How many months of rent reserves should a small multifamily owner keep and where to park the cash

I often approach equipment decisions the way I evaluate an investment: weighing risk, expected return, and fit with my objectives. Selecting a padel racket is exactly the same kind of trade-off. Over the years I've test-driven many models from Bullpadel, Nox, Head, Adidas, Wilson, Siux, and Babolat, and I use that hands-on experience combined with a data-minded approach to help you choose the racket that will give you the best performance per...

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I’ve been combining dividend investing with covered-call overlays for years to extract incremental income while keeping downside risk in check. When done carefully, a covered-call “income sleeve” can boost cash returns for a dividend-focused portfolio—but tax treatment can quietly erode those gains if you don’t structure it correctly. Below I walk through a pragmatic, data-driven way to build a tax-efficient covered-call sleeve that...

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I’ve spent years watching REITs move from steady dividend machines to distressed assets — and often the warning signs were sitting in the financials long before the market’s price action screamed “sell.” If you want to spot trouble early, you need to look past the headline dividend yield and dig into a handful of ratios and metrics that reveal credit strain, cash-flow weakness, and operational stress. Below I walk through the...

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I often get asked whether the same valuation metrics apply when comparing single-family rentals (SFRs) in secondary markets versus primary markets. The short answer is: the metrics themselves are the same, but their relative importance, interpretation and the assumptions you attach to them should change based on market context. Below I walk through the specific metrics I use, how I adjust them between market types, and practical ways to test...

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I hunt for gains, but I also focus on the messy, underappreciated side of investing: taxes. Over the years I’ve used tax-loss harvesting (TLH) as a pragmatic tool to reduce tax drag in taxable accounts. Doing it well across multiple taxable accounts — and when you’re rotating into similar ETFs rather than identical ones — requires clear rules, careful record-keeping, and a dose of common sense. Below I walk through how I harvest losses...

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When I started evaluating office-to-residential conversion deals several years ago, I quickly realized they live at the intersection of three disciplines investors frequently underweight: zoning and land-use law, construction feasibility, and rent/market economics. You can't simply take a mid-rise office block, slap in some kitchens and call it a day. The devil — and the value — is in the details. In this piece I walk through the practical...

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Generating steady income from options is attractive: premium flows, time decay working in your favor, and a wide menu of strategies from covered calls to credit spreads. But the same leverage and asymmetric payoff that make options lucrative also create concentrated downside risk if you size positions poorly. I approach options income the same way I approach real estate or equities: start with clear allocation rules, measure potential loss, and...

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I often get questions from readers who are approaching retirement with a relatively small nest egg and a big fear of sequence-of-returns risk: “How can I avoid a large drawdown in the early years of retirement?” Volatility targeting is one practical technique I use and recommend to help smooth drawdowns while keeping a meaningful allocation to growth assets. In this article I’ll walk you through what volatility targeting is, why it matters...

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I run scenario analysis on my clients’ retirement plans like a pilot runs checklists before takeoff: it’s not glamorous, but it’s the thing that prevents disaster. When I talk about a portfolio’s “glidepath” toward retirement income, I mean the path your asset allocation, expected returns, volatility, and withdrawals together create as you transition from accumulation to distribution. Scenario analysis doesn’t predict the future....

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When I first started analyzing rental properties, I treated the math on paper like it told the whole story: purchase price, rent, mortgage payment, taxes, and a tidy cap rate. Reality, as I learned the hard way, is messier. Maintenance, vacancies and capital expenditures (CapEx) quietly erode returns in ways that aren’t obvious from purchase spreadsheets or flashy listing photos. In this article I’ll walk through the hidden cost categories...

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