Peter Stanley, ex Business Bank Manager, professional property investor, author and great friend of The Money Gym, has written a great report that puts some perspective on the property market which by all media reports is “crashing and burning” at the moment (July 2008). We had a long chat after I read it, and he has given me permission to share it with you.

Peter says: “Regular readers will know how much I dislike media reports on the property market, as they’re often based on a single piece of data, or an opinion that’s passed off as fact, when most articles closely resemble works of fiction.

You only need to watch the evening news to realise that good news is in short supply, not because good things don’t happen, but because bad news sells. Sad but true. If you don’t believe me, next time you’re listening to the news, make a note of every good story - you won’t need a big piece of paper !

So, for anyone who’d like to know what’s really happening out there, here’s the most common myths;

Houses aren’t selling / people aren’t buying

Whilst there was a lull for a couple of months, houses are selling again.

That isn’t an opinion, but fact.

As you can imagine, I get to speak to a lot of estate agents and watch a lot of houses, waiting for the sellers expectations to reach mine and I’m seeing more and more houses bought between those times.

In fact, I was surprised recently (and not much surprises me these days) when I overheard a conversation between two estate agents about their sales figures. One of them had sold seven houses in ten days, which would be a good result in any market - perhaps someone should tell the Daily Mail & The Express.

It gets better though, as seven sales was for one of the estate agents in the office, not the whole office, so even if the rest of the staff had only sold another three houses, that’s a house sale a day !

No-one can get a mortgage

Whilst mortgages are harder to get than they were, there are still mortgages to be had.

If you haven’t got a deposit, or have a poor credit record, then you’re likely to struggle, but this is a knee jerk reaction to the Banks’ over eager lending policy of recent years.

I recently went to see a house where the owner was about to get repossessed, to talk about a deal……

[Read more →]

Tags: Highway #3 : Property Investing, Success Thinking, Wealth Coach Diaries by
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Over at The Business In General Blog there is an interesting article about property booms stifling business start ups.

“The negative relationship between property investment and entrepreneurship is not immediately obvious. However, the recent property booms in Ireland and the U.K. (amongst others) helps to demonstrate this relationship. In recent years, both countries have experienced phenomenal growth in house prices. That is, until everything came grinding to a halt at the end of last year. [1]

The net effect of this boom has been one where the incentive to become truly entrepreneurial was significantly reduced – why try and create a new product or service if there was a guaranteed high return from property development? Similarly, from an investment point of view, why consider any other investment opportunity if there was a perceived guaranteed high return from property development?

In Ireland, the short-term results of the boom were a huge increase in people ‘getting into property’ and in the U.K. every second TV show on Channel 4 seemed to focus on property, e.g. Location Location Location, Property Ladder, A Place in the Sun and Grand Designs. Now all manner of problems are coming home to roost as the market collapses and the scale of consumer debt is becoming obvious. [2]

The Irish Government was happy to continue to fuel the boom, rezoning land for development, and cosying up to property developers [3], given how the huge property related taxes were contributing to their coffers. As David McWilliams, a leading Irish economist points out, a national focus on property is damaging as a ‘country which experiences a property boom turns in on itself. The reason for this is very simple, property cannot be traded. Bricks and mortar are tied to the land and the land is fixed and can’t be exported. Therefore, the discipline of international competition is lost.’

I would go further than this, it also destroys enterprise – there have been countless examples of successful businesses in Ireland shutting down because there is a greater return to be had from selling the property for redevelopment than continuing the business as a going concern. [4]

As someone passionate about entrepreneurship however, I take the view that every cloud has a silver lining, and that the property collapse could prove to be an excellent stimulus for entrepreneurship.

As Michael O’Leary, M.D of low cost European airline Ryanair recently claimed, “I love recessions,” he says. “Recessions are much more fun. Good times are a pain in the bum. Good times, any idiot can make money. In recessions, the good get up off their backsides and start doing the kind of sensible things that they should do all of the time. It’s good for business”. [5]

Now that ‘property development’ is no longer a safe bet, and the Irish and U.K Governments realise that the boom is over, it is likely that entrepreneurship, in its purist form, should take off once again. Those who stretched themselves with high mortgages will face stark options: sell up at a loss, or try to make ends meet. For some, second jobbing will be their only option and this will also help to fuel the passions of entrepreneurship in people. It is also hoped that the respective Governments will play their role, after all their taxation policies and planning policies have helped to fuel the boom in the first place.

