One way to help determine the quality of a location is to check to see how much graffiti there is on neighborhood walls and fences.

Some graffiti is to be expected in almost any neighborhood. But if the fences and walls of nearby homes and parks are covered with it, it suggests a num¬ber of ominous things. First, if the graffiti stays there for long without being cleaned up or painted over, it indi¬cates a low level of neighborhood pride.

I have a friend who is 60 years old who 20 years ago had built a solid business with 200 insurance agents. Joe left the business and opened a large computer school at the peak of the dot com bubble and lost over a million and went bankrupt.

He contacted me several months ago and has been pleading with me to lend him money as he is in the beginning stages of recruiting his former agents for various business ventures such as prepaid legal, reverse mortgage and some kind of MLM.  Should I just say no to loaning him money?
Ray

I learned at a Home Extension meeting put on by the University of Illinois extension workers that you never work on a spot on the soiled side. You turn the garment inside out and work on it from the back side. That way, you are pushing the stain out instead of pushing it into the fabric by rubbing it.
Donna

I am a single mom raising two beautiful girls. Problem: I am a high
school teacher that already works a side job at a Junior College and I
clean two houses for extra income; however, I am still $1,000 behind each
month. Yes, my ex pays child support, but I can’t seem to make ends
meet. I am not living extravagantly; I really just need support from
something. I don’t think I could be approved for governmental assistance
because of my career. Do you have any suggestions?
Maria

Sometimes the value of a rental property is not in the building, but entirely in the land. This is often the case where prices have risen rapidly and there’s an older stock of smaller homes. A good example is the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles. Many homes were built there after the Second World War through the fifties and sixties. They tended to be smaller homes, sometimes with three bedrooms and only one bath, often under 1,500 square feet.