How tall will you grow?

So is this really the last newsletter of 2009 or the first of 2010?  What an honour to have this place to describe another month in the life of a wealth coach!

I’m sort of in the middle of a house move that’s taking a longer than average time to complete.

We bought a new house two weeks ago and immediately set to, lining up builders (headed by Dave) to put Velux windows in the roof and an electrician (Phil) to re-wire the place, all ready to go as soon as we took possession.

The electrician arrived and as we waited, me expecting Dave to join us, Phil shared “Didn’t Dave tell you he was on holiday this week?”. Builders – they do seem to deserve their reputation!

So we now have two houses, one in a state of some disrepair and being decorated or prepared for decorating as it seems to have last been attended to in the 1970’s. We do hope that, in addition to this becoming a loving family home, a bit of what Gill Fielding calls “buff and fluff” will add value to our new acquisition, almost overnight.

We’ve chosen to take out an insurance policy to cover the mortgage in the event of my death and I’ve discovered that I’ve now reached the age when people will no longer take my word that I’m in good working order but require me to have a medical to prove it! Fortunately this was made easier by the fact that the nurse would come to visit me – and rang the doorbell promptly at exactly 8.30am on Sunday morning. Impressive. The medical was swift, professional and comprehensive. It has been proved beyond doubt that I am a non-smoker and I’ve had my height measured for the first time in over 30 years!

All this activity has set me thinking…

Property. Despite the scorch of being burned by the fallout from Passive Investments and the gloom still oozing around the credit crunch and recession, I find I still have faith in property. Yes, although the Passive blow hurts I guess I’m in a position where I can see how I might deal with this. I also know it has taught or maybe reinforced some important lessons for me.

I guess each of us takes different things from life but in my case, recent events have helped me to learn:

• to be happy being a cautious investor.
• what I thought was due diligence wasn’t diligent enough and I’ll do better next time
• if it feels too good to be true, it might well be
• whether “they” are victims or rogues, I still need to deal with my issues, not theirs
• the worst case scenario is worth preparing for, just in case
• when you’ve done the sums and they add up go for it anyway because nothing in life is risk free.

Perhaps this also reminds me that “Good decisions are based upon experience and that experience is gained by making bad decisions.” Another notch up on the experience scale.

During 2010 I will continue to invest in property, to do my sums and follow my chosen strategy. I might even try something new, letting shared accomodation. Any tips for me? I am older and wiser, in different ways richer and in others, poorer.

And as I look at life over 2009 I see how it is easy to blame others when things don’t go well, whether “others” are family, business colleagues, bankers or political leaders. It’s so much easier to be judgemental with the benefit of hindsight! For me, the important thing is to learn lessons, apply them and to move on.

I get slightly scared and certainly disappointed when I see what looks like the “tall poppy syndrome” in action. You know that…. when seeing a poppy that stands taller than the rest, cut it down so it doesn’t show-up the shorter (underachieving?) poppies! It’s also important for me to use or apply my values to personal and business situations and accept that others may have different values. Doesn’t mean I can’t learn from them and apply lessons to my own life!

Guess I also know that it can be lonely being a tall poppy. How many of you have faced the scorn of family or friends when you have decided on financial freedom and maybe the pain of other people doing the “Told you so” routine when you had the courage to take action?

One of my coaching clients has recently invested in developing their wealth awareness with Gill Fielding… I know many of you will know Gill from either the Wealth Creation Conference, The Secret Millionaire or even Stephanie Hale’s Women Millionaire’s Bootcamp.

When my client returned home, a protective partner pointed out that Gill was a scammer of the highest order, only after her money and… I suspect many of you can fill in the blanks having faced similar situations yourself. It takes courage and determination to stand out from the crowd, to commit yourself to taking action, to growing wealthier and wiser. Even though we know that successful, wealthy people have also learned to deal with losing money before making more, it’s still hard when that’s the lesson we are walking through.

My client has responded by immediately working to strengthen her positive beliefs, to completing a daily gratitude journal and finding a positive community of people to support her progress in 2010. Go for it girl. Be that tall poppy!!

