First Steps to Success as a Property Investor

Successful property investment requires a good knowledge base. It’s important to get a good basic grounding in all the practices of property investment, from selecting properties to management and financing. These are the real bread and butter elements of property investment. It’s extremely important to learn each aspect and understand the issues in each part of the process. This is a type of business where learning by experience can be very costly.

You will need some professional assistance with property investment, including legal support and professional investment advice, particularly if you’re buying high value properties. There’s a large range of issues involved in any purchase or sale of property, and this advice can both save and make you a fortune, quite literally.

The property investment market has a nasty habit of boom and bust cycles which need to be well managed to ensure profitability and good returns on investment. Losses can hit hard, particularly if you’re borrowing to invest, or you have an investment that needs capital commitment to be profitable in a falling or stagnant market. A good working knowledge of the right market strategies and tactics will give you an advantage in any sort of property market or investment situation.

Stage 1- Basic elements of property investment education

Before you make any investment moves, it’s well worth attending some of the professional property investment seminars. These seminars are particularly useful for investors in need of fundamental information regarding markets, risk management and investment strategies. Property markets can be quite volatile, and some local markets may be flat while others are booming. These are primary principles in property investment, and it’s critically important to develop a clear vision of the issues in your own property market.

Stage 2- Finding the right property investment advisory services

The best property investment companies offer a range of services which include:

·        Resources for property research- These include market reports, news and other up to date information which can provide valuable insights into your property investment options.

·        Property investment strategy advice and programs- The most successful property investors have a clear market strategy which sees them through boom and bust markets. Defensive and aggressive investment strategies have their benefits, and learning these strategies is a  

·        Consultation services- These services can be absolutely invaluable, providing full spectrum support for investors, whatever their needs. (Please note that in the early stages of investment, this consultative process is also very valuable as “advanced training”, because your advisors will be able to walk you through the issues and explain them for you and provide good options for each investment.)

Stage 3- Your own investment team, on standby

At the end of your education phase, you’ll find that you have excellent knowledge of your investment options, as well as a team of professional experts on hand whenever you need them. The most successful property investors in the world have professional teams to support their every move, and the best property investments are never accidental.

Talk to a professional property investment advisor, and check out their services. You’ll never look back.

 [The above is a guest post]

Poll Results: Starting Pay When You First Started Work

I polled my readers on this blog on what was their starting pay when they first started work. This poll was really started after I wrote the article on Starting Pay for Graduates. Anyway, here are the results of the poll:

57% of respondents reported a starting salary of less than S$2000 when they first started work. 27% of respondents reported a starting salary of between S$2000 and S$3000. The remaining 16% reported a starting salary of more than S$3000 when they first started work.

So how do you measure up?

Citigroup CEO thinks Another Financial Crisis Unlikely

Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup thinks that the chances of another financial crisis hitting the global economy is unlikely, mainly due to world banking system that has been overhauled since the last global financial crisis in 2008.

He remains confident that the "Europeans will figure it out" and that there is no need to worry about a financial crisis. This seems to be a far cry from the doom and gloom that has been over the markets for the past few months.

He remains bullish about Asia as he thinks that the Asian growth story will continue to be robust, even if it is impacted by any global economic slowdown. It is quite surprising that Citigroup's CEO is so optimistic about the trends going forward.

Alpine Total Dynamic and Alpine Global Dynamic

Sold off my stake in Alpine Total Dynamic and Alpine Global Dynamic soon after buying it because I realised that the dividend payout had been dropping over the years. In addition, the dividend capture strategy that they are supposedly using does not sound robust enough for my liking. Anyway, I bought the stock just before the slight rally in the markets so I was able to lock in some gains.

It looks like my search for another monthly dividend stock will have to continue.

Posts to Read

Dear reader,

You might have just stumbled upon this blog and I thank you for taking time to go through it.  I hope you find lots of interesting articles even as you navigate around this blog.  I thought that I might as well just highlight a few articles which I have grouped according to topics to make it so much easier for you to navigate:  I must be frank that reading through some of these posts, I have entirely forgotten that I actually wrote them.  It almost feels like it was a different person writing some of these articles then.

Personal Thoughts and Reflections

1. A Brutally Honest Post
2. Lessons from Silas Marner
3. Which is Your Best Income Source
4. Conversation with a Millionaire
5. Don't Run the Rat Race

Salary and Personal Finance

1. Salary Discussion
2. Starting Pay for Singapore Graduates
3. Are You Ready to Manage Your Cashflow?
4. Are You Ready to Take Charge of Your Healthcare Costs?
5. 1001 Frugal Things to Do
6. How Much to Get Married (Part 1) (Part 2)

Other Posts of Interests

1. 10 Steps to Financial Freedom

How to Earn Extra Cash & The Hidden Difficulties

I read with interest a certain article on AsiaOne that gave ten ways on how one could earn extra cash.  The article was well written but I wasn't too sure how helpful it was to people who actually read it.  I mean what was listed down was really ten ways to earn extra cash but I guess the difference really lies in how difficult it is to make extra cash (especially if one holds a full-time job) and also what I would term as the "work-reward" ratio (i.e. how much work you have to put in versus the magnitude of the earnings/reward).

