He/she maybe an agent in disguise for the real gamblers - builders, owners, brokers, Stock/MF traders, bankers, manipulators of Dalal Street or Wall Street, etc. Keep aside the financial jargons; stock investments are no more than a "glorified version of traditional gambling". Chances are, when you think about investing in real estate or stock the first thing that comes to mind is to ask an investment expert or realty professionals, overriding your OWN common sense. Look at the housing market as a critic and just Calculate Cash Flow Return (Rental Income) and Future ROI (housing sale profit).
Also keep watching the BSE Realty Index and other similar trends. Reading the recent global market crashes and considering how manipulative the markets are, in general, the long-term success is not so rosy anymore for small investors… Many will surely take it otherwise, but that cannot change the ground realities, can it? Refer the early warning stories!
Taking clues from today's proliferated media to make important decisions can be a disaster, be logical. They are notorious for changing opinions as quick as the status of markets. Forget what the Kotaks, Investment Magazines, Experts, MagicBricks, NDTVs, 99Acres, Bankers, CNBCs, 2letservices, Consultants, RealEstateTimes, Yahoos, Googles,..etc are suggesting, look at the local market conditions! Yes, there are no monarchies in today's digital world, but the basics of what Canakya or Kautilya said in Arthasastra (read finance) cannot be mutated by few opportunists forever. Why will the market grow in your favor? Find an answer before jumping-in!
Historical returns are of little value in formulating return expectations, standard deviations and correlations: When past performance of stocks/bond or housing investments are used as inputs, the outputs of the analysis are portfolios which performed particularly well in the past. When beliefs of investment experts are used as inputs, we get the output as better or worse portfolios. Good and reliable advisory add value by constantly evaluating the investment planning implications of alternative economic scenarios, investment solutions and lifestyle choices, managing costs, and counseling a margin of safety in saving and investing your money. Anything less is bad practice, fire him/her!
For many people, their home is the single largest investment they will ever make. But have you ever stopped to consider that once you purchase a home it becomes part of your overall portfolio of investments. It is one of the most important decision as it can serve a dual role of an investment and your daily life passion. Though a home is one of the largest investments the average investor will purchase, there are other types of real estate investments worth investing in. The most common type is income-producing real estate. Large income-producing real estate properties are commonly purchased by high net-worth individuals and institutions, such as life insurance companies, real estate investment trusts and pension funds.
Income-producing properties are also purchased by individual investors in the form of smaller apartment buildings, duplexes or even a single family homes or condominiums that are rented out to tenants. Real estate is considered an alternative investment class compared to more speculative driven items like equity or bonds! Major difference is that real estate is an investment in the "bricks and mortar" of a building and the land. So it is tangible, because unlike most stocks you can see and touch your house, try it! This often creates substantial pride of ownership, but tangibility also has its downside because real estate requires hands-on management. You don't need to mow the lawn of a bond or unplug the toilet of your equity papers!
Some benefits of realty investments are diversification value, yield enhancement, inflation hedging, ability to influence performance, etc. An investor can do many things to a home to increase its value or improve its performance e.g. replacing the leaky roof, improving the exterior and re-tenanting the building with higher quality tenants. An investor has a greater degree of control over the performance of a real estate investment than equity investments, which are proved to be highly speculative-driven for the benefit of smart manipulators.