This year I’ve also learned that my feet have grown a shoe size and I seem to have gained half an inch in height….

So what have you learned in 2009 and how tall will you grow?

Here’s to a great Christmas and New Year celebration and to a prosperous 2010!

Silver, Quicksilver, Silver Elite and The Story Of How It All Began!

This week we have taken a massive leap forward with one of our interim products – designed to fit between Silver and Gold and enhance Silver membership by getting you off to a flying start in the first weeks of your Silver Membership.

We know that people join things with the best intentions of making them work, but then life just gets in the way, so we have created a goal setting and action orientated 12 week coaching programme called Silver Elite.  Working initially with Judith and me, you will come up to speed on how to use our new membership site, you will set some goals for the 12 weeks/90 days, and then be walked through the programme week by week, by online video, and join us for a weekly coaching call, where we will set homework to get you moving.  Judith is the master at running these group coaching programmes and I’m only interested in working with people who want to take action.  No “haven’t done anything this week because…..” excuses in this programme, oh no!

The first invited participants will be those who have been fully paid up members of Silver for three months or more, as of the end of March, or those generous souls who supported our Property Extravaganza by buying multi-tickets.

Then we will probably run the first open programme in September for anyone who wants to play.

The second of our interim new products will be called Money Gym Quicksilver, and will be everything we have, in a box.  Physical product, oh yes!  Bit of a job to pull it all together but I’m working on it – we have SO MUCH CONTENT.  This will be for those who want to rock through Silver in no time flat, rather than waiting for the month by month sequential delivery of the content that the usual Silver programme will enable.  I will also sell it from the stage when I speak, as the audiences at most of the gigs I’ve been doing recently can really relate to CD’s, DVD’s and workbooks.  We have some lovely extras planned for the QuickSilver box too – surprises!

I see these two working very much in conjunction with each other, and with the existing Silver membership, and will help to move folks on, from the ebook, getting them started with our support on their wealth creation activities, with a view to moving onto Gold, to work with a coach one-to-one.  The investment in both will be right smack bang between Silver and Gold and instalments will be available of course.

We are now starting to move all the existing paying members of http://www.themoneygymclub.com over to http://www.themoneygym.com/blog where all the content is now complete and ready to access in the same way.  If you have not had an email from Steve about this, can you contact him with your name, email address and your membership level.

I’m off to the Rick Otton two-day bootcamp in London’s Earls Court this weekend, with Judith, and I’m really looking forward to it.  Around 35 Money Gym bods will be there and Rick’s high energy style will make it a fun two days.

I need to get some advice about my ads, as my little ad in the Worthing Herald just isn’t cuttin it, although it brought in quite a few enquiries from motivated sellers last year.  I’m experimenting with Google Adwords and a mighty £2 a day budget, but I just can’t seem to get the traffic!  Trying an InfoMillionaire trick now, that replaces the first line of my Adwords Ad with whatever the searcher typed in.  I’ll keep you updated on progress.

Really need to do some flyering in Worthing and Shoreham, which would involve 37,000 leaflets and cost over £300, perhaps I should buddy up with another business to do this?  I want to get some feedback from the weekend about which flyers are working already though.

Having said all that, apparently people are struggling suddenly to find sellers motivated enough to do “below market value” deals and that seems to be because of two factors:

1. Mortgages are at an all time low in terms of monthly costs – Judith’s just been told that one of her’s has dropped to £0.08 a month – yes you read that right!  Interest only mortgages are on the floor and if you have been listening to the Money Gym about swapping to an interest only mortgage, and not locking yourself into a fixed rate for too long if you are an investor….. you will be getting letters like Judith’s hopefully!
2. Many investors are starting to come back into the market, often with cash to buy so bypassing the need for a mortgage, figuring that it’s bottoming out now.  Even my best friend’s boyfriend is starting to look around now and he’s been very pessimistic for ages about prices going lower.  He wants a flat in South London for around £250,000 if you have one, by the way!

So Rent2Own is a great second strategy for property investors, as it enables them to buy those properties where the owner is unable to drop the price, but is desperate to move on and get on with their life.

