foreclosure investing

You've undoubtedly seen all of them or read them. Glossy ads or four-color advances in publications and magazines promising to teach you all of the juicy information about successful property investing. And all you need to do to learn all these real estate investing surface encounters chuck russo secrets is to pay a rather high sum for a one-or two-day seminar.




Often these slick property investing classes claim you could make intelligent, profitable property investments with absolutely no money down (other than, of training course, the significant fee you buy the seminar). Now, how attractive is that? Make a make money from real estate investments you created using no cash. Possible? Not likely.




Successful owning a home requires cashflow. That's the character of almost any business or investment, especially property investing. You put your cash into something which you wish and plan will make you more money.




Unfortunately not enough newbies for the world of real-estate investing believe it's a magical form of business exactly where standard enterprise rules don't apply. Simply set, if you need to stay in real-estate investing for more than, say, a day or 2, then you will have to create money to make use of and make investments.




While it could be true in which buying real-estate with no money down is simple, anyone that is even made a basic investment (such as buying their particular home) understands there's much more involved in real estate investing that will set you back money. For illustration, what regarding any required repairs?




So, the primary rule people not used to real property investing ought to remember would be to have accessible cash reserves. Before you determine to actually carry out any property investing, save some money. Having just a little money in the bank when you begin real est investing surface encounters chuck russo can help you make more profitable real estate investments in rental properties, for example.




When property investing in rental properties, you'll want to be able to select simply qualified tenants. If you've no cashflow when property investing within rental properties, you could be pressured to take in a a smaller amount qualified tenant because you need somebody to cover you money so that you can take care of maintenance or lawyer fees.




For almost any real est investing, meaning local rental properties or perhaps properties you get to re-sell, having funds reserved can permit you to ask for a higher price. You can ask for a greater price from your investment because a person surface encounters chuck russo won't feel financially strapped as you wait for an offer. You won't be backed into a corner and forced to accept just any offer because you desperately need the money.




Another downfall of many new to real estate investing will be, well, greed. Make any profit, yes, but don't become so greedy that you simply ask for ridiculous local rental or second-hand rates on any of your real property investments.




Those new to real est investing need to see real-estate investing being a business, NOT an interest. Don't think that real property investing is going to make you wealthy overnight. What enterprise does?




It takes about six months to decide if real-estate investing in for you. If you might have decided which, hey I really like this, then give yourself a couple of years to truly start making money. It usually takes at the very least five years to get truly successful in property investing.




Persistence is the key to be able to success in property investing. If you might have decided that property investing is made for you, surface encounters chuck russo keep plugging away at it and the rewards will be greater than you imagined.

The manic depressive market wildly swings up and down on each new news story: The Fed is meeting at Jackson Hole on August 27 possibly to discuss QE3 (or not), and that news may pump up the stock market. But China's banks seem to be using Enron's accounting manual, Europe's banks need liquidity and are loaded with bad debt, and U.S. banks only temporarily TARPed over trouble. Gaddafi's regime in Libya appears over, but Libya's oil output may not fully recover for years. Venezuela wants banks to open their vaults and send back its gold, but Wells Fargo says gold is a bubble. Pundits say gold is a barbarous relic, but exchanges and banks are now using gold as money. The U.S. is headed for hyperinflation with skyrocketing stock prices, but on the other hand, we seem to be deflating like Japan and doomed to a deflating stock market for another decade. Whom do you trust and what should you do?

No one knows where the stock market or U.S. Treasury bonds are headed tomorrow, but in my opinion, here are some fundamentals to consider.



The Bad News Isn't Going Away

Until we have real global financial reform and restrain the banks, we won't have sustained growth. The stock market hasn't hit bottom. There's a crisis of confidence in banks and all currencies. We haven't taken effective steps to tackle the U.S. deficit through productivity. We haven't examined spending to eliminate fraud and waste, and we haven't addressed our need for more tax revenues by eliminating the Bush tax cuts (for starters).

Savers are punished by "stranguflation:" negative real returns on "safe" assets, declining housing prices, and rising costs of food, energy and health care. The Fed touts the falling cost of I-Pads, but how often do you buy one of those, and how often do you eat?

