Me and Mrs CF just spent a night in a large manor close to Haarlem. It was a surprise “date night” by Mrs CF. She really knows how to make my heart go a bit faster 😁. I love castles! We did a FIRE meetup once in one. But we could never make one work financially for ourselves. We could probably buy one, but it would likely bankrupt us in the long run. So here is a post I wrote a few years back if you should buy a castle (note that some of the numbers and linke might not […]
Personal , Real Estate , Taxes
Not dead yet!
Nope, we are not dead yet! Albeit we are now over halfway our lives (statistically speaking), we are not planning to call it quits just yet. Life has been good but busy. Financially we are making steps forward once again too. Working really does miracles! Only major downside is that you have a lot less time to do fun stuff. Me no likey. Life update Quick summary, we bought a house that was too big, too expensive and needed a shitload of work. We call that a money pit. Said money pit is slowly improving, albeit not completely finished yet. […]
Real Estate , Taxes
From Landlord to Lender
As of today, we reduced out real estate holdings significantly. We now only have one more rental unit, instead of the 6 we still owned last month. Rather than being landlords, we are now acting as the bank, as we provided the buyer of our real estate with a mortgage. So we went from landlord to lender. Why? Why did we sell most of our real estate holdings and turned lenders? There are quite a few reasons to be honest. It was also a process that took many months to culminate. In no particular order: The Deal What deal did […]
Real Estate , Taxes
Dutch Real Estate and proposed Taxes
As noted in another post a while back, the Dutch Real Estate investors are under attack. The question remains, do you (partially) sell and move on with your money. Or is an assessment of your portfolio from a tax perspective a good idea (it always is). But now with the aim to find the financially best mode of investment if you want to keep your real estate portfolio and retire on it. Box 1, 2 or 3? What tax changes, when and how much? Those are the first things we need to know. Box 1 and 2 change are likely […]
Real Estate , Taxes
Real Estate Investing is under attack in the Netherlands
Catchy title, eh? But it is true! Today an short assessment why real estate Investing is under attack in the Netherlands. Why it is happening, why it is (partially) a good thing and why it is a sign to run for the hills. Dutch Real Estate Market The Dutch Real Estate market was red hot until about early 2022. Cheap mortages and high demand made for an explosion in housing prices. Pretty much the same as what happened in most of the world during the period 2017-2021. Now, real estate investors obviously made use of this (as did we, albeit […]
Personal , Real Estate
Un-FIRE yourself – a crash course
How to Un-FIRE yourself – a crash course. There are many ways to UN-FIRE oneself. By far the easiest one is to buy a house that is way too expensive. And that is exactly what we did! You can too 😉 It’s so great to be able to provide this useful financial information with a restarted blog! The Cheesy Index I’ve revived the Cheesy Index again, and… it is a bloodbath! We used to be able to get around with about €29.000-33.000 per year (we had little to no mortgage payments and are frugal most times). With the new money […]
Real Estate
Being a landlord sucks
There are moments when I hate being a landlord. This make me doubt whether investing in real estate was a smart idea (spoiler alert: it was – but it might not continue to be). I have been debating lately if we should continue what we are doing, or if we should sell and move on to other investments. Albeit no definite decision has been made, I’m leaning towards selling a portion of the portfolio. Tenants We actually have great tenants! And perhaps surprisingly enough they are not the issue, to date we have never had any real issues with tenants. […]