I’ve just been watching my “Quick 10 Minutes” from the stage at the Property Extravaganza (and having a little boo again at what a wonderful day it was).  I’ve just bounced into Steve’s room saying “we must put this video on the page where folks can get a trial membership of Silver for 30 days!” as it just sums it all up really.

You can watch it here

And then join Money Gym Silver here

For just £27.50 a month and lock that membership in at that investment – I’m not kidding in the video, we ARE putting the membership up at some point in the not too distant future.

Have fun, we always do.

Nicola

Your Mortgage Based On Your Rent Paid Now?

A new type of mortgage will allow borrowers to buy a property based on their previous 12 months’ rental payments, says All Types of Mortgages Ltd (AToM).

Rent-to-buy mortgages are aimed at renters who want to make the step to home ownership.

The rent-to-buy mortgages look at the applicant’s ability to manage their money and make rent payments on time.

The upsides

It may mean successful applicants can BORROW MORE than with a standard mortgage, which multiplies your salary by up to three times. So a single person earning £20,000 a year would borrow around £60,000.

With AToM’s rent-to-buy mortgage, you could borrow 5.5 times one salary, or 3.75 times two applicants’ salaries. a single person earning £20,000 a year would borrow around £110,000.

As with some popular standard mortgages, AToM offer a fixed rate for two years with no early repayment charge after this point.

READ MORE ABOUT RENT TO BUY MORTGAGES >>>

(With thanks to Sarah Rourke, the RatRace Escape Artist for posting this on our Money Gym Google Group)

4 Deadly Myths About Property

Peter Stanley, ex Business Bank Manager, professional property investor, author and great friend of The Money Gym, has written a great report that puts some perspective on the property market which by all media reports is “crashing and burning” at the moment (July 2008). We had a long chat after I read it, and he has given me permission to share it with you.

Peter says: “Regular readers will know how much I dislike media reports on the property market, as they’re often based on a single piece of data, or an opinion that’s passed off as fact, when most articles closely resemble works of fiction.

You only need to watch the evening news to realise that good news is in short supply, not because good things don’t happen, but because bad news sells. Sad but true. If you don’t believe me, next time you’re listening to the news, make a note of every good story – you won’t need a big piece of paper !

So, for anyone who’d like to know what’s really happening out there, here’s the most common myths;

Houses aren’t selling / people aren’t buying

Whilst there was a lull for a couple of months, houses are selling again.

That isn’t an opinion, but fact.

As you can imagine, I get to speak to a lot of estate agents and watch a lot of houses, waiting for the sellers expectations to reach mine and I’m seeing more and more houses bought between those times.

In fact, I was surprised recently (and not much surprises me these days) when I overheard a conversation between two estate agents about their sales figures. One of them had sold seven houses in ten days, which would be a good result in any market – perhaps someone should tell the Daily Mail & The Express.

It gets better though, as seven sales was for one of the estate agents in the office, not the whole office, so even if the rest of the staff had only sold another three houses, that’s a house sale a day !

No-one can get a mortgage

Whilst mortgages are harder to get than they were, there are still mortgages to be had.

If you haven’t got a deposit, or have a poor credit record, then you’re likely to struggle, but this is a knee jerk reaction to the Banks’ over eager lending policy of recent years.

I recently went to see a house where the owner was about to get repossessed, to talk about a deal……

Read more..

Brett McFall, Oil Prices & Me – The Truth!

It’s official – Brett McFall and I are …………in total agreement! 

To give you a bit of background to what I’m about to tell you about Brett, I was only watching the news this morning and they interviewed a young couple with the obligatory toddler, and they were saying that if their mortgage went up any more, or prices of food or fuel went up any more they would be in real trouble…..they might not be able to pay their bills, or might even HAVE TO GET A SECOND JOB!

Good god, NO!  How awful!  End of the world as we know it for ordinary working class families to have to get a second job.  (Or – even worse – to invest a little bit of time or cash in learning how to be more useful to their employers so that they might be worth a bit more in the job they are in).  That woman with the toddler – bet she doesn’t work at all, not even from home….. infuriating.

