Another Day, Another Dollar spent

Red Velvet Cake Cupcakes

2008-11-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

For as long as I can remember my mom has made red velvet cake for special occasions. For some reason I have been craving red velvet cake, but I really didn't want to put all the work into making a layered cake, so I decided that cupcakes would do the trick. They were weren't very hard to make, and I am definitely "baking challenged." Here is the recipe that I used.

Red Velvet Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
2 1/3 cups of cake flour
2 tablespoons of Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of buttermilk*
1 1/2 tablespoons of red food coloring
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar

Frosting ingredients
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
*You can make your own buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar to milk and letting it stand for about 10 minutes.

The cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer for 3 minutes on medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is fully incorporated. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.
In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla extract, and red food coloring.
Add a fourth of the dry ingredients and mix, then add a third of the wet. Continue adding in a dry, wet, dry pattern, ending with the dry ingredients.
Scoop into cupcake papers, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Rotate the pan after the first 15 minutes of baking to ensure even baking.
Allow to cool for one minute in the pan then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes.

The Frosting

Cream the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.
Add the vanilla extract and mix.
Add the powdered sugar, continually taste to get to desired sweetness. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

I can't believe its been more than a year!

2008-11-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

Wow...time flies. Things for Davy and I have changed a lot over the last year! Nov. 30th of last year Davy became self employed. Working for himself is something that he has dreamed about for years! So needless to say this year has been incredibly busy, but also very exciting! With that said our focus on real estate was really pushed to the side. We had a goal of owning 5 properties by the time we were 25, which we accomplished. So being the goal oriented people that we are, we set a new goal of 3 properties by the time we were 26. The two small duplexes that gave us most of the grief were just too much for us to maintain. I looked in the public tax records to find out who owned the duplexes around us, I was able to find their phone number on the Internet and they ending up purchasing the units from us! So that leaves us with our house we currently live in, the duplex 500 yards away from our house, and a house in Cleveland.
So needless to say its time for a new focus for the blog. It will probably end up being more about our daily lives as opposed to the crazy stories from our rental properties.

When the phone rings at 3:30am...it is NEVER a good sign

2007-09-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

I woke up to something ringing at 3:30am Saturday morning. I was so out of it that for the first few rings I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was on call this weekend and I had already figured out it wasn't that phone ringing, so I stumbled around our room until Davy woke up to tell me it was his phone. He had left it in the kitchen. While he was going to find his phone I just got back in bed, then half way out of consciousness I hear, "They are there now? Ok, I will be in the in about 10 mins." I knew at that point this wasn't going to be good.

Our tenant (the delinquent one) had called to let Davy know that her apartment was filled with smoke and she had called 911 and the fire department was already there.

The whole way to the apartment we were both freaking out. We really didn't know how serious the situation was, and we were also terrified because we had been meaning to go by and check all the smoke detectors.

When we got the the apartment the firemen were still there filling out the rest of the paperwork. They met us in the yard to let us know it was nothing serious. We followed them in the unit and they showed us the old fuse box. Basically (I think I have all the numbers right) the fuse box has two 100amp fuses. One of the fuses was burned in half and was totally black. He said that from what he has seen in the past, is that did not happen over night. There was something running in that unit that is draining that fuse and it has been draining for quite sometime. The fireman told us it would not be a good idea to just go by another fuse. He said that we needed to call an electrician first thing in the morning.
Basically the rest of the night we didn't sleep because we were so worried about the situation. Davy got up about 830am and started calling electricians. The first guy he called out there told him it would be $9,500!!!! I think I almost started crying when I heard that amount. He also called the electric company to have the meter pulled. If someone ever tells you, you should have your meter pulled DO NOT LET THEM! We got seriously lucky on Saturday. The second electrician came out to give us an estimate and Davy told him that the first guy said we needed to have the meter pulled. He looked up at us like we were crazy. He told us to get on the phone right away and tell them not to pull the meter. Basically he said it was a dirty way of guaranteeing a job. If he had had the meter pulled we would have to bring the whole building up to code and that would not come cheaply. He was able to take out the fuse box, put in a switch box, move it to an outside wall and turn down the heater and we should never have the problem again. And he did it all for $900!!!!

