Smith Business and Finance

Foreclosure investing is actually quite another world when people have finally taken that risk and go for it. This really applies to anything else in life. Remember all those late nights where you’d stay up and watch those “how to make millions in your sleep” commercials. Or perhaps you remember all those times you went to the book store and purchased tons of real estate investment study guides.

In fact you probably have a impressive home library and collection of real estate, investment, and how to get rich quick type books by now. Some people may get a feeling of being overwhelmed after wading through those thick books and studying all the complex terminology.

The truth is, if you are a naturally goal-oriented and self-disciplined person than you can probably achieve a full-time income in real estate within a year with the right system. So how do you choose the “right” system when everyone and his uncle says they are an expert or guru within the real estate domain?

One thing you might want to consider doing is to align yourself with a acquaintance or relative who is already successful in real estate investment or at least in the branch of real estate that you are interested in doing. Don’t be shy, definitely get in touch with them.

It may be a friend from high school or university, or perhaps even a former room mate that you knew when you were just getting started with your own life and needed someone to share the rent costs with in order to have your own place, etc. I am sure that if you brainstorm for a bit, you may even surprise yourself at how much opportunity there is in your own circle.

That is actually a very good idea- the number one way to get into real estate successfully is to have a mentor or at minimum someone that can really show you the ropes and provide feedback in real-time. No matter how well written the courses you’re looking at is, nothing really compares to a trusted friend or adviser that can actually walk you through this process step-by-step.

Even if it isn’t step by step, it’s still great to be able to call someone up and ask for advice on what you are doing as well as to add some motivation to the process. Folks this relationship is priceless. You can save hundreds of hours of time learning things on your own, and also save thousands upon thousands of dollars in costly mistakes.

Ultimately you will have to walk the path yourself in order to learn and profit from this wonderful industry. But the initial first steps will furnish you with the momentum to be able to soar on your own two wings.

Successful investing requires knowledge, time and commitment, discipline and patience, and the ability to develop an investment strategy that is compatible with your personality.

Knowledge

Each individual must consider what he knows when planning an investment strategy. Recognizing your current level of knowledge, and how you will acquire the additional wisdom you need, are all-important factors.

Time and commitment

How much time are you willing to spend monitoring your portfolio? This is a critical question. An individual’s investment plan should be based on his level of interest in ensuring personal financial success. The more diversified a portfolio is, and the more complex your strategy, the more time you will need. To be successful, an investor mush map out a strategy that carefully matches his own personality and level of commitment.

Discipline

Although many investors start with an approach that will work for them, the ability to maintain discipline eludes far too many people. This is caused by a variety of psychological issues, led by fear and greed, that tend to dominate predetermined financial strategies. During various stages of a stock market, different investment styles will work better than others. Sometimes a value approach will be in favor. Other times a growth or momentum style to accommodate the market.

Patience

The last trait for successful investing is patience. Without it, your returns will be more limited. Warren Buffett reminds us that it takes nine months for a woman to deliver a baby. Investments usually take more time to work out than most people consider. Once you plan an investment strategy that complements your personality, managing a portfolio should be simple. The challenge will be to follow the game plan and to remain disciplined.

An investor who establishes varying time frames for holding different types of securities will be much less inclined to lose patience in well researched ideas. This type of analysis will also assist the investor from “holding too long,” while watching his momentum idea fall out of favor and create large losses.

The secret in real estate business is to use other people’s money. This is how most real estate tycoons are made. Unlike traditional residential real estate mortgages, real estate financing offers much broader financial options, including lending or financing from various financial institutions. Transactions like these call for above-average negotiation skills.

It’s not advisable to invest your own money in a real estate as for a few very important reasons. First, you you tend to give most of your profits away by not leveraging your investment. Second, real estate is a very risky business – you don’t want to jeopardize everything you have.

This is not to say that real estate investment is all about losses. On the contrary. if you know how to make money work for you, you may actually garner a great deal of money in return for your investment.

Here’s how:

If, for example, you purchase a $100,000 property that increases an average of 7 percent per year (in reality that number could be higher or lower), you would see a net profit from renting your property resulting in an approximately 15 percent return.

If you’re content with little return of investment, you might settle with your 15 percent return. But if you really want to earn on your investment, consider the possibility of what leveraging can do for you. At present, a typical real estate investor can find financing as high as 95 to 97 percent of the purchase price. There even some instances where you may be able to get a 100 percent financing but we won’t use this for our example as it’s an inadequate comparison.

So, if you’re are an investor who is already content with a smallreturn of investment then 15 percent sounds like a lot. But for those who really want to make it big in the real estate, 15 percent is far from being considered a noteworthy return.

How does leveraging work?

