Defending Debt by John Landon

Nicola says: I’ve been in conversation with John Landon from Pier Properties recently, who sent me a great article on Debt, for me to share with you.  John is an experienced property investor who, like all of us, is trying to help other people get their head around concepts that seem alien at first, but which have the power to change your life.  First though, you have to be willing to open your mind a little bit.

Defending Debt by John Landon

By chance last week, I found myself defending debt on three separate occasions. Twice, the conversations referred to mortgages when friends were discussing their borrowings and how they were trying to pay them off as fast as possible. I firstly had to decide whether we had time for the inevitable debate. So often, anyone with a fixed view that all debt is bad and should be paid off as fast as possible, takes a lot of convincing of the alternative approach.

So what is that debate?

I suggest they think of it as someone else providing them with the funds to invest in the property market – which in the UK is a very good place for your own money, let alone someone else’s being invested so you can get the profit. Sometimes that statement does the trick and the penny drops, but it often needs further explanation.
That debt declines in real term value every year. As your house increases in value – traditionally doubling within ten years – the mortgage that may have accounted for 90% of the house’s value at purchase, halves in proportion over the same period. (90% at purchase becomes 45% of the house’s value within ten years; 22.5% within twenty years and so on). Your equity grows in direct proportion. This is why residential investors only use interest-only mortgages. They don’t want to pay more than necessary for their borrowing so don’t worry about paying off the debt – they just let it decrease naturally as a proportion of the increasing value of their investment. They know that what appears to be a very high borrowing on day one, will quickly reduce as a proportion of the property’s value over time.

A personal example: I raised £300K mortgage to buy my office premises. The cost of the mortgage payments at the time were marginally higher than the rental would have been. I recall a friend pulling my leg at the time about paying more to own the premises than just renting it  – ‘some businessman you are..!’  Within four years, the property had doubled in value to £600K. Since I bought it, the rental cost in this building has increased by about 25%. I’ve thought about telling my friend but decided against it.
All this should illustrate the point that when you buy a property you instantly become an investor in the UK property market. Whether you are buying BTL or your home, the market plays by the same rules of economics regardless of your reason to own your property. As a result, you should always be thinking like an investor, which leads to the conclusion that perhaps you should not be paying off your mortgage – ever. Or even selling your home.

Read more..

37 Reasons | Actually 53 (Tickets Left That Is….)

With a small posse of Money Gymers I am just off to a Big Issue gigcalled Real Lives Real Achievements, hankies at the ready no doubt.  And I am running again through a ginormous To Do List for Saturday and making up another 20 goody bags.  Steve and I have synchronised our delegate lists and at the last count (Tuesday mid-day) we are agreed on 146 delegates.  And abundant Rebecca Ballard has offered to turn them into badges with me.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

If you are one of those 146 who has booked already or volunteered your help in any way, however small, on behalf of the Big Issue and the Money Gym thank you so much for your abundance and your support for our project.

I am thrilled skinny to notice that out of the 146, all but 60 are known to me personally because they have been to one of our events before, or are Money Gym Silver, Gold or Platinum clients. Three I met at Rent2Own, three are property chaps, eight are personal clients and their partners, ten I have played Cashflow with, two have been to a Money Gym Let’s Talk Money day, two came to an EFT event, two are my Creative Entrepreneur partners, five are members of the Property Boardroom, three were stand-out members of the Women Talk Money team, one is Brett’s Next Level speaker trainee plus her partner, one is involved in the Money Gym Magic project, two I have met over the phone, there’s a husband, a partner and a sister and someone I once sat next to at an event! Phew.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

But I know them all, that’s my delicious point. All initially cyber friends and colleagues, now they are real people in my peer group who know different stuff from me about property, who want to teach and learn and just be there to meet the rest of you. And I love them for coming along to this, lending their support and looking forward to a cracking day out as we all are now.

Can you see the value of a network? Can you feel the value of creating a Property Network which will support you in your resolve after the Property Extravaganza day? Recently our Money Gym clients have been creating local buddy groups to support their route to Financial Freedom and I was reminded yesterday, yet again, while listening to Think and Grow Rich about the importance of a Mastermind Team. But in order to connect, you have to show up, either offline or online. You have to reach out to others so they know you and how you can help and how they can help you.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

So, let me tell you about my plans on Saturday for One Networking Minute.

We have five 15 minute gaps during the day between speakers and in those slots I want to get 10-12 people on the stage each time and given them one minute to explain to a Money Gym property audience who they are, who they can help and what help they need.