So our tenant has electricity again and it looks like all the other buildings already have switch boxes. So hopefully we won't have anymore problems. I feel like we have had a very unlucky streak here. Maybe things will be better for the next few months.

I am a bad blogger

2007-08-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I am such a bad blogger. Life has been crazy the past few weeks. We finally got the delinquent tenant to pay rent. We actually felt kinda sorry for her because we knew she was working a lot of overtime just to make sure she got caught up on rent.

We have been very busy for the past few weeks. We have officially moved out of the dew! We actually have already been in the new house for about 3 weeks! We love it so far! Although it rained for the first time the other day, and it also rained in our living room. So that is a top priority to get fixed. But Dad's in town right now, so I we are going to talk him into fixing the leaky sky light.

When we purchased all of our properties they were all rented out, so we had never gotten to experience finding a new renter. And let me tell you we weren't missing too much. The weekend before we moved out of our half of the dew the tenant in side B moved out. We actually got extremely lucky with finding a renter for that side. The old tenant moved out on a Tuesday and the new tenant moved in on Sunday. The only reason there was any lag time was because we decided to paint the apartment before she moved in. But the really funny part about this new renter is she is totally OCD, even more so than me!!! We almost didn't let her rent the apartment because I was scared she was going to drive me batty. She acted liked she was purchasing the apartment. And we were wayyyyy too nice and pretty much fixed everything she asked for except for tearing down the wallpaper in the bathroom. That's were I drew the line, but I told her she could go ahead and hang new boarder is she wanted to.

But so far we still have not been able to find a renter for our old unit. I think that is just out of most people's price range. But I know the very first time we show it to someone who can afford it, they will take it. We did a lot of work to it when we lived there.

On another note, we are thinking about turning the two small duplexes in East Ridge over to a Property Manager. They have just become too much. We are both working full time jobs and just don't always have the time to go meet repairmen at the duplexes. We had a major flea problem a few weeks ago, and actually lost a renter because of it. There were two Korean guys living in the unit and they worked for a Korean church here in town, there had always been a major language barrier between us. When we first bought the duplexes we contacted everyone to let them to start sending the rent to us. Well the first month the dudes sent the rent to the old owners, so at the end of that month Davy decided to call the guy to remind him where to send the rent, the conversation went something like this, "Hi this is Davy, I am the new owner of the apartment you are renting." Korean Dude, "I told lady to send the rent, did you get the rent?" Davy says, "Yes, the old owners sent me the rent, but I was just calling to remind you to send the rent to me this month." Korean Dude, "You got the rent! Why you keep calling me?!?" So that pretty much ended that conversation. The guys called an reported the fleas THREE months after they first started having a problems. We had terminix out there within 24hours of them reporting the problem. Terminix pretty much said that it would take at least 2 weeks for all the fleas to die. The renter just couldn't handle it. Davy talked to him on several occasions and the guy would just go on and on about how bad the fleas were. So we were basically sick of hearing it since we were doing everything we could on our side to get rid of them, so we allowed them to break the contract and leave the apartment. So we have another empty unit there. But it is no big deal, hopefully we will get it rented soon. I don't think the new PM will take it, until it is rented.

I can't wait to see how this new PM does. I have read a bunch of stories about people hating their PMs. So we will see...

Property #5

2007-07-18T19:05:00.000-07:00

Property #5 is coming along nicely. We had the home inspection done on Monday and everything looks good. There will be a few minor things that we ask the sellers to fix before closing, but so far nothing major is standing in the way of the August 6th closing. We spent some time over at the house during the inspection, and we are both super excited about the fenced in backyard. It also has a huge deck attached to the house. So I am now on a mission to find a set of patio furniture, so we can have some big BBQ parties once we move in! I will try and get some pictures and post them as soon as possible.

