When acting as an investor, there�s a lot more to it than looking at houses, seeing which one has the dream kitchen and enough natural light, and then negotiating the terms. Investing lets me flex my brain with a bit of math, working with formulas to determine stuff like gross operating income, loan-to-value ratios, percents of interest, net income, capitalization rates, and first-year return on investment.

From there I get to say, �Hmmm, not enough money to spend the time on this...� or �Wow! That�s what I�m looking for!�

Today I found the latter. All I have to do is come up with 10% in cash and convince the seller that he or she should loan me the rest.

�That shouldn�t be too hard,� you say.

Unless you have $230,000 to spare, bite me.

I�ll soon be soliciting everyone I�ve ever met to be potential investors, since the return on this investment is ridiculous. Even after writing twelve mortgage checks that will run me a yearly total of 1.5x the cost of my parents� house, paying the price of a new SUV in property taxes, and plunking down a bunch more for on-site management, repairs, insurance, maintenance, lawyer fees, and everything else that a big property would need taken care of, my bling-bling Chicago salary is more than taken care of for the year.

And since the target here is not to work there anymore, this is a very good thing.

Now, wish me luck. And if you know someone with any amount of money who wants a yearly check of 8% of the amount invested, please do let me know.

G�nite all. I�m going to think up how to make this happen.