I will get the Money Gym Golds and Platinums to do that near Nicola’s slot so they can help her pull the raffle tickets out of the pot for the Money Gym prizes.

I will get the Property Boardroom chaps to do that all together too so they can help me pull out my own prizes for the audience.

And so on.

So if you have time to rehearse your 60 seconds on stage and want one of those 50-60 slots on a first-come first served basis, then do plan your minute in the spotlight. It will be informally done as during those breaks some will be popping off to the loo, speakers will be being de-mic’d and re-mic’d, some will be following the speakers to the break-out rooms for a follow-up question or two and some of you will be hunting down a cup of cha.

But again, in the spirit of the day, it should be fun.

You have been warned. My Cleaning Biz partner Emma is in charge of marshalling you all onto the stage (and she’s an official yacht racing marshal with stopwatch); more details at the first break and on your schedules.

So, the 60 of you I don’t know yet, I shall look forward to putting faces to the names on Saturday.

Oh, and to meeting the two “famous” folk in the audience  – David Gray and George Bush. Not the real ones methinks, but our real ones – you never know? Presumably GB is looking for a new job!

Best Wishes
Judith

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

PS Whilst writing this one more ticket sold, 147!   So if you ARE intending to come, please book now and bag your seat, your one moment on the stage, and lots of wonderful new ways to make your fortune/pension in property.

37 Reasons | The Good News About Property – Part #4

Day Four in my Series 37 Reasons to attend our Money Gym Property event on 21/3/09 in Central London.

Only 80 tickets left, that’s 40 really as most of you are buying x2 to get the 90 day trial of The Money Gym Silver Level for free!

This is generally accepted to be a year of unprecedented buying opportunity in the property markets around the world. Our speakers will demonstrate why that is and why we should be brave now and swim against the tide, although it IS turning…

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

Here are Judith’s Top 10 Reasons all about Opportunity.   Are you an Opportunist?

1. Because Warren Buffet says he feels “like a hungry mosquito in a nudist camp” right now and you want a piece of that action too.

2. Because you want to learn how to become a better Property Entrepreneur, negotiator, sales person, referrer or sourcer

3. Because you want to create a Property Business – part-time or full-time

4. Because you want to understand how to evaluate an investment opportunity

5. Because you want your One Networking Minute on our stage that day

6. Because you want to meet Martin Roberts off the telly and Rick Otton and all our experts in the flesh, real people who have done what you are about to do

7. Because you want to play Devil’s Advocate at the end of the day Q & A panel session – go on, you know you want to be the one to ask THE most unanswerable question!

8. Because you want to do just one property deal, or just one more

9. Because it’s a great place to find a hot date with a hot property investor!   The Money Gym’s Clients are 80% women – and none of them are looking to you to be a meal-ticket.

10. Because you just know in your bones that this is the right time to invest, and more importantly because it’s the right time for you.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

Until tomorrow…

Judith

PS   There’s even a prize for the person who comes up with the best reason for NOT being able to get into property

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

37 Reasons | The Good News About Property – Part #3

Day Three in my series about my favourite 37 Reasons why you might come to our Money Gym Property Extravaganza in London on 21st March in aid of the Big Issue. The Incentives. The Bribes. And what whoppers they are!

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

In no particular order of importance – you must rate that for yourself:

1. Prizes totalling £42,500 and rising – from a holiday in one of the overseas investment properties, to portfolio places worth £10,000, to mentoring, books, Wembley tickets, coaching sessions, Belgian chocolates, audio CDs, days out, lunches, Money Gym memberships and products, a blog makeover or creation session worth £1200 – the abundance just keeps on rolling.  And because the number of raffle tickets is only one per delegate, the chances of you winning a big prize are 1 in 200. I hope you are visualising the one you want? Can you feel it?

2. Discounts – at least two of the speakers have created special discounted versions of their products and services specially for attendees, available uniquely on the day.

3. Free Money Gym Silver memberships for 90 days – a special promotion we have just launched. If you have booked your ticket and can persuade someone else to come too – via Twitter, your blog, word of mouth or email invitation and they quote your name in their booking, both of you qualify for free Silver membership of the Money Gym for 90 days.

4. Goody bags containing millions of pounds, credit cards, coins, magic pencils and that all important raffle ticket (see 1).

5. A free personalised follow-up phone consultation with me for all delegates. This is to help you to evaluate the investment opportunities we shall showcase that day, or provide you with the support you need to put either your first step on the property ladder or the next step.

