This is my official December 2017 Net Worth Update. Below are my actual numbers for ALL my investments and liabilities as of 01/02/2018. Detailed explanations and a quick summary can be found below. If you would like to see my previous months net worth posts, please visit my Net Worth Tracker. I have been tracking my net worth monthly since May 2015. If you want to learn how to track net worth then check out how I am doing it.
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TOTAL NET WORTH: $570,656
Quick Summary and comments: +$527
Happy new year everyone!! Wow 2017 was a great year for me and I hope it was great for you as well. My net worth increased by 65k for the whole year which is not too shabby. This past month was brutal for spending but most of it was spent on purchasing new furniture and everything else needed for converting one of my rental properties into an AirBnB. That’s right folks, I will finally be a vacation rental host soon enough. I plan on writing a few posts specific to this in the near future so stay tuned.
Personal Life Update: My wife is about 22 weeks pregnant now and her belly is getting bigger by the day. I also felt my first baby kick. It was amazing! I put my hand on my wife’s belly and the baby kicked. I am really looking forward to being a dad. 2018 will be a really good year for me. Even if it doesn’t turn out so well financially. Although I am not expecting any negativity at all with my finances. I mean in theory I will be spending a lot more money because of the baby but I honestly have no idea how much.
Real Estate Investing Update: As of now, I still have $50k of my cash tied up in hard money lending which is still going great. I have been getting the interest payments like clockwork so no issues there. After I get the full principal payment back though I have decided to start pursuing another rental property. Hopefully in a few months or so I will have or be in the process of acquiring a new rental property. We’ll see.
But the real big news for me here is that I decided to convert one of my Indy rentals (property $8) into an airbnb. The property has been sitting vacant since late November and a few weeks ago, we decided to just go ahead and try the whole vacation rental thing out. The property is in a great location and I think it will be a good decision for me. Stay tuned for future updates on this.
Okay enough about that, lets jump into my net worth categories.
Assets: Explanations of each of my assets.
Cash: +$7,018
Cash is going up because of the hard money interest payments I received as well as my income from all my other stuff (w2 job and cash flow from the real estate investments). Good stuff!
My cash as noted above in the spreadsheet consists of my wife and I’s checking account and my REI (Real Estate Investing) checking account. Satisfied!
HSA account: -$70
Well the baby doctor visits have begun and we will probably see this number in the negative for a long time. This is my first baby so all the expenses are new to me. 🙂
My HSA contributions are minimal right now but because of the baby coming, I may increase these contributions now. Will speak to my wife to decide the best course of action. Satisfied!
Company Stock Options: -$2,559
Saw a price drop on these this past month which is irregular. My company stock has been rising for quite some time now. Since I am not hard-core pressed for cash right now though I will just let it sit there. Hopefully it will continue to grow.
These are stock options from my day job. I am fully vested. Satisfied!
Stock Portfolio: +$1,482
My stock portfolio is built of precious metal mining stocks. It has been on what seems a negative slope for months so its nice to see an increase. Unfortunately this is just the nature of the game for this industry. These are highly volatile and I am keeping these until the economy crashes and gold sky rockets. I’m in it for the long haul on these as I think it’s just a matter of time before the precious metal sector takes off. Overall I am still profiting from these stocks as I bought them for dirt cheap a long time ago when the precious metal sector was at its peak low.
I bought all my shares using tradeKing which is now Ally. Satisfied!
401K: +$145
I made an executive decision awhile back to take money out of my 401k and no longer contribute any more money to it. Mainly because I do not get matched contributions from the dreadful day job. But also because I KNOW I can make better returns using that money on rental properties. Any movement you see in this asset is only from market fluctuations. I am not able to withdraw the remaining amount in here until I quit my job. I really don’t like the idea of having an account that punishes me to take money out because of age. Satisfied!
Property # 1 (Indianapolis, IN)
All is good with my primary residence at this time.
