Are Real Estate Agents Worth It?
Most people think real estate agents cost 6%. They don't. They cost thousands more. Here's why.
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Planning
Which Kind of Client Are You?
Do-it-yourselfer, collaborator, or outsourcer? Any of the three can work. An advisor solves two problems and introduces two new ones, and the real risk is not picking a lane at all.
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Planning
The Treadmill You Bought
Big houses, clubs, and private schools work more like subscriptions than purchases. Stack enough of them and you have to keep running just to keep the life you built. On keeping money in proportion, and the part nobody puts on the spreadsheet.
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Investing
The Safest Investment in the Textbook
Walgreens was once the textbook example of the safest real estate investment. Then everyone piled in, and the investment quietly changed. Hedge funds followed the same path. A track record tells you what worked, not what changed.
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Real Estate
The Deals Didn't Disappear. The Math Got Harder.
Here is the same BRRRR deal at 3.5 percent and at 7. The purchase and the refinance still work. What changed is that holding it pays less and takes a lot more work. It is still worth doing, for now.
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Planning
The Guy Weaving Through Traffic
A driver weaving through a jam on I-55 burned fifteen minutes of energy and gained the length of a driveway. The other lane always looks faster. It usually isn't, on the highway or in a portfolio.
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Investing
Every Part You Add Is a Part That Can Break
An adviser wanted five percent of a charity's endowment in alternatives. The risk score would have improved and the odds of funding the charity would have gone down. Most financial complexity is cost and new ways to break, wrapped around the same stocks and bonds.
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Investing
The House I Didn't Buy
In August of 2008 I walked through a thirty-nine thousand dollar house and did not buy it. Buying when there is blood in the streets is not hard because it is frightening. It is hard because you have to look wrong for years.
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Real Estate
Are You Cut Out to Invest in Real Estate?
The returns are real, but so is the work. An honest look at the temperament, time, capital, and nerve it takes to be a mom and pop real estate investor.
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Planning
It's Okay to Stack Nickels
A teenage gold miner, Sam Walton, and your 401(k) all built wealth the same way: a boring loop, repeated for decades. The case for steady progress while you wait for the big swing.
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Planning
Die With Zero, or Die With Enough?
A couple retired young to spend it all before they die. Bill Perkins' Die With Zero makes a real point, but taken to its extreme it bets against a future you can't price.
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Investing
Take the Risk. Don't Sink the Ship.
Most people picture risk as a slot machine. Taking risk well is the opposite: shape the downside, invest where you have an edge, and run honest numbers.
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Investing
Stick to Your List: How Investments Are Sold Like Groceries
Grocery stores are engineered to defeat your shopping list. The investment industry runs the same playbook, down to paying for shelf space. Bring a list.
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Investing
You Probably Need a Financial Advisor (Yes, This Is Self-Serving)
The most self-serving thing I'll ever write. You can do most of this yourself, so here's the honest case for hiring an advisor anyway, and the one reason to ignore.
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Investing
Are You Growing Your Money, or Keeping It?
Two investors, the same $245,000, opposite goals. Why capital efficiency is everything when you're growing wealth and almost irrelevant when you're preserving it.
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Investing
The SpaceX IPO and the Trouble With Picking Stocks
SpaceX filed to go public at a $1.75 trillion valuation. The S-1 reveals three very different businesses bolted together, and a clear lesson about why picking single stocks is so hard.
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Investing
Reserves Aren't Power: What Oil Still Teaches Investors
Venezuela sits on the most oil. The United States pumps the most. The gap between those two facts, and a pair of Daniel Yergin books, says something useful about your portfolio.
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Investing
Why Public Equities Might Be the Perfect Investment
A primer on public equities, why the S&P 500 looks close to perfect for long-term investors, and the three caveats that make it less than guaranteed.
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Investing
The Boring Edge of ETFs
The financial industry quietly launches new products. ETFs replaced mutual funds for boring reasons: tax efficiency and lower fees that compound.
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About
How I Write This Blog
I use AI to write Dollar Llama. Here's why I think that's fine, and why it fits into a much longer story about how humans share ideas.
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Investing
What Rory McIlroy Can Teach You About Picking Stocks
The gap between amateurs and professionals isn't talent. It's infrastructure. That's true in golf, and it's even more true in investing.
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Real Estate
Cost Segregation: The Real Estate Cheat Code (No, Seriously)
Cost segregation is a perfectly legal tax strategy that turns decades of depreciation into a single year. Here's how it works.
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Real Estate
Buy & Hold vs BRRRR vs Flip: Which Real Estate Strategy Is Best?
Three strategies. Three different risk profiles. Which one should you pick based on your goals and market conditions?
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Investing
Why Investors Buy Sports Teams (And Why They Lose Money)
Sports teams are money-losing businesses with celebrity status. Here's why billionaires keep buying them anyway.
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Investing
How Countries Invest Their Money (And What They're Doing Wrong)
Sovereign wealth funds have trillions to invest. But even with unlimited capital and no deadline, most of them underperform the market.
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Real Estate
Are Real Estate Agents Worth It?
Most people think real estate agents cost 6%. They don't. They cost thousands more. Here's why.
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Investing
Training for Your Race: Why Chasing Performance Guarantees Underperformance
If you train specifically for the Boston Marathon, you might run it faster. But you'll never run another race well again.
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Investing
What Good Financial Advisors Actually Do
Most people think advisors pick stocks. Good advisors know that's the worst part of their job.
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Investing
Good Investing Is Boring
The best investment strategy is simple, consistent, and will never feel exciting. And that's the point.
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Investing
The 20-Fund Portfolio: Complexity Without Extra Returns
More funds doesn't mean better returns. It usually just means more fees and more heartbreak.
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Investing
Allocator vs Investor: The Most Important Distinction in Finance
99% of investors are confused about which role they're actually playing. Here's how to figure out yours.
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Investing
Active vs Passive Investing: The Debate Nobody Gets Right
Both sides are wrong. Here's what the data actually says about beating the market.
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Questions? I'd love to hear from you.
Send me an email at info@dollar-llama.com