A 'Real' Example of Real Estate Leverage

I haven't written much lately; partly because life is busy, partly because I am still somewhat doing a 'side gig' and pursuing other interests, partly because the "payoff" from a PassiveIncomeDude article is very low currently, and partly just because I haven't had much to say.  I am drastically paying down debt and contributing regularly to ROTH IRA investing, which has resulted in nothing 'exciting' going on with my investments, in terms of buying stocks, buying properties, or selling etc.

That said, I am currently in the process of marketing my North Carolina Property (here) for rent this summer, and I witnessed a great example of leverage recently that I thought would be useful to share.

As some of you may know, I am a HUGE fan of leverage, especially and specifically real estate leverage, where your leverage is backed by a 'real' asset (the lumber, steel, concrete, glass, petroleum products, brick, etc) that all go into making a house AND it is an asset that you actually control.  This is in direct and stark contrast to "stock market leverage," where you only have very, very minuscule and indirect control of whatever the company's market valuation happened to be  on the day you decided to buy.  Huge differences there worth a re-read.

All of that said, I have written about leverage (here) before on PassiveIncomeDude, where I used the example of my Colorado Property to show how I achieved a 100% return in just one year.  It is an extremely powerful example of leverage that I think is worth the few minutes of reading.

Now back to my current example from the previous owner of my North Carolina property:

Income/Expenses: January 2017

One of my favorite posts of the month! It's very personal and helps keep me extremely accountable!

I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar post every month.

General Thoughts on this Month: This was a rougher month with expenses, which I don't fully understand to be honest, but it CLEARLY hurt our savings percentage.  I think a lot of our costs were "leftovers" from the holidays, but we are definitely attempting to tighten up a few things in February. We'll need to if I want to achieve even just one of my Passive Income Goals for 2017.

All of that said, the first month of the year is behind us and listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of January 2017.  

Passive Income Report: January 2017

It is time again for my Monthly Progress Review, the first of the year.  Crazy to think that we are already 1 month into 2017.

In each progress review I will list a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.

This monthly report covers January 2017.  

I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 

The most exciting part of this month for me is that I FINALLY GET TO REPORT YoY growth. Passive Income Dude is less than a year old, but I started tracking my income in January of 2016, so I now can finally report my year-over-year growth each month, which I am very excited about.

Read More to see how I earned $377 this month in passive income and would have achieved a 39.5% YoY growth rate if it weren't for.....