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Feb
09

One thousand Marbles

By Dean Letfus · Comments (0)

MarblesThe older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work.
Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other.
What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap meet.
Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice.
You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business.  He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about ‘a thousand marbles.’
I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.

“Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much.
Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet.

It’s too bad you missed your daughter’s ‘dance recital’ he continued.

“Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities.’
And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a ‘thousand marbles.’

‘You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic.  The average person lives about seventy-five years.
I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.
‘Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.

Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail’, he went on, ‘and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays.’
‘I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.

So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had.  I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.’
‘Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

‘There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

‘Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time..

And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.

‘It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.  This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!’

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about.
I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. ‘C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.’
‘What brought this on?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids.
And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

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Feb
08

Surrounded by fruit trees

By Dean Letfus · Comments (0)

Roll-of-Money_479I spent much of last year warning people generally and advising investors specifically that this year is going to be……

A:  Bad for property markets and

B:  Great for investors

So the media is finally catching up with my predicted reality :-)

In the last 2 days we’ve seen medians fall and now the agents are admitting today that things are bad.

So this truly is going to be an amazing year to set up your next investment or build a portfolio.

Which reminds me, I must tell you a classic story from one of my new mentoring clients.

Yesterday he was on the way to the beach and saw an auction about to start so wandered in.  Short version is:

Met someone outside, got talking. Person wanted someone to find them a property, doesn’t like agents.

My client is today looking for a property for him. Cash buyer ready to go unconditional immediately.

So how hard is it to find buyers and make money out of property.

If it was any easier everybody would be doing it!!

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

PS: Don’t forget to book for my latest event HERE

PPS: Check out IADVISE, real estate data nationwide, better than agents have :-) HERE

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I read somewhere that finding information on the internet is like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant. And certainly we have gone from information scarcity to complete overload in my adult lifetime. In terms of society I can’t really think of one benefit of this. We live in a world which is faster, more dangerous and less personal. However given that we do have this world now one has to roll with the punches and look for the benefits!

Certainly as an investor I can use my laptop to create wealth without ever leaving my office if i choose to.
Trademe gives me vendor leads,
Facebook, Twitter and my website gives me my buyers,
I can complete due diligence by emailing my trusted team,
IADVISE now gives me unprecedented data to assist with negotiating price down. ( Actually IADVISE is incredibly powerful, check out the demo here)
And the fax takes care of everything else

An end to end solution without standing up, pretty amazing really.

However…….

The rest of my life will be empty if I don’t remember that this technology comes at a price. I can’t have an electronic relationship with my wife.  I can’t say I have spent time with my friends if I have chatted to them on FB.

A picture of a sunset will never be a substitute for the real thing.  A simulated walk down the beach is well, just wrong :-)

So remember today that life is for the living and needs to be savoured.  Technology is an incredible tool in many situations but overall a curse to our passion, our mental health and genuinely intimate relationships.

Gotta go, my wife just texted me from the next room to tell me Top chef is starting :-) .

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

PS:  See you at the launch of our newest event in CHCH and Auckland, more info HERE.  This is the most exciting venture I’ve put together in property investing, don’t miss it!!

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PERSONAL UPDATE BY DEAN LETFUS

Frankly I’m excited about something and I just have to share it with you.
Over the last few months I’ve been working on something very, very big and I’m finally able to put the flame to it.

A group of my property investing peers and I have been working on a way to bring together the best educators and professionals in the country, so that you can pick our brains and access the secrets we know. In fact, we  wanted to bring you the country’s top property investment inspiration, education and opportunities ever seen nationwide all in one place…

And, well, I finally cracked it!!

Head on over to the site and check it out: http://www.nzpropertygurus.com/DLetfus

I can’t wait to get to blast off in Christchurch and Auckland in just a few weeks time. I still can’t believe we’ve managed to get NZ’s top 5 property gurus together in one place for 2 FULL days.

Top quality speakers, incredible property education, an attendee only cocktail party and the chance to network with the cream of the NZ investing community.
So don’t listen to me, get on over to the special web page where you can get the full low down and BOOK!!

http://www.nzpropertygurus.com/DLetfus

I can’t wait to see you there!

Dean

P.S. The other reason why I’m so excited about this event is that it is launching at a time when the NZ market is 125% perfect for investors and traders to really make money, so grab your partner and make sure you get there!

Register now at: http://www.nzpropertygurus.com/DLetfus

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean

The Ethical Investing Strategist

PROPERTY UPDATE BY DEAN LETFUS

Well tax changes seem to be the order of the day and I am getting constant requests for my opinion. Because the final outcome is so uncertain it is difficult to have an informed opinion on specifics, however I did want to talk to what I perceive as the important thing for us as investors.

Firstly any tax increases will ultimately find their outlet in increased rents.  Like any business as your costs increase they inevitably get passed on to the final consumer. So we don’t need to panic over tax changes in the long term. They will ultimately hurt those least able to afford it, tenants.

Secondly it is unlikely that any legislation will be made retrospective, so providing we get our portfolios built or restructured now we actually won’t feel the impact of any changes to our detriment. We may have a short term reduction in cashflow but this will be more than made up by increased rents.

And lastly any changes are going to take a while to get drafted and introduced so we have time to buy up or sell down depending on our current situation.

Make no mistake, I think a lot of the suggested law changes are ridiculous, unfair and terribly thought out, but at the end of the day it needn’t affect us if we get things right now.  On top of the recession making investing now a really good idea, to have these tax changes in the wind simply makes it even more opportunistic to build our portfolios as quickly as possible, structured to weather the initial storms and really benefit from the enormous upside that will follow.

