One of my rental properties has a detached 12 x 15 out building with concrete block walls, front/rear metal doors, metal roof and it has electricity too. I have always called it the official "Man Cave" for lack of a better name. I just had the man-cave painted inside and out and it now it looks better than it has ever looked before.

Now, I will be putting this house and Man-Cave up for sale soon. I need a sign that says "Official Man-Cave" to hang on the entrance door. This will make a great conversation piece with prospective buyers.

Plenty,

This is a classic DIY project. No way I would pay someone else to make such a sign for me. I am just trying to figure out just how goofy this sign should look.

I would like to have another sign that has the official

I would ask GOOBER to make the sign. white pine with lettering made from crayon. (trying to stick to the theme)

MYOB,

Chick flicks? Like 'Sleepless in Seattle', 'Ghost' and the 1970's major tear-jerker 'Love-Story'.

I would use a piece of rough pine or drift wood & my router to do the lettering.

Myob,

This is my #2 cash cow house that I am about to put a FSBO sign on. (My #1 cash-cow is a MH just 6 blocks away).

My CPA has suggested to me that I start selling houses instead of buying more. His reasoning was,.."you don't want to wake up one morning and you are 70 plus years old and have to deal with all of those tenants do you?" My CPA suggested I sell just one house per year for the next 10 years. Guess how old I will be in 10 years? How old are you?

Steve,

Roy-- that was funny! Especially how your CPA tells you what to do. If we had listened to others about RE-- I'd still be looking for my first investment. My answer to your CPA would be: you don't want to wake up when your 70 and have all those tenants fearing you? Do you?

Can I ask Roy-- why just one a year? Did the CPA read this or what? whats the basis of that?

Roy I'm almost 70 now. I have a manager a maintenance man and a database full of people who want work (aka want pay). I vacation 1 to 2 weeks a month, gym 2 hrs a day and take off whenever I want. With 63 properties and only 5 mortgages left-- I can say financially I can do what I want and when. WHY give up the cow-- the milk is still good. NOW it's chocolate milk.

Dremel on pine. This craft is called power carving. It is very addictive, and if you make this sign, it will not be your last.

Draw your design on the pine board. You will be doing relief carving -- where the letters stand out and the background is depressed. You could design on the computer and then trace onto your board using tracing paper. Add a few manly designs around the border. Outline your design with a small ball tip Dremel bit. You will them move on to the larger bits to really chew up the wood. Wear eye protection and a mask.

Myob,

My CPA does not tell me what to do,...he just makes suggestions. My CPA and I are the same age and I have known him since the 4th grade. Obviously he has never been a LL,...he prefers to sit in a room and crunch numbers all day which I would not want to do at any age!

My CPA is a brilliant number cruncher and he has also has a specialty in estate planning. Since I have no heirs to leave my estate to, that was another reason he 'suggested' I start liquidating 1 house a year.

Rathdrum,

I like your Dremel suggestion, however, that seems time consuming. In getting this house ready for sale, I am spending most of my time in getting the house to look less like a rental property and more like a house someone would actually like to buy instead of renting. I have light staging to do among other things.

Take a rough piece of board, barn wood would be great. Rough edges and ends. Take a 1/2 inch artist brush, Freehand the sign. Quick, easy, rustic and man cave - ish. I might even just say, THE MAN CAVE instead of official.

Engraved or burned in wood sign, or grinded out or welded sheet metal. Stamped leather, chiselled stone. You know, manly stuff. Maybe even consider lettering cut out of duct tape.

LindaJ,

I like your 1/2 inch artist brush idea. I will be doing this freehand just like you suggested! I agree to drop the 'official' word just do The Man Cave. I will have to look around for some aged barn wood though which should not be too hard to find.

Wilma,

I have been looking for a young newbie to take under my wing for the last 10 years and do exactly what you suggested. Young kids today would rather play with video games than do what I do (or have done). I have tried to tell people (of all ages) the best financial decision I ever made was buying my first house. My 2nd best financial decision was buying my 2nd house and so on. It all falls on deaf ears. People just can't see the forest because of the trees!

just add the three W's $12

Thanks Gevans,

Roy, don't underprice.

Also, in ten years how much rent money will it net? And what will it be worth in ten years? Might want to hold off awhile.

Is there a tax reason to sell one a year?

LTD,

This is a Class C hood where homes sales tend to be slow. People in this hood with a $10,000 down payment, would rather buy a new car and instead investing in a house. At $75K, it would take min. of 4-6 months to sell this house and that is just a guess. I am too impatient to keep a CC rental house off the market for that long. If I don't have a contract by late March, I will just re-rent the house.

Also, I have been reading books on how to sell FSBO. My favorite book is 'House Selling for Dummies'. All of these books emphasize one thing,...'don't over-price your home from the beginning'. $75K is at the very top end of the comps for this hood. The low-end of the comps is around $50K,..it is what it is. The higher priced houses sat on the market (DOM) much longer than the lower priced houses that sold in 2018.

Here's your sign:

Universal answer when ya run out of intelligent

things to say.

CDM,

I appreciate your thoughts here. I did not think about the possible negative consequences of a Man-Cave sign. The inside of this concrete block building in nothing more than an empty room and all of my past tenants have used it as storage shed.

I do know for a fact that previous owners of this house have used the 'man-cave' building as a place of business. (This property is actually zoned for both residential and business use). Another thing, the man-cave building is not located in the back of the house but in the front of the main house. Only 10 feet of space separates the man-cave from the main house. From the street, the first thing people actually see is the small man-cave building. I have also referred to it as 'the little house up front'.