My primary residence in Indianapolis. This was originally a turnkey property I bought back when I lived in Austin. I bought this house for $67k almost 2 years ago. Spent an additional $30 in renovations when I moved into this house. I love the location, the size of the house and because my mortgage on it is less than half of what I was paying when I was living in Austin, TX. Super Satisfied! Here are more details on when I originally bought this one as a rental property.
Property # 2 (Austin, TX)
Rent paid on time this and I had an $80 garage door opener repair made. Not too bad, I have not had many repairs on this one in the past. Although I am expecting to replace the roof soon which will be a huge expense. This is the property I self manage in Austin. Even now that I live in Indy, I will continue self managing this one. I think I can do it from afar and if in the future I realize that I can not continue being my own property manager, then I will probably just find a PM to handle it.
This is my first rental property. It’s actually the first house I ever purchased. I bought it when I moved to Austin and it was my primary residence for a long time. I originally never had plans for it to become a rental property but when I discovered the beautiful world of real estate investing, I knew I would someday convert this one to a rental. I expect gradual appreciation from this property because it is in the suburbs Austin which has been growing tremendously. Love me some HOT markets! Satisfied!
Property # 3 (Indianapolis, IN)
Rent paid on time and new repair requests have been made. The bathroom ceiling believe it or not was pretty much falling down. Unfortunately I spent close to $1k having it all fixed plus a few other minor repairs I took care of since the repair guy was out there.
This is my first turnkey rental property I purchased out-of-state in Indianapolis. I do not expect much appreciation on this property. I purchased this for CASH FLOW purposes only. Satisfied!
Property # 4 (Indianapolis, IN)
This tenant decided to pay for me for 8 solid months back in July. So rent payments are not an issue until the lease is up. No repair requests were made. This property was the one that I fired my property manager from originally when I first bought it as a turnkey rental properly.
This my 2nd turnkey rental property in Indianapolis I do not expect much appreciation on this property. I purchased this for CASH FLOW purposes only. Satisfied!
Property # 5 (Austin, TX)
Mortgage paid on time. No issues. This is a note that I own from a house that I sold via owner finance in the Austin area. If you notice though, the reason why this asset will continue to go down from the spreadsheet above is because it is a note and the principal balance on it goes down each month as the buyer pays me. Remember, I’m the lender on this one. Satisfied!
Property # 6 (Independence, MO (KC))
Well I am now going on 2 months having this property vacant. The last tenant left at the end of October, we had a qualified tenant back out in mid november and have not been able to find a qualified tenant yet. This is mainly because of it being December and all. Im really hoping and needing a qualified tenant on this one in January. This is the longest I have ever had any or my properties be vacant in the 3 to 4 years I have been at this. This is the last turnkey rental property I purchased located in the Kansas City area. I bought this in late October 2015. I purchased this property also for CASH FLOW purposes only. I am not expecting appreciation gains on this one. Satisfied!
Property # 7 (Indianapolis, IN)
Rent paid on time and zero repair requests. This one was the property I originally wanted to convert to an airBnb but since the tenant renewed the lease I never did. Now I am turning property #8 into an airbnb. This tenant has been great so far and I don’t want to ruin that. Easy cash flow baby!!
I bought this rental property from a wholesaler here in Indy after I moved here. I paid this one in cash and it came with a properly screened and paying tenant which was great. The property needs some fixing up however I won’t mess with it until after the tenant moves out or submits repairs. This is the one I really want to convert to an AirBnB. Satisfied!
Property # 8 (Indianapolis, IN)
This property was vacant for about 6 weeks before I finally decided to convert it into an airbnb. I am actually in the process of doing this now. The house was completely vacant so we are having to make a lot of purchases to get this going. Im hoping it will be ready in a few more weeks max, we are still waiting on furniture delivery which is coming later this week.
I bought this house from a wholesaler here in Indy for $65k in a very popular Indy neighborhood (Bates Hendricks) back in late October 2016. I put in about $20k getting it rent ready. Satisfied!
