Acts of God

So one of our properties had a tree fall down very close to it.  It was close enough that it looks to have done around $500 worth of damage.  No major damage but 10 feet to the left and we might have had a duplex :)

Here is the interesting part.  The tree that fell was from a neighbor's yard.  Turns out that even though the tree was on his property, he's not liable for any of the damage or even the tree removal.  All he is required to do is remove the tree off his property and leave whatever is on our property for us to deal with.  Apparently it's an act of god (because it was weather related) and it doesn't matter where the tree was.  The only exception is if it's obvious it was negligence by the neighbor, such as he cut the tree down or it was a perfectly sunny day and the tree just fell (the law says he should have known it would fall).  But simply because some wind during a storm blew it down, it's no one's fault and everybody is responsible for their own property.

The only way we could have made the neighbor responsible is if we would have notified the neighbor that the tree was a concern. Even then from what I gather, we only have a 50/50 shot of sticking it on him.

Fortunately the neighbor is a nice guy and we think he's going to pay for the tree removal or at least half of it.

Now that we know this, we are aware of all the trees around us and if we see any that look dangerous, we now know to let the property owner know that the tree is of concern (via certified mail).  We need to take a picture of the tree and include that as well.

The Last Few Months

Well it's been ~8 months since we purchased our last property.  We're still at 10.  We've had several properties we've looked at but haven't moved on for various reasons.  Nothing really special to comment on, just typical deals that don't make sense for us.  Perhaps it's because our model is slowly working it's way out of the economy.  This time 2 years ago, we were beating properties off with a stick.  Perhaps it's time to rethink our strategy again.  Due to not buying any properties in a while, our bank account has increased "not insignificantly" to the point to where more options open us for us.

We've had discussions here and there.  I started up a real estate investor meetup group earlier this year and have learned a lot from that group.  We're already averaging 10-12 people per meeting.  This month we had 16, so that's pretty awesome.  I'm excited to see where it will go.

So as of right now, 0 properties in the pipeline, plenty of capital to work with and nowhere to put it.  It could be a very quiet end of the year or a very active one.  Stay tuned.  If anything comes of it, I'll be sure to post.  Just wanted to check in since it's been a while.  Hopefully, this blog can become very active again soon.