For example, babysitting was listed down as one of the ways to earn extra cash.  Sure, this advice applies well to stay-at-home mums but even if $1000 is paid out for you to babysit a child for all weekdays throughout a month, is it a worthwhile effort?  Likewise, Adsense was listed down as one of the ways but seriously, how long does it take for a newbie to earn $1000 through Adsense?

Why it is probably easier to babysit 

These are difficult questions and will probably require difficult answers.  But looking at it, I can safely tell you that it will be easier for most people to earn $1000/month doing babysitting compared to earning $1000/year from Adsense.  And the context is really important.  And the reason for this apparent difficulty or disparity lies in a really simple answer that probably plagues many of Singapore's local businesses too:  Singapore is too small.

Imagine an American blogger.  With a total resident population in the United States of 300 over million people and a high internet penetration rate, it is fairly easy for this American blogger to reach out to his target group of audience (i.e. customers) in America.  Even if he was only able to capture % of the audience per day, that will amount to 3 million readers per day already.  The same Singaporean blogger has no such luck.  If he managed to reach out to 1% of the residents per day, it only amounts to 50,000 readers.  Of course, the 1% target is really arbitary but it shows that for the same amount of effort, the Singapore blogger (with his/her Singaporean content only interesting to the locals) is placed at a severe disadvantage.

The Solution?

Well, the solution actually seems pretty straightfoward.  Go global!  Blog about things that the global audience can identify with and relate to.  But this is challenging and extremely difficult.  Unless you know what the global audience wants to read, you will probably find it extremely difficult to build up a site that will be visited by visitors.  This is not to mention the language barrier, culture barrier, and other impediments that you face.  And one can safely say that most people who try to eke out a living on the internet will rarely succeed.  But that being said, it is not entirely impossible.  There are good Singaporean bloggers who are making a living through their blogs.

How to Earn Extra Cash Passively

So I will give my own version of what I think is one good way to earn extra cash passively without much effort on your part.  . Well, surprisingly, I have found out that passive income is sometimes much easier to earn than active income (e.g. blogging).  I have earned a lot more from dividends paid out from stocks/shares I own compared to any other area.  Of course, this pre-supposes that one has sufficient capital to invest in stocks that pay out a good yield.  But this method has worked for me and has brought me fairly stable returns without me having to do a single thing.  Talk about earning extra cash without putting in much effort!

Of course, not all is rosy and one must expect that there could be a possibility of the dividends being cut or the share price dropping.  Nonetheless, dividends probably ranks pretty high up in my list of "How to Earn Extra Cash".

Are You Ready to Take Charge of Your Healthcare Costs?

I wrote about CPF's "Are You Ready" campaign recently and also did a quick check in my previous posting about "Are You Ready to Manage Your Cashflow".  Anyway, there is a contest also ongoing on the Are You Ready site and there are MacBook Airs and shopping vouchers to be won just by sharing your stories.  So do visit the site here and share your stories.

Anyway, thought I will do a continuation of what I did in the previous post and check my own readiness in terms of taking charge of my healthcare costs.  I went through the list of questions in the checklist and here are my answers (as honest as can be):

I Make/Receive Monthly Medisave Contributions

Yes.  My CPF contributions go towards the Medisave Account.  Thus far, my Medisave account has only been used to pay a certain part of the hospital bills when my first child was born.  I guess this question is really aimed at those who are self-employed and who ought to make contributions to their medisave account.

I Am Aware of the Importance of Medisave, Medishield and Eldershield

Wow, this is a pretty tricky question.  I guess I generally know these 3 terms mean thought I must admit that there might be some inaccuracy in my understanding.  But here it goes:

Medisave - An account held under CPF that can be used to pay off hospital bills (if certain criteria are met).
Medishield - A basic hospitalisation insurance plan.
Eldershield - A severe disability insurance scheme.  Especially useful if you require long term care in the future. It provides a monthly cash payout and is available when you are of age 40.

And the importance of them all, I think I can say I know the importance of them all even though I am too young to be covered under Eldershield now.

I am Insured by Medishield and/or an Integrated Shield Plan

Yes, I upgraded my coverage to an Integrated Shield Plan offered by Aviva.  I have covered my entire family with it.

I Exercise At Least 3 Times A Week

Errrr.........Okay, no.  I hardly exercise at all these days.  Have been making too many excuses not to exercise and this is a timely reminder that I should really be exercising more.  Maybe for a start, I will try to exercise once a week?

I Keep A Balanced and Healthy Diet

Well, generally, I would like to think that I eat rather healthily.  At least I do not have any health problems.  But I certainly think I could eat healthier (i.e. more vegetables, more fruits and less meat).  I am certain that I have room for improvement in this department.  Interestingly, somebody once did a guest post on this blog regarding the linkage between financial health and obesity so you might want to check out the article.

Conclusion

So done.  I have checked off the checklist and I think that while I am financially prepared to take charge of my healthcare costs, there is definitely room for improvement in terms of keeping myself healthy (by exercising) as well as eating right.  A good and timely reminder indeed.