Property # 9 (Indianapolis, IN)
This is my newest rental and so far I have received all the rent payments on time. No repair requests made. I am not expecting any repairs anytime soon as I fully rehabbed this house. Satisfied!
I bought this home as a foreclosure off the MLS. Paid in cash, fixed it up and rented it out. Check here for all the numbers and details of this property.
Liabilities: These are self-explanatory so I wont dive too deep into these however I would like to include the items below for informational purposes.
Credit Card
I only use one credit card (rewards card) that I use to purchase my everyday expenses. I pay this off in full every month. I am receiving 1.5% cash back on this card and am very pleased with it. Satisfied!
Last 30 days net worth graph from Personal Capital
This month’s chart is super boring. No movement! I love this chart though. It looks great and its nice and big.
If you want to set up and track your net worth online like I do, create a FREE account at Personal Capital.
There you have it folks! How was your month? Subscribe here if you would like to receive emails on future posts including more net worth updates.
Happy New Year Alexander! Looks like 2018 is shaping up to be a great year for your family! Start sleeping now! 🙂 Good luck with the airbnb, are there certain times of the year that the Indy neighborhood is a big travel draw?
Happy new year Brian!! Ha oh trust me, I am getting as much sleep as I can right now for sure. I woke up at 9am today!! I think there will be multiple times through out the year that the airbnb will be very busy because of big events occurring here in Indy. I think that is one reason why Indy is so hot right now for Airbnbs. May will be the first big one with the Indy500 and the grand prix. Looking fwd to it.
Happy New Year. I’m very interested in the AirBnB experiment. I’m actually considering buying another property in KCMO for that purpose as I read that KCMO and Cleveland were the top value pays according to AirDNA. I’m sure Indy is up there as well. I just started looking into it though and I might not do it since I’m long distance. How much did it cost to furnish the house? Looking forward to read about how it goes
Hey Andrew, I hear KC is great for airbnbs also. The last time I was in KC just about a month ago I stayed in an airbnb and it was great. Was paying for the airdna stats worth it? Or are you looking at free data?
Well for the house I am converting, its technically a 3BR with 1 bath however has a 4th room which we are making an office. So to fill up that whole house about 1800 sq ft with everything we think we need including wifi/internet/furniture in all rooms/kitchen and bathroom stock/art and everything else we have, its been about $7500 so far. Not cheap! With the numbers that I am estimating though, it will be more then worth it. Just have to keep our fingers crossed and see how it plays out.
I will write a detailed post about this once its up and running.
I only checked out the free data. I would consider paying if I decide to jump in. Actually I was told that KCMO might consider legislation restricted AirBnB so I might not take that risk. I have also been looking in upstate NY though. Anways with the numbers I’ve seen with short term rentals, I think the $7500 will be worth the initial investment. That’s not too much when you think of all the things that you need to fill up a house that size! Plus, it has to look nice since you no one will rent it if it looks dated. I look forward to reading the detailed post.
Hi Alex – You are crusing along as always. I’m really looking forward to hearing how your AirBNB property goes. It seems like there is a mixed bag across BiggerPockets and other sites. Can’t wait!
Congrats on the upcoming baby it will be a life changer. The new worth is going up which is always a great sign. 9 properties wow you will be a real estate mogul 1 day if you keep it up.
You are missing out not investing in the stock market the last couple of years…
Hey, just an FYI, if you have opened your HSA account, you can change the contributions after the fact to make contributions on medical bills that happened after you opened the account but before you made the contribution.
Ie, I set up my HSA account. A month later, I go to the doctor and spend $200. I can then adjust my HSA contribution for $200 and write myself a check for the amount I paid to the doctor, and doing so I save on the taxes.
I suspect you will be going to the doctor on a regular basis, imo it only makes sense to contribute reasonably heavy to the HSA if for no other reason than to just save on the taxes, even if you end up using the money for your next house.
Best of luck to having a healthy and happy little one.