Now….don’t get me started on this topic again – I’ve written about this before here and here and even Judith’s had a go here….am I starting to sound like John Harrison?

I can’t remember the time when I didn’t have a second job going, or was learning about something that might make me more successful or more money.  WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE LIKE?

So I open my Feedreader and Brett McFall, while across the other side of the world, is getting just as infuriated as me with the whingers.  He’s just posted a blog posting that is both practical and metaphysical - one of the reasons I like Brett a lot and pay close attention to what he says is that he, like me, likes to combine the two.  Get your trackback and ping turned on though matie!

As I always say, you can sit at home and try and attract success and wealth, but if you don’t get off your butt and DO something about it, then nothing will happen.  It’s no secret that the “Big Secret” about “The Secret” is that you have to make it possible for TUT, The Universe and everything to help you.  Remember the joke about the drowning man and God?  Go watch “The Pursuit Of Happyness” with Will Smith if you don’t know that one.  Man, that film shows you that the most important part of the “Law Of Attraction” is “action”.  He never once blames anyone else – he just knows “it it’s to be it’s up to me”.

Anyway, back to Brett McFall…..he is having a good old rant on just this topic over at his excellent blog posting….go have a read!

“How to quickly and easily beat the petrol price rises while the rest of the world get’s pissed off about it”

“Yeah look, this subject annoys me quite a bit, as I’m sure you can tell by the headline I’ve used.  And it’s because I know that what you focus on most in life will dictate how you feel (and I’ll explain what I mean by this in just a moment).

So I want to help you do something about it so that you can get back to making a masterpiece of your life, instead of worrying about oil prices.
 
And right now at least, the media can hardly do a news bulletin without reminding you that oil and petrol prices (or “gas prices” if you’re from the U.S.) are “skyrocketing” and reinforcing how “bad” things are.
 
But you know what? They’re only telling you one side of the story. In case you haven’t realised, bad news sells. Switch on the TV any night and watch the news, and you’ll be guaranteed that 80% of the program will be dedicated to negative things.
 
Bad news keeps people watching. When more people watch, the TV stations can charge higher prices for the advertising spots. The stations make more money. Quite simple really.
 
So right now, they’re having a field day with oil prices that are increasing. But what I want to tell you is to forget about the prices. Yes, totally and completely forget about them……

Read more..

Property For £1 – My First One!

Welcome to the world of buying UK property for just £1.  Here is the first deal I have done, within 3 weeks too!  This is fast and fun……and the best thing is, you are helping people who can’t sell (without beating them down on the price) and helping people who can’t buy due to not having enough deposit, or being able to qualify for a mortgage.  Here’s the info: 

Charming 2 Bedroom Cottage To Let in Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Stop!  Think about this for a second……….why rent when you can buy?

I am offering a lovely two bedroom cottage in Littlehampton to let, on a “Rent 2 Buy” or premium rental basis.  If you are a first time buyer but can’t afford the normal deposit, or get a mortgage in today’s market, this could be perfect for you! 

Click here for a 4 minute, streaming video, tour around the property….

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olzAhu5_XEc]

The house is offered at £220,000 and you simply pay a 5% deposit, and then instalments of £1283 per month, and this lovely cottage could be yours in 2-3 years.  No mortgage required but you will need to provide work references and some other financial details.

Close to Central Littlehampton, with great road and rail links across West Sussex, in a very quiet private road, and a lovely secluded walled and gated garden – perfect for children.  The whole cottage faces South/West and is very light and sunny.  Fully refurbished thoughout, the cottage has a living room with open fire and beamed ceiling, double glazing and gas central heating.  There are two good sized bedrooms, lovely refitted modern kitchen with modern wood units and integrated cooker/hob, a hall/dining room, bathroom with white suite and seperate toilet upstairs.

Have a look at the video and if you would like to view this cottage, call me for more details on 01273 910986.  Stop paying dead rent and take your first step on the property ladder.

** Put your name and email in the box to the top right to get a Free Report on how “Rent2Own” works in the UK and join our priority Property List for 1 bed, 2 bed and 3 bed Worthing, Shoreham & Littlehampton properties**