When I post my FSBO Ad on Zillow, I would like try to market the man-cave building as a 'potential place of business' and not a place where men go to behave like drunken sailors. So, your point here is well taken.

RB,

And it ain't rocket science either !

Roy thanks for the feedback.

I say sell them ALL-- this way you can leave money in the bank for IRS.

Oregon Woodsmoke,

Maybe you should define what it the best and the worst houses in your portfolio. All of my houses are great and some are even better than others.

I have both big houses (3/2) and small houses (2/1). The big houses do rent for more money, however, the meager rent difference ($75.00-$100.00) does not justify the extra maintenance/higher prop. taxes/higher insurance that my big houses require. Knowing what I know NOW, I wish I had only bought small 700-900 sq. ft. 2/1 houses. It is those big high maintenance houses that I like to cut loose from my portfolio.

Roy I'm sorta in the same boat, no real heirs but my wife, and she says if I sell a couple of properties a year I still will never live long enough to enjoy the funds. (She want me to sell all.)

However in my market the general ave prices are way higher, I think the cheapest property is around 300K so I can pretty much retire to wherever I want and not worry about money even after taxes when I start to liquidate.

My wife also has her own considerable resources and let me know in her will that she has left 150K to an animal hospital and a good chunk of money to several friends.

I plan on doing the same to a few friends and current and former employees. Maybe a big chunk to St Judes.

I tend never to sell anything, I have to change my attitude.

Kinda like those hoarders on TV. Hard to let go of things esp on some of the properties you have worked hard to make nice.

MYOB,

It seems to bother you that I intend to sell one of my 18 houses. Why is this? Some RE investors make a living from flipping houses,...why can't I join the party and flip one too? The only downside I can see is the capital gains taxes that I will have to pay. My cost basis and 10 years of depreciation will come back and haunt me.

Roy why not flip-- you don't need the money- you don't need to add more on your plate by TRYING SOMETHING NEW.

I love selling houses with owner financing. You get your down payment do your closing- watch new owner- either investor or owner occupied person do 1000's in fix up and than after a few years can't sell it to pay you off and WHAM you get it back.

My latest: sold 18 years ago-- with owner financing. Paid me for 18 years and we made 650.00 month. Took the house back with Deed in lieu of Foreclosure dumped 5 or 6 K into it and now rent it for 925.00. I did this with 6 properties I paged to investors and after 2 years got them back-- all new and fixed up-- roofs, HVAC, carpeting and tenants in them.

I don't like my property's getting to far away from the NEST.

The current tax code coupled with where we are at in the real estate cycle has me doing more selling than buying.

MYOB said, "you don't need to add more on your plate by TRYING SOMETHING NEW."

I have to take issue with this statement alone. Since buying my first rental house in 2006, I have learned all I can about 'buying houses',...hence my now famous 'handyman ad'. Plus, I have always been a 'buy and hold' type investor.

That being said, what I really need to learn (just for the challenge of it) to how to sell a house to an 'end user' and/or someone who will pay retail (FMV) for one of my houses. I wonder how many people on here actually have any experience in selling a house without a RE agent listing your property and holding your hand.

In the past, I have sold houses to other investors, however, there was 'no challenge' in that since most investors speak the same language and I did not have to do any marketing to sell those houses. Plus, those investor sales were discounted and sold at less than FMV.

Again, I am looking for a new challenge here,...selling a house to someone who will pay FMV for my house with me doing everything a listing agent would normally do (marketing the house and negotiating offers).

Charlie, I worked in special ed as an aide for many years.

Parents run the spaghetti dinners, parents run the raffles. Teachers spend their own money on chotchkies to ‘cuten’ up there spaces. Teachers make up stories about how this kid never gets anything, so they have to provide it. Yes, there are some, few, few, few families who are struggling. BUT, most families DO take really good care of their kids.

I have watched teachers gossip and bad mouth parents because when it was the kids’ birthday, the parent made cupcakes for a treat. BUT, the patent had the audacity to cut the cupcakes in half, so each child ‘only got a half.’ Teacher went on and on about it. This was before mini-cupcake baking pans were available, and half a cupcake is still huge to a kindergartener. But, it was the talk of the school. One teacher even suggested having family investigated by child protective services.

I had another teacher call down asking if she could send one of the special ed kids down out of the classroom, child wasn’t doing the work, wasn’t cooperating. I went up into her classroom to see if I could help get the student going. Teacher met me at the door, griping how she spends ALL this money to give the kids something special, and these kids just don’t appreciate it. She had brought in a lily flower from the florist for each child to dissect, identify the plant parts on a work sheet. Those of you with allergies already KNOW where this is going. Kid was in a complete allergy FOG. I got the child out of there quickly, down to the nurses office, where we called mom and administered an antihistamine on Mom’s direction. Good thing there is a hospital right across the street, we almost needed it.

Different time, One of my students, after getting sent down for disruptive behavior, very profoundly said something like, ‘ I can keep it together when all the days are the same. It’s when the teachers have to have all of these stupid parties, I can’t keep it together !’

Out of the mouths of babes. Teacher was having an over the top Christmas party. It was chaos in her classroom .

All of these teachers I cited with the ‘over-the-top’ parties used to bad mouth parents who chose discipline over excess, calm over chaos. There were other, EXCEPTIONALLY good teachers who kept things calm, kept things on the down low. They still were very engaging with the children, got educator awards, families loved them. Those teachers knew how to make connections with each and every kid, and needed very little ‘stuff.’