Money doesn't actually talk. We do.

My So-Called FiLife: Ali Rogers

Today’s post comes from Ali Rogers, a landlord, author, Realtor and all around real-estate whiz. She’s also a genuine and official FiLife Guru. Like other FiLife Gurus, Ali will be contributing articles to the site, answering questions from users on topics she knows a lot about and helping in innumerable other ways. But we’ll let her introduce herself further.

There are so many real-estate questions I wish I didn’t know the answers to.

Questions like:

1) What do you do when your bathroom ceiling lands in your tub?

2) What if you’re 48 hours before closing and your mortgage lender decides they want to try and deny your already-approved loan by asking for a new appraisal?

(Hit the bottom of the post for the answer key).

And some, er, skirt the law:

3) What if you’re running an illegal rental so you can afford your house, and your tenant runs off to Vegas with three months’ worth of rent money?

But sadly, I do know the answers to all these questions . . . and more. So I thought I’d hang out here on the Internet (er, “work”) and share them (and other cool stuff) with you.

Many of the questions, and answers, came about through accumulated personal experience. I bought my first apartment when I was thirty, because I didn’t have a boyfriend. I learned a lot about maintenance the hard way, because I had to do much of it myself in the days before they sold girly power tools.

I liked real estate though, and I rode the property market on its way up, in one case selling when I didn’t want to because of a painful breakup. I was a journalist, so moving into real-estate journalism was as easy as stating my experience (“Seven closings in six years!”) and starting a new and influential section at the New York Post.

After I got married, I quit my job to try real estate from the sales and investment side full time. Which led to another question:

4) What are the financial consequences if you try flipping houses and it doesn’t work?”

There were so many answers to that one that I wrote a book about it all, called Diary of a Real Estate Rookie. It also includes many tips for buyers and sellers.

Now, I’m a real-estate agent in New York City, where I show apartments to Carrie Bradshaws and Mr. Bigs alike. And I still own a house, so if you want to complain about your hundred-year-old pipes, I’ve got sympathy.

– Ali Rogers

Answers:

1) Bathroom Ceiling: Shut off the water (or call someone who can if you can’t figure out how). Then, take a photo of the mess with the front page of that day’s newspaper, for insurance purposes.

2) New Appraisal: Yell at the mortgage company for screwing around — and do a little dance when they get bought by Bank of America.

3) Bad Tenant: Do a legal eviction, which costs a thousand dollars, but keeps you from being legally liable when you toss the bum’s furniture on the street.

4) Flipping Houses: Disastrous, as much of America is finding out now.