Can you be bribed? Yes, me too! If the price is right…

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

I hope it’s YOUR number I pull from the champagne bucket.

Judith

PS I’m contemplating setting up a special accountability group for all those new SilverMembers we shall create that day… watch this space.

37 Reasons | The Good News About Property Part #2

Judith Morgan says: Here is the second of my pieces walking you through my 37 reasons to come to our Money Gym Property Extravaganza on 21st March. Today? Seven Financial Reasons to get up early on a Saturday morning and exhaust yourself learning all sorts of new stuff and meeting all sorts of weirdos (just some of the resistances we feel to getting out of our comfort zone!). Yummy, the financial reasons, my favourite ones…

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

1. Currently, with the bank base rate as low as it’s ever been, there’s never been a better time to buy property. Your savings aren’t earning anything, the value of your own home is still falling, your dismal pension ditto and perhaps your SIPP is non-existent as yet. You can’t leave it to “the professionals” – that much is clear. But we can show you how to take control of your financial resources, get some of it into property and make a significantly better return on your investments, one you CAN bank on. That’s four routes at least – savings, equity, pension, SIPP. I bet you will be showing me more by the end of the day!

2. Whether you have the ability to borrow secured, unsecured or not at all, I can offer you at least one way to become a property owner.

3. Rick Otton will show you how to buy a house for £1.

4. Martin Roberts will show you how to buy ten years’ holidays for the price of one year AND get a property investment thrown in (without resorting to either timeshare or fractional ownership) with Unique.

5. Henderson Capital Management will introduce you to investments in property where your initial capital outlay is guaranteed. I’ve never heard of this before, it’s a real scoop for the Money Gym and our clients.

6. Property is a “real” investment, you can see it, feel it, touch it and live in it – or your tenants can. It’s not going to suddenly disappear overnight. Whatever the ups and downs of the financial markets, people are always going to need homes to live in. There’s a constant demand.

7. And finally, we can show you how property can become your pension in 10 years or less, again with your capital guaranteed. This means if you are worried about how you are going to live when you stop earning, you can put your mind at ease at last. No matter how late you start, you no longer need 40 years at the coalface to save enough to retire on. Property’s your pension, whichever way you do it. Start young, retire young. What if you never want to retire? I don’t! But wouldn’t it be nice to know you were safe and didn’t have to worry about money any more? Financial serenity, close at hand.

Told you these 37 reasons were stonkers!

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

Watch out for my next batch coming soon…

Judith

Money Gym Property Investors Hope to Raise £4,500 for The Big Issue!

The Money Gym team is working together to put on a Property Extravaganza on 21st March 2009 in Central London. Tickets cost £25 including VAT and all ex VAT proceeds will be presented to The Big Issue Foundation on the day. One of our speakers, the ever-abundant Peter Stanley, has been wanting to set up a connection between property profits and helping the homeless for a number of years. I am delighted that finally we have been able to bring his vision to fruition. Peter will open the day with his talk demonstrating that Anyone Can Do It. He’s even offering a prize for the best reason on the day why the reverse is true!

At the time of writing, we have sold 111 tickets which means we can write TBI a cheque for £2391, but I want to give them nearly twice that, £4,500! In order to do that, I have to sell the remaining 89 tickets, the venue only holds 200.

So, what’s it all about then? It’s about The Good News about property investing in 2009. We have inspirational speakers, ordinary people who have made lots of money buying property and still continue to do so even in these current market conditions. Those speakers including Martin Roberts of TV’s Homes Under the Hammer and Hasmita Reardon who was Bradford & Bingley’s Property Woman of the Year award 2008 who has a portfolio of 80 properties in Sittingbourne, Kent, which she rents out to tenants nobody else wants. She’s a social entrepreneur in my book. And Rick Otton, Katharine Wooller and Abdul Malik.

The investments are suitable for people who want to put their first foot on the property ladder or their next one. They are for people with no money, no time and no know-how and conversely for the more experienced investor too. It will be a cracking day out which provides excellent networking opportunities in a relatively small group of wealth creators who are upbeat and positive and on the road to taking control of their own finances. There are over £42,000 worth of prizes in a holiday, Wembley tickets, books, memberships, portfolio places, mentoring, coaching and more from the very abundant speakers and colleagues who want to help this great cause.   And Goody Bags!

