landed house vs high rise – which one is better?

For those who have lived in both types of properties must have had their fair share of opinions based on the experiences developed during their stay. Likewise, there are a lot of debates for which one is better than the other; but actually there is no right or wrong. This is because it all depends on the individual preferences and the reason for the purchase.

Many buyers have a lot of concerns in terms of which types of properties would provide the best gains in the future – or better yet, in the short run. Again, this is all relying on the purpose of the buy – whether it be for own stay or investment. In this sense, below are the general comparisons that are being outlined to help readers or as we can say “future buyers” to better imagine the bigger picture for which property types most suited for them to buy:

Concerns	Landed Unit	High Rise Unit
Price	Comparing between the landed and high rise unit in a same area, landed unit would have higher price as compared to high rise units	Comparing between the landed and high rise unit in a same area, landed unit would have higher price as compared to high rise units
Space	Bigger space and would normally have extra home areas such as yards, two floors and gated. Normally ideal for individuals with steady income or individuals with growing number of family members	Smaller space which is ideal for young workers or young couples just starting out in the working sector
Security	Unless the area is gated and equipped with security guard services, landed properties have higher tendencies to burglary cases	Generally secured especially for apartments or condominiums with personal card functions which only allows residents to enter or exit the premise more conveniently. This is coupled with the tight security normally set at lobby section of the property
Facilities	Normally supplied with playground and security guard services only	On general, newer projects will include security services, swimming pool, sports facilities, linked to shopping malls or public transport stations and many more
Rental yield	Currently, in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, rental yield would be between 2% – 4% according to The Edge Markets.	On general, according to The Edge Markets, high rise properties will have better rental yield as it is equipped with better amenities, security and nearby public transports. With good investment entry based on research, buyers have higher chances of getting rental yield of above 5%
Parking	Larger parking area	Most projects allocate at least 1 car park
Privacy	Provides a much more quiet environment especially for homes that are away from the cities	With the units closed to one another, we will normally be more exposed to noise level from nearby neighbors and other units across one another.
Maintenance	Higher maintenance fees as landed homes are larger in size. On top of the maintenance for home repairs (which happens but not all the time) there are other maintenance to be made especially for your garden. Still if you are in a guarded facilities, you would also have to pay the security services being rendered	Normally high rise owners would normally pay maintenance fees for the securities and amenities provided in the apartment such as swimming pools, securities and garden area
Commercial titles	Generally, landed properties will be designated under residential title	Buyers would need to check whether the units they purchased are under commercial or residential titles. Properties under commercial title will have to pay higher tax rates as compared to units under residential ones

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Now that you have an overall view between landed and high rise properties, hope it helps you to choose better based on your current life options – whether to buy for own stay or for investments. Either way, there is no right or wrong. What matters is that you choose the best decisions based on your needs, your family needs, your affordability and most of all the option that makes you happy and one that would impact your life positively and the short run and the long run.

What is the difference between Freehold VS Leasehold properties?

With the ever growing population which resulted in the rampant property development, the number of freehold land are slowly diminishing in numbers hence opening more roads for leasehold properties. However, there is still a dilemma going around for many property buyers to incline more on freehold land as it offers better edge in terms of…

by raziq rosman 30th May 202130th May 2021

4 Secrets You Should Know to Get Your Loans Approved

Before you head out straight into applying bank loans, there are few checks you must make to ensure high chances of approval. I previously had the chance to have a conversation with a banker who now becomes a businessman and he shared something incredible. You might be wondering “how do I know what to check?”…

by raziq rosman 29th Feb 20202nd May 2021

7 Best Stocks Investment Strategies To Minimize Risks

Just when the year was closing to it’s end last year, I managed to attend a stocks investment strategies class. It was held by none other than a market leader in it’s field (investment) – Kenanga Investment Bank. It was a full seminar to find the best stocks in the Malaysian market. More importantly, the…

by raziq rosman 16th Feb 20202nd May 2021

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What is the difference between Freehold VS Leasehold properties?

With the ever growing population which resulted in the rampant property development, the number of freehold land are slowly diminishing in numbers hence opening more roads for leasehold properties. However, there is still a dilemma going around for many property buyers to incline more on freehold land as it offers better edge in terms of value, long term prospects and rental returns. Is this really the case? We will have a brief comparison in the next section for a more holistic outlook to understand and hopefully to be able to gauge better property investment decisions moving forward.

1. Freehold

“The property and the land is owned indefinitely by the buyer”

When a plot of land is set aside to an individual for an undefined amount of time, that plot of land is called a freehold land.

In this case, the land is solely owned by the individual for as long as the land is not sold to other parties – you can say that it is forever owned by those who bought freehold land.

1. Leasehold

“The property is owned by the buyer but not the land”

When a plot of land is set aside to an individual for a defined amount of time, on average maximum 99 years of tenure and possibly lower, that plot of land is called a leasehold land.

Below are the major differences in detail for ease of understanding:

	Freehold	Leasehold
Property value	On average, steady appreciation over the long run in years	There are leasehold properties that have higher capital growth in the first 30 years. However, going beyong 30 years the value might stagnate. The value increment might increase again after renewal of the leasehold was made
Ease of selling	Transaction is much simpler and would take up average 4 months. However, during COVID-19 the process might take longer	On average leasehold properties would take up of 6 months – 1 year
Ease of financing	Banks do not have preference on this factor. Banks will mainly refer to borrower’s financial health.	Banks do not have preference on this factor. Banks will mainly refer to borrower’s financial health.

*Source: CIMB Bank Malaysia and Astro Awani Malaysia

Have a brief read on 5 Traits of a good property to invest and get good rental for clearer picture of property investing.

Hope this help you guys to invest better in properties with more awareness and knowledge! 🙂

4 Secrets You Should Know to Get Your Loans Approved

Before you head out straight into applying bank loans, there are few checks you must make to ensure high chances of approval. I previously had the chance to have a conversation with a banker who now becomes a businessman and he shared something incredible.

You might be wondering “how do I know what to check?” or “how would I know my chances of getting approved?” – well good thing is it is not rocket science. Here are the 4 major checklist you have to follow through.

1. Application Score

In the old days you will normally have to meetup face to face with bankers at the banks. Banks no longer have to see you or you seeing them which may cause biased loan approvals.

But things changed, banks have a system these days to screen your loan application. The system is like a score engine that sees through your profile demography such as, your:

• place of work
• home address
• salary
• work experience

However, a brilliant tip to get your loan approved is to change your home address.

Change my address?! When I say change your address does not mean you have to move to a new home or change your address in your personal ID – it simply means using your parents’, siblings, or spouses home address when you apply your loans in the bank form. Why is this important? Believe it or not banks will also assess your financial strength by the place you stay.

In Malaysia, places like Bangsar or Central Kuala Lumpur are expensive places. Banks may fare better for people who stayed in Bangsar compared to those who stayed in a lesser developed area.

Bank’s logic is that when you stayed in developed areas means you can afford the lifestyle there which also reflect your financial strength.

However, this all depends on where you buy your house, you may get a better approval chance if you buy a house in less developed areas if you stay in there – just try your luck, we’ll never know.

2. Banks Will Assess Your Income Level

This is important because the bank would like to see how much you are earning which also determine your loan payment capabilities. If you don’t meet the banks’ income criteria then you will be rejected – as upset as it sounds.

Another good advice is to choose the right bank! What do you mean choosing the right bank? It simply means you will have to ask the magic question to banks, “how much percentage of my income do you recognize to process my loan? “.

That’s right! Some banks only recognize 70% of your income instead of 100% for your application. Let’s say your salary per month is RM 3000, if the bank only recognize 70%, that means you are applying your loan for RM 2,100.

If a RM 3000 can get you a RM 160,000 worth of property, you might need to rethink your decisions if the bank allows only 70% of the total RM 3,000. The key take away is to ensure that you ask the banks how much percentage of interest do they recognize on customers’ loan applications.

3. Credit Score Report – CCRIS

When it comes to your credit report which have all information regarding your credit score, banks will know everything which in this case recorded in the, “Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS)”. CCRIS knows all about your credit facilities such as PTPTN, car loan, home loans and whether or not you are a good customer – a good customer would mean a good payer from bank’s perspective.

If you are a credit card user, you may wonder, “how am I to know if my credit score is good?”. just make sure not to use more than 50% of your credit limit – as simple as that – well, theoretically.

But you may also wonder, “what if my credit score is clean? like a piece of white sheet with stains on it” – that won’t be good as well because banks cannot judge your financial behavior such as your spending patterns or how well are you committed to paying any financial commitments. A good tip is to take up an ASNB loan which has a compounding effect in it since it does not disrupt any of your CCRIS.

Not only will it help you saves money, it will also grow while you sleep! you have nothing to lose. However, try minimize using unsecured loans such as credit cards – why do I say this?

Banks will think that you are a “credit hungry” person or you don’t have much cash with you when you use or apply many credit cards and this gets worst if you don’t pay on time.

and last but not least….

4. Monitor your Debt to Asset Ratio (DSR)

Let’s say you run short on cash that month but you still swipe your credit card for few non-needful items just because it has huge discounts – Oh man, I haven’t paid my credit cards yet this month!

Worst, the bank called you and ask for your payments and it has going like this for few months. Chances are, your DSR is already quite critical because you find it hard to pay your own commitments or are poorly managing your finances which may need your financials restructure.

The standard DSR formula is “all your commitments + any new loan application (in RM) divide by your net income (after tax and EPF deductions)”.

Different banks have different DSR acceptance rates. Some banks will approve people with DSR maximum of 60% while some banks prefer 45% (which is quite a good percentage). This apply same to applying housing loans, have read on 4 Great Tips For Getting your Loan Approved !

All and all, my advice is to bite what you can chew – don’t take loans with commitments higher than what you think you can pay. Settle for things you can afford so long as you can have a peace of mind.

You are not enjoying life if you get financial headaches to maintain your big houses or great cars – the important thing in life is to be happy and to always know that you have extra money to live off comfortably at the end of the month or as I call it “financial abundance”.

7 Best Stocks Investment Strategies To Minimize Risks

Just when the year was closing to it’s end last year, I managed to attend a stocks investment strategies class. It was held by none other than a market leader in it’s field (investment) – Kenanga Investment Bank.

