Property Investing – Why Risk It?

So why do people want to branch out into property investing?
It seems like there is an incredible risk involved with
putting so much of your money into a home, hoping that it is
going to sell quickly. Don’t investors and business owners
stand a huge risk of losing their money, or is there
something that I may be missing out on? For the most part,
investors are seeking out these homes to purchase in order
to put a minor amount of work into the home, to quickly
resell it on an open market. This is where the investment
repays itself, because you can often earn substantial
returns on your money if you buy low and sell as high as you
possibly can. Investors do risk losing their money each time
they purchase another new property, but the risk is often
settled by buying when the market is rolling full steam
ahead. As you can tell, if you purchased a house at the
bottom end of a slide in the market, you are going to find
that you will hold onto the house for a very long time,
which in turn costs you money to maintain the property each
month.

When a homeowner finds themselves in the financial position
of not being able to fulfill the mortgage they have taken
out against the house, they often turn to the help of
investors to take over the loan, and either allow them to
continue living in the home while charging them rent each
month, or by giving them the opportunity to get completely
out from underneath the debt of the house allowing them to
get an apartment, or pay rent on a smaller home. It is in
these types of properties that investors stand the greatest
chance of making a profit because of the homeowner being
upside down on the loan. As long as you can negotiate a good
closing rate with the mortgage holder, you are setting
yourself up to make huge returns on your initial investment.

With the economy being in the position that it is in,
investors are leery of whether or not to invest in
properties, and only the people with large sums of money
sitting around are actually buying these low dollar homes
right now. They know that by being able to hold onto the
property for the next few years, they are going to make a
monthly income from the rent on the house, as well as being
able to sell it when the market returns strong. Holding onto
investment properties is a very strong strategy if you have
the funds available to tie up into a few houses. You have to
first ensure that the money you are investing can be held
for up to a few years, maybe even longer depending on how
long it takes for the market to begin its upswing again. As
long as you are making sure you are protecting your
investment, you can easily see returns of 100% or more on
every dollar that you have invested.

Despite the recent credit crisis, property investing is
still an attractive proposition. At least for those in a
position to qualify for investment property loans, which is
only a small segment of the population at the moment.

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So why do people want to branch out into property investing?
It seems like there is an incredible risk involved with
putting so much of your money into a home, hoping that it is
going to sell quickly. Don’t investors and business owners
stand a huge risk of losing their money, or is there
something that I may be missing out on?

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Posted under Finance

This post was written by MoMoney on October 25, 2009

When NOT to Use Index Funds

Summary: There are still some mutual funds that outperform,
and you can grow wealthier by using them instead of index
funds. You just need to know what to look for.

You have heard here in the past, and from most of my
counterparts, that index funds and ETFs are the way to go,
and to do otherwise is a fool’s errand. Index funds have
lower costs, and will beat the majority of mutual funds over
time.

There are myriad reasons why most mutual funds underperform.
The fact is, mutual fund companies are primarily asset
gatherers. They do not benefit from outperformance, unless
it gains them assets. They only get revenues from assets
under management, not their performance. Investors being the
herding animals that they are, if a fund outperforms most
years and then has a bad year, money will pour out of the
fund like a leaky bucket. The CEO, being a good businessman
(or woman), will recognize that the most profitable way is
to try and immunize the fund from underperformance.

The
solution is to make sure that your fund keeps up with your
competitors. For example, if the rival funds are piling into
energy stocks, you had better have the same exposure, or
risk being left out. In the end, funds mimic each other so
that they don’t risk losing clients.

Also, financial advisors are more concerned with keeping

their clients in the correct Morningstar style box for
diversification than in creating the highest possible
terminal wealth. That is why the best managers that go
anywhere for returns are penalized by Advisor Joe, CFP who
is only concerned with whether a fund can be labelled large
value or large growth. Advisor Joe would much rather put you
in a bloated, underperforming fund with a static mandate
than an outperformer that disregards style boxes.

How can you profit by this?

Look for these characteristics:

DO NOT USE massive, bloated funds. If a manager outperforms
frequently, and their fund increases in size from a few
hundred million to 10+ billion dollars, the fund is much
less likely to outperform (i.e. Fidelity Contrafund). The
smaller the fund, the better.

Look for funds that are not “closet indexers.”

If it
performs like the benchmark index every year, disregard.

Find funds with a history of outperformance. The best
managers, regardless of style, outperform over longer
timeframes.

Select managers that are not concerned with fitting a
particular style box and invest based on a theme, such as
future inflation.

Do you want an example? Hussman Strategic Growth picks
quality stocks that the manager (Hussman) believes will
outperform. Then he hedges the portfolio (incrementally
removing the stock market risk) based on his views of how
cheap or expensive the stock market is at the moment. If
stocks are cheap (based on historical average valuation) and
the market has positive momentum, there will be little or no
hedges on the portfolio.

If stocks are expensive and the
recent market action is poor, the portfolio will be fully
hedged.

Another example is CGM Focus by Ken Heebner (underperformed
in this bear market, but overall a good fund) that doesn’t
correlate highly to the stock market.

Just remember, if you want a solid portfolio without much
effort, just use indexes and forget about it. But if are
willing to put forth the effort, there are opportunities in
mutual funds.

Don Swanson is the pen name for the author of
RetirementSavior.com, a blog about investing tools and
personal finance tips to prepare for retirement. Don thinks
the convention investment thinking is outdated, and shows on
his blog ways to outperform the market with less risk. Visit
his site today at http://www.retirementsavior.com

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There are still some mutual funds that outperform, and you
can grow wealthier by using them instead of index funds.
You just need to learn what to look for!

 Mail this post

Posted under Finance

This post was written by MoMoney on October 25, 2009

Bail Bonds Process

The laws and regulations from the department of insurance
apply to bail bonds throughout the entire state of
California.

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Posted under Finance

This post was written by MoMoney on October 24, 2009