Day 4: Shopping and Sibs

 We checked out of Layton’s Comfort Inn and headed toward Salt Lake City.  Richard had decided that Jaime and I would need to bring some Salt Water Taffy home to our friends.  He decided that we would have to buy from the most expensive place he could think of:  Trolley Square.

Hey, Trolley Square does have its perks – but they are also rather pricey.  Wherever he believed the taffy was no longer exists – but hey, he did find some kitchen equipment that appealed to his eyes.  We made our purchase and headed out to Valley Fair Mall.  I do remember having purchased candy there.  But that was seven years ago.  Before the pandemic. Neither Jaime nor I especially cared about the taffy.  It claims it’s made with the salt from the Great Salt Lake (which by the way has not been that great for a couple of decades now) I wondered if there was any lake left.

 

While at the food court, Richard saw what appeared like a bowling alley.  We discovered an arcade and bowling had been added to the mall.  I took some pictures of Jaime enjoying herself along with some of the machines. 

From there we went to the West Valley Library.  Richard was happy to be in a real library again.  Jaime and I walked around to look at Fairbourne station.  She was disappointed that the water was not on.  I had not expected it to be. We did take a few pictures.  Mostly to compare then and now. 

Jaime went on a scavenger hunt leftover from St. Patrick’s Day.  We hung around until almost 3:30 and then drove to Midvale to have dinner with my brother Patrick and his wife Sunny and my sister Kayla and her family.  It was so nice to get to see them.  I should have invited Peggy who is a dear family friend who lives closer to Su Casa than either of my siblings do.  Jai was definitely happy to be at Su Casa as she misses the tradition of having gone there so often with grandma (her grandma; my mom)

After we finished eating and took some family pictures, Richard, Jaime and I continued to drive further south and made it to St. George sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.  

We stopped in Beaver to gas up.  Richard took our photos in front of the famous chair.

Randy greeted us at the door and put us up for the next four nights.

Making Profit With Real Estate: Property Management

           This is a continuation of a post I had started yesterday.  I did not use a numbering system in the assignment I turned but wondered if it might be easier to read.  Meanwhile, it has gotten more lengthy.

Property Management

            I would rather "flip" properties than to use them as rentals.  Roland thought the ideal rental would be commercial property - renting out space to doctors, specifically or manage on office building.  That is something we have never done, but we did have two rental properties for family living.  There are different ways to be in property management. 

1.       Sometimes Roland would (and still does) look at commercial properties that he could use to rent out office space or floor space.  We had actually looked at a squirrely layout in Sandy - there were 9 different rooms I think and most included sinks.  He said it had been used as a daycare at one time but he was thinking it might make good offices for doctors.  The appearance of the establishment was residential, but most of the buildings around it were used for commercial - if used at all.  Unless the doctor had clients living in that part of Sandy whose only option of transportation was their feet, I don't think it was the most ideal location and was in need of cosmetic repairs in order to invite the public to want to see a doctor in that establishment.

2.       We did have two different houses that we used as rental property.  The first was the house we ended up living in when we moved to West Valley.  At the time of purchase we had no intentions of moving into it.  As usual, the family was recruited to spruce up the appearance.  I took this picture before it was ready as we working on it.  

I

          I took a lot more, but currently this is all I can find.  While working on it, Biff enquired if we had any renters in mind or if he could possibly move in.  I think it was a good experience for him to be out on his own.  Sadly it lasted only a couple of months.  In December of 2007 he was in an accident that totaled the car he needed as transportation and as things didn't seem to be working out with his roommates, he used it as an excuse to get out.

          Our next renter was the daughter of a ward member who needed a second chance.  If the declining economy hadn't been such an issue with the job market, they may be living there still as Roland had contracted a lease/purchase option in which they were actually paying more than expected rent, but the money was to be accumulated to use as down payment for purchasing when they finally qualified.  They could no longer make payments, nor could we on our current house in Kearns.  We ended up losing our house in Kearns and moved to our West Valley Property (see here and here) 

           Meanwhile we had purchased another property in Kearns from a neighbor who was also having financial problems.  He had used it as a rental for as long as we had known him.  We continued with rental, but had not made the best of selections with our renters.  The last couple we had in our Kearns rental moved into the neighborhood about five or six months before we moved out.  It was their intent to purchase the property when the timing was right.  Unfortunately it was never right for them.  They both lost their jobs and we ended up doing a quick claim deed returning it to the neighbor we had initially purchased it from.

3.       I posted about the trauma of getting into our rental when we first moved to Oregon.  My third example of a third party property management. You could purchase several properties but allow another a percentage to collect rent, enforce rules and so forth.  I used Neil Co as my reference as it is the only property management that I have dealt with personally.

          I had actually created a post recommending not to use Neil Co at Century 21, but since have reverted to a draft - though I'm still not happy with them overall, they did seem to be on top of it when we called for maintenance issues. Getting in and out was my major issue but I really loved the house where we live.  I really thought I would miss this house after we left, but really have not given it a second thought.  That's really impressive too. 

I suppose I did have six to begin with, but as I did not go into as much detail with those examples, I wasn't certain that I had covered six examples.  Now that I see it outlined this way, I can see where I had used at least seven in the assignment I turned in.  Next post:  Gravy Investments.  Aren't you excited?