I also need to update everyone on the delinquent renter....maybe tomorrow.

We might be crazy but...

2007-07-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

We have been trying to decide what to do with our living situation for about two months now. When we moved into the dew in January we figured we would be here for about a year. The only problem is I don't think we realized how antsy we would get and how quickly that would happen. Its not that the dew is so nasty or that it so small I think the main problem is, is the fact that you feel like you have no privacy when someone is sharing a building with you and the only thing separating the two of you is one very thin wall. (well and the very small thing of, I LOVE CHANGE!) Every morning I can hear the tenant on the other side of the wall listening to US101. What if I don't to listen to Country music that morning? Plus we really don't have too much of a yard and we can't really use the garage because it is full of our junk the doesn't fit in our unit. So needless to say it was about time to move on.

We went into buying this property thinking that we were going to look for a long term house. (Keep in mind that long term for us is between 2 and 5 years. We really don't plan on living anywhere for too long.) So we starting looking at houses that were about 1800 to 2200 sq feet. Mostly new construction, nice neighborhoods. But every time we looked at something we didn't feel like the numbers added up. It seems like everyone right now is trying to sell their house for more than anyone else has sold for in the neighborhood. About half way through looking for a house we got a little bit fed up with the prices. So we moved back into the investment property mode. We started looking for basically one story ranchers that were between 25 to 50 years old. But literally every time we found one that we wanted to look at, it would sell before we could even walk through it. So the other night we were walking down our street and there is another street is that basically connected to our street, but on other street it has all houses not duplexes. Well there was a great rancher for sale and they had just dropped the price by around 10k. So we set up an appt on Tuesday for a viewing.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we made our first offer. We felt like the house was fairly priced but the realtor told our realtor that the seller was "very motivated." So we decided to low ball them to see what happened. We offered them 12k less than their asking price and asked them to pay 3k at closing. Now when we look at a house, I really never get too emotionally attached to the house. Because if the numbers don't make sense then there is no reason in buying it. But not all realtor's look out for their clients best interest, we definitely learned the hard way on our last duplex buy, but that story is for a different day. Most Realtors just want to get the sale closed no matter what, especially the listing agent.

So first thing yesterday morning I faxed my offer to the realtor. He then turns around and faxes it to the seller's realtor. She comes back to him at about noon and tells him that they have two other offers on the table, and that we really need to up our asking price or we will be out of the running all together. So we verbally say that we will go up 5k, with them still paying 3k in closings and up to 1k in home repairs per the home inspection. My thing is how do you really know that there are two other offers on the table? There is really no way to prove it. I just feel like it is a ploy to up your price. Well it worked because we went up 5k. So a couple hours later they call and say the seller has come back with a counter offer of 4k more than our second offer. So I turn around and counter again at the second offer. Its really bad to put me in situations like this, because now I just want to win with my second offer. Its all a game to me. So the owner decides that they don't want to take the counter. At this point my realtor has told me that somehow the other offer on the table has fallen through and I truly don't think there was ever a third offer on the table. Because yesterday evening we were told by our realtor that we were the only offer on the table and that the owner was desperate.

So we basically let it die last night. This morning I emailed the realtor to see if the seller had come back with anything else and he said no that it was basically dead when we wouldn't come with anything other than our first counter offer. So Davy and I talked and decided that we would offer them 1,500 more than the first counter because we know he is desperate and he has no other offers. So sure enough 1,500 more is what bought us the house!

So since Jan 2007 this will be our 4th property! And it will be our 5th property since last August! We had a goal of having at least 4 properties before we both turn 25. Davy turns 25 August 14th and I turn 25 September 25th! So all in all we are really excited about what we have been able to buy and we feel like we have gotten really good deals on everything so far.
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So now the fun part begins...renting out our unit in the dew. I am sure there will be plenty of entertaining stories from this experience.

