Can you help? Do these numbers add up?

We're small-time landlords. It's a crazy business, if you can call it a business.

We are getting up there in age and are considering cashing in our landlord chips, but we could use some help in understanding the high financing of new rental complexes we read about daily.

In a nutshell, we read of a new idea for a hotel complex in downtown Cedar Rapids and yet another NewBo apartment building. In round figures, the hotel's $50 million price tag for 200 rooms pencils out to $250,000 a unit; the NewBo apartment $27 million cost for 120 rentals comes to around $200,000 per unit.

We're thinking of listing two properties - both are decent and livable. A one-bedroom efficiency home on a postage stamp lot at $33,000, and a five-unit condo complex for $150,000. Our Realtor thinks we're asking too much. What do you think?

We have all the respect in the world for the businessmen who see clearly and are willing to take the plunge, but wonder if they put their decimal in the wrong place.

Tony Staab

Cedar Rapids