Good News (for Now)

The USD is still the world's reserve currency. Even though we devalued the USD, there has been a global flight to U.S. Treasuries pushing down our borrowing costs (yields). No one in the global financial community feels the U.S. has done its best to correct our problems, but severe problems in Europe, China's inflation, and Middle East unrest has money running to the U.S. Since we've devalued the dollar, we appear to be a bargain for foreign investors, even though they are terrified by our money printing presses and the potential for inflating commodity prices in the long run.

How did I play this? My own portfolio is currently more than 20% gold with some silver, and I bought out-of-the-money call options on the VIX when it was in the teens with maturities of 4-6 months. This is "short" stock market strategy, one could have also done well buying puts on the S&P a few months ago. In the first big stock market downdraft in August, I sold the options when the VIX hit the high 30's, and I'll buy more options again if the VIX falls again. Many investors are not comfortable with options, and this strategy isn't appropriate for everyone. The rest of my portfolio is chiefly in cash or deep value opportunities.



What Happens Next?

No one knows for sure, and anyone who tells you he or she does is selling snake oil. The situation is fluid. We tried to reflate our deflating economy. Our massive dollar devaluation may encourage investment, because it's protectionist. It reduces our cost of labor, among a few other "benefits." The problem is that the Fed has printed money, and we haven't done anything to position the U.S. for greater productivity. We're trying to inflate our way out of a problem without investing in productivity. This is a very dangerous way of attacking this problem. Even more "stimulus" would just be an attempt to inflate our way out of our long-standing deep recession. That's the foolish and unsuccessful strategy we've adopted so far. That could lead to runaway budget deficits (our deficit already looks intractable) and bring us to double-digit inflation. Even the European flight to US Treasuries may not save us from a deeper recession in that scenario.

If we don't overreact -- and we may have already overreacted -- our dollar devaluation results in our foreign trade situation first getting worse (as it has now) before it gets better. Now is the time (actually, we should have started years ago) to spend capital to increase U.S. productivity. The dollar's plunge relative to other currencies will eventually make us more competitive. This will be good for blue chip companies, in particular those that own real assets and manufacture items. The Fed and Washington may do anything, however, so one must watch the news.

What does this mean for the U.S. stock market? In my opinion, it is currently not good value and feels like the 1970s when we experienced a recession followed by inflation. One should consider staying mostly in cash and expect stocks become cheaper. One might miss an interim rally, especially if the Fed announces QE3 (more "stimulus" and money printing) or more bank bailouts, but that is like using Kleenex laced with sneezing powder. We will see stock prices even lower than they are today. The old paradigm dictated that stocks were a buy when P/E ratios were 13 or less (and many are well above that), dividends at 4%, and book values at 1.3 or less. (This excludes oil companies, which tend to trade at lower P/E ratios in general.) I believe we'll see much better deals in coming months. In 1978/79 P/E ratios sank below 7 for blue chip companies.

Should one buy U.S. Treasuries with long maturities? The long end of the bond market doesn't reward investors due to the potential of rising interest rates. If interest rates spike to double digits, then one can reassess the situation.

Long term investors should consider buying commodities or companies that own physical commodities. We're running out of key commodities especially related to agriculture and fertilizer. Washington's brand of the latter isn't the type we need.

It is very difficult to determine the sex of a pigeon. I used to keep pigeons as a kid so I’m good at it.

There are three ways to do it:

1 – Check their reproductive organs

Pigeons genitalia all look the same (they have ‘cloaca‘) so you will have to cut them open to actually see their reproductive organs. Not a very efficient method.

2 – See who goes on top

There isn’t much variation in the sex life of a pigeon. Males go on top. No Kama Sutra here. Fortunately all they do is eat and, ehm, reproduce. You won’t have to wait very long to see that happen. But you do need 2 pigeons and some patience.

3 – Look at their faces

Yes, pigeons have faces just like humans.

It takes years to be able to read the face of a pigeon. I kept pigeons as a kid so I can tell the sex of any pigeon just by looking at their faces for few seconds. Just like with most humans. Humans have the added benefit of clothing, hair and breasts. But even without that a face looks feminine or masculine.

Investors try to look under all those feathers but up close all excel sheets look the same. They try to see who goes on top but then you would have to wait until the entrepreneur meets an actual client.

But once you have met enough starting entrepreneurs one look at someones face is usually enough. You know what you have got and who is a good bet and who isn’t.

Just like with pigeons.

This is a variation of post I published in 2007. Photo credit: Igor Stevanovic via Shutterstock.