Will you help us please? Will you blog and Twitter this to get the campaign to go as viral as possible? If you let us know you have linked to this post, we should be able to track back to your post. If you can link it back to the this posting on the Money Gym’s blog, even better for you as this is a high traffic site.   If you can’t be bothered with all that trackback stuff (and who can blame you), do still please pass it on and help us help the homeless to help themselves.

Why not take the day off and come and join us in London’s West End? If you can persuade a friend to book and come too, there’s a special gift for both of you – 90 days Silver Membership of the Money Gym with our compliments!

Please help us to raise our £4,500 target by using all social media methods at your disposal and let’s have some fun with this viral campaign!

Thank you so much for supporting our goal. Click here for full details and booking

How To Get Rich With Rich Dad & The Money Gym

I’m not much of a one for playing games, despite my proud boast that my best friend from school invented one of the best-selling games of all time, Jenga.   And I was her accountant at the time.

I did manage to invent lots of games for my niece and nephews to play on Christmas Day over the years and I pride myself on the fact that the games aged with them, i.e. didn’t stay too babyish although perhaps some of them were a tad too testing at times, like when I first became a coach!

I always hated Monopoly and am still somewhat shocked at how unpleasantly competitive I become in Trivial Pursuit.   You should have seen me on Xmas Day this year!   Shaming.

So it comes as a bit of a shock to find a game I not only like but which is better played collaboratively rather than to win.

And what’s that game, Judith?

It’s Rich Dad’s Cashflow 101.

I’m hosting a series of six games in London with The Money Gym right now and we played last Friday evening so you’ve missed the first one, but never mind.

What does Cashflow teach you?

How to understand your relationship with money.   Are you just lurching from paycheck to paycheck?   If so, what to do about it.

How to play the game of money more boldly – at first on the board and then in real life.   This is how I persuaded myself it was “safe” to buy my first Buy-To-Let property.

How to make enough passive income to get out of the Rat Race.   What this really means and how easily it can be achieved in YOUR real circumstances.

How to evaluate investment opportunities – how to do well from your good choices, and how to survive your bad ones.

Read the rest on Judith’s blog here >>>

Money Gym Magic

Listen to the audio version of this story here >>>

Every so often, magical things happen in the Money Gym.

This week, one of our clients – let’s call her S – was having an issue with one of her buy to let properties – her new tenants, via the management agent, was giving her grief about a shower that was having an identity crisis.  The tenants felt it should be a power shower, the managing agents has billed it as such, verbally, but S had never called it anything but a mixer shower head.  The shower wasn’t commenting.

S was worried about her legal obligations, and she had been given some outrageous quotes from the management agent’s crony plumbers, as to the cost of fitting a power shower should she go down that route.

The agents were further complicating the situation with lots of hearsay, psuedo legalese and some other comments that sounded vaguely threatening.

Not a pleasant situation and one that was giving S some sleepless nights.

She posted her dilemma on the Money Gym Mastermind Google Group, and one of our other clients, G, jumped straight in with some support.  G is a builder with many years experience of rental places both public and private, and knowledge of contracts.  Now G comes to lots of our workshops and we had got to know him well, lovely man, but even I didn’t know all this about him!  I watched amazed as he swung into action…

He gave S the beneift of his experience, not to mention loads of emotional support and down to earth common sense advice about handling the tenants and the agent.

One of our other clients M, who is a successful and no-nonsense business woman, also offered to visit the offices of the management agent with S, as her “professional advisor” should she want to set up a meeting with the agent and tenants together to sort things out.

One of our other clients, K, in watching the email discussion flying backward and forward, then had a bit of a breakthrough, and realised that one of the biggest reasons she hadn’t started investing yet, in spite of the bargains she keeps finding, and having got the cash ready, was because she was terrified of dealing with builders, if any refurbishment was required.  She said how great it was to be able to call on G for advice, via the Money Gym.

As the whole conversation unfolded, G, who had been struggling to find his wealth creation niche to date, realised that he had something to offer here – a service that might get him out from the “dark side” as Judith and I call working for a living.

“Thanks everyone. You witnessed my breakthrough today. Again, it’s like Brett (McFall) said, if you give you get it back in droves. I’ve lived and worked with the knowledge for so long now that it’s become second nature to me. Intellectual familiarity breeding contempt I suppose, and I forgot the value of the information to someone who lacked the same experience, but was committed with a property portfolio anyway”.

G had realised that he could mentor buy to let landlords, on his area of expertise;  namely his years of building experience, contracts in the building trade, dealing with builders, not to mention being an emotional rock to lean on when dealing with difficult people in general.

