The Truth About Real Property Investing

By Arthur Butler

Real estate is often advertised as the hot way to make quick money. While real estate investments can be extremely financially rewarding, it takes hard work, patience, and perseverance to be successful.

The television show "Flip That House" makes property flipping sound easy. But in reality, this type of business, and real estate investments in general, can be difficult and risky. If you are going to go into real estate, it's important to avoid certain mistakes.

The best and most important thing you can do as a real estate investor is make solid plans before your first investment.

It is unwise to simply see a house for sale and decide to buy it. That house might tie up al your assets so that you can't improve the property, might be in a poor location for rental purposes, or might take more time to sell than you can afford. Instead, prior to investing in real estate, you need to make a budget.

Your budget should include how much money you can afford to keep tied up in a home (you need to have adequate cash flow to pay for renovations, property managers, or other expenses) and how much time you can afford to spend dealing with this property. Sometimes a real estate investment will take up to twice as long to come to fruition as you expect, so it's important to make sure you can wait that long to see profits.

Once you have your budget set, consider the type of property you want to buy. You may be interested in home flipping--fixing up low-cost properties to sell at high profit. If so, your best bets will probably not be located in the same neighborhoods as homes meant to be used as rental properties or converted to bed-and-breakfasts.

This may be true at the beginning, when you're dealing with just one investment. Even that can be overwhelming, as you will soon see. You have to find the right piece of real estate, finalize the purchase, take care of maintenance and repairs, find renters or buyers, and so on. You also have to deal with tax laws and monthly mortgage payments. If your business becomes successful and you decide to make several investments at once, your workload will quadruple.

This is also why it's important to research properties prior to purchase. Learning about the home's history, the type of neighborhood, and how costly it will be to maintain or repair will help you avoid making foolish purchases.

MYTH #4: The real estate investment business consists entirely of flipping pieces of real estate .

Similarly, don't try to do everything yourself. Real estate is certainly not a one-man enterprise, and if you try to make it one you will just get burned out. Real estate can make you and your team plenty of money; there's no reason not to let other people help you.

Real estate is an exciting, lucrative, dynamic business. Go in armed with the facts and you may find yourself reaping handsome profits. - 23204

About the Author:

Arranging investment property loans has become increasingly difficult throughout the credit crisis, and not many are under the illusion that things will become any easier quickly. The property investment market is still a risky proposition, and proper planning needs to be undertaken.

Treating Currency Trading As A Business

By Ahmad Hassam

If you are currently trading for a living or want to take on trading as a future substitute of a current job, then you should remember to take trading as a business. You need to treat it as a business.

How are you going to treat trading as a business? You need to give some consideration to the fact that how you are going to deduct your monthly expenses such as your computer equipment, your quote feed, your DSL line, travel to investment conferences and continuing education seminars. You should think whether you need to form a private limited company or a public limited company.

You should seek advice from a tax specialist so that you can take advantage of all the regular and necessary expenses as business deductions. This can help you save thousands of dollars annually.

After you have consistently started making money in the market, it would be heart breaking to know that you cannot make expense deductions that could literally save you thousands of dollars.

Lets see what your expenses can be as a forex trader: You need to have a room where you have the required peace for trading. Then you have to have equipment that includes desktop computers, printers, laptop for travel and so one. Lets say these things cost you $5000. Suppose you rent a small one room office that could cost you like $500-1000 per month.

Attending investment conferences can provide you with lot of good trading ideas. You attend an investment conference that might cost you $1000 roundtrip airfare plus $500 per night for the night stay at a hotel. A price quote feed might cost you like $200 per month. You need a good DSL connection for your trading, $50 per month for the DSL expense.

If you have business entertaining expenses and went to two investment conferences per year, you could be taking as little as $5000 to $25,000 per year in actual business expenses that could be deducted if you are running trading as a business.

Do you have a business plan? What business plan you have in place to protect the money you make in the market. If you are a small time investor and decide that trading for a living is something that interests you, you should think do you have the financial resources, time and emotional makeup to trade full time.

As a long term trader what will you do when the market conditions change according to your system or methods? You need to cover your cost of living expenses, mortgage payments as well as your business expenses.

Forex dealers provide free charts and quotes. But you have to cover the bid-ask spread each time you trade as a trading cost. The forex market offers you a unique opportunity to participate on a pay as you go method because there are no commissions.