"I think it choked on a bird"

2007-07-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

So we have had a few problems with the dew lately. Since we first moved in we have heard a knocking sound every time someone flushes a toilet or turns on a sink. I called my dad a few months ago, he always knows the answers to our dilemmas, and told him about the sound we were hearing. He goes "oh you have some water hammering going on in your copper pipes." Of course Davy and I have never heard of water hammering, so we both researched it online to see if it was something we could fix ourselves. On a few different websites it said that you could turn the water off at the street then drain the house from the outside spicket and that would help or in some cases fix the problem. Well of course ours would not be that easy to fix.

For a few months we basically just cringed every time we flushed the toilet because we were too lazy to call the plumbers out. During this time of total laziness we realized that termites were having a feast on the Masonite siding by our tenants front door. Since we really didn't want the dew to fall down around us, AND since you can order the Terminix repair man to come out to our house online it was a no brainer. God forbid you have to pick up the phone and call someone. So the guy came out a few days later and basically just reiterated what we already knew. Then he raped us of about $1300. I tried to negotiate him cheaper, but the best I got was a 10% discount. Which is pretty good I guess. Right before he left he said, "Oh yeah, There is a really big, I mean really big gray cat under your house. I think he has been eating birds. There are feathers everywhere!"

Well immediately I remembered my neighbors that had just moved into the duplex next door saying they were missing their really really big gray cat. So when the Terminix man left, Davy decided to crawl under the dew to get the cat. In the mean time I went next door to get the neighbors to find out if this was their cat. We all stood around the crawl space door while Davy crawled around under the house. But there was no cat to be found. So we basically just closed the door and forgot about it.

Fast forward about 2 months....

I finally decided that the water hammering was about to hammer through my head because it was getting so annoying. So I decided to call the trusty plumber we have been using on our rental house in Cleveland to come out and take a look at the situation. So I take an hour off of work to come home and meet them here so I can show them the noise we have been hearing. I proceed to flush the toilet, turn on the sink, then flush the toilet again and of course NOTHING happens. I am sure these guys thought I was totally crazy. So finally I told them to go outside and turn on the spicket and listen to the noise. When he turned the water on it basically shook the entire dew. They started laughing saying they had never heard water hammering that bad. So, I leave to go back to work because they had to go to Lowes to get two pressure reducing valves and some ties so they can secure down some of the loose pipes. Davy came home from work just in time to write them a check for $220. Right as they are about to leave one of the plumbers looks at Davy and says, "Hey man, there is a really really big gray cat under the house. I think it choked on a bird."

I get home from work and Davy tells me the story about the dead cat under the dew. My first was question was "Well did they get the dead cat out?" But of course our lives couldn't be that easy. We decided to leave the cat for the night saying we would get it out over the weekend. So the question of the day at work the next day was. Do you knock on the neighbors door and ask them if they want to identify the dead cat or do you just pull the dead cat out and throw it away, allowing them to think their cat is still alive somewhere out there.

Of course we chose the latter....Over the weekend Davy army crawled his way all the way to the other end of the dew to retrieve the dead cat. He then proceeded to try and pick this HUGE cat up by the tail, but unfortunately all the fur rubbed off the tail when he tried to do that. Eventually he got the cat in the bag and then army crawled his way all the way back to the crawl space door where I was patiently waiting. He threw the bag out the door and of course I screamed and ran. I heard Davy yell as I was running, "HONEY MOVE THE BAG OUT OF THE DOOR WAY!" Davy finally makes his way out of the crawl space. Then came the question of the hour, "What do you do with a dead cat in a garbage bag?" So we decided to jump in the car and drive to the corner where there was a dumpster behind a retail building. So needless to say, Fluffy, Fido, Bird eating kitty or whatever you want to name it. Is resting in peace in the dumpster.

Pay Back's a Bitch...