Let’s assume that the rental income will cover all your expenses, including the mortgage payments. Taking the same example, a 7 percent appreciation of your property results in a $7,000 profit per year. With a 95% financing in place, you’ll be able to get a $7,000 return on $5,000 (your 5 percent down payment on a $100,000 real estate property). This will provide you with a 140 percent return on your investment. Not only that, with the same $100,000 you can go out and purchase 20 investment properties, finance 95% percent of them, and make an amazing $140,000 profit a year. This totally beats the $15,000 profit with an all-cash transaction.

In terms of the additional 20 properties, expect to have a hard time getting financing for them since usually only five or six new rental property mortgages are the maximum that lenders presently allow. Which is why you need to have an above-average negotiation skills.

Defining your savings goals is the first thing to do before you invest, especially when that investment will have an impact on your child’s future.

It is after-all your child’s future that you are investing in–and school finance cannot be avoided, as babies will grow into adults who need to be given the best opportunities we can offer as parents.

The best advice that any parent can get is to start saving early. College tuition fees can cause a strain on your family’s budget and lifestyle. You need to have a goal to keep you motivated to save. And what better motivation is there than knowing that the money you save will finance your child’s education.

Normally the best stage to start saving for your child’s finance towards college tuition is at birth. If, however, you have not started, then the time to start saving is now. It is never too late to start saving.

The sooner you start saving, the more time there’ll be for compound interest to build up into a nice college fund for your child. Remember that each child should get his or her school finance savings fund.

You also need to decide the amount you intend to save by the time that your child reaches college age. There are many options available for you to choose from when it dollar amount. This means that you calculate the projected cost of public college tuition by the time your child is ready for college.

The other commonly used method, which many parents prefer, involves devoting a fixed percentage of income to their child’s future college costs. The idea is this: whatever you do, you have to have a defined goal. You should save as much as you can, whether it be a large amount, like several hundred dollars a month or a more modest amount, such as $25 to $50 each month.

A college education is an investment in the future of your child. If you truly want to see your child succeed, as all parents do, what could possibly be a better investment?

Not Enough Money?

I believe that most people haven’t got enough money for everything they wish to have – the more you have the bigger your plans, and you have a feeling that you have less and less money.

Whether you have lots of money or just so-so, you need to economize and take proper care of your money ie your income, expenditures, savings and investments.

Below I give you 7 Golden Rules to a Financial Prosperity:

1) Always have several streams of income: never rely on one income from one source only.

2) As soon as you start to earn, start to put aside a certain amount to create an automatic money source: I remember I have always had my own portfolio since I was a child, and can tell you that I needed it several times. Even if you have property, you may find yourself in a situation when you need fast cash. In such a situation, you will not sell your property, but you can sell part or even the whole of your portfolio.

You don’t need to start your portfolio with thousands of dollars, you can develop it.

You only need to set a rule that you won’t touch it when you don’t need it, and keep it for vital urgencies. To buy a better car or a bigger house is not an urgency.

3) Always take care of your money personally: it’s not necessary to do everything personally as soon as you can afford it but never allow any other person to have a right to handle your money without your knowing, or your express approval. If you think that you don’t have time to supervise this or that it’s not important, you will have to find it later for much more unpleasant things when you lose your money.

Many of you will ‘hate’ me for what I’m going to say now and I will receive lots of disapproving messages but I have to say it: don’t even allow your spouse to do this – love and money is not the right association, and I know what I am talking about. Keep these apart.

Don’t supervise your investments and expenditures only – Always strictly collect your money. Never allow people to owe you – again: with no regard to how much money you have, always demand every dollar you earn to be paid to you.

4) Strictly distinguish between expenditures and investments: it’s very easy to put everything as cost or overhead: don’t do this. Apply an easy rule: expenditure or cost is money thrown out of the window – you can’t expect any return money on it, while investment is desirable (of course, not every investment is desirable): this should bring you more money, more property able to make you more money – the only questions you should carefully consider are whether you can/should afford such an investment at the moment, how much you’re going to get back, how fast and whether it is acceptable.

5) Keep your expenditures at the minimum with no regard to how much money you have: expenditures are killing for everyone. It’s useless to tell you stories about big fortunes lost by unwise costs. I’m sure you know many yourself from your neighbourhood.

6) Avoid loans, don’t borrow if you don’t know for sure you can repay. Never purchase anything on future incomes or promises.

Just a little example: if I have a notice that a payment is on its way to my account and I need the money today for some reason (however, I can’t see any reason like that – never mind), I can borrow. But, if I think I will sell 1,000 books next week, I mustn’t borrow.

7) You must always earn more than you spend. In case you don’t earn more than you spend, then you must spend less. In other words, you must always be in green.

If you think that you must swap your car every six months even if you should borrow, then it may easily happen that you won’t drive anything in a very short time.

I don’t want to waste hours of your precious time by long essays on savings and wise advice. Just adopt one principle and whenever you want to do something with your money (- whether it’s thousands or millions or just a couple of bucks), just think about it: take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.