You need to keep this in mind that trading is not free. Suppose you are a day trader, you trade twice a day with a 2 pips bid-ask spread. Suppose you trade 10 lots ($100,000) each trade. So your daily trading cost will be $400 = (2) (2) (10) (10). If there are 200 trading days in a year, it means $80,000. Not to talk of your actual trading losses, first you need to cover $80,000 as your trading cost annually. - 23204

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try Strignano's Forex Signals free. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System!

Personal Budgeting Can Help You Avoid Financial Ruin!

By Emma Elvie

We decided to share some tips about personal budgeting in hopes of being able to provide some valuable tips and advice that can save you from financial ruin and filing bankruptcy. Listed below are several tips that will enable people to save more money.

Money Saving Coupons: This should be one of the most important rules when it comes to personal budgeting. Why you ask? If you take the time to get your hands on some money saving coupons you will be amazed at how much money you can save each time you do your shopping when you reach the checkout line.

Buying in bulk: Consider buying your favorite items that you eat a lot in bulk so that you can save money in the long run. We all know that there are usually great specials going on with items such as, toiletries, canned foods, shampoo and other items that do not have an expiration date. This is an ideal plan since it can help you save money down the road.

Start collecting and saving your pocket change each day this is great for helping you with your personal budgeting plan. In fact before you even realize it all that loose change will add up to an extra $50 or $100 each and every month.

Personal budgeting means that you want to save everything that you can and the truth is that most people do not give their loose change any thought. However when you become serious about your personal budgeting plan then you will find that everything counts regardless how big or small.

Put a portion of each paycheck into a savings count each week or month. Whether its a few dollars or several hundred, always make sure that you are putting aside some amount of money into a savings account. If possible, deposit 10-20% from each paycheck.

Impulse shopping: People who do this type of shopping usually end up regretting the fact that they did it. If you want to avoid buyers remorse then the next time you want to make a purchase; take some time out. If you stop and take a couple of days before making the purchase you will be able to think rationally to see if you can afford it or not.

Shop the sale racks: Everyone enjoys sprucing up their wardrobe now and then so, when it comes time to add a few new pieces of apparel, stop by the sale rack for big savings. There is nothing wrong with keeping a few extra dollars in your pocket, which can be later be used for life's little essentials.

We have provided you with just a few of the personal budgeting tips that have seemed to help people avoid bankruptcy. Be sure to stop by and visit the site below for more great tips and resources that you can use to get your finances back under control. - 23204

About the Author:

Best Ways To Save Money That Have Been Proven! Budgeting Tips

Are Automated Expert Advisors (EAs) Worth Considering?

By Ash Naeck

If you are familiar with Forex, I bet this is one of those questions that got your brain juices running.

At the start of my trading career, I spent countless hours looking for what I believe would be a perfect Expert Advisor. One with small draw-downs, good returns and that could make consistent profit in any market conditions. To cut this story short I had set myself for a never ending quest. The word "holy-grail" simply does not exist in the Forex world and it took me a lot of time and a large amount of wasted cash to realize this fact.

Why are we so obsessed about Automated Expert Advisors?

Below are some of the main reasons why traders are attracted to Automated Expert Advisors:

- System is on autopilot

- No thinking involved

- More time to relax

- Emotion free

- Easy to install

- No need for experience

- Improve trading system

The above, outline the main points why traders seek the use of an Automated Expert Advisor. They do look attractive when put that way; however you should also consider the negative aspects as well.

If you have done your home-work, you would know by now that there are numerous automated Forex providers on the net. They all claim the same thing, to make insane money in no time. Some of their famous selling pitches include:

- Make money on autopilot - No experience required

- No experience needed- start making money in minutes

- Make a daily $500 on autopilot

- Plug in and make money in a matter of minutes

If all these were true we would all be filthy rich by now and I wouldn't have spent thousands of dollars on useless Expert Advisors that do not work. The reality is that most of those expert advisors are in plain English B.S. The chance of you losing money is much higher than you making money.

If you have stumbled across this article before making any purchase consider yourself as being lucky. I am among the few people out there that will tell you the truth about Expert Advisors. Most expert advisors are just a waste of money. They don't and will never work. If they did, all the major Banks and Hedge Funds would sack their entire FX department and use those robots instead.

