Archive for property investment
Knowledge is Power
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I have been a long time fan of Rodney Dickens. He is the only economic forecaster who seems to get it right most of the time. His report today @ http://www.sra.co.nz/pdf/MangawhaiApr12.pdf is a fascinating read and shows the long term issues we are still in. As a kiwi I love coastal property and was always waiting for it to come back to earth.
It sounds like it still has a ways to go in lots of areas still. Which makes the whole property thing quite weird right now doesn’t it. We have many areas of Auckland doing sort of quite well, a couple of areas going off big time and other suburbs dead as a dodo. And nationally it is even weirder.
One of my agents told me this week he had investors fighting at auction over stock and another is ringing people out of the phone book to try and get them to list as he has buyers but no houses. And he is in what I would term a true scungy investor market. If you are risk tolerant there is even room for some trading right now, not withstanding the legal issues around it, however you would want to be quick on your feet and happy to hold if you couldn’t sell.
The banks relaxing more and more is an interesting upside allowing some investors back into the buy and hold space. I guess overall things are moving predictably, Auckland is the place to be investing, Christchurch if you are willing to put the work in to watch the demographic rebuild and keep the rest of the country on mild alert 
Anyway back to Rodney, if you appreciate good quality information and accurate forecasting on the property market subscribe or at least sign up for his free reports!!
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Coast for sale
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I was at Ohope this weekend and it looked like real estate signs were having a convention on the roadside. Given our love affair with property and the beach it was a real “sign of the times” to see house after beachfront house with a for sale sign up.
And something I hadn’t seen before was many of the signs had the asking price emblazoned across them.
I wonder how long it will take for coastal markets to come back, especially in areas like Ohope. Middle of nowhere and on the way to kind of nowhere. Stunning location and beach but will people ever want to pay a million dollars to live/holiday again?
I guess the answer to that is yes of course they will, we are after all kiwis with short memories and a serious sand addiction.
But the last 4 years may mean it’s a long road before we see these markets get anywhere near their 2006/7 heights.
There is always an upside of course. If you’ve been waiting to buy a house cheap at the beach, now is THE time!
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean
People are finally getting it :-)
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My life, like yours, was, is and will be an adventure. Since entering the property world it has been quite a ride but it is never dull.
I have spent a lot of my time over the last few years looking for answers. Whether it’s how to help someone maximise their returns or how to dig someone out of a hole it is a constant search for solutions.
The recession pushed me into looking at things that I now regret, trying to solve the cashflow drama. The strategies were not necessarily bad ideas but the people attached to them in some cases were.
The one shining light in all of that however has been the US property market. Many clients and friends are now reinvesting again because the numbers work, the problems are manageable and the results are better than anything to be found elsewhere. 2 years on it simply works!
Recently I discovered a legit way to basically 100% finance ongoing purchases by recycling the initial property purchase money over and over.
And being non guaranteed bank lending with high yield makes it, well as close to risk free as I have ever seen anything.
And the overseas fear of the market is finally giving way to an understanding that the Americans problems are our solution, providing you know what you are doing.
So with my clients it has taken 2 years of education and enough proof from third parties to shift the “culture” if you like. End result is more and more people are solving their cash flow issues.
Now your problem might not be cashflow, but whatever it is, the answer may be found in exposing yourself to something outside your comfort zone.
I have often said you need to get out of your comfort zone because that’s where all the money is but the truth is that answers are often found in areas we have historically avoided.
It has been amazing to see people who would never invest in the US ringing me excitedly to add to their portfolios 2 years later.
So what keeps you awake at night and what have you overlooked/ignored/run away from that may hold the answers to your questions??
Now there’s a question
Dean
“A champion team will always beat a team of champions”,
We’d love you to be on our US champion team, next US investing Webinar HERE
When does the light go on?
Posted by: | CommentsI remember at the beginning of the so called “GFC” there was enormous debate and ringing of hands over whether this was a recession or a depression. Nobody wanted to allow anybody else to call it a depression because that would be negative news, harder to stomach and technically “untrue”.
So in the end everybody agreed that this was only a recession and we all smiled. Oh it’s only a recession, we’ll be through this in no time and this has happened before, just relax.
At the time I said there were 2 ways to get through this for any nation, option 1 was to allow the economy to find its floor quickly so that the pain ended quickly and then rebuild on a genuine floor.
Or pretend things weren’t too bad and hope for a soft landing by propping things up until a real recovery occurred.