It was a full seminar to find the best stocks in the Malaysian market. More importantly, the seminar fully focuses on ways to find stocks that gives the best dividend profits for it’s investors – for short and long term period, which also touches on companies that can sustain in the next 10 years.

Do have a brief read on stock investing for beginners as a start if you find this a bit technical.

Before we start, our minds must have answers to the queries below:

“What is your mission?”

“What is the return you need?”

Generally, people invest and invest more to make more money – but for what purpose?

Is it to fund your children’s education?

Is it to buy your new house? be it for property investments or your dream house.

Let’s say you want to reach $1 million. You have to work backwards to calculate how much percentage of return on stocks investments you need to achieve to obtain the $1 million by the period you want.

An investor can only improve and track their investing performance by having a set of NUMBERS that they want to ACHIEVE. Bear in mind that – what you can measure, you can improve!

To cut short, here are the steps to find the perfect stocks~

1. Understand the business

When we invest in a company, we must know the ins and outs how the company generates their money. We must visualize how they make sales – this what we call sales funnel. When we have an understanding, ask this question, does the way the company generate sales make any logical sense?

When we discuss about stocks investment strategies, this is important to avoid investing in scam companies who only wants to steal your money, or worst, companies controlled by bad syndicates.

Here are examples of companies with reliable sales strategy:

a) Nestle

• Sales funnel : food products

• How do they generate money : Through retailers (hypermarkets, small retailers, etc.)

b) Poh Kong

• Sales funnel : Buy gold, design it, and sell them

• How do they generate money : Mark up the gold they made and sell it

Noticed how the companies mentioned above have clear ways on how they make money. Those are the companies encouraged to invest, not some WOW business model that sounds too good to be true.

2. Does the company have decent track record?

When it comes to stocks investment strategies, an investor should invest in a company with well known business background. A reputable company normally would have been with the characteristics as below:

a) Been in business for minimum 3 to 5 years

b) No unfair deals to shareholders especially minority shareholders (Didn’t pay back investors’ dividends for more than 2 times)

We can do a round check from news articles or the web if ever the companies have questionable histories. If they do, it’s advisable to avoid investing in them.

3. Is the company making profits?

There are 2 ways to look at this, the company:

a) Is at least profitable, be it in that year or for the last 5 years average

b) Even if they are making loss during the year, at least their revenue is growing – this is better if the company is making profits during the year

4. Does the company have good profit margin?

A good indicator on a company performing good is that, they are making at least 10% profit margin.

Here is the formula:

Profit margin ratio = Net Profit/Total Revenue

Say for example, Company Z is making 10% profit margin ratio – what does that mean? is that good or bad?

What this means —>

For every $1 sale, the Company makes $0.10 cents profit. A low performing company normally makes 5%, average companies makes 10%, while great companies makes 20% and above.

A good company have high profit margin because it has high pricing power. Hence, the company can demand higher product pricing in the market. This means higher returns (dividend income) for investors!

5. The company have good balance sheet

A general rule of thumb of a good business has the following 2 traits mainly:

a) A lot of CASH and ASSET

B) Low DEBT

We can analyze this by ensuring the following criteria:

• Net debt to equity advisable to be less than “1.0”
  • Formula: Total liabilities/Total shareholder’s equity (This formula indicates whether the company’s total wealth can support/cover the company’s total debt) – we won’t want to invest in a company that have more debt than it’s total wealth now, do we?

A high cash and asset but low debt-bearing companies are super great as it would normally have excessive cash to pay debts, get more loans for business expansion, and better yet – pay you your dividend incomes!

6. Good Return on Capital

This is one of the major part in the stocks investment strategies. Most investors would look at their return on investments they made, rather than the total sum amount of returns that they received.

A good rule of thumb when we invest in stocks is —-> 10%

A key way to find companies that can reach 10% are normally companies with POSITIVE operating activities as presented in their cash flow statements (CFS). This means that the company have sufficient cash to cover for their monthly or yearly business operations.

However, if the investing activities in the CFS is NEGATIVE in amount then it is alright as it may also indicate that the company is currently heavily investing in other assets. This is one of the financial statements normally produced by a company in its annual reports by their accountants.

P.S: its okay if you do not know what the term “cash flow statements” or “balance sheet” means because those are normally accounting knowledge related, I had a rough time myself understanding those reports. Click the links in green down there for more information on this.

Company financial statements/reports normally comprised as below:

a) Balance sheet

b) Cash flow statements

c) Income statements

7. Are the major shareholders reputable?

Normally a good business has highly reputable people working in the company. People who really go to work and to build the business – not just sitting idle waiting for their paychecks to come in.

It is highly encouraged to invest in companies where the major shareholders are the ones who have stayed to build the company through it’s ups and downs in uncertain economic conditions. People who have sweated through the years to raise the company like their own baby.

By doing so, we would be putting our money at the hands of the right people – key people who will ensure returns for the investors who put their money to grow the company, expecting profits from capital invested.

Conclusion

With most of the factors combined above then we may be able to at least minimize our risk of losing money on capital invested in stocks – that’s one less thing to worry in life.

Again, if you find it a bit challenging to understand this article then you can also start by reading stock investing for beginners!

On a side note, be aware to invest only the amount you are willing to lose. Sometimes it is better to save than to invest. And, there are also times when it is the best time to invest rather than saving. It depends on your risks appetite. But then again, if your money is enough to cover only your basic needs then maybe some considerations need to be given whether to invest or not.

A good rule to simplify this is to “spend money on your basic needs, commit to save a certain portion of it every month, then invest the difference“.

3 Ways To Shift Your Mindset From Scarcity To Abundance Mentality

Living from paycheck to paycheck may seem daunting. It was happy at the start but we get anxious at the end of every month as our money gets super low.

We might think that we can live off with the current salary and wait for the next increment. WHEN? In 3 years?! That’ll be quite some time to wait.

What if there is a faster way? There is! In these times, it’s worth to look into investments in properties, stocks, or businesses. Its alright if you are not sure about what to do – it’s natural when you are at the launching phase. First things first, every positive change starts with a positive mind. This is crucial to be able to achieve financial abundance. Here are 3 ways to cultivate the mindset!

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1. ASSOCIATE MONEY WITH POSITIVE THINGS

If you want to live a remarkable life, you must master your emotions, that is, to be able to understand and control them. This works the same for MONEY.

Our wants and needs which is centered from our emotions uses money as the means to obtain what we desire. Relief. Content. Embarrass. Pride. Guilt. These are some of the emotions we associate ourselves to money.

But then again, what if you can use money and produce positive feelings most of the time? This is where your BELIEFS about money comes into place.

“If I have money, I can be with my family on all times.” “I can do whatever I want if I have tons of money.” “I can do an activity as fast as possible if I have money” or “I can have the ultimate wardrobe!”. These are the examples of positive things we should associate ourselves when it comes to attract money in our life.

Tony Robbins, in his book, Money: Master The Game stated that “repetition is the mother of skills“. We can train our mind to be an optimist by repeating positive lines within ourselves. By doing so, achieve a life of financial abundance .

But then again, while you want to be an optimist, there will also be times when you will opt for an avoidance approach. An approach that at least keeps your mentality cushioned – things that might lead to pain. This is where we might say, “If i make money then people will judge me” or “I will be too old to enjoy money” “If I make money then I wont have time to focus being spiritual”. These are the lines we need to avoid saying to ourselves as it will train our subconscious minds not to become the best version of ourselves.

Being in financial abundance is better than being in financial scarcity. More money means you can pursue greater meanings in life beyond our financial means. You can HELP more people in need and who knows, they might be able to achieve what you did and in return – they will help people that used to live like they did. This is what is called the RIPPLE effect.

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2. FINANCIAL ABUNDANCE MEANS FREEDOM

Imagine you earn more than what you spend in every month of your life, wouldn’t that be GREAT?

All it takes is discipline and perseverance.

How?!

It is as simple as taking a portion of money from your monthly salary and dump it in your investment account. The key is to make sure the amounts compounded every year so that the funds grow bigger by every year. This is a sure way to skyrocket your way to financial freedom – you just have to try!

Now, we are only talking about the passive way to grow your funds. Not the active way yet.

Repeat this every day or every month and see how your figures will grow. The only condition is to keep the funds in the bank account as long as you can without withdrawing it as it will affect the growth rate of the fund. Well, until at least you have hit your targeted amount that you want to accomplish. Achieving financial abundance would be easier.

Always save what you have and in return, invest the differences!

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3. IF YOU CAN MAKE $1 THEN YOU CAN MAKE A MILLION MORE!

As mentioned before;

“Repetition is the mother of skills”

– Tony Robbins

Let’s say you figured a way to make $1. Why don’t you repeat the same process for another 1 million times?

It make things easier to see and process when you do an activity at one time after another. Take one step at a time. It will reduce your stress and at the same time makes it more bearable to achieve your dreams.

Because you are FOCUSED.

To achieve a dream, you must have goals. Goals are what you do everyday to achieve the ultimate purpose – in this case, called a DREAM.

A dream can be anything. Buying a mansion, become rich to give back to the poor, or as simple as opening a small business. And it may takes a certain amount of funds – for example, $100 a month to collect $1,200 to open a small lemonade drink business. This requires monthly goals that you have to meet to achieve the dream of having $1,200 after a year.

The higher you dream, the higher the price would be.

A part of achieving a dream would be to fail. Good ideas comes from failing. Failing is an inevitable process that every people must face to become successful. But you will regret less in your old days if you have failed in something. Because it means you have at least tried something to fulfill a dream in your life even if it means you have to fail.

But then again,

Fail and fail again until you succeed.

5 Creative Ways To Save For A House Deposit!

We will talk about the concept of down payment before we dive deep into the tips to save on down payment so that you will be able to get a better outlook.

Down payment means a portion of the total sales price of your home, which you will need to pay upfront to buy a house. The rest of the payment to the seller comes from your mortgage which will be approved by the banks upon successful purchase by you (as a buyer). Down payments are normally expressed as percentages which in usual cases are 10% from total property sales price. Normally, 3% will act as booking price with estate agents and 7% which you will have to pay to your elected lawyers in a form of bank cheques in order to proceed with your purchase process.

However, be mindful that the 10% deposit usually applies to subsale properties (properties that you buy from an existing owner). These days there are various numbers of buying schemes that allows you to buy homes without the deposit payment of 10%.

And here comes the tips.