The fact is that banks and the big institutions rely heavily on their currency traders to take advantage of the Forex market. They understand that the currency market is way too unpredictable and volatile to allow a robot to be in control. Market conditions change all the time and the only way to adapt to those changes is to have a human mind in control. A robot for instance cannot bend the rules and thus does not cope well if conditions of market changes violently.

Forex robots are many a time designed my mathematicians or engineers who believe they cracked the code to Forex trading. Well no offence to them but if they have already cracked the code, why am I still not profitable. You see the nature of the Forex market is such that changes in market conditions cannot be predicted. This is due to news, catastrophes, political changes etc Do you believe those robots can take all those changes into account?

Here are some of the points to take into account when investing in a Forex Robot:

- Who developed the system? (make sure he/she is a well-known Forex trader with substantial experience in Forex trading)

- Has the system been tested on a live account? If yes what are the monthly returns.

- How long has the system been in use?(2 years minimum)

- What is the maximum risk exposure?

- Maximum draw-downs on each trade.

If all the above questions check out okay then you got yourself a winner.

In my early days, I spent a considerable amount of money searching for the right expert advisor. To cut a long story short I ended up with less money than what was promised by the people selling those robots. I hit rock bottom at that stage and nearly gave up on those so called Expert Advisors when a veteran trader I knew advised me to try a product designed by a guy named Ashkan bolour.

At this point I had no clue who this guy was, so after some research I came to know that he was a highly respected and successful Forex trader. He had featured in many trading shows and books and was a veteran money manager. He had an automated system that had good reviews and which seemed fairly priced. So I decided to give it a shot.

Well the results were quite amazing. It was not a system making 500% or even 100% return each month but it was making some very consistent profits with small draw-downs. If ever you are looking for a proven system backed by consistent profit made on live accounts, Ashkan Bolour's system, the FXprofit Mountain is a must. - 23204

About the Author:

To learn more about this amazing Forex robot go to the Forex Expert Advisors section of ForexTradingDomain.com for a review of all the Forex Systems out there.

Covered Call Has Risks

By Maclin Vestor

A covered call strategy is great, as it can allow you to get your income back, and put it to work elsewhere quickly. In addition, time value is certain, and covered calls will allow you to collect this value while speculators betting on a stock rising beyond the option price plus what they paid for the option will have to pay this amount to you no matter what. Even if the stock does go beyond this point, you don't incur a loss; instead, you miss out on potential gains. This can cause a covered call strategy to be more stable. You ultimately want the stock to expire at the money as this will allow you to collect the full premium, and still own the stock. Anything above this and your gains of your stock will cover the loss of the call and your gain will ultimately be the same. However, if it goes higher, you will have to repurchase your shares at a higher price, although selling another call against them will result in a higher premium.

Some covered calls will yield a 10% monthly return based on it's time value premium that you collect, meaning that in 10 months you will have your initial investment back if you can successful receive the full time value. The risk is not that the stock goes up in value and that you miss out on potential gains, as the yield will be roughly the same after appreciation, but that the stock goes down dramatically in value. However, you cannot lose more than your initial investment minus the full premium. This is a major point that critics of the covered call strategy often miss, as they say it has "the same risk profile as selling naked puts." This means that if you sell a put you are un-hedged, and if the stock goes to zero, you are also limited to the loss of the strike price minus zero times $100. Where a put owner will gain $100 per share ($10000 per contract) if a $100 stock goes to 0, a put seller will have to pay the put owner this $10,000 per contract. Selling puts is dangerous because people generally do not manage money well. The top 10% of people own the other 90% of wealth generally because the top 10% have learned to manage their money better than the other 90%.Selling puts is dangerous, because if you sell a $100 put for $500 your gain is capped to $500 per contract for a given length of time, and your potential loss is $10,000. Now a covered call owner may be capping his gain to lets say $500, and if the stock goes to zero, he is also going to potentially lose $10,000. So why is a covered call generally less risky? The reason why is that unless the seller of the put has $10,000, then he risks going on margin. In addition to actually having to have put up what the buyer affords to risk, The buyer of the stock not only is required to have that 10,000 before he can buy 100 shares of $100, but even someone with a limited understanding of risk management will do at least something to manage risks, even if it's still investing a high percentage such as 20% of the income that loss is limited to 20% of the portfolio. Technically that buyer should risk only a smaller percentage of his capital. A seller of a put receives $500, but to collect $500 and have to leave $50,000 to the side doesn't seem naturally as rational. People that invest in a covered call buying a stock for $10,000 and collecting a $500 premium and invest the remaining $40,000 will be risking less than someone who sells a naked put, but invests the remaining cash. Of course the reason is, the put seller has to have $10,000 to cash if the stock goes to zero.