Well it’s now 2011 and things are getting worse, again, because we still haven’t recognised the need to find the floor. As I said yesterday we now have given China power over the world by looking to them for assistance with recovery by falling over ourselves to become trading partners and taking every dollar they would spend with us.
Most economies are now in much worse shape than they were 4 years ago because they have huge interest costs to pay on top of the principal they owed in 2007. An fact many countries are now hoping for a miracle to service their INTEREST, forget trying to pay the principal 
.
I bring this to your attention solely to highlight the fact that sometimes reality is a good thing. We needed to recognise in 07 that we were up to our earlobes in bovine eschatology and governments could have embarked on an austere economic reform system to dig themselves out of this and rebuild on a solid foundation. Ignoring that has cost us all years of pain.
Now the upside of this, (every cloud…….), is that interest rates and house values are going ot remain subdued probably for many years to come.
So we have the perfect cash flow storm courtesy of our fear of the word “depression”. This is wonderful news for anybody able to get going with investing and we will see more people retire off the back of this fiasco than any time previously I believe because the opportunities are unprecedented.
So find a way to get into your next investment, whether in NZ or the USA and drive every spare cent you can into debt reduction and hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!!
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Talk about a mixed bag?
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Well mixed message time is certainly in full swing. I am finding some people telling me how incredibly buoyant the Auckland market is with properties selling above valuation and parties fighting at auction.
And then on the other hand as many people who can’t sell or who are getting silly offers only.
I personally think the optimistic crowd are taking a very small sample and extrapolating it into a market that is till hurting.
In traditional investor markets things are still more than slow. The best offer I could get recently on a 250K property was 195K for example.
But what this anecdotal confusion does warn us is to be very careful about where you are buying. If there are pockets where homeowners are fighting over real estate then you have 2 options:
1. Avoid them because they will be over priced and target the dead areas where you will find deeper discounts and higher yields. Or……
2. Really become an expert in those areas so that you can look for the deals that slip through the cracks knowing that you can exit them at a profit. Nowadays trading is basically illegal so you can;t go nuts with this. But providing you settle on the property then resell it you are on firm ground and these pockets of high activity create huge opportunity PROVIDING you become an expert in the area.
Either way, you know the drill…
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
A big thank you
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A Big Thank You Hug
I am humbled by the many clients who have thanked me for my efforts with introducing them to the USA cash-flow market.
And again this morning I had a client email me to thank me for introducing them to Memphis as an investment city. Their first purchases are performing as planned and they now want to know when we can go back again so they can buy more!!
It has been a bumpy ride trying to navigate the recession and the dishonesty that seems to come out in people when under pressure so I can’t express how gratifying it is to have found a solution for people that is transparently simple, honest and really, really works. And to have the most meticulous and careful clients coming back for more because of their success is about as much as you can ask for in business.
It’s often hard to pick the bottom of a market, currency or business and international investing is no exception. However it is pretty clear that with our dollar high and the US retail market depressed now would be a good time to invest in the USA.
$20,000 is all it takes to get started .
If you’d like some more info about USA, Memphis investment properties and some current opportunities I hope you will join me live from Memphis on the 17th August for my free webinar “USA Property Live and Unplugged”
No matter where in the world you live or work we can help you retire early, so get registering…..
@ 8PM NZ Time August 17th https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/723163264
@ 8PM Singapore Time August 17th https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/736234160
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Surely markets ARE the reality?
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I do not know Alistair Helm from realestate.co.nz but his company research and his comments have always been high quality and intelligent, unlike many commentators.
So I had to laugh at a comment he is quoted as making after publishing his latest report which is being published all over the web and print media.
“We are now more in favour of sellers than buyers in the vast majority of regions, but the market doesn’t appear to have realised it,” Helm said.
So the stats are reality abut the market is ignoring the research??
Surely the reality is that the market iss till bad because our economy is bad and inflation is starting to kill us, especially with food. So the reduction in listings actually means little if anything because we are not in a “normal” market.
I strongly suspect that the market will stay in reality mode and ignore the latest stats because you can’t eat and drink stats. People are keeping their money in their pockets and prioritising how to survive, not rushing out to buy the new house.
Having said that I do have to express some surprise at the 2.3% increase in vehicle sales which could arguably be a leading indicator of increased confidence. OR maybe everybody who wanted to buy a house settled for a second hand car instead
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