Alan Gleeson
Palo Alto Software

Tags: Highway #1 : Business Success, Highway #3 : Property Investing by Nicola Cairncross
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For people who have a bad credit the rent to own home facility provides solace in the fact that they can repair their bad credit while in the process of buying the house. The rent to own home policy is a good one and helps the buyers purchase a house by renting it first.

Some people choose the option of a rent to own home in order to check out the neighborhood, before committing to the property. But there are other cash strapped people with bad credit for whom the rent to own home is the only way to buy their dream homes, because of the fact that they are unable to get home loans because of their bad credit.

There are a huge number of home owners who have found the home of their choice by the process of rent to own. Leasing the house before practically owning it is fast becoming the preferred choice of transaction among most people.

Suppose you have a bad credit history, then it is really hard to get finance from the banks to buy a house, under such a scenario the only option left is to go through the process of rent to own. In the process of rent to own contrary to the outright sales the buyer does not need to make a huge down payment at first, in fact the down payments are very small indeed. This makes it easier on the pocket for the first time investors as well, and the other fact that bout fifty percent of the rent paid by the prospective buyer is accredited to the rent credit account lowers the price of the house substantially.

People who have bad credit can always choose a leasing option where they have a longer option period , making it easier for them to repair their credit while being in the process of buying the house.

Courtesy :  Century 21 /HT Brown Realty

The good news is that Rent To Own (Rent2Own) is becoming more common in the UK, with a network of property investors who offer properties under this scheme growing all the time. 

Rick Otton, who pioneered the system in the USA and then Australia, mentored David Lee in the UK, and having got the process right over the last three years, David and Rick are now rolling out a tuition programme which is very exciting, and just right for the current market conditions.  First time buyers and novice property investors are struggling to get mortgages, and the Rent To Own / House For A Pound techniques are allowing investors to turn negative cashflow properties into positive cashflow, and allowing first time buyers and aspiring property investors with no deposit and no credit rating to find out how to buy a property (or several) for next to nothing.  This is not “no money down” but damn close to it!

The Money Gym sees this as a perfect complement to long term investing, and so we will be presenting the concept at our next Property workshop on 14th June.  Find out more here http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents/property2.htm

Tags: Wealth Coach Diaries by Nicola Cairncross
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When I first started the Money Gym, and wrote the “Financial Intelligence 101″ tips, that grew into The Money Gym ebook, one of the most popular sections was the Property Investing Section.  Everyone wanted to know about investing in, and making money from property.

In the early days, when we used to host the Money Gym workshops at The Acacia, my much loved boutique hotel and my latest venture into property investing, we used to cover “The Top 10 Ways To Make Money In Property” and we used to simply tell people about them, they used to go off and investigate the one they liked the sound of, then we would coach them from there.

However, one day, a couple of guys came along who blew most of our “Top 10″ out of the water. 

Out of “Top 10 Ways To Make Money In Property” only three of them remain.  Which ones?  Aha, you will have to wait for the next few days to find out that!

After we heard about how these guys invested in property, we simply couldn’t, in all good conscience, just tell folks how they COULD invest in property, but we felt we then had to share how we felt people SHOULD invest in property.

Now this went right against all accepted coaching law and wisdom, I can tell you!

But hey ho!  Wealth coaching has always been different - a mix of training, mentoring and coaching, rather than pure coaching itself.

At The Money Gym, we aim to save you time, money, and stop you making expensive mistakes.

Mistakes like I made with buying that hotel in the first place.  If these two guys, my mates Greg and Andy, had been around in 2003, there is NO WAY they would have let me buy it.  They would have stopped me making THAT half million pound mistake.

Side note:  You will see in this week’s ezine, I talk about the difference between “failure” and a “mistake” and it’s an important distinction to make if you are an entrepreneur.  Essentially, a failure is something that can bury you but you can learn from your mistakes.

That hotel was a mistake - some would definately see it as a failure - but I choose now to see it as a mistake.  A very large one true….. 

One that taught me a VERY LARGE LESSON!  In fact, SEVERAL very large lessons.

I will never forget the moment in the garden of The Acacia, when Greg or Andy uttered the immortal words that made me realise that buying it had been a mistake and told me why.

