.

use 1mm as down payment on a 4mm "C" grade apartment building in the midwest or the south. At $30,000 per unit, you get 133 units.

at 133 units, assume a mix of 2 br and 1 br and an avg. monthly rent of $500.

gross rent $66,500
mortg @ 4.5% of $15,200 (if you are strong enough to get a 30 year ammort)
tax @ 2% is $6,666 (wildcard depending on where you invest)
ins @ $3,325

office staff @ $7k (mgr at 3k, and two assistants at 2k)
maintenance/rehab staff @ $9k (three guys at 3k each)

leaves you a little over $24k per month before you pay your water,sewer and trash.

your capitalization costs (excluding roof and driveway) will be insignificant over the 20 year life of those items, especially if your maintenance staff can handle HVAC repair/replacement.

The depreciation and ongoing "expenses" may completely mitigate the tax liability on the income. If you have W2 income, the investment property can assist in mitigating that also.

Owning small apartment buildings is in and of itself a full time job. If you hand it over to a Property Management company, the PM Company will sodomize you and ultimately do a ***** job. Your relationship with them will start out great and then decline over time as they learn more about you and your tolerance for incrementally increasing repair, maintenance and leasing costs.

It is much easier to manage your own people than to manage a property management company. You need to "go big" in order to support the overhead associated with employing you own staff.

You could run that staff from afar via telephone and security system cameras inside the office (and around the property) with just a few hours per week of involvement. Bi-Weekly site visits would be helpful in evaluating the quality control in the apartment rehabs.

Eventually, that sucker will be paid off, and THEN the real fun will begin.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

I like to make money.

This isn't about me, it's generic and I intend to pass it on to my kids, presuming it's profitable.

I completely understand. If it was up to me I'd sell my farm tomorrow, but the rest of my clan has plans for it, so I soldier on, happy that they are interested in keeping this place alive.

But, (ain't there always one) it really is about you. Even though I'd sell the farm tomorrow, I like living here, enjoy the moments that make me pleased that we did this twenty years ago. I can stand being here 3/4's of the year in the future. I plan on spending my summers with Rob on Lake Shawshankredemption. Everyone knows that Dad is going to seek dry, cooler air in the summer.

So, again, what do you like to do, what are you good at? I have, since I retired, built and sold two businesses around those things I am really good at that fortunately made money. I knew they were going to work because I believed in the nexus of great idea and intent: and I was committed.

That may be it. What are you committed to?

Sorry for the ramble, but I really enjoy this type of dialogue.

[ThomO]

I would get a can of lighter fluid and burn it to save my self all of the headache and pain in the rear of owning a business.

Buy a van and go live down by the river

[GH85Carrera]

The future big bucks will be in hearing aids and tattoo removal.

[Car-Crazed]

I Agree With The Tattoo Removal.
I Have Been Preaching That To Friends,
and Everyone Thinks I'm Nuts,
Just Wait & See......

[MongooseGA]

Self-storage units in a college town or military town.

They're big business where I grew up and I've always wanted to buy one. Relatively small overhead and minimal employee compensation. You only need someone to be there to sign new renters up, do various paperwork, and sell boxes/packing supplies. 3-4 employees on a weekly rotation will keep your hours below full time status and you can easily find 19-23 year olds who will work for $10-12 per hour, provided you don't drug test. You'd be amazed how cheap young people will work when they're not required to pee in a cup.

[aschen]

A chick-fil-a franchise in a good location. Not that I would really want to be in this buisness, but it seems easier than printing money

Or a liquor store on a college campus


of low end rentals near a campus

In general I think real estate is over rated as an investment. The transaction costs are too high

[cashflyer]

Become an Amway distributor.

[MongooseGA]

Originally Posted by aschen

A chick-fil-a franchise in a good location. Not that I would really want to be in this buisness, but it seems easier than printing money

Or a liquor store on a college campus


of low end rentals near a campus

In general I think real estate is over rated as an investment. The transaction costs are too high

I'm sure there could be money in it, but I'd personally never willingly own rental residential property near a college campus- especially low end. Have you ever been to an off-campus party? Those houses are trashed, and you're dealing with new tenant at least every 2-3 years. I have to imagine it's a slim profit margin and your sanity/hair are only there when you start.

[on2wheels52]

I could start another 10 pawnshops .
But can only run one at a time
Jim

[mikesride]

I know a guy that recently put up two car washes....Drive thru touch less and six wand wash bays per location....open 24/7....guy does nothing but fish and ski all day long now......
I know nothing about the business or the investment, just an observation.

[LWJ]

I believe in looking at economic trends and getting in front of them. What does that mean?

1) Freshwater shortage down the road
2) Climate changes (keep this out of PARF please)
3) Continued if not increasing division of wealth
4) Inflation / interest rates will increase from current levels
5) Continued migration from rural to urban living
6) Taxes will increase (we have a large debt and lots of folks coming out of the work force)
7) The Baby Boomer demand

What does this mean? I don't really know. I suspect that we will continue to have lots of poor people. I think a very interesting concept is how to house retired people in the bottom 1/2 income. Huge demand for this. A clean, well run mfg home community for over 55 near health care facilities and other infrastructure seems like an outstanding option for the next 30 years.

I am certain on most of these things and base my investment several of these variables. I would love to hear others thoughts on economic forces that we can get infront of for our own benefit. BTW, I do not yet have a MFG Home park but I really do want some.

Larry

I just thought of some others - imigration. We are seeing a huge movement towards more Spanish language and S. California is incredibly intertwined with Latin culture. I see lots of people from Africa / Middle East where I never did before. Also, Asia is / has become an economic center with more clout than Europe.