However, there's an even greater difference. In the event of a loss when the stock doesn't go to 0, the covered call seller experiences a paper loss; where as a put seller experiences a real loss. The covered call owner might put up $10,000 and that $10,000 suddenly is only good for $8,000 and all he has received is the $500 premium for the covered call. However, if this person has done the research and determined that the stock is undervalued, and is currently in a panic due to margin calls and forced selling, and that the fundamentals are good, the covered call owner still owns the 100 shares of the stock that they determined to be worth $140 at $100. Technically the put seller could choose to buy that same stock at $100 which is now worth $80, and put up the money rather than take the $20 per share loss. However, the covered call owner has likely researched the stock, has determined it to be undervalued and intends on owning this stock anyways. The put seller doesn't want to own this stock, instead expects the stock to remain neutral, and just wants to collect the $500. If the covered call owner was wrong, that means the stock goes lower than he expects, however that doesn't mean that the stock still wouldn't be undervalued even more so. If the put seller is wrong, the put seller will have to buy 100 shares of an $80 stock at $100. It may just seem like semantics, but the covered call owner already has bought the stock where as the put seller may not really believe he has to buy the stock. A put seller gets paid to buy the stock at a set price, where the covered caller gets paid to own the stock. Psychologically, it's a lot easier for a put seller to say "well I'm a good investor I think, my bet is probably right, I don't need to worry about the fact that the stock might drop in value because I don't think it will. I don't need to do more research, and oh, by the way, this extra $10,000 on the side, I can invest it elsewhere because I'm a good investor, and I'm not going to lose. An over confident put seller can lose everything in the account and then some with even a drop from $100 to $80, where as a covered call owner who is over confident will probably only lose a maximum of the amount he owns in that individual stock minus the price of the stock, and that's if the stock goes to all the way to zero.

In many ways they are a similar strategy betting a stock won't go up beyond a certain point, and that it won't go down beyond a certain point. But a person who writes a covered call will be forced to have the money to pay for it and on maximum in a margin account that person can only go on 2:1 margin. If a covered call buyer with $10,000 risked $20,000 they might need to transfer some money from their bank to their stock account and come up with $10,000

If someone sells puts, they are not technically on margin until a major loss occurs, however, if they sell 10 covered calls of a stock at $100 at $500 each, they risk losing $100,000 if it goes to zero. Put sellers most likely think that has a low probability of happening. Covered callers may think the same thing is true, the difference is, covered callers can never bet more than twice what they have even on margin, and most people won't go on margin anyways simply because they don't have the account set up to. Put sellers will usually HAVE to have a margin account to sell puts.

Selling puts requires a more sophisticated understanding as well, and when lost in the technical, I believe it's easier to forget about what you are betting on happening. If you sell an out of the money covered call, you are betting on it going down less than what you received for the option, or going up to the strike price (or higher, but gain is capped). If you already own a stock, it's easier to understand that you are trading upside potential for income, where as put sellers are risking money they don't have committing to buying a stock at a certain price no matter what betting that a stock will do the same thing essentially. But leveraged buyers and sellers are generally not the type that likes to have money on the sideline.

Naked call seller as are collecting income but if the stock goes up, they have unlimited risk since they do not own the stock that will cover them in case the stock goes higher. Selling a naked call could potentially result in unlimited margin. However in order for a stock to go unlimited gains, it has to have an unlimited amount of money put into it. This does not happen, especially to the largest of large cap stocks that are already heavily owned on heavily leveraged companies... However, large amounts of cash reserves still are needed, as large caps still appreciate in value, sometimes significantly. Being un-hedged and selling any sort of shares "naked" is not recommended. In theory there may be an identical hedged strategy, but in practice it just doesn't work out the same way. - 23204

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about stock market investment advice. You can even learn about finance, money management, and figuring out finance at his blog.