2007-06-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

Pardon the foul language but its just so fitting for the situation.

Davy's brother Robby bought a duplex on the same street as ours a few weeks after we bought the dew . Soon after Robby moved in he was notified by the previous owner the the tenant on the other side of his building would be moving out at the end of the month.

So this begins the search for a new tenant. The unit was only empty about a month before he found a lady that he thought would be a great renter. So we will know that people can put on great fronts when they are looking for a new place to rent. And she was probably no different. Robby came home from work sometime after the 1st of the month and was expecting his first rent check from his renter. Well instead he received a letter on his door that went something like this, "Due to having to have surgery this month, I have dipped into the rent money, and therefore rent will be paid on the 8th"
I was flabbergasted! Since when do you get to decide if you are going to pay rent or not?! I told him he should have sent her a letter that said, "Since you are paying late, your late fee is therefore enforced!"

Well of course the story doesn't end here, life isn't that easy. So literally the next morning at 7:15am Davy's phone rings. He goes downstairs to listen to the message and comes back up and says, "D from the Duplex 1 in East Ridge just called to let us know that she won't be paying rent until the 28th." Well since I was half asleep I thought he said, "D called and she put the check in the mail on the 28th." Soooooo....needless to say a couple hours later when I finally woke up and heard that she wasn't paying rent until the 28th, I was shocked. What do these people think they can just decide they don't want to pay rent anymore?

Can you throw a girl a bone?

2007-06-09T10:28:00.001-07:00

So Davy and I started investing in rental properties about a year ago. You always hear of people that make a lot of money by investing in properties, so since we are still young we thought now would be a great time to start. My sister and her roommates were looking for a house to live in off campus so we felt like we couldn't go wrong. Guaranteed rent paid for by my father. We bought her house at the end of July 2006. We have had relatively few problems with the house and feel very lucky that we got the house for so cheap.

So in January we got the itch to buy more properties... We sold our house and we are now currently living in half of a duplex (we loving call it the "Dew") we own in Chattanooga. Then we decided that wasn't enough and bought two more duplexes on April 1st. We have been feeling quite lucky until this weekend. I think everyone is out to take as much money as possible from us.

Friday afternoon Davy calls me to let me know that the other unit in the dew is having air conditioning problems and that is blowing out hot air. I then called about 15 HVAC companies to see if anyone could fix it that evening. I finally find a company that is willing to come out for $59.99 to diagnosis the problem. The repairman comes and within 4 mins he tells Davy that it is a broken condenser fan motor and that he would get the part in the morning and fix the air as soon as possible. Saturday morning the repairman calls to say that he won't be able to find the part today an there is no way to get it fixed. Well that wasn't good enough for me. My bleeding heart felt bad for my tenant and I really wanted it fixed that day. So I decided to call a large supply group in Cleveland that carries a large selection of HVAC parts. Sure enough they have the part we need to fix the problem. So we call the guy back from the night before and he says "Well I quoted $350 to fix the condenser and that's if I buy the part or if you buy the part." Davy responds "So you are saying if I go buy the part you can't charge me an hourly rate to install it?" He replies "No sir, it will still be $350 so you might as well wait for me to get the part." At this point I am pissed. What a little bastard. I thought the service industry was built on client relationships and referrals. If the guy at Universal Heat and Air didn't want to work on a Saturday he should have said that the first time he came out, instead of saying that he just couldn't find the part.

So I decide to call one last guy that we used to use in Cleveland and see if there is anyway that he would drive to Chattanooga and fix the condenser fan motor. I call Matt Decker tell him the situation and he says "Of course I can get the part and fix it today." So five hundred and some odd dollars later, my tenant next door has air again. When Matt came out and looked at the unit there are other things that were also wrong that he had to fix hence the reason it cost so much. He also informed us not to get too attached to the units we currently have, because they are going to go at anytime. He nonchalantly told us that it would be $4400 for each unit. Wow I love being a landlord.