foreclosure sales

You've undoubtedly seen these or study them. Glossy advertisements or four-color spreads in magazines and magazines promising to teach you all of the juicy information regarding successful real estate investing. And all you should do to learn every one of these real est investing surface encounters chuck russo secrets is to pay a rather high sum for a one-or two-day seminar.




Often these types of slick real estate investing classes claim that you could make intelligent, profitable property investments with absolutely no money lower (other than, of training course, the large fee you buy the seminar). Now, how attractive is which? Make a profit from real property investments you made out of no money. Possible? Not most likely.




Successful real estate investment requires cash flow. That's the character of almost any business or perhaps investment, especially real estate investing. You put your cash into a thing that you desire and plan is likely to make you more money.




Unfortunately too few newbies for the world of property investing think that it's the magical kind of business in which standard company rules don't apply. Simply set, if you would like to stay in real estate investing for a lot more than, say, a day time or a couple of, then you are going to have to come up with money to make use of and invest.




While it could be true which buying property with no money down is easy, anyone who is even made a basic real estate investment (like buying their particular home) knows there's far more involved in real-estate investing that can cost you money. For illustration, what concerning any necessary repairs?




So, the primary rule people new to real estate investing ought to remember would be to have accessible cash stores. Before you decide to actually carry out any real estate investing, save some cash. Having just a little money in the bank when you begin real est investing surface encounters chuck russo can help you make more profitable real estate investments in rental properties, for example.




When property investing within rental attributes, you'll want every single child select only qualified tenants. If you've no cash flow when real estate investing within rental properties, you may be pressured experience a a smaller amount qualified tenant since you need somebody to cover you money to enable you to take attention of repairs or attorney at law fees.




For any kind of real property investing, meaning rental properties or perhaps properties you purchase to resell, having money reserved can enable you to ask for a higher value. You can request a increased price out of your real estate investment because an individual surface encounters chuck russo won't feel financially strapped as you wait for an offer. You won't be backed into a corner and forced to accept just any offer because you desperately need the money.




Another downfall of several new to property investing is actually, well, greed. Make the profit, yes, but will not become so greedy that you simply ask regarding ridiculous local rental or second-hand rates on all of your real est investments.




Those not used to real est investing have to see property investing like a business, NOT a spare time activity. Don't believe that real property investing will make you abundant overnight. What enterprise does?




It will take about six months to determine if real estate investing set for you. If you might have decided in which, hey I really like this, then give yourself a few years to actually start making money. It typically takes at least five years being truly successful in real-estate investing.




Persistence is the key in order to success in real-estate investing. If you have decided that real estate investing is perfect for you, surface encounters chuck russo keep plugging away at it and the rewards will be greater than you imagined.

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

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



The Bad News Isn't Going Away

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

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

Good News (for Now)

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

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



What Happens Next?

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are three ways to do it:

1 – Check their reproductive organs

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

2 – See who goes on top

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

3 – Look at their faces

Yes, pigeons have faces just like humans.

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

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

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

Just like with pigeons.

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