TIPS 1: SAVE MONEY FOR THE BETTER

A great stock investment coach once advised me that, “you are your own fund manager!” – and I feel that it’s downright true. Regardless which investment vehicle you are going to use to multiply your hard earned money, nothing is better than knowing what you are investing into.

As a rule of thumb, most financial advisors would suggest saving your money 10%-15%. In other cases, you might also be able to save up to $1,300 per month from a salary of $3,000 – it’s possible. However, if you want to speed things up then you might want to consider saving up to 25%-30% of your net income. The savings will be further boosted by cutting off unnecessary expenses such as cancelling dining out every night, taking public transport to work, collect your tax refunds, save your bonuses or even as simple as parking in a free zone – it makes a huge difference.

Looking for ways to boost your savings further? Invest your savings or better yet, invest in businesses where you might think would make huge returns!

TIPS 2: DO A SIDE HUSTLE

With the rapidly changing economic landscape of countries globally, the gig economy is getting even more popular these days. Developed countries would try as best as they could to find the cheapest yet highest quality set of skills to get their errands done.

With reliable gig economy funnel such as Fiverr and Upwork, you can earn up to USD $25 an hour. This includes simple tasks such as translations, data entries, and even app designing – try it out!

TIPS 3: REFINANCE YOUR PROPERTY

Let’s say you have a house and it seems that the value of your property has gone way up after years of staying. Well, maybe it is high time you should research how many margins of loans you can get out of your home refinancing. It is a good way to consolidate and/or eliminate various debts with various interest rates that you wish would go away and focus on only one stream of debt with one interest rate.

However, be aware that refinancing would also mean to incur a new loan. Do your researches and make sure that you only leverage on loans in order to make more assets and money for you in the foreseeable future. Rich people are rich because they know how to leverage on loans to make their life better financially.

TIPS 4: BUY A CHEAPER CAR OR DOWNGRADE YOUR CAR

It is undeniably hard to restraint yourself from buying that car you have always wanted now that you have the financial means to maintain the car. However, cars are depreciating assets and its values drop every now and then.

If you are able to at least restraint yourself from buying that high-spec Honda City, and instead opt for cheaper alternatives – you will be able to save or invest the monetary differences between the two cars.

Better yet, you would be paying lower installments and lower maintenance fees for a second hand car and have better credit scores in eligibility to own a house!

Have a read down below to know how you can work your way to better credit scores (CCRIS) so that you can get better chances of getting your loan approved by banks :

4 Secrets You Should Know To Get Your Loans Approved !

TIPS 5: CONSIDER HOME BUYING SCHEMES

With the aid of governments and other related bodies, various housing schemes are introduced to help easier purchase of properties for home buyers these days – better yet, without the 10% deposit.

These includes many major government aids for home buyers across the globe such the “Own Your Home” scheme in UK and many major countries.

In addition, these are the schemes outlined in Malaysia to encourage more home buyers:

1. PR1MA
2. Skim Rumah Pertamaku
3. Perumahan Penjawat Awam 1 Malaysia
4. MyDeposit
5. RUMAWIP
6. Rent to own
7. BSN MyHome (Program Perumahan Rakyat)

Now that you have reached the end of this article, you sure are serious on finding ways of becoming a home owner. Best of luck to whatever goals you want to achieve by owning a house. Hope this article helps you in your quest. I am excited for you, the reader – for you will be embarking on a journey that will truly be life changing.

“The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there”

~Vince Lombardi

5 things you should consider before buying your first house

Nothing beats one of the best feelings rather than having a roof over your head but the greatest thing to know is – you own it! After working for about a year right after college, I managed to buy my first house. I went through all the process – finding the right house at the right place, did my credit checks with the banks, and arranged a house visit with a property agent which I get to trust. Overall, it was not a straight forward process as there were many questions I asked – whether the land title has been issued, the current unit’s market price , or even the issue of why the current owner is selling the unit. Here are the 5 things you should know before buying your first house.

1. Do you want it or do you need it?

Whenever you decide to buy a house is always to determine whether you need the house? or do you want the house? .Need and want are two different things and are quite simple to distinguish, that is in theory. A need is something that you really require to carry on your daily life; a want is something that springs out of your desires and may not be very crucial to your current life.

If you think you can finally buy a property without stressing out your life too much – then you are all set! However, in some cases buying properties may get you in heaps of trouble – having to settle the loan installments late or always on a tight budget, then maybe you need to reconsider your purchase decisions.

2. Is the house for investment or for your own stay?

This question changes a lot of things if you ask yourself. If you consider to buy it for own stay, you might want to buy the house in a descend environment, be it in a suburban area or the city. You might also prefer a better house condition if that’s the case, Then again this is all up to personal preferences. However, it will be quite different if you buy a house for investment purposes because you would need the house at places with high population, malls, offices, public transport, and etc. to get good rental income.

3. Do you have an exit plan?

An exit plan should always be the planning stage in case if your property purchase could go haywire – fake property agent or owner, or maybe unsettled installments down the road. These possibilities must be simulated so that you will be able to anticipate preparations if these scenarios happen – yikes! But at least you will be able to know just what to do and panic less if it does happen, right?

4. Do you have enough money?

As cliché as it may sound, yes, it is important to assess your ability to purchase the said unit. This is because there are times where property agents only wants to secure their share of bargain, their booking fees of 3% out of the total 10% deposit. Sometimes, these agents do not assess our financial credibility. It is up to us to assess our own so that we won’t lose out.

Let’s give an example,

You want to purchase an apartment costing RM 170,000 and you have a salary of RM 3,000 – which is still alright. You also have in your savings RM 17,000 which is just enough to pay for your 10% deposit of RM 17,000 from the apartment’s total cost. There is still to pay for the legal fees which is by the lawyer, oh no! this will normally cost around RM 7,000 that needs fork up. Hence, always take into consideration all costs associated with purchasing a house including the hidden costs and you will do fine.

5. It is alright to wait.

Sometimes it is just better to hold your purchase. I am not saying that you should not buy a property at the soonest, sometimes if you hold for a moment and reassess your decisions then you might think – nahh maybe this property is not too good a deal or you might just realise that you may be in a worsen condition if you proceed with the purchase. Being in a situation where you don’t have to worry about your daily finance is better than having to maintain a house and constantly struggle to meet ends meet – but that is just my personal opinion. Not all property investments makes great money – some of the investments might get you into serious financial trouble, learn and plan right. To sum up, buying a property is always a great idea especially if you have the stable financials and the right knowledge.

30 Ways You Can Make Use Of Your Land (Part 1)

1. Farming

There is a lot of things you can venture into when you are farming. You can farm into chillies, cucumber, fruits, & etc.

If you love gardening and you think you have green hands – this might be for you!

Let’s take an example,

A half acre land of chilli farming with 2,000 chilli trees can make roughly RM800 per week depending on the productivity of the trees.

There will be cultivating the plants for 6 months and harvesting season for 6 months. So if you want an all year round income, you would have half portion of your chilli trees planting in the first 6 months and another half portion being harvested at one time.

And, that’s one great example of a farming activity!

There are lots more plants you can cultivate to optimize your land – you just have to plan and start!

2. Public park

Public parks are an amazing way you can use to contribute towards society, especially for neighborhoods that don’t have one.

Families and friends will be able to have a get together session, it will be a place that encourage social development.

If you are thinking of monetizing it a bit, maybe you can setup a small ice cream shop or truck with a small coffee shop on the side. It’s good way to optimize the crowd coming in your public park.

3. Lighting carnival ground

I stayed in a small town and living quite near to the city centre. Once in a while there will be various carnivals held and one of them is a lighting carnival.

It’s a great way to attract crowd and it looks pretty at night!

The fee per person would be RM8. Imagine getting 100 customers in one night – that’s RM800! You can either buy the lighting equipments from local stores or have it custom made from factories.

4. Rental house

Indeed! The most common yet proven way to increase your cash inflows. Buying a land and build many homes on it may prove to be most cost effective strategy on the long run.

Look at it this way, one apartment might cost you RM160k with average rental RM700.

Whilst, if you buy a land that costs RM100k with additional cost of RM60k to build two extra units that gives you RM600 a month each.

Have a read on 5 Traits of a good property to invest and get good rental for starters!

It’ll be better if you can find cheaper alternatives. However, this may require more cash upfront but have greater benefits in the long run.

5. Museum

You don’t need too big of a land to do this. The size of your museum depends on how big you want to scale your business.

You can have museums ranging from shoplots, double storey house, a single storey warehouse or even a bungalow lot!

Take the 3D museum located in Melaka, Malaysia. They converted the bungalow costing around RM1million and renovated it with cool and attractive 3D graphics.

And now they are earning thousands a day from thousands of tourists!

6. Reserve forest

For those nature lovers who have a land or feel like contributing their land for the good mankind – this may be a viable way to make use of your land.

You can either monetize the land for a small fee or open it for public use at no charge at all!

People can enjoy camping or hiking or even have an enjoyable stay at a cozy treehouse – depends on you.

7. Office spaces for freelancers

Businesses like these are emerging rapidly these days with various new industries being created through technology breakthroughs.

These business would surely need office spaces.

Have a look at successful businesses like Wework! They managed to propel themselves in the office space business excellently throughout the world.

8. Shop lots

Nothing can go wrong with building shoplots at your land plot except that you need to ensure what kind of businesses would run well in your area.

The world these days still rely on brick and mortar or businesses. People still love to shop around physical shops. They may start of with window shopping but will eventually escalade to real purchase if they see what they like.

According to the The Balance, consumers still prefer to shop at a physical store even with the increase in online business – however, a combination of both online and physical store attraction would skyrocket your business.

9. Wedding space

People get married everyday all year round and it’s a growing business worldwide. Greater size of growing for wedding management companies who can help provide affordable wedding packages that covers all benefits from wedding space to providing catering services, wedding cards – you name it!

(insert sta of people get married) linked with revenue of wedfing biz.

10. Corporate space

Have you ever seen a building with a branded company branding logo banner on a building?

Do you believe that’s their building?

Some yes, and some no.

Truth is, some companies leased out from the owner of the buildings. They will lease out certain floors or the whole building – it depends. But the revenue generated from leasing a whole building can translate into rm…

11. Open Garden

Feels nice if you can contribute your land to an open garden. People would be able to have an evening stroll, jog or even picnic at your garden. Not a bad idea eyy!

12. Small petting zoo

Having a land big enough to build a zoo? You don’t necessarily need to build a ginormous zoo! A small one would do if you are an animal lover. Who knows, it might attract people from other States and you might expand your zoo.

13. Fishing pond

A good idea for those who likes fishing. If you have a land big enough then you might be able to build a pond conducive enough for fishes live. It won’t be a busy business, all you need to make sure the fishes gets food, the pond is clean, and have enough space for people to fish there.

14. Glamping?!

Camping in style! That’s Glamping! It’s a luxury way of camping where people can camp in comfort. There’s the tv, the cushy sofa, kitchen, conducive toilet, and you still won’t have to part ways with nature. It’s a revolutionized and great way to spend an outdoor holiday adventure.

15. Resort

Having a land big enough and a big capital – you might be able to start a resort business. It would require a huge upfront capital but would give a steady return in the long run if you plan well and the location is great.

16. Air bnb-style homestay

Maybe you have that house somewhere on the village side or that vacation home with gorgeous view bit you seldom stayed there – maybe you can consider putting it in Air bnb. At least you can earn a side income!

17. Nursery

So you love gardening and are passionate about plants – maybe starting a plant nursery would a good fit for you. If in the event you can plant something that can provide value to the market such as chillies or pumpkins then maybe you can start a class and help other people earn a living from your knowledge and skills.

18. Coconut/Palm oil estate

If you have a land ranging 5 acres to 10 acres then this might be an ideal business for you to start – probably with a small palm oil estate. A lot of local businesses are looking for palm oil suppliers to use it in food production, biofuel and even medicines. For coconuts, you can either sell it to local coconut sellers or directly with customers.

19. Lavender estate

Nothing beats good use of land especially for a lavender farm. If you have been to Tasmania, Australia then you have to stop by and visit the Bridestowe Lavender Estate. The estate would be a good example of a lavender farm. It has a wide cover range of lavender plants, a boutique shop that sells lavender related products (soaps/perfumes/cards/etc.), and cute lavender coffee shop (selling lavender cakes, icecreams, teas, etc.). Every single day that place is crowded with tourists – be it localy and internationally.

20. Factory / Warehouse

If you have a piece of land that you can build a factory and then lease it out or sell it – why not? There is a lot of businesses out there that are looking for the best location to start with, maybe your land will fit their expectations – have a try!

21. Empty lot for rent

So you have a piece of land and you are not sure what to do. You don’t have enough money to build anything on it nor do you have any ideas how to use it. Have you tried renting it empty? you should! It’s not half bad because the tenants will know what to do so long as you know what your tenants are planning to use your land for and the fact that you get your money every month. It’s a good start for people have no idea on what to do with their vacant lands.

22. Food truck dine area

These days there is a lot if food truck business on the rise which is probably due to high cost of rental on brick and mortar stores. Having a food truck business would mean lower cost of rental/ownership but also being able to go mobile. This is a perfect opportunities for land owners to setup their land for a food truck gathering festival. Take Tapak, a venue in Kuala Lumpur that features a food truck park at night – you will receive lease payments from the food truck owners in return for them being able to conduct business in your compound or having the food truck owners working for you permanently in your company.

23. Daycare Centre

With the rise of population in the world, there is always a growing demand for schools or kindergartens. If your land is near office areas, you might want to consider opening a children daycare centre so that parents find it easier to care for their kids while they are out working – not bad eyy!

24. Charity

Some people just felt like they want to achieve a greater purpose in life – hence, putting their lands to charity allows them to feel contempt in life. There are people who give their lands to the government or the NGO for charity because these organizations have plans and knows well on how to best utilize resources for the benefits of the masses.

25. Restaurants

If you have the passion for foods and that secret recipe granny taught you and you think people will love those recipes – then this might be for you 🙂 There is a lot of cuisine choices to look for, plan well and have a go!

26. Shopping malls

Have you ever wondered why big developer companies love to build shopping malls? That’s because these developers earn a consistent high lease payments from local brands that leased with them. This also includes payment of parking lots from customers who comes in for shopping sprees.

27. Petrol stations

Though setting a petrol station would require a huge upfront capital, it might be a brilliant strategy to start one up if you have a great location (somewhere along the highway/a town with no gas stations). You can also boost your revenues by setting up few small shops on the side such as Dunkin Doughnuts or Starbucks to attract higher people!

28. Gym

It’s an increasing trend these days that people are going to the gym more often than they do in back in the old days. With the increasing trend on a more health conscious lifestyle especially for millennials – opening a gym is a great idea!

29. Skiing

If you own a piece of land in the snowy mountains – and a big area too! This may be an interesting proposition for you. Thousands of people look forward to skiing on mountain tops on weekends or long holidays.

30. Cinema/open theatre

An open air cinema normally have a big inflatable screen, a great sound system and a small food store providing popcorns and drinks on the side street within the cinema compound. Normally an area may have lots of indoor cinemas but they rarely have an open air ones. If you think you have a sizeable piece of land and you are not sure what to do about it then this may be your greatest answer! Who knows, you’ll be able to enjoy collecting the ticket fees and enjoy movies all night long – while slurping on cold Pepsi of course!

Are You Making These 4 Common Mistakes As A Property Buyer?

If you think that buying any property and simply make money out of renting it or selling it out, then you might want to reconsider your options.

Applying the right way to buy a house will help you not to lose any money in the future – knowing it might save you enough cash to reinvest in another house.

Here’s 4 common mistakes you should avoid:

1. Buying above market value

Maybe you have set your eyes on this one house and you think – wow! It’s near to public transport and the university, pretty sure there won’t be any tenant demand problem.

Well maybe you are right.. But then again consider checking the market value of the property as well.

There are lot of times property buyers neglect market value factor and buy above the market value in the end.

Sometimes due to emotional auction biddings or high-end property facilities (pools, security, exclusive gardens) offered that makes the buyer completely illusioned.

This will mostly lead to mistake #2

2. Negative Cash Flows

Let’s compare property A and B

Property A

Let’s say the average market price for property A

Compare this to property B

Property B (under auction)

Let’s say you are buying property B and then you got swayed away by yout emotions. Rather than stopping the bid at the most optimum ROI (Return on Investment), you now increase your bid further for the sake of winning the auction.

Instead of buying the property below market value, you have now gotten overboard.

This leads to higher bank instalments you have to pay. This also means that if the average rental in that area is $750 per month, you have a negative outflow of $150 because you are paying the banks at $850.

3. Buying a property far from your usual place of presence

Well, sometimes you might think that can still manage your property from another state whilst you are in another state – you can. However, it might pose certain challenges such as time and convenience of visits you can make.

Few things to note is that you may need to add more controls to these types of challenge. These includes:

1. Setup an automated payment system
2. Build close relationship with the property management team (if any)
3. Get to know the local repairmen in the area
4. Find trustworthy tenants.

However, if you think all these demands too much from you then you might want to consider hiring a property manager at a cost which is not too bad either.

4. Not buying an investment grade asset

A property pamphlete may seem too convincing sometimes. The timber wood floor, glowing kitchen cabinet, big windows – you name it!

But the biggest things being promoted on the pamphlete are the things you need to stop and think back again.

Do you need the luxury items offered?

What’s your initial purpose to buy?

And always go back to basics.

You must try as best as possible that the property you buy especially for investment purposes must be below market value, have positive cashflows, near your usual place and most importantly it has capital appreciation.

But if it is your dream house and not for your investment purposes – theres no issue to buy it even if its priced higher and that you can afford it.

After all, buying a good house for investments may prove to be one of our best ways to conserve as well as amplify our wealth – it is one of the best tools to achive financial independence.

5 Core Things Needed To Retire Early

It was a casual saturday and I’d normally stop by my favourite bookstore to top up my family’s weekly groceries.

It was then that I come across this amazing book called “Your Way to Financial Independence”, authored by Yap Ming Hui. He’s been helping a lot of people planning out their life and achieve financial independence – his company (Whitman Independent Advisors Sdn Bhd) helps people to achieve this. Check their page out if you are keen to restructure your life plans at https://whitman.com.my/.

I only imagine the idea of financial independence and retire early in life so that I can do things that I deem much more important than working around the clock and have no time to do the things I’m really passionate or care about in life such as spending time with my loved ones.

Hence, I believe it is vital for me to get my notes into other people’s notes. Knowing key knowledge in life earlier in life will help reduce your stress in future to come. Just like Jim Rohn said, ignorance is not bliss – ignorance is pain and tragedy.

In this article, we’ll be going through 5 very simple cores to take note if you plan to become the master of your money. I believe this will pose as an important turn around in reader’s life if people know these infos early in life.

1. Spending

Knowing where you stand in life is important. This is the same in spending, knowing how much you spend every day or every month determines your financial standings for that period.

An important note from the book, very simple –

The more you spend, the less savings you have.

The more you spend, the more money will be needed to maintain your lifestyle.

Spending relates very closely to our wants and needs, being aware of your wants and needs will help you steer your way to a more controlled spending life.

2. Return on investments (ROI)

The main idea here is that wealth will work for you better when your ROI is higher.

How do you get high ROI?

Well…

There’s ROI from properties, stocks, bonds, businesses, dividends, compounded bank interest and so on – we only need to get a good research before getting our hands on those investments.

But be alert to get ROI that is above the inflation rate. Otherwise, your money will lose its value across time. It’s as if we didn’t invest at all.

Read more at the links below to know a little more about investments you can start!

3 Surprisingly Creative Ways To Make Money From Properties

Stock Trading For Beginners

Making money while you sleep – the compounding bank account (ASB)

Now let’s continue..

3. Savings

Savings and spending are like yin and yang – they are closely associated with one another.

Just like mentioned previously, the more you spend means the lesser you save.

When we retire, the money we saved will be utilise for our daily wants and needs. But the best way to use that big chunk of money upon retirement is that we invest it and earn dividends in return.

This is where big savings are important so that we only need lower “Return on Investments (ROI)” to sustain our daily life after retirement.

Take an example,

Josh who saves $16,000 a year would need to achieve ROI of 18.3% to accumulate $1million in 15 years time compared to the same Josh who saves $36,000 a year that needs only 8.3% ROI to accumulate $1million in 15 years.

Which Josh do we choose to be?