1.  This hotel will never make you the amount of profit that would make all the work you put into it, worth it.
2.  You have a lot of your own money in this business and you will struggle to ever get it out.
3.  When you have had enough and you do want to sell it, nobody will buy it, unless you find someone as daft as you were, to buy it in the first place.

Hmmmmm…..

They like straight talking, those two.  And that is one of the things I most value about Greg & Andy. So many people won’t tell you what you need to hear.  Nobody around me in those days did, that’s for sure.  Hence the mistakes.

So, five years on, here we are, still making mistakes but not so many, and certainly not failing, and together with Steve and Judith, two more straight talkers, they are still two of my closest friends and mentors.  Whenever I want some advice about business and life, I go straight to Greg, and to Andy for property market / business marketing / creative / internet input.

So you can imagine how thrilled I am that Greg still comes to London, to present for The Money Gym on property investing.

I can’t imagine how much longer he will do that, as we are pretty much the only presenting he does outside their own Open Days.

He’s coming to the Southwark Rose on 14th June and really, you should be there. 

* If you have questions about the current property market, you should be there.

* If you have questions about your business proposition, you should be there.

* If you just want to see a down to earth, authentic, funny, FANTASTIC speaker, you should be there.

* If you want to recharge your wealth creation batteries, and hang out with some like minded people, you should be there.

That’s five “shoulds” in five lines, I’m about to get struck off the Eurocoach List!

Book your place here - still some Early Birds left as I’m late promoting this due to half term.

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/MGPresents/property2.htm

See you there!

Nicola

p.s.  Greg always sells out fast so get your space booked now.

Tags: Highway #1 : Business Success, Highway #3 : Property Investing, Success Thinking by Nicola Cairncross
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The rather interesting headline in todays Worthing Property Weekly was…”A Return To A More Steady Market”

Damn, damn, damn!  We all wanted another year of doom and gloom about house prices - never have there been so many empty houses with motivated sellers and prices being slashed.

The article goes on to say “The property market is correcting itself rather than heading for a spectacular crash, according to the National Association of Estate Agents.  It based it’s claims on information contained in the latest report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors…….The house price falls are modest and the picture is still patchy with some areas of the country finding it tougher than others….credit crunch affected confidence….underlying factors that support property market remain:  low unemployment, historically low interest rates and a pent up demand for houses.”

As I say, Damn, Damn, Damn!  I was rather hoping for those 15-30% drops my friends (non-property investing) boyfriend is confidently predicting and I told you about last week.  On her usual entertaining note, Judith has written about her personal rather up and down property investing story here.

“My history with property investing is somewhat checkered to say the least. In 1979 my Dad lent me £500 towards buying my first home which cost £9,000 and on which Ken Livingstone, then Leader of the GLC, gave me a 100% mortgage. I sold the flat in 1983 for £21,000 and bought a house costing £43,000. I sold that in a sealed bid in 1987 for about £85,000 and bought a house for £125,000 and then rented it out in 1990 as an HMO (house of multiple occupancy) even before we knew what such a thing was, and bought a flat to live in costing another £125,000. So at that point I owned two properties worth a quarter of a million, following nothing better than instinct, naivete and native cunning.

And then interest rates went to 18% and I struggled manfully with the cashflow of my business in difficult market conditions and to pay both mortgages for about three years until I finally caved in and in 1992 both my homes were re-possessed and I found myself in debt to the tune of about £300,000 and facing bankruptcy. Snakes and Ladders. Back to Zero. Er, make that £300k below zero.

So, if I suffered so badly in the last “crash”, how are things different now?  Why am I buying, buying, buying and more to the point, how am I doing it?”

(Nicola’s note:  Our next Money Gym Presents day is on Property, and not only will the best thing since vienetta Ice Cream be presenting there - Greg Ballard - but Judith and myself will be sharing the “Top Five All Time Ways To Make Money From Property” - find out more here.) 

Judith says:  One of those ways is something we only came across this year, but has blown us - and many of our Money Gym clients - away.  Dave & Rick’s Cashflow Investor plan means you don’t acquire more assets - or “slumbering giants” as I call them - and don’t get me wrong… you do need some slumbering giants.

But what if you have no equity to leverage, no inheritance to invest, no savings deposits and no good credit rating? How are YOU going to make large lumps of cash in the property lane of the Wealth Highway?

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Tags: Highway #3 : Property Investing by Nicola Cairncross
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Every so often a wealth creation concept or different way of doing things comes along, that just blows my mind.

