HOW TO CLARIFY YOUR THINKING IN MAKING REAL ESTATE DECISIONS

After 28 years of helping people buy and sell I have found that, in modern times a lot of people suffer from what Zig Ziglar referred to as “stinkin’ thinkin’”.
Real estate salespeople are often heard to lament “Why can’t they make up their minds?”.
Hopefully the following will help, having been gained from a variety of the best trainers in the world as well as my own experience.
My first suggestion is;
Divide a piece of paper vertically with a line.
Put a heading on the left “Lifestyle”
Put a heading on the right “Investment”

The primary reason people get confused is that they try to combine these two without giving priorities.
For example if you are going to invest in a property for some years but also want to retire to the property you may find the best investment property you don’t ever want to live in and the home you would die to live in will be a poor investment.
Once you have the investment vs lifestyle columns sorted you can give them priorities.
As an example, if a retired couple are moving because one of them has health problems then the primary reason for selling is one of lifestyle. Given this, they should give a low priority to whether prices are up or down, assuming of course they can afford the move.
I have seen many couples who are divorcing let the property deteriorate in order to harm the other party without paying heed to the fact they are also hurting themselves. The best approach if they can’t agree on how to split the proceeds is to sell the property while it is still presentable and have the Settlement Agent put the proceeds in a trust account while they sort out who gets what.
Let’s look at some lifestyle versus investment decisions.
Reducing the mortgage so one party can stop work – lifestyle.
Health issues – lifestyle.
Inability to accept current values – investment.
Trying to pick the top/bottom of the market – investment.
Buying a special rural property – lifestyle.
Comparing the current value to the top of the market instead of the difference between what you paid and the current value – investment.
Hopefully this may help someone get to the stage where they can move on.

Ross Cutten

Owner / Director

Noble Real Estate

AN INTERESTING FACT ABOUT REAL ESTATE AGENTS

 

AN INTERSTING FACT ABOUT REAL ESTATE AGENTS

Most of our owners of properties in our rental department are heading towards being better off in their retirement planning than most real estate agents in Australia according to Robert Bevan of Best Practice, one of Australasia’s foremost trainers.
The reason is that 60% of real estate agents have a return of 5% from their businesses after taking out their personal sales and have no assets when they retire.
The next 30% have better returns but still no assets.
How can this be?
I think the simple answer is that they are like the average person in this country....living to 110% of their income.
The other reason is that they often fail to follow their own advice or fail to understand the way to achieve a financially secure future.
My experience is that people trying to get ahead fail to understand some basic principles of securing a comfortable retirement.

The kinds of boring things like
1. Make a plan
2. Stick to the plan
3. Understand that there is a direct relationship between risk and return.
4. One of the key features of any sound plan is to protect what you already have through insuring your income and life.
5. Understand the rule of 72.
6. Decide what you are prepared to give up to get what you want.
7. Never stop learning.
8. If it sounds too good to be true...it probably is.
9. Understand the difference between speculating and investing.
10. Only speculate with money you can afford to lose.

If you ever care to discuss your ideas about the above you can always contact me on
rosscutten@noblerealestate.com.au

Ross Cutten

Owner / Director

Noble Real Estate