I would hire a good company to do the deep cleaning for you, if there is urine that has soaked down to the sub floor you will eventually smell it once winter sets in and the apartment is closed up, then you can press the landlord for new carpeting. I would also set off a few flea & tick bombs just to be on the safe side. Christine

Hi Harriet, Would you be willing to expand a little on what types of investments (in general) would fall into the category of "growth instruments with more security"? Growth & Security are on opposite sides of a continuum scale, or even a 3-dimensional graph, if you through in time & access values. There are SO MANY choices of structuring, it would be impossible for me to responsibly cover any recommendations here. There are direct share investments (stocks, bonds, futures, partnerships) that all ahve varying risk & safety profiles. There are professionally managed funds or account management services that monitor the above. There are pre-packaged investment services provided by fund managers, and bank trust accounts. There are also pre-packaged investment and insurance strategies (including accounts with no-loss guarantees and matching upside returns to the broad index markets.) Everything has it's counter-side. The choices with the most possible upside tend to also be naked to the biggest risks. The choices with the most safety guaranteed either offer less in growth... OR offer stronger growth only if you pre-commit to keep your paws off the funds for a long-term commitment (often 5-15 years, in the case of any worthy investment policies in annuities or insurance contracts.) There are no "one solution fits all" answers... and each family is BEST served with a formula of several pieces that cover several angles. It is the development of a custom "recipe" that is the most optimum. DH and I are 47 and 49, with no children, so I don't know how conservative we have to be with our investments. Our 401ks are invested fairly aggressively. A great deal of how you design your own "recipe" for investment/saving against leverage (debt married to appreciating assets) will depend on how you want your future to look, by when, and how you feel about taxation (believe it or not, not everyone completely hates it... LOL!) It will also depend on if you have any desires to direct left-over assets to related family, or unrelated orgainzations or charities. First & foremost, of course, you want to absolutely ensure that you run out of life BEFORE you run out of money! ;~) Nobody wants to flip that backwards... but many are at exactly that risk. All the best! Dave Donhoff Strategic Equity & Mortgage Planner

Hi Eosinophil, FIRST of we need to back away from the minutiea... up, up, up to get some bigger picture perspective, like an architect starting with very simple pencil sketches on a blank piece of paper... so that we can THEN come back down to the nitty-gritty and micro-fit the situation to your specifics. What is more important to you; Eliminating your outstanding leverage balances on an accelerating basis, or stopping the monthly bleeding? (These are at counter-points for you currently.) Are you more concerned about the balances on one property versus the other... or about your overall family position on balance? How much accrued liquid cash reserves do you have socked away? How much is your gross family monthly revenue? How much is your current gross (including minimum payments for all debt and homes) family cost of living? You are paying to rent the money you are using for retaining the ownership of the old home (the interest costs.) This interest is a "sunk cost" each month you pay it, if you have no tenants paying you for its useage. Is your continuing ownership giving you *any* appreciation currently? (Keeping in mind that market appreciation is a VERY tentative guess, at best, in the current environment... and if it is negative, you need to honestly figure it that way as well.) IF so, how much is the appreciation when calculated into monthly dollars? How much of your sunk interest costs are being ofset by your potential monthly appreciation gained? Whatever your sunk costs of interest, minus your dollars from appreciation (or plus the dollar costs, if depreciating currently,) is what you can call your "monthly burn." This is the consumption of your net worth you are incurring to continue carrying this property. NOW... this home CAN be sold (gotten under contract with a 30 day escrow period, or less) within a 2-6 week marketing time, AT SOME LEVEL OF PRICE, AND ADVERTISED EXPOSURE. This "price level" is what we call the "quick-sale price value." If your agent were to (honestly) determine the realistic quick-sale price level in that local market... it would likely be lower (perhaps much lower) than where you are holding out right now... and the agent would likely need to ramp up some significant marketing costs... which they might only be comfortable doing with some funding (or guarantees) from you. All of this, naturally, is going to be a revenue burden off of what you were previously hoping to sell your home for. NONETHELESS... this is a numeric exercise that is CRITICAL to do... RIGHT NOW... because it will give you the numerical difference between where you are right now in realistic net worth, were you to do this immediately..... VERSUS how much you are "burning through" on your monthly burn rate if you simply close your eyes, cover your ears, pray really really hard, and just keep waiting it out. KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS IS POWER... and you can't make an objective financial decision unless/until you have the actual facts in front of your face to review and think about. ========================================================= OK... soapbox aside..... *IF* you decide that you have reason to believe that simply waiting longer will actually be worth your while in a higher sale price... then there *is* investment property financing available in the range of 3.5% to 4.5% APR, on an interest-only basis, up to 70-75% LTV, strictly on a fully documented (income, employment, assets) basis... which could very significantly reduce your monthly burn overall. Its something I have at my firm... but not to be 'spammy' there may be other brokers (perhaps your regular loan broker) who have it as well. Its not a retail program, so you'd definitely need to connect with your broker for it. ========================================================= ALL THINGS CONSIDERED... (And in truth, we haven't seen enough details to truly consider all things...) I would *PROBABLY* be leaning toward advising you to take a deep breath, swallow hard, plug your nose... and have your agent re-price the home to the local quick-sale price... and get it over with while we're in the summertime "moving & home-buying season." All the best! Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

