John T. Reed’s news blog

The vast majority of real estate rehab do NOT make money. They lose money. But the amount of time that lapses is so great that marketwide appreciation that would have happened withOUT the rehab is the actual source of the profit, but the rehabber incorrectly claims it was his rehab that caused the value increase. What types of rehab ARE profitable? Adding a bedroom to a one-bedroom house or apartment (Adding a third bedroom is less likely to be profitable) Cleaning dirty property by power wash, scrubbing, brass polish brass, etc. is rehab, not just painting or carpeting which are...

Reading further in The Hundred-Year Marathon subtitle China’s Secret Strategy To Replace America As the Global Super Power by Michael Pillsbury:.The main point of the book is the mainland Chinese have a long-term plan to take over the world which they feel was unjustly taken away from their superior, more virtuous race by us barbarians and their plan is based on thousands of years of oriental mysticism wisdom which is far superior to the wisdom we barbarians accumulated in the same thousands of years. And the mainland Chinese are paranoid thinking we are trying to do the same to them...

The black mayor of Buffalo angrily said he would not let the world forget the 10 people who were murdered there Sunday. . What a great guy! But he HAS let the world forget about the 67 murders that happened in Buffalo last year. . I did not put it into my Unelected President novel, but I think the presidents should have a ranked list of all causes of premature death in the US available at all news conferences. Every time anyone asks about someone dying, the ranked list of US causes of death should pop up. Mass shootings would be...

Citibank moving from NYC to Sioux Falls In 1981, Citibank in NYC did something that I as a real estate investment writer recognizes was earth shattering. They moved their credit card processing from NYC to Sioux Falls, SD. . At the time, that was unheard of. Citibank was a long-time huge bank headquartered in NYC. How and why could they move such a big operation so far away and to the boondocks, no less, not Chicago of LA? Satellites and no interest rate limits Two reasons. Satellite communications had been invented and was ready for prime time. I graduated from...

I have read a zillion books on baseball—maybe more than any other subject other than real estate. And there may be more baseball books than real estate books. One of the best is one I am now reading: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches by Tyler Kepner. It is a bad title. The book is about the grip and other techniques and actual performance details and mostly mental aspects of pitching each of those pitches. Also, the basic idea of what pitchers are trying to do and what batters are trying to do. For example, I couldn’t find it...