Fortunately we can look overseas to where similar experiments have occurred and without exception the investors have won out in the long run because house values always recover eventually and the yields go through the roof in an environment where property is being penalized tax wise!!

FINANCE UPDATE BY KRIS PEDERSEN

Kris Pedersen
Kris Pedersen
Finance Strategist

There has been massive changes in the last couple of years for investors with funding getting tight because of the Global Financial Crisis and both the Real Estate and Finance industries getting regulated. This has meant that the playing field is very different to what it was a couple of years ago.  In fact I have never sen such a changeable  time in my industry.

However change brings opportunity and I have been working on some exciting new financing options which take the power away from traditional lenders and give you more ability to move forward.

In fact some of the products we have developed will make trading and portfolio building easy again even if things stay tight with credit markets.

I’ll be discussing these in detail AND allowing you to access these solutions at the NZ Property Guru’s launch event in Christchurch and Auckland.

Grab your tickets HERE and we’ll see you at the event!
Please come and say hello at the event, I’ll be the guy carrying the big bags of money around  :-)

MINDSET SCIENCE BY DEAN LETFUS

It has been said that good is often the enemy of the best. I found myself talking about this at one of my courses recently and was reminded of it recently when watching Bill Wilson on Shine TV.
Bill was talking about this issue from a Christian perspective but it is so relevant for all of us to understand.

You see whenever we are fighting a battle that isn’t ours, or pursuing a dream that isn’t ours, we lose.

In a Christian context if the enemy can get us fighting any battle except the one God wants us to fight, then we are spending energy uselessly and being kept away from God’s best.

As investors if we get sidetracked into pursuing things that we are not good at, if we focus on aspects of our business that we are not well equipped for, then we will be ineffective and ultimately fail.

You see we are surrounded by plenty of “good” ideas, but are they “God” ideas, are they the best.

I daily get emails from people asking me if they should attend our events?  I think to myself, how can I possibly answer that.  Do you need to learn great systems to help you invest more?  Does your mindset need tweaking?  Do you have issues of fear of failure, fear of debt or low self esteem to conquer? Do you want to succeed badly enough to take the info I may provide and use it?  How do I know?

Similarly I have had countless offers to get involved in all kinds of business ventures. I automatically say no to them all now, because I know the best use of my time and energy is property investing and education. I know that this is the best thing for me, I feel like I was born to do it.  I know that God has called me into it as part of changing the nation of Fiji.

Getting involved in a fast cashflow business is probably great, it is a good idea, but it would keep me from the best idea, more property investing.

I know many of you get discouraged by your lack of progress and think that you need to try something new or different.

That may be true.  But it may also be true that you need to stop focusing on the little battles, stop beating yourself up over things that aren’t so important and focus on the things that are really important.

I got an email today from someone saying that there are no good deals on the Shore at the moment.

“Nonsense” I said.

” You can find no good deals on the Shore because you keep telling yourself and me that there are no good deals.”

So this person is effectively preparing for battle and waving the white flag of surrender at the same time, whilst wearing the enemy’s uniform. If the enemy doesn’t get her then her self talk, friendly fire, will!!

I find I am constantly tempted to spend time on things that are not good for me or constructive. One of the sad truths I have had to come to terms with recently is that as you get known to be successful, you get an exponential amount of bovine eschatology coming your way as well. I hear all kinds of things about me and get all manner of nonsense emails from people that would really get me down if I A: believed them and B: dwelt on them.

So decide for you what is really important. Which battles do you need to prepare for? Which challenges have actually got your name on them? Don’t get side tracked. On the weekend I was talking about this in the context of goals. Know where you are going and you give yourself a fighting chance of getting there. A pilot once told me that a plane is not heading directly towards it’s destination for most of the flight. 90% of the time it is correcting itself. But the target is clearly defined and locked in, and that pulls the nose back on track over and over again.

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paperless_officeWell it finally happened. I have so many deals on my desk that I actually forgot to do my blog earlier today, so here it is a bit late.

The fact is there is opportunity like I haven’t seen in a long time right now so strike while the iron’s hot, a rolling stone gathers no moss and various othre meaningless platitudes and sayings actually apply in this market.

Maybe property isn’t your thing but the principle is still true. If you start some activity towards your dreams and goals it is inevitable that you will get closer to them.

And yet so many of us get stuck on “off” don’t we?

So while I try and lower the level of papers around me can I encourage you to increase the amount of energy and effort you put into getting closer to your goals. One step is all it takes to get started!!

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The ethical Investor

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Feb
02

Real Estate Agents

By Dean Letfus · Comments (0)

funny-pictures-ducks-were-lied-to

Many agents are personal friends of mine so I trust my comments today are kept in context :-) .

One of the wonderful things about the recent changes to the law in New Zealand is that the quality of agents is increasing rapidly.  One major franchise estimated they would lose 30% of their agents through the changes. In the main it is the unethical and unskilled people who will tend to leave as the industry becomes more professional and accountable.

I have met a number of new agents in the last month and have been quite struck by the “new breed” of helpfulness and professionalism.  This may actually become an industry one can trust in New Zealand rather than 5th from the top of least trusted professionals as at last years survey.

So the interesting thing about all this is that if it is relatively “simple” to change an entire corrupt industry surely we could also legislate to fix car salesmen, politicians and telemarketers who are the top 3 least trusted professions.

And another question for Monday morning,:

How sad is it that the only way to clean an industry up is threat of fines and jail.  Whatever happened to personal responsibility and pride in ones work?

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

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It’s a public holiday in New Zealand so i was having a blogless day but this was too good not to share.  Laughter is good for the soul after all!!

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Thanks to Paul for the material, hope you laughed as hard as I did!!

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The ethical investor

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