Hi WIgardenerwannabe, I am currently facing the need to replace roof/gutters and have a portion of my driveway and sidewalk done. "Functionally needing" to have it done, or "wanting now, but not of functional importance"? If its a responsible mandatory maintenance issue, then its gotta be done, period. If its a discretionary issue, perhaps it can wait. I have about $5,000 in an emergency fund which I can use toward this, but will fall a couple thousand short. Does this maintenence expense qualify as an "emergency" (I propose it does not.) You need to build & keep an emergency reserves fund equal to 6 months (preferably 12) of total living expenses (housing, food, travel, insurance, everything.) I am going to go out on a limb here & guess that you don't have that in place... no? I have a car loan of about $7,000 that I am also paying on. No other debt. At what interest rate? At what amortization burden (how much of each payment goes to interest, how much goes to principal?) Is this worth it? Or do I look for some other way to come up with the amount of money I'm short for these home maintenance issues? OK... critical maintenance is critical maintenance, and you *MUST* find a way to get it handled if failing to do so in a timely manner means the potential for worsening problems & expenses (leaking roof? dangerous sidewalks? etc.) NEXT... you *MUST* get a 6 months safety reserves account established. NOW... you must begin to understand; Equity is Equity is Equity is Equity. The dollar in your savings account is the same color as the dollar you've entrapped in yoru real estate, is the same color as the dollar in your 401(k), is the same color as the dollar in your stock brokerage account. UP UNTIL NOW you have been "investing" in the concept of sending extra dollars into the value of your home equity, and the elimination of your home mortgage. The benefit of this is limited to the after-tax rate of mortgage interest (it makes no additional growth if your real estate appreciates.) The downside of this strategy is 2-fold (at least); A) its costly to re-access the funds when needed, B) you have to qualify & get a bank's permission to access your own money. REMEMBER; The fastest & safest way to become debt-free is to accumulate a side CASH fund that grows to equal the entire mortgage amount BEFORE paying a single extra dollar to the mortgage... and then doing so in the stroke of a pen on a single check. With a $109,000 valued home, and a current mortgage balance of $73,000, you don't have a WHOLE lot of room to wiggle... but as you go forward, I strongly urge yu to use the safer debt elimination principles above. With a value of $109,000, you could potentially get approved to re-access as much as $103,500 of your own money... and probably in the middle-to-low 4%'s, on a 30 year term mortgage. Don't even THINK about 20 year or 15 year terms (remember above? The fastest & SAFEST ways to eliminate your debt? don't get tricked!) Plan out your cash needs; A) how much for the requisite maintenance now (vs later.) B) how much for responsible safety reserves? Add that to the payoff on your existing mortgage... MAYBE your car loan (if the amortization is faster than 15 years,) and add about $3,000 minimum for your financing closing costs as an estimate. THAT is the new balance your mortgage will be if you get yourself safely set up for stability & future debt elimination. It may *feel* like backsliding... but it is not. You are not in a safe position financially, and any non-insurance covered emergency (REAL emergency) would wipe away all the hard work you have accumulated. Hope that helps! Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner