Starting Your Affordable Property Investment

Most young workforce would think they are too young to start thinking about investment. They prefer to enjoy their life for several years before thinking to start an investment. Only if they know how precious and critical is an investment to their financial well being, they will immediately make an investment. Known people will ensure any first financial commitment should be an investment instead of protection (insurance) or worst a luxury (cars, credit cards, superbikes  etc.).

Figure 1: Rate of Prosperity: the more you invest, the more prosper you are, why?

Prior 2011, I had very little investment. My salary was always not enough although it was more than average people. I was not really happy but I did not know why. All I knew, my income was not sufficient. Like most people do, I spent more time to find additional income. Then, it came to my attention to increase my investment. As I increase my investment, my family well being getting better. I have more time to spend on other things. Early 2013, I made two major investment. I just got new tenants for the properties. Thus in 2014, I anticipate my family's life will improve much better. However, if I stop my investment in 2015, the inflation and additional expenses in my family will catch up with my investment income. Thus, my prosperity will be reduced.

However, making a hasty investment can make you easily trapped in a bad investment especially in a Quick Rich Scheme investment. Funny, how my acquaintances do not want to put effort and actions in any real investment, yet they can easily entice in a Quick Rich Scheme.  To make it worst, some of my acquaintances who made these bad investment are educated people including religious men. Sometimes, they forgot that having knowledge is not sufficient without any experience. Without experience, you can easily tempted in a bad investment. Nowadays, Quick Rich Schemes are getting more complex and creative to be understood by inexperience people. That is why you need to attend short courses on financial planning and the best is to have a mentor.

Many people cannot differentiate between businesses and investments. Both may have similarities, yet both need different set of critical thinking. So, if you really have realized that an investment is important, what type of investment is best for you? Everything is based on affordability. However, most people underestimate their affordability due to many waste in their expenditure. Throughout the ages and in many civilizations, property investment has been proven to be the best for those who need less hassle to face with human idiosyncrasy. And if a property investment is best for your personality profile, what are your steps? You should learn good principles in investment by asking successful people. But, you can learn good principles in investment at a faster learning curve by attending my short courses and personal mentoring.

As mention before, waste is an obstacle in your investment plans. Thus, personal financial planning is is critical: identify your expenditure and waste. It may not an exact science. Yet, if one know the psychology behind it, it is not that hard to control your expenditure. To learn the details and how to control your waste, you can attend my basic financial seminar. Without trimming your current and future waste, any additional future income will also be wasted. That is why we seen many high income people always claim that they cannot afford to buy a property either for their own use or for investment!

So, let us back to the most important topic. How to start an investment for anybody? Many people have misconception that saving is enough for them. Saving in your current account is not sufficient to generate additional income. You should look for a higher return investment such as ASB or Trust funds investment. It is a good start for those who have very little money to invest. Many people argue in Internet blogs between monthly saving in ASB and using a ASB loan. In reality, the actual calculation of a ASB loan is far profitable than if you save your money monthly in your ASB account. Most of the ASB loan calculation I have read in Internet blogs are flawed. I will share the detail calculation between both of them to those who attend my short courses.

Many people also have misconception that property investment is only for the rich people. In UTM Skudai, we have a staff who at one time, the income was less than RM2,000 per month. Yet today, he has more than 20 houses. Everything is based on your affordability. If you cannot start high, you should start low. To start an investment is difficult. Once you get the investment return, you will learn how to improve on another investment. How much are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your investment goals before you can reap the fruit of your investment? You need to make the investment plans based on your affordability. The plans must be more than one. The plans must also cater for different scenarios and circumstances. The plans must have best and worst scenarios. Plans must be updated as time goes on. You can spend your entire life to learn many plans from different successful people. But, without sufficient minimum basic investment knowledge, it is hard to know what to ask from them. Therefore, you can save your miserable life faster by attending short courses. I offer different type of plans, strategy and tactics for different background of people in my basic and intermediate short courses of Affordable Property Investment. If you still don't get it, you can sign up for the mentoring program. The hardest part in an investment is how to make a good plan.

Most people don't plan to fail,

But, they fail to plan!

If you do not have any plan and just follow other people's plans, you can easily made a bad investment. But, you can follow other people's plan provided you really understand the plan, make your own contingency plans and be prepared. Thus, if the situation get worst, you should know what to do ASAP. In many occasion, people made slow respond to a bad situation which made the situation worst.

If you have made all proper plans and take all necessary actions, 

only then you can DOA and TAWAKAL.

Happy investing!

Affordable Property Investment Seminar

The Seminar was conducted by Wise Path Sdn Bhd with the collaboration from Investment Club of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) on Sunday 17 November 2013 at UTM Skudai, Johor. The main purpose of the seminar was to educate and encourage people to buy property either for home use or investment as soon as possible. Property investment is a misconception where most people taught it is for rich people only. Different level of income can invest in property if the principles of investment is fully fulfilled.

So, this short course is more suitable for beginner (those who have not buy any property or only have 1 or 2 properties). Property price keep increasing in Malaysia and especially very high increment in Klang Valley, Penang, Johor Bahru and Kota Kinabalu. In Johor Bahru, the property price escalate due to the success of IRDA (Iskandar Regional Development Authority). There are five zones of development in Malaysia. UTM is in zone E which is Senai-Skudai zone.

Figure 1: Morning session

As the main speaker, I started the short course with the need to invest in order to avoid rat race in our life. There were several issues being pointed out which were not discussed in any seminar. This is very important because if one really realize why their life getting worse or never improve financially, they should realize property investment is one of the best investment to do as their spare time. In Malaysia, property price will never go down unless the world wide economy went down like in 1998 or the country became a communist country!

This topic is followed with the next topic on the Successful Principles in Investment. Many people realize that there is a need to invest. However, in their eagerness to invest, they forget to apply sound investment principles. As a results, many people lost their money. This is especially true for lesser knowledgeable people. They simply follow other to invest and lost their capital. Many people were cheated in Quick Rich Scheme (Skim Cepat Kaya) in various forms and origins. In order to learn more, I encourage participants to read The Richest Man in Babylon. I have translated the book into Malay language since the original book is using King James English style which is difficult to comprehend for average people.

Beside learning sound principles in investment, participants also learned pit falls in investment especially in property investment. The Power of Mind is crucial in property investment where the concept of Doa and Tawakal was discussed. All essential works must be done first before one can Tawakal to ensure success. They are encouraged to read a book titled The Sword of Allah. The book was written by the late Lieutenant-General A.I. Akram of the Pakistan Army, in October 1969. Although the book is about Muslim wars with Persian and Roman, there are many practical aspect can be learned and adopted in life especially property investment. Participants are encourage to learn the basic as fast as possible so that it is much easier for them to ask around and learn from more experience investors.

After lunch break, Mr Zabri Mokhtar, a multimillionaire in property investment gave his taught. He is not a trained or experience speaker. He touched on philosophical and psychological views based on his experience. He encourage participants to have a huge dream. It is easy to have a small dream. But having a huge dream can ensure at least we can achieve something bigger than the original small dream. His talk became more interesting as more audience ask about his property investment experience. He discussed the strategies he used which lead to his meteoric rise in property investment. However, due to several government regulations, some of his method cannot be used anymore. Participants are advice to keep update the latest government regulations.

Figure 2: Mr Zabri gave pieces of his mind

The short course was passed back to me by showing recent examples how to minimize the capital in property investment. Knowing the tricks, it is much easier to buy a house even if it is more than half a million Ringgit Malaysia. However, the most important thing in property investment is how to ensure to get quality property. This also means how to ensure the buyer is able to service the bank loan. Combining a quality property and sound strategy to get tenants, the property can easily generate profit to the buyer. For further study, participants are encouraged to visit developments at Taman Pulai Hijau, Bandar Baru Kangkar Pulai and Taman Seri Pulai Perdana 2 for comparison.

Many people have misconception that property investment is for the rich. In the morning, it was shown that capital is the 5th out of 6 principles in investment. There are people who have less salary which manage to have many investment in property. These people concentrate on less expensive property such as auction low cost house. However, to give some idea how to prepare their capital, several idea on zero down payment tactics were discussed by Mr Zabri and me. I also gave two recent property purchased to demonstrate the investment principles learned in the morning.

Based on this short course, it is now easy for the participants to buy a house based on their affordability. However, as beginners they should realize that it is much harder to maintain the property or paying back the bank loan. Several tactics and strategies to ensure the property can generate income were discussed. However, for some people further detail study is needed in the Intermediate Affordable Property Investment course.

Figure 3: With two participants

The short course was supposed to end at 5 pm. However, due to many questions from the participants at the end of the course, the course was ended at 6.30 pm! It looks like the mixed participants from undergraduate students, graduate students and those who are working in various fields lead to different kind of interesting questions.

Figure 4: Surprise gift to 3 winners

The short course was priced at RM200 per head. This included breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. It is considered cheap compared to the similar short courses conducted in Kuala Lumpur where a one day short course has a minimum cost of RM500 per head. We are planning to organize another basic short course. While the intermediate short course will show in detail for different scenarios how a property investment can be made and planning for good returns.

I would like to thank Mr Zabri for his willingness to spend some time to give a talk. As a very successful property investor, participants and myself learned a lot from his experience. I would also like to thank to the organizing committee. Although the team is small, they have done a superb job!

Figure 5: With Mr Zabri and organizing committee