A few years ago, when I came across the way my genius property mogul mates Greg & Andy invest in property, my head nearly exploded with excitement, and I couldn’t wait to share their ideas with my readers. 

However, Greg & Andy’s way of doing things does depend on three things

1.  A good credit rating
2.  A pot of cash to use over and over again for deposits / refurb
3.  Ability to get a mortgage (lots of “buy to let” mortgages still ask for proof of earnings)

Now this is great for a large majority of our Money Gym members and hundreds of them have availed themselves of Greg & Andy’s services, via Passive Investments (next Open Day http://tinyurl.com/5pmtf8) or learned how to do it themselves, via Andy’s book. 

By the way, Greg is speaking for the Money Gym on 14 June - http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/MGPresents/property2.htm )

BUT………..

I knew there was about 30% of our subscribers who couldn’t “do property” the Passive way, or even buy their own home, due to

1.  No pot of cash
2.  No credit rating
3.  No proof of earnings

Now, I know that there are several other ways to make money from property, without having to buy any yourself, but sadly people just seem to give up at that point, and don’t go on learning about what makes a good property deal, if they haven’t got even one of the above three things in place.

So you can imagine how delighted I was when I met David Lee, via Tamkin Riaz, at the last World Internet Summit.  I really think that the heavens were conspiring that night, because I had met David several times before, but never really fully grasped what he did.

On this occasion, I ended up sitting next to him, his wife and son, in the pub, and out of politeness really, asked him again to tell me what he does…..an hour or so later, I still didn’t really get it, but dimly grasped enough to realise that it was a totally different way of making money from property, and to tell Judith we should invite David to speak for The Money Gym.

In January David did a VERY powerful presentation - and he would be the first to admit he’s quite new to public speaking - and his concept and content blew us away.

Can you imagine being able to make money from property without needing a deposit, a mortgage or a good credit rating?  Where you are not competing with all the “below market value” boys, and where you are not only making big chunks of cash, but helping two sets of people?

Let me repeat that……where you are making what we in the Money Gym call “life changing sums of money” while helping two sets of people. 

A geniune win/win/win situation.  It takes a bit of a mind-shift, a bit of a leap of faith, and access to some minor cojones to get started, but if you are open-minded and determined…….

I tell you now, this is dynamite stuff.  Judith and I both love it!

Several Money Gym clients signed up on the spot and we have all been working our way through the materials - the detailed “how to” workbook, the many hours of audio with real people, case studies, and student stories.  I have rarely seen a better put together home study course and the backup support from David is superb.

David is doing a presentation soon, and there will be a very special guest there - Rick Otton. 

Rick is the guy who learned how to utilise this way of making money from property, firstly in the USA, then Australia, and he mentored David to make it work here.

I have no idea where Maidenhead is, but, if you have despaired of every becoming a property investor, but you want to be, I suggest you get your map out and make your way there pronto!

http://tinyurl.com/574rzb

Don’t delay, places are limited and David’s last events in Ealing and Manchester sold out very quickly.

Take action now and I personally promise you, you will be amazed!

http://tinyurl.com/574rzb
 

Tags: Highway #3 : Property Investing by Nicola Cairncross
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Success Thinking often involves thinking outside the box - for example, in today’s property market it pays to find other ways to make money or invest, rather than trying to find below market value deals (lots out there, lots of competition with deep pockets) or attempting to get a mortgage when there are now 500 products on the market instead of 4000.

Yaro Starak who I first came across on Hubpages, has just posted up a fantastic article about treating websites like pieces of real estate…..and he links to Ed Dale’s home study course whiich Yaro highly recommends, and Ed was the first person I ever heard talk about this stuff, so it’s gotta be worth a  look!  I am trying to focus so I’m NOT going to take a look!

Yaro says:  “I remember my first website sale. I made $13,000 Australian dollars selling a website that I had built from scratch myself. That sale was a big windfall for me and a moment I won’t forget because it was the first time I saw the real potential of online property investment.

Since that sale I’ve gone on to sell more than $150,000 USD in websites. Some of the sites I ….

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Tags: Highway #2 : Internet Marketing, Success Thinking by Nicola Cairncross
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Nicola says:  I received an interesting email this week from one of our Money Gym members and I was intrigued enough to pass it onto our resident property gurus to get their feedback.  I would welcome comments on the blog on this one too, from you experienced property investors out there….just click the “comments” link at the bottom of this posting.