The point is that saving money consistently bears high result financially and save you more time to buy your financial freedom in the future.

Have a read at…

How You Can Save $1300 A Month With $3000 Salary

and find ways how you can save your money better!

4. Time

When it comes to time, it means to forecast the period where certain of our wants and needs will appear in the foreseeable future.

For example, the time when:

1. We send our child into their tertiary education

2. We drawdown our retirement funds

3. We will marry or our children get married

And so on.

It could be a cash inflow or cash outflow depending on our needs and wants but normally big events in life. This is so that you can roughly estimate how many savings you must have or maybe a certain ROI you need to have to ensure your financial independence goals are still in check when the time comes.

5. Inflation

When it comes to investing, always take into account inflation rate.

Why?

Because your ROI might be lower than the inflation rate. This will result in your investments losing out money whether short term or long term – and we don’t want that.

We expected a return on the money we put to work – what if after 5 years you discovered that your financial status is still the same?!

That’s a nightmare.

Hence, make an effort to check the current inflation rate and which investments whether individually or aggregately are able to beat the inflation rate.

How To Achieve Financial Independence

Now that you have clicked on this title, you must have been wondering what is financial freedom? Or…

You have already set yourself up for financial freedom in future to come but you haven’t figured out how.

That’s great! It means you have successfully gotten out of the rat race way of thinking – at least from a state of mind.

Now it’s time for action. Now it’s time to see how you will set your new life direction so that you can arrive at a new destination.

Before we start, know that different people have different meanings for financial freedom.

Does it mean being debt-free? Does it interpret as being able to travel other countries twice a year? Does it mean living your daily life without worrying that your money might run out one day or another? That depends.

What is your meaning of financial freedom?

To cut things short, this is the general outline that I learned from attending financial seminars and meet people who already obtained financial freedom and those who are already charted to that destination.

Assume we are doing this in order of sequence:

1. Work

Yup! That’s the reality of it – you have to work and by saying work it means the job you earn your main income. It’s the job you work to pay your monthly living expenses like utility bills (electricity, water or phone), housing and car installments, as well as other monthly legal obligations.

This is where it all starts – it is the first stage.

The key to this stage is when your salary comes in, who do you pay first?

Yourself!

That’s right, yourself.

You will have to allocate a certain portion of your salary aside for yourself. This leads to the next stage…

2. Savings

This is where the warm up begins – you will have to be disciplined and set your goals.

You will have to save every month until that money accumulate into a huge pile of resource. You need to calculate how much you need to save before you believe that huge resource can help you achieve that freedom.

Have a read at 5 Simple Ways To Save Money and How You Can Save $1300 A Month With $3000 Salary to get wider ideas of how you can save better!

When we already have that huge chunk of money, you might asked what happens next?

This is the point where you make money work for you.

When the time comes, when you believe you are ready to get to the next stage – whamm!!

You invest that money!

And that leads to the next big part which is investing.

But before we go any further, we’ll have to consider another important part to achieve financial freedom and this is applicable to the massive people out there.

This is simply because having a single income from a single work may not be enough to accumulate that huge chunk of money. You will need a second source of income or maybe a third or fourth.

And that leads to our 3rd step….

3. Side hustle income

Many times we’ve heard people working 2 jobs at a time to sustain their life – well you are probably right.

But the idea is that the money used from your main work to pay your loving expenses. Your daily work is used to settle your daily expenses such as basic bills (electricity, water and phone) and other recurring expenses like rents and daily foods.

On the other hand, your second job is what you use to build your fortune.

It can be any jobs, you can start by selling stuffs online, become an insurance agent, open a business, become a beekeeper or even a painter – anything that you love.

Then you save your money and build that huge chunk of money that you can invest and in return, get you that recurring income.

Or…

Without investing, you can simply get recurring income from the people’s demand provided that your service to the society gives value.

Value. This is one of the secrets that Jim Rohn, a great motivational speaker once shared – to attract the world’s wealth, we must become the people that can create and give value to the society.

And I think that’s wonderful information.

Now that you know how to accumulate the huge chunk of money, step 4 plays an even vital role.

Step 4. Invest

Invest – It’s a big meaning for a short word.

Money will lose it’s value in time to come. Things like inflation will inevitably be one of the major cause. Money will not grow unless we put it to work, now that we have worked hard enough to get money.

This is why we need to invest.

We invest to sustain our wealth. To make sure that the money grows more while we are occupied with other matters.

We have traded our time much enough that it is now time that the money will work for us and saves us more time to do the things we really want to do in life.

I always like to invest in things I already know well, and not invest into blurry confusing things. I still prefer the traditional way of investing.

This brings us to step 5.

Step 5. Passive Income

While there are many other forms of investments in this world, I will highlight the most common yet effective investing instruments that are still relevant till today.

It’s none other than by investing in properties. With this, you’ll get recurring income from renting. Imagine if you have 10 houses that each gives you $800 a month – that’s $8,000!

Can you live off with that? I know I can.

You might wonder how to start investing in properties – have an overall understanding by reading 5 traits of a good property to invest and get good rental and 7 steps guide to buy a house – the complete guide. This should help you get that booster understanding about real estates in general.

If you are still young and having fun in your 20s but are getting prepared to settle down – you’ll be ahead of your time by knowing the top 5 tips to buy a house in your 20s.

Better yet, boost your investment income by knowing the 4 unbelievable ways you can maximize your rental income!

Imagine you get yearly dividends from 20 types of stocks that each gives you $200 a month – that’s $4,000 a month!

You might be wondering how you would begin this great journey through freedom by learning stock trading. Have a brief understanding here!

Wow…

How about making that monthly commitment to save a portion of your income into the compounding bank account. Let’s say you save $600 a month for 35 years – that may grow to around $1 million after 35 years.

This is where you will be able to see how to make money works for you! Even when you are sleeping.

It’s just amazing. You can either use that money yearly – though you might lose the benefits of compounding or you can just wait for it to grow big. If you can’t benefit from it then maybe your family can!

We’ve already worked hard to get that big chunk if money and we should not risk it by investing in things we do not know – in things that may not exist 10 years to come.

And that brings us to the final step.

Step 6. Dream

Now that you have worked your ass off, you can now live your life without worrying about money!

Your debt is settled and no one have any claims on you every single day because now you are free.

Free to do what you want and free to live how you want it to be.

This is where you can do the really significant things in life because you have solved the money problem.

This is where you can buy your dream.

It can be anything.

Spending time with your wife and kids. Innovate something creative and beneficial to the society or even as simple as helping/coach other people become financially free – just like you did.

You can also opt to help poor people when you are free. Help them escape poverty and coach them the ways of attracting wealth. In return, you will feel what it means to truly live. You will only gain more when you give more because giving to charity makes you richer.

a quote by Tony Robbins from one of his greatest books, “Money: Master The Game” –

The secret to living is giving.

It’s a noble cause.

This is why financial freedom is important. You’ll be able to chase matters beyond any money concerns because you are now free. Upon achieving financial freedom, you can now chase a life purpose that is bigger than just making money and meeting ends meet – with financial freedom, you will be able to create a more meaningful life.

Stock Trading For Beginners

So you have been thinking a lot about earning money from the stock markets. Going through all the dilemmas and risks associated with investing in the stock market – fret not! It is true that investing in the stock market has its risks but it also has its own perks.

This article will mainly talk about how you can start your investing experience in the stock market but most importantly – how you can get a great start!

To start off, we will go through the basics.

Here is the first one!

1. Choosing your trusted remisier/dealer

Who’s a remisier?

He’s like a middleman between the investor and the company you want to invest in. A remisier earns commision from every transactions of stock trading that takes place.

These are the things you need to ask before choosing your remisier:

a) Are they licensed?

b) Do they have wide knowledge of stocks investments?

c) Can they advise you well in stock investments?

d) How experienced are they in the stock trading field? 10 years? 30 years?

If you think all the 4 questions above gives you a confident nod then you are good to go!

Do check on the link below to ensure that your business representative/ remisier are registered with the Securities Commision Malaysia > https://www.sc.com.my/

This is to help avoid unnecessary losses or scams at the start of your investing journeys 🙂

2. Registering your Central Depository System (CDS) Account

A CDS account is just like your bank account but a CDS account keeps the shareholdings of companies you invested in the form of stocks.

How do you create a CDS account?

Here are the general things (or at least applicable in Malaysia) :

a) A copy of your identification card (IC)

b) RM 10.60 to open a cds account with the Malaysian Central Depository Sdn Bhd

c) Finally, that is, opening a trading account with your trusted remisier

Normally you can just inquire your remisier and they’ll guide you through the whole registration process – it’s really simple and straight forward.

3. Don’t trade stocks yet – join a class!

That’s right, you don’t want to put in $10,000 and end up with a loss – you will need reliable coaches to teach you how and which stocks to invest. You can start by looking into the social media (facebook, twitter, or instagram) for reputable classes organized or ask your friends who have traded stocks before and how they go about it.

However, most classes may require you to pay – just make sure its not a scam!

Here’s some tips before you decide to attend any paid classes:

• Attend the free classes initiated by Securities Commision known as the “InvestSmart” series, check this out > https://www.investsmartsc.my/index.php/
• Better yet, you can also get free basic stock trading knowledge from Bursa Market Place, have a visit at > http://www.bursamarketplace.com/mkt/learn
• Or, you can try and find great mentors/coaches that have been in the stock trading industry in a long time – people like Faizal Yusup or Dato’ Dr Nazri Khan are corporate people who are still working in investment companies and at the same time still organize classes.

Also, a great advice I received from a good friend of mine,

“Avoid trading stocks using your bread money”,

meaning – invest using the surplus money that you have and not the money you use to run your daily routine. What I would advise is to invest using money that you are willing to lose. Also note one of the benefits of stock investing is that you can accumulate cash faster than investing in properties due to its liquidity characteristic.

With that said, you will be able to accumulate your capital faster with stock investing to proceed with purchase of a much stable investment which is property investments. Have a look on 7 steps guide to buy a house – the complete guide, 5 things you should consider before buying your first house or 5 Traits of a good property to invest and get good rental for starters.

Now that you have read until the end, I believe the above should suffice for you to have a general idea on how and where to start. Have a great investing exploration ahead!

Top 7 Biggest Mistakes Property Investors Make

The beginning of any investors isn’t an easy one. You have to know what that business is about, how it generates money, and can the business expand in the foreseeable future.

This is applicable to being a property investor.

Being a property investor requires you to attend classes, get to know your mentors, and people who are successful in your respective investing fields. You would have to continually learn and apply the knowledge you obtained – constantly experiment and adapt your techniques around the market.

Why is this vital?

Certain people would think they are ready when they have attended one class but once is never enough. You must constantly learn (attend many classes) , talk to field experts, and mingle within your investing team members.

Hence, here are the top 8 biggest mistakes property investors make:

1. YOU BUY PROPERTIES ACCORDING TO QUALIFICATIONS AND NOT AFFORDABILITY

Well, many of us are happy when the bank loan officer approves our bank loan. Your salary plus side income seemed decent, your liabilities are pretty low – so he thinks, ehh why not…. But the monthly installment would take away more than half your salary?!

Is that a red flag? Should you worry? … The answer is – yes!

A safe principal to follow is 30% – 35% (where 1/3 of your total salary) of your total salary would go to payment of home installments. This is because 1/3 of our salary should go for savings, 1/3 to daily needs like foods and transportation, and another 1/3 for commitments and/or investments.

It is safer that way rather than having 2/3 of your salary dumped to pay your home. Well, some people can live under strict financial diets but what if emergencies happen? How would you survive? Worst off if you have kids! So buy properties that you can afford and not what you are qualified to buy.

2. YOU THINK YOU CAN FLIP (SELL) A PROPERTY RIGHT AFTER YOU BUY ONE

This is one of the dangerous tactics in the books of property investments. You think you can sell the house you just bought right off the bat. When you buy a property for the sake of flipping – that is not investing, it is called gambling.

Why?

Simply because you sell “in the hopes” somebody will buy that property. In investing, we rely on facts and numbers – not mere speculations without concrete reasons.

I understand that we always hear stories of people having able to sell their houses right after their purchase but sticking to the fundamentals would be a safer way to invest and make money. The risks associated with flipping a fresh property is too high to take. It would take years to recover from buying a wrong property.

Worst off – you may have a financial monster in your hands and would need to auction the property, which would not represent a good outlook on your financial backgrounds the next time you apply for loans.

This same advise is applicable to properties that YOU THINK can get high rentals and make good money!

Always go back to fundamentals and research well your markets and competitors. One key strategy to know if that area has good rental occupation rate is to make time and visit that area at night.  Observe how many lights are on in every units. If there are many units with lights on, that shows high occupancy – a plus point to buy a unit in that area! If it’s vice versa, you should consider other places.

3. YOU THINK GOING TO ONE CLASS IS ENOUGH

It is plausible that you make effort to attend property classes – that’s great. Then you will feel pumped up and highly motivated – and you feel highly driven to buy a property. You will think that you can make money with the current knowledge you have.

But little did you know that there are more aspects you need to know to buy the first house – which is the riskiest investment. That’s right, your first house is the most vital investment to make.

Read more:

5 things you should consider before buying your first house

Should I Buy Property For Investment First Or Should I First Buy To Stay? 

4. YOU DIDN’T MAKE SURE THAT ALL THE FACTS AND NUMBERS ARE PRECISED!

It will determine whether you can be on the fast lane or slow lane in property investments. Because you might get stuck with that property for at least 6 years or more as a result of bad judgement. But that’s alright, you will learn by experience.

Always ensure your knowledge checks are complete. Things to know or cover are mainly as below:

a) 3 Major Risks Of Renting Properties And How To Mitigate The Risks

b) 5 Traits of a good property to invest and get good rental

5. YOU DID NOT PERFORMED THE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT CALCULATION

To be an investor, you must rely on facts and numbers – not hopes and rumours.

This applies the same with property investments. You have to know the basic calculations to know if your property can make money.

How do you make the calculation?

Ensure that the property you want to invest is below market value approximately 10% – 20%

You can do this by checking the price offered by sellers against the average price people offer around the area.

Better yet, in Malaysia, we have a website that discloses the transparency of actual price transacted on the sales and purchase agreement (S&P). It was a partnership between a company and the local government to improve the property market business.

So if the seller’s offered price < average market price?

That clearly shows the property price is below market value.

However, to easily know that you can get a property below market value, have a go at auctioned properties. These are properties that have problems mainly due to previous owners having trouble repaying their monthly installments.

Read more:

From Abandoned/Auctioned House (Lelong House) Into Cash Machine

6. APPLYING MULTIPLE LOANS FOR MANY PROPERTIES AT ONE TIME (MULTIPLE SUBMISSION)

If I would tell you one thing that is truly risky – the black magic in property investing; that is none other than multiple submissions.

Normally when you associate black magic with the practitioner, it would definitely harm the practitioner in return. The multiple submission technique applies the same consequences – it would do more harm than good if not applied carefully.

You might wonder why this is black magic?

Imagine you applied a loan for two properties because you think that you can flip (sell) the property right after purchase or rent it high – considering the fact that your income can’t sustain the installments for both units.

Remarkably, your loan gets approved probably because you combined loan applications with your wife/trusted partner. That’s great!

But……..

Things get scary when both the units can’t be sold immediately, or nobody would want to rent the units/ rented it at lower price!

What will you do when this happen?

Worse comes to worse you might have to auction the properties or you’ll go bankrupt. Would really hope this is the last resort.

There are times where you think that specific property promised a good deal, even if you know you can’t maintain it – it is recommendable to bolster your income or buy a property you can afford.

7. NOT BUYING PROPERTIES NEAR YOUR “COMMON AREAS”

Common areas are areas where you normally go everyday. It can be the area where you work, your neighbourhood areas, or the place you passed by everyday. The idea is to buy a property that you find easy to visit in case you need to be physically there!

What happens if you don’t buy a property near your common area?

One thing for sure…. you will find it hard to visit your property if you need to be there physically. Things like signing contracts with tenants or handing over of keys (if you are into Airbnb business) would be a challenge if you are not physically there.

However, the aforementioned challenges can be overcome by building contacts with the local janitors or neighbours  who can help you out – of course, with an additional pay. The key to implement this is to find people who you can trust to run your chores when you can’t be there physically.

With all that said, hope you will make wiser investment decisions! It makes a lot of financial differences between making the right decisions and a wrong one. 

How You Can Save $1300 A Month With $3000 Salary

I am no expert in this but I am very much aware of the importance when it comes to savings. Why is this crucial?

Opportunities or emergencies may arise surprisingly at any time. There will be a time when out of a sudden someone would want to sell their business, a company is looking funds to grow business, or there is that hot property going on auction way below market value!

Hence, It is up to us to ensure that we can grasp the opportunities when the time comes or at least prepare ourselves financially in event any emergencies arise. Here are the ways you can save $1,300 a month with $3,000 of salary.

Travel Cost

We all have places to go each and every week. Like many, we would have to incur costs to travel to work. I’m staying on a suburb far from the city center, Kuala Lumpur.

It would normally take me more than 1 hour on busy days to work – that is about 28 kilometres (km) per trip, a total of 56 km one day. Below are the costs I incurred per month:

Fuel = $400 ($20 per day)

Toll = $200 ($50 per week)

That would be a high $600 a month! And I ain’t liking it.

Solutions?

I opted to use public transport instead. Since then, travelling cost was cut approximately half! Which is roughly $400 a month now for both car fuel and toll fees.

Not only this help save a lot money but also help to save my travel time and reduce stress of going through traffic jams.

Food intakes

Another way to save is that I chose to cook my own meal – most of the days normally costs me around $100 – $150 for a month worth of food stocks or ingredients.

Aside that, I would simply buy my daily lunch supplies at cheaper price at a petrol station selling cheap cooked foods where I normally pass through everyday when I go to work – that is if I have too packed of a schedule. Costs me $3.50 per lunch box containing fried rice, an egg and a bit of gravy – pretty cheap and neat right?

But then again, there are days that we have that friends night out or Friday night outings so I wouldn’t mind spending a bit for that particular session since I have already saved a lot of margins on other areas. In total, food supplies would cost me around $150 – $250 a month.

Education loans

Yes, you read that right – education loan payments. I’m still actively repaying my education loans every month. That would cost me $100 a month which is not too high of a burden but still a great obligation to meet.

Phone bills

This would normally costs me $120 for my phone bills and I think that is still quite high for me.

I believe you can try and minimize your phone bills by finding better phone plans. If you can reduce your phone bills by $20 a week, that is $200 extra savings a month! and I’m quite sure there are way more awesome phone plan deals out there.

Home installments

This would costs me $800 per month inclusive of maintenance. However, now that I rented it out – the rental income I generated with the right strategies gave me an extra boost of $200 – definitely great! Check out 4 Unbelievable Ways You Can Maximize Your Rental Income and 5 Traits of a good property to invest and get good rental for greater knowledge of how you can boost your property investing game.

Life insurance

I focused on life insurance because if ever I am faced with a critical sickness and I am unable to work any longer, my insurance would be able to settle all my bank loans pertaining my debt on properties owned. Not only that, the insurance package would also allow the accumulation of cash value where it would have a certain amount I can withdraw as extra money after certain period has passed – you can say that it is like investing while insuring yourself.

By doing so, I would not have to burden my family members to pay the housing loans if I am cripple and not having enough capabilities to work any longer. It costs me as low as $100 a month and it helped cover so much trouble for me in future to come. So if you find yourself still young and just started your career life, take up an insurance but be careful of scams and take up insurance coverage on areas you deem only important for the coverage you want.

Let’s say if your company already have unlimited coverage for your medical expenses, then maybe you can opt not to take medical insurance – for example. I would suggest you to take up insurance from reputable companies.

Have a read on “MRTT vs MLTT? Get yourself insured before buying a property” to get a good glimpse of general insurance knowledge that can settle all your housing debts in event you can’t work anymore. However, this condition will only work if your insurance coverage is more than your full housing debt.

Be mindful that insurance companies find it hard to consider your insurance applications after you are critically ill because it would be a loss to the company – sad truth unfortunately. So take advantage of your good health and ability to generate income now and apply one before the aforementioned happens alright! :))

Costs breakdown:

Car fuel and toll = $400

Food intakes = $150

Phone bills = $120

Education loans = $100

Home installments = $ 800

Life insurance = $100

Total expenses = $1,670

Amount saved = $3,000 – $1670

= $1,330! 

“A penny saved is a penny earned” 

~ Benjamin Franklin

So what can you do with these much savings?

1. Apply an auto-debit (Standing Instruction) from your salary account into your compounding bank account. Doing this will help you Making money while you sleep – the compounding bank account (ASB) just like Tony Robbins advised in his greatest book, “Money: Master The Game”.

2. Invest the money in stock market.

3. Save all of them as your next home deposit.

4. Give to charity (help people in need). Always bear in mind that Giving to Charity Makes You Richer!

5. Provide some money to your parents or family members as presents.

6. Gather enough money and be ready to launch or buy a potential business.

7. Put it in your flexi-bank account to reduce your monthly home loan interest (yep, that’s what it’s called in banks, flexi-bank loans).

And the list goes on….

But whatever it is, always bear in mind that for every dollar you saved would give you better chances of grasping the opportunities when it comes. Have a read at 5 Simple Ways To Save Money to get bold ideas to save money better.

You can’t simply start saving when the opportunity or emergency happened right there and at that time right? That is insane! If you start saving at that very time, the opportunity would have gone into other people’s hands.

You need time to save money enough to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that falls before you. Never the less, knowing that you are reading this article till the end would mean that you care for your financial securities and your future – that YOU want to make that change! Good luck hustlers!

3 Major Risks Of Renting Properties And How To Mitigate The Risks

So you have decided to invest in properties and are planning to rent it out. You have the capital, the knowledge, and a good sense of where you want to invest now. However, you must also prepare yourself mentally for the major risks that awaits you when the rental starts. Here are 3 major risks of renting properties I consider quite substantial during your journey ahead.

1. Tenant do not pay their rent

This is basically the major concerns of most landlords. Landlords screen out the right tenants – or so they thought, and maybe they get good rental payments on time for few months but things changed after a while. You don’t get back your rental income because the tenants keep on delaying their payments. Worse comes to worse, you don’t hear much from your tenants and their bills dued more than 2 months – you checked your house and found out your tenant is already gone. They stayed at your house for free which is being very irresponsible especially at your expense.

2. The house is damaged/ things stolen

Alright so maybe the tenant has left the house for good without making payments and you think – “well, that’s alright! I can always get me new tenants”. But things just got worse when you discovered that your TV is stolen! Or nothing else was left there unlike when you started the rental except for the built-in items which is really not moveable. These kinds of problems are landlords’ worst nightmares.

It happened to me once. We had a condo near KL and welcomed a new tenant. The tenants claimed that she’s married and will be living there with her husband and children. We screened through their background details and found no problems at all. The payments were going smooth sailing the first few months until we did not received it for a month and contacting her seems unreachable. We decided to go visit the condo and shockingly found that our tv and some of our furnitures went poof!! And the house was like a wrecked ship – not to mention the weird smell being left there. Since then we always opted for good property management companies and have seen better results in terms of home maintenance qualities due to good tenant filters. However, some property management companies are only in for the money ignoring their service quality, hence we always opt for well known companies. It is a bit pricey in their services but help reduce lots of unecessary stresses.

3. Rental income does not cover your monthly housing installments

Whenever you are renting out on properties, the best strategy would be to get rental incomes higher than the installments. This is how you make money out of your investments. This is also a reason why you need to consider your housing investments carefully, that is to buy a property that is not too expensive so that people on majority will be able to pay you rentals that they find affordable and in a way helps you generate extra income out of the rentals. One of my property coach who is also my father once advised me, “when you are investing in rental property – go for the people in majority”.

This simply means that you buy property which can cater to the affordability of most people around that area or country. If you think that area is of high income earners then you may consider buying a quality apartment/condominium because people around there have the financial means.

However, if you find that the people living in that area consists of middle to low income earners then you might as well consider the lower range properties which caters to the affordability of the surrounding society. This way, if you are not earning positive cash flows from the property – at least you can get half of the installments covered, even though that would be our last resort. That’s a way you can minimize your risks to this matter.

So how are you going to minimize your risks during rental period?

1. Hire a property management company to manage your property

2. Research your property in depth before you make the investment in order to get the most out of your returns

3. Get your property insured for rental business purposes (there is an insurance specially designed to protect your property provided by the banks)

All and all, provided with great insurance coverage and the right knowledge – any property investments will be a good investment and a worthy one for sure.

From Abandoned/Auctioned House (Lelong House) Into Cash Machine

Have you been walking passed that same house – that gloomy, window broken, cracked door house for countless times and has never been occupied? You might think there is no hope at all to restore that property into good function – you might have to think twice!

Why are abandoned properties considered an amazing investment opportunities?

Simple, normally an abandoned property is sold below the market value! This gets even better if it is auctioned by the bank because it will be auctioned by higher margins below market value. Even though you might need to incur some costs to repair – hey, you got the house way the market value, meaning you are buying it cheaper than most people bought the same unit in the same neighbourhood. On a side note, “Lelong” is a term called by Malaysians as auctioned house.

According to Leslie Low, an auctioned specialist from Malaysia stated that an auctioned property would offer 30% to 40% below the market price based on The Star newspaper. Who would give you a property offer of 40% below market value? A decent newly launched terrace home these days costs RM 500,000. That means you’ll get an offer of RM 300,000 for the same property type – or even better.

How would you know if that property can make money?

Then you might ask, how do you buy a property that will make good investments? It’s simple! So long as it’s below market value, returns positive cashflows during rent, potential capital appreciation, within your usual place of hanging out or work, good neighbourhood and…. that area have a 5 year upgrading/expansion plan (check with your local developer) – then you are all set!

All the good signs are there already giving you the positive signals. Sometimes only that particular house looked all scary and dark but the other houses looked neat and tidy, that’s a sign of a good neighbourhood. Especially if it’s nearby public transport, malls, offices or any kind of public attraction. All these characteristics will definitely drive high population into that area making it having high demands for basic needs and wants – in our case it’s a roof over our heads. People would definitely need a place to stay.

How much money can an abandoned property make?

That actually depends on many factors. One of it is the marginal percentage below market price you are purchasing it. Let’s say you are buying a RM 500,000 worth of property at RM 300,000 during auction, you already have a capital appreciation gap of RM 200,000 there! Even though that capital appreciation will slowly catch up to the market value once the function of the house is fully recovered – hey, that means you are investing at a lower capital.

Wouldn’t it be great to invest a lower capital and have a high return? Everybody else is investing at higher price but still have a return approximately close to yours. Whose the winner? You are! But you still have to do your homework. You must know how much Return on Investments (ROI) that property makes, the future developments that area will undertake, who will be your target customers, and your overall costs short term as well as long term.

Not all properties can make great returns, what is a good property for you may not be the best property for another friend – always keep the foundations in mind. Have a read on 5 Traits of a good property to invest and get good rental to get general ideas on what is a good property to invest.

What is the best way to take advantage of the capital appreciation and low purchase price?

The magic word is “refinance” your house. The gap between market value (bank’s value of the said property) vs property purchase price = extra cash! There are two ways that I know of which is available in Malaysian and international banks – you can use term loans or an overdraft. Take an example of the same RM 500,000 property bought for RM 300,000 and after some time your property value had a capital appreciation to RM 700,000 because there is a new train station built in front of your neighborhood.  Then you decided to settle your loans fast and you apply “refinancing”.

The banks will reimburse you loans at the current market value of RM 700,000 – this will give you extra money to settle your old loan of RM 300,000 and on top of that, getting extra RM 400,000 (RM 700,000 – RM 300,000) that you can use to settle other outstanding loans (education or car) and you even use the extra money to invest in another property or open a new business!

But always bear in mind that the banks will always win. The amount of loans you get will need to be repaid on top of bank interest. Have a backup plan on how you will repay the bank loans before and after you utilized your loans. A good way to utilize your loans is to use it for matters that will improve your life financially such as settling outstanding loans (to avoid long term interest incur), start a profitable business, or to buy assets that can give positive cash flows in the future which outruns the bank loan installments itself. Good luck fellas!!

5 Simple Ways To Save Money

Financial opportunities are everywhere and it may come at anytime of your daily life – be it when you are ready or not ready. How do you take advantage of this? Sometimes you may be faced with great inconvenience – you needed medications, car broke down, or annual education fees. How do you prepare for this? It’s not rocket science, you have to prepare your savings – cash is king. Here are the 5 simple ways to save money.

1. Apply auto debit/ standing instructions

Every month I have set an automatic debit or as known as standing instructions (SI) which takes away a certain portion of money from my bank account. You would have to arrange the SI service with your associated banks. The best thing is the service have no fees at all! Simple right?

You can have the banks to take away your money at a specific date. So if your salary will come in every 29th of every month, you can have the bank to debit your bank account on the 1st of every month – just make sure you have enough money in your bank account. I would normally have the bank debit my bank account and transfer those amount directly into my compounding bank account. Why is this great? Not only does it feel less painful to save (because the bank’s do the savings for you) but you will be able to save and invest at the same time. Your money is growing every month in your bank account through compounded interest, you get yearly dividends, and to top it off – you make money while you sleep!

2. Withdraw only what you need at start of every month

This is a type of control I set for myself everytime I received my salary every month. I will withdraw fixed amount of cash that I deem necessary for that month – based on my monthly budget. For example,

Car fuel – $ 300

Families – $ 300

Foods – $ 300

Total = $ 900

Hence, based on the example, every month I withdraw $ 900 beforehand and stick very hard to the cash I have withdrew. The balanced money in my bank account will be splitted into savings and the other portion will be maintained in my salary bank account in case if I needed extra cash.

3. Have a piggy bank

Everyday I have allocated the maximum amount of money I can spend. Let’s say one day the maximum I plan to spend is $ 15 only and at the end of the day I still have $ 2 – I will put that $ 2 in my savings box.

This strategy actually helps as another filter on top of other saving strategies I have applied. At the end of the day I will deposit all the money in the savings box into my bank account. Well, it’s actually up to you – you can also try and buy good foods for your family or even give to charities. As the saying goes, giving to charity makes you richer. Do not wait till you become rich to start giving, give until you become rich.

4. Be your own chef, cook your own meal

I have been applying this for one year now and guess what? It is unbelievable how much money you can save! I try hard to cook my meals at home and bring it to office the next day.

I noticed that cooking meals that consists common ingredients saves lots of money and time – it’s a good time management technique. For example, cooking meals that have chicken and broccoli or fish for straight 3 or 5 days and switching ingredients every 1 or 2 days. Imagine if you can save $ 200 every month, that’s $ 2,400 a year!

5. Buy what’s necessary, spend little on wants

Sometimes you need that caramel frappe from Starbucks or that banana buzz from Boosts – go for it, buy it! It’s always alright to spend an extra something each month to make you happy, something that helps motivate you to work harder. Consider it a reward for yourself. However, try as much as possible to limit yourself and avoid overspending on things that can cumulatively cause financial leaks to yourself. You may not need to eat at that luxury restaurant every week, try around once a month. Another way to look at this is to buy on things that won’t burden you such as buying a house that is within your comfort financial zone – not a property that caused too much strain on your financials. All and all, save as many as you can while you can and leverage the savings into assets that can grow you money.

Should I Buy Property For Investment First Or Should I First Buy To Stay?

Before I started to get serious with property investments, I always have my mind set to buy a house but am always confused – should I stay right away? Or should I rent it out first? Then I think, “maybe..just maybe I can find a house that can do both! One that can be easily rent out and I can always choose to stay there when I’m ready – or so I thought”.

Turned out it wasn’t so easy to decide because if I choose to rent first, I might have to buy a smaller property first which is not in my interest. I don’t have much time to accumulate enough money to buy a landed house at that time – a landed house in a good location that can  be rent out while I hold no serious commitments and when I’m ready then I can just decide to move in.

On another hand, if I decide to buy my first house to stay then I might have to wait longer time to gain enough money to buy one decent house. Might take me another year.. Might take another 2 years – anything can happen within those years. I have this landed house that I marked my eyes on for quite a long time. It was in a neighbourhood I once grew up – it’s a peaceful place and located strategically in the centre of the small town I live in. But I know that by the time I accumulated enough money, the value of the houses there would jump higher than now.

The probability of not being to buy that house would be quite high and I might missed out better opportunities not buying cheaper properties for rent now. Why? Because the other property I had my eyes at that same time was another awesome apartment, quite small about 650 square feet, but in a prime area of Kota Damansara – a great place with many property boosters like hospitals, universities, malls and strong rental power.

It was quite a dilemma to decide which was the better options. So I studied how many property gurus who started from nothing and now end up making millions. I discovered that most of them started out by renting their homes – it was their first step to a financially free life. One of them was my coach who started from a small business helping his mother selling foods in a school canteen. He bought his first house before turning 25 and rented the house for 3 years before buying another one. All the hard work paid off as he became a property millionaire when he was already 30 years old by diversifying his rental incomes into various businesses and keep buying more properties along the way – pretty smart eyy!

All in all, it is actually up to you to decide whether you want rent first or stay first, why? Because everybody is different – if you have extra money, why not buy two houses (one for rent and one for staying), if you have limited funds then maybe you can consider renting it out first, or.. if you think you want to start a family then it may be better to buy for stay. There’s no right or wrong to this question because it is all up to your own preferences. The type of property that is the best for me may not be the best property for you.

The key takeaway I learnt is to use whatever you have..whatever was given to you – be it skills, money, assets, or anything you have and try to use them to provide value in the market. I listened to a talk by Jim Rohn – an exceptional motivational speaker, he advised that the fastest way to make huge money is to provide value to the market. I think that’s a good way to tune our minds to do good in life. When we provide value to the markets, we are practically solving societal problems. I hope this article helps you to have an idea of what you should do if you are ever in this situation because I did! Despite all the decisions you have to make, I know you’ll make the right choices – best of luck!

‘Should I Buy Property For Investment First Or Should I First Buy To Stay?

Before I started to get serious with property investments, I always have my mind set to buy a house but am always confused – should I stay right away? Or should I rent it out first? Then I think, “maybe..just maybe I can find a house that can do both! One that can be easily rent out and I can always choose to stay there when I’m ready – or so I thought”.

Turned out it wasn’t so easy to decide because if I choose to rent first, I might have to buy a smaller property first which is not in my interest. I don’t have much time to accumulate enough money to buy a landed house at that time – a landed house in a good location that can  be rent out while I hold no serious commitments and when I’m ready then I can just decide to move in.

On another hand, if I decide to buy my first house to stay then I might have to wait longer time to gain enough money to buy one decent house. Might take me another year.. Might take another 2 years – anything can happen within those years. I have this landed house that I marked my eyes on for quite a long time. It was in a neighbourhood I once grew up – it’s a peaceful place and located strategically in the centre of the small town I live in. But I know that by the time I accumulated enough money, the value of the houses there would jump higher than now.

The probability of not being to buy that house would be quite high and I might missed out better opportunities not buying cheaper properties for rent now. Why? Because the other property I had my eyes at that same time was another awesome apartment, quite small about 650 square feet, but in a prime area of Kota Damansara – a great place with many property boosters like hospitals, universities, malls and strong rental power.

It was quite a dilemma to decide which was the better options. So I studied how many property gurus who started from nothing and now end up making millions. I discovered that most of them started out by renting their homes – it was their first step to a financially free life. One of them was my coach who started from a small business helping his mother selling foods in a school canteen. He bought his first house before turning 25 and rented the house for 3 years before buying another one. All the hard work paid off as he became a property millionaire when he was already 30 years old by diversifying his rental incomes into various businesses and keep buying more properties along the way – pretty smart eyy!

All in all, it is actually up to you to decide whether you want rent first or stay first, why? Because everybody is different – if you have extra money, why not buy two houses (one for rent and one for staying), if you have limited funds then maybe you can consider renting it out first, or.. if you think you want to start a family then it may be better to buy for stay. There’s no right or wrong to this question because it is all up to your own preferences. The type of property that is the best for me may not be the best property for you.

The key takeaway I learnt is to use whatever you have..whatever was given to you – be it skills, money, assets, or anything you have and try to use them to provide value in the market. I listened to a talk by Jim Rohn – an exceptional motivational speaker, he advised that the fastest way to make huge money is to provide value to the market. I think that’s a good way to tune our minds to do good in life. When we provide value to the markets, we are practically solving societal problems. I hope this article helps you to have an idea of what you should do if you are ever in this situation because I did! Despite all the decisions you have to make, I know you’ll make the right choices – best of luck!

3 Surprisingly Creative Ways To Make Money From Properties

Generating money from property rental is always what most people will think of when they see a house. These days property investors must stretch their imagination and challenge themselves beyond the common investing paths. Just few months ago I came across an amazing book titled “Propreneur” which was published by MasteryAsia Property Series – I find the book brilliant! The book shared many ways of utilizing your properties to make profitable businesses and it’s a collaboration of many property experts from their respective area of expertise. Here I will share 3 creative ways to make best use of your property and make good money out of it.

Group of people working in a home space

1.Virtual Office and Serviced Office Business     

When it comes to virtual office, this would mean that the business entity or individual subscribing are only interested to obtain the corporate address and call handling services. Normally, those who subscribe to this services is due to its very low cost. How much? It can cost to only RM 35! But having a virtual office would also mean not having a physical office space such as meeting rooms, office spaces or the pantry. The type of people subscribing to this service are freelancers (ie. photographers, graphic designers, etc.), branch representatives (people who open branches in other areas but have too little staffs in the new branch), and startups (ie. friends who just started their first business after graduating). These people generally would not need physical space but they need the office address which is from their subscription of services with virtual office providers. Why is this important? When they present their business cards to their clients, they need a corporate address to attract clients’ confidence which is an important aspect to grow their business.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Service Office     

 With a service office, customers would be able to enjoy their personal physical space. This is surely better than virtual space and the advantage spans from readily available phone system, IT infrastructure, network coverage, and basic amenities such as water and electricity.  Renting a space will definitely have way better perks than just subscribing for a virtual office space. Normally such spaces are rented by multinational companies, branch or sales offices. However, buying such space to carry on this type of business would require an ideal location and have the right size of office depending which type of target customers you are aiming. Maybe you can start to have a look around for properties that can maximize your rental as a start – this is because running a service office would require similar booster indicators when you rent it out.

Dinosaur skeleton in a museum 

2. Tourist Attraction                                 

You may came across vacant properties when you were walking down the usual street to buy your daily groceries and you might think “who would stay or make even make use of this place?”. The windows are broken, holes in the ceiling, and high grasses all over the unit but truth is – you can turn it to better use! You just have to think outside the box.  We have a look at Steven Tan, a CEO of Inpromastery Sdn Bhd which he started at age 24 and has a vast portfolio of 158 properties within 7 years through group investment model – how did he do it? One of his project is turning a property into the first 3D art museum in Penang, Malaysia – a place that is famous with tourism. According to Steven, they receive approximately 1000 visitors on a normal day but the number boosts to 3000 visitors a day on festive seasons in addition to be able to achieve their ROI within a year.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Now that we know about the idea, what about the costs? From my personal view, I believe the costs of setting up these kinds of business depends on how big you want to launch your business. However, Steven’s business costs RM 1 Million which took about 5 shop lots to be able to cater up to high traffic in Penang. You might wonder, “how about recurring costs?” – well, it will take up RM 35,000 to RM 40,000 which covers areas such as staff salaries, property
rental, maintenance, and others. Making this business a success would require a great deal of research, know your target market, have a unique business idea, and a great mindset. You may even have to liaise with local taxi or bus drivers as part of your marketing to get the word spread about your business. None the less, the fun is seeing you and your business grow and feeling satisfied through the process.

Vacation home on a forest hill

3. Airbnb

Started since 2007, Airbnb has topped their revenue up to 2.6 Billion USD! I remembered what my property coach taught me, “when you venture into Airbnb, you have to think tourism!” – and in tourism, the best location to have your property is at places with entertainment, business, tourism and/or hospitals. In terms of which type of property to invest in for airbnb services would be apartments or small houses – why? On general, people who opts for airbnb services would normally prefer cheap places to stay but also offer an experience of living in another person’s home. However, there is no right or wrong to this – I have even met successful airbnb hosts that makes great ROI from his property and its a landed unit. However, I noticed that successful landed unit airbnb hosts are able to obtain such great ROI because their homes offer unique perks such as near to the beach or university where parents or families from other countries or states can have an overnight stay before their children’s graduation at the university. But then again, demands for vacation has always been there – the question is whether you want to make a serious business out of airbnb or doing it for fun, it can be either way or both!