Back in the game

The game I started over a year ago was the real estate one. Bought a house in Philly, fixed it up, now I'm ready to repeat. Exchange four green houses for a red hotel (1031 tax-free exchange actually, for my fellow accountants). I've actually been able to keep my eye on the prize and follow through, which I sometimes have a difficult time doing. But now there's work to be done.

New house I bought from a guy in foreclosure, got it for $40,000 or so under market. The place smells like dog, and needs new paint/carpet everywhere. Still the potential for a lot of equity, and the area is awesomely woodsy and suburban, which will be a nice change from ghettodelphia. But what if it costs a lot more to fix it up? Luckily I made connections with other RE investors and I can get the place fixed up relatively cheaply I think. One guy's helping me out for cheap just because I give him advice on mortgages and real estate.

Still it was scary that something may/will go wrong and I'll have to pay for stuff and I wasn't 100% sure where it would come from. Then came a magic thing - a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). Because of the equity in my two houses (my Philly house is worth about 40-50k more than when I bought it) I can slap a line of credit on them and have like $60-$70,000 open to borrow. That means I can fix whatever I want and pay for it later. That also means I can use that to buy new opportunities should they come along and possibly flip them...hmmm very interesting. I may be out of the rat race soon enough.