“Dear Nicola, I was talking recently to a dear friend who has until recently largely ignored property investing although she has always made money in her own home buy buying cheap, doing up beautifully, selling on and doing the process again.   

I have a dilemma, in that, because she is my oldest friend and has seen me through many ups and downs, financially and otherwise, she largely discounts anything I say about money, budgeting, equity release, debt etc., which is both annoying and hilarious!  So, since I joined the Money Gym, I have tried not to get involved in talking about it all with her.

However, she has a new man in her life, who is quite keen on property property investing and so they are obsessed with property now, and they talk about all the time.  They are currently holding cash, tracking specific properties on spreadsheets, and waiting to invest on the South Coast. 

I am thrilled about it all obviously because it will sort out their futures totally!

However, Y keeps talking about the market having dropped 15% in our area, (I agree that prices have slipped back a bit as people are panicking –but 15% ????!!!) and the so-called property crash coming which he feels very strongly will make prices slip another 10-15% in the next six to twelve months.

This will make a total devaluation in our local market of over 30% according to him - £54,000 off a flat originally valued at £180,000 - and I can’t believe that is right because I know from my Money Gym learnings that prices only went down by 3% overall in the UK, even in the worst crash we all remember, in the late 80’s / early 90’s.

Obviously I know that this means some areas rose, some fell but the average over the whole country was 3%.

Y & C keep saying, they don’t want to buy something for £150k which was on the market for £180k three months ago, if it’s going to slip back to £130k in the next few months.  They keep quoting examples like this although they haven’t talked to any vendors that I can tell -  just agents.

By the time they buy a property, a year or two will have gone by, and all my Money Gym training says that this is a mistake – as Andy Shaw says “You don’t wait to buy property, you buy property and wait”  but they are having none of that!!

My thoughts are that the property they are quoting at £180k was overvalued three months ago, and if it’s now being offered for £150k it’s probably a very motivated seller too, and it’s pretty unlikely to go much lower.I also feel that it’s not an indication that all properties at £180k are now selling for £150k and are then likely to go down to £130k.

However, I can’t seem to find the arguments for why they should just get on and BUY ONE!   I tried telling them that, “consistently in this country property rises by 10% per annum, more than 10% in the South East” and “every year you wait to buy a property of £150k you are losing £15k in appreciation by waiting a year….”

It’s been bothering me that I can’t counter their arguments for waiting, even though I feel instinctively there is something awry with this argument, and I wondered what all your thoughts are on the whole topic?”

Tags: Highway #3 : Property Investing, Success Thinking by Nicola Cairncross
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I was sent a link to this intriguing essay on business startups by a member of my mastermind group Dr Karl Blanks, written by Paul Graham of Venture Capital firm Y Combinator.

(This essay is derived from a talk at the 2008 Startup School.)

A couple weeks ago I realized that if you put those two ideas together, you get something surprising. Make something people want. Don’t worry too much about making money. What you’ve got is a description of ….

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Tags: Highway #1 : Business Success, Highway #2 : Internet Marketing, Success Thinking by Nicola Cairncross
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Some more thought provoking replies to my “Wealth Creation Is Simple, But Not Easy - Discuss!” posting on our private Google Group……

“There’s also the need for energy - lots of it and alertness and the belief that you can”

“The need for certainty is a killer for action”

“Learning new skills – challenging my worst phobias:  numbers, money, technology, spreadsheets!  Talk about getting out of one’s comfort zones!”

“Perseverance as opposed to a “get rich quick” concept”

“Challenging fundamental inherited beliefs about money - the only way you
make money is to go to school, work hard, go to uni, work hard, get a
good job, work hard …..”

And Sarah Rourke, the “Audio Pod Artist” contributed a brilliant posting on the topic:

“Ace topic, Nicola - here’s my tuppence worth:
 
I think not only challenging beliefs but managing to exist as a wealth creationist in a sea of doubters - other people’s resistance can be hard to overcome.

One of the things I’m learning to do about this is not tell people things i.e. not tell my parents what I invest in (it terrifies them) not tell others close to me when I sneakily start a new side project (all within my core business of course!). And most importantly, I’ve learnt to keep my trap firmly shut when people talk about property and crashes etc - better to say nothing than wind myself up.
 
Then there’s a big stumbling block for lots of people and that’s the ….

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Tags: Wealth Coach Diaries by Nicola Cairncross
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