He talked to the group about his new idea, and how he could get started with setting up a mentoring service like that, and asked what his first steps should be?  Get coach training?

“You don’t need that, you won’t be that kind of coach” and “Start blogging about it”, was the universal response.  Luckily one of the other things G loves to do is write – so blogging won’t be an issue.

The techie bits of setting up a blog might have been an issue though….

I immediately sent him over a link to some Camtasia videos we had created for our Membership Bootcamp people, showing him how to buy a domain name, hosting and an email account, and how to set up a blog.

The idea is that he should start talking about the experiences he’s had over the years, to start to attract traffic and a pool of people who know who he is, and what he can do for them.  Then we can mentor him through how to offer his service, what and how to charge, and how to set it all up.

What fun!  and how marvellous that he started giving freely of his time and knowledge and the universe has given him back an idea finally that he can work on and develop as his own.

I can see a blog, an ebook, a membership site for landlords, his mentoring / coaching service….

We are eagerly waiting the next instalment in the story.  I have no doubt that G will take action – that’s what he does.

And if he falters, there is a whole gang of people to help, advise, support him, in the same way he helped, advised and supported S.

Do you think his chances of success are better or worse for having this community around him?  Better, of course.

So what’s the hidden meaning in all this for you?

Perhaps you are struggling to work out what you could offer, to a hungry market, that could get you out from the “dark side”?

Perhaps you are wrestling with wealth creation issues on your own, having taken a few steps along one of the Lanes of the Wealth Highway, but got a bit scared or stuck?

Would being part of a supportive, creative community like this help you move forward?

Would some well chosen questions from an experienced wealth coach dispel some negative or limiting beliefs about money, your own value or your fears around exchanging money for that value, perhaps?

Would having over 200 great new well-connected contacts open up some doors for you in your existing business?  Not to mention my links with Ecademy Blackstar …..

There are many hidden benefits of joining The Money Gym and I call the community aspect – particularly the Google Mastermind group – our “hidden jewel in the crown”.

If you are thinking you love the sound of all this, you need to take some action now.

We are counting down to Christmas and the 3rd of January – the 12 hour Wealth-A-Thon which is the last day for signing up for Money Gym Gold at 2008 membership fee levels.  You can save £1200 if you take action now for a January start.

AND…….

If you want to be one of the 20 people that will enjoy the special bonus, the “Membership Site Bootcamp” product, worth £1750 and not available to the general public yet (going……..going……….nearly gone!) then you need to take action now.

This is what you need to do:

1.  Visit http://www.themoneygym.com/gold and read the page carefully
2.  Scroll down to the “join now” button and click it to pay your deposit.
3.  Email Judith to set up your first call, where you will decide with Judith, which coach is right for you
4.  Enjoy Christmas knowing you are all set to make 2009 your best financial year yet.

That’s it.  Hope you enjoyed the story!

Cheers
Nicola

Audio Article – The Shower That Wasn’t

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.2MB)

Today I’m delighted to share an article about something rather wonderful that happened in the Money Gym google Mastermind Group recently to S, one of our buy-to-let investors.

Time to listen 6:44 or read the written version here >>>

[podcast]http://www.themoneygym.com/audio/2008aashowerstory.mp3[/podcast]

House Prices – Latest!

Nicola says: I dont’ really need to comment do I?  Should I email to friend’s bf or just not bother? LOL

28/07/08

The National Housing Federation have forecast that house prices in England & Wales will rise by 25% by 2013.

The federation states that while there will be a slight reduction in 2008 of 4.4% and a smaller reduction of 2.1% that house prices will quickly recover and will be rising by 9% in 2012 and 2013.

It states that one of the reasons for the growth bounce-back is that there is a great demand for housing and this demand has not diminished but in fact will grow. The demand will be partly prompted by the cutback of new houses on the market as house builders mothball and delay projects during the current housing uncertainty. People are also living longer and the high rate of divorce continues to prompt demand for even more housing as couples split up and need two homes instead of one.

The Federation predicts that the cost of an average home in England by 2013 will be £274,700.

Therefore investors need to consider 2008 as the window of opportunity to buy property as cheaply as possible. There are still a large number of motivated sellers but as soon as the market starts to recover then these sellers will be more tempted to wait or increase their prices. It is probably that the current buyer’s market will only last for another 12 months so investors should consider buying now rather than paying higher prices in future years.

http://talkbuy2let.woofti.co.uk/news/

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