Physio, Ponds, Pigs, Pillows & Paris

My neck is better!  Yes, after 10 days of sheer & utter hell, it’s suddenly decided to stop hurting at night and I have had the first good night’s sleep for ages.  My physio lady says it must have been a trapped nerve as they often fix themselves suddenly like that.  Still a bit stiff round the shoulder area but today’s massage and acupuncture helped a lot with that.

So it’s back to Dunelm Mills with the memory foam pillow which was the wrong thing totally and swapped for a GOLD quilted throw just to “bling up me bedroom” a bit more.  And back to the supplier with the small contoured pillow so that I can order a bigger deeper one from the supplier recommended by the physio – that will involve a trip to the post office – gawd help us.  Our local post office is very old school and full of old ladies who don’t know the meaning of “hurry” bless them.

I met old friends Rona & Adrian for dinner last week before the Let’s Talk Money workshop, and a great evening in Tas by the Globe Theatre was had by all. How can you not see old friends for six years and then it’s like not a month has passed?

Their holiday home blog/website is coming along nicely, with an availability list and the news that the Volvo World Match Play Championship is going to be just up the road from the house in Casares, at the most luxurious Finca Cortesin, in October/November 2009.

Now, if you have a holiday cottage, or holiday home abroad, watch and learn how I’m doing it and we will see how long it takes to get their first booking from a standing start last week. It’s cost just £99 so far, for a domain name and hosting for two years (better for SEO than buying one year at a time).

Key elements are a great key word URL, a wordpress blog, SEO friendly plugins, a Twitter account @CasaresSpain, keyword rich content, key word labelling on the pictures, constantly updated with links to useful sites locally…..and when I get out there and take more photos and videos…rock ‘n’ roll.

If you do have a holiday cottage or home abroad, and you are not 80-100% let, why not have a look and see what you can improve about your marketing.  Did you know that agents in Spain, Portugal and Cyprus think they are doing well if they get you a 30-40% occupancy?

Talking of overseas, I’ve just spent a happy half hour deciding which micro-preneurs to invest in at Kiva.org.  Decided it was time to do a bit of systematic tithing (titheing?) and I have written in an outgoings line on my spreadsheet to make sure I do it.  I want to work up to tithing an amount based on profits in the previous month.  Then I’ll work up to tithing an amount based on revenue.  Easy does it though.

This is in addition to Money Gym coach Marion Ryan’s FANTASTIC idea to just leave a £1 coin per day somewhere where folks will find it and know it was left on purpose (what fun!) I wanted to do something where I could stay involved.

I was randomly following a tweet, about how the recession was making graduates more entrepreneurial in the dearth of jobs, and eventually ended up on Kiva.org, which I rembered that I had written about on our blog previously.

Kiva.org say “You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay their loan, you get your money back.  It’s a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty”.  Cool!  why not check it out – you can invest as little as $25 in someone but that might make all the difference to someone trying to start a business in difficult circumstances.

I found myself drawn to the chicken farmers which will come as no surprise to my family as I love chickens.  Might have to keep some myself some day.

You can see my first investments here >>>

and if you want to join in the fun…I’ve created a Money Gym team, so that we can all lend individually but our loans get credited to the team.  There’s no financial benefit of doing that to us, but I thought it might be fun. My first loans were made before I made the team so they won’t show till I make next month’s loans.

http://www.kiva.org/team/themoneygym

And here is a picture of one of my investments, Thor in Cambodia, who has a business raising pigs.  And very happy they look too!  My $25 was the last on in the pot, so she’s raised her loan to buy more sows to grow her …..herd?

You can read more about the history of Kiva.org here and a follow up article here

And don’t be surprised if, instead of a Christmas Present, you get a gift certificate from me to invest in someone yourself!

Interviewed Martin Avis today, asking some searching questions about how he got started in internet marketing, and what one or two things made the difference to him, taking him from someone making $200 a month online, to someone who makes a VERY nice living online.  Nice man, and he has a lovely pond too which I’m very envious of (see below)

So this weekend is a biggie at Money Gym Towers, there is a big poker game tomorrow night, and next week  it’s a whole weekend of X-Factor, where they are changing the format to have live audiences for the auditions, like they do on Britain’s Got Talent. Andy Harrington has just let me know by Facebook that he’s going to the Live Show on Thursday so I’m deeply jealous, or would be if I were not trying to fix up a dinner with Jennie Armato and her partner Paul, who are in London for Mark Anastasi’s Traffic Generation Summit.  Claim your free Money Gym tickets for that here

My next speaking gig is for Triumphant Events, at the Topher Morrison “Inner Game of Money” weekend at the beginning of July.  There are some great preview evenings coming up for that and you can book your seat at one of them here and also Daniel Priestley, who knows a thing or two about Social Media & Affiliate Marketing is doing a lovely evening on just that topic on Thursday 17th July – if you are not going to the X-Factor live show, that is!  Get your seat for that here

Daniel Priestley…………Simon Cowell…………….Daniel Priestley………….Simon Cowell………………difficult one!

LOL

And Sunday I’m going to clear out the pond and sort my rockery out.  Gardening is the new rock’n'roll remember?  I like a nice job of a weekend away from the ‘puter and I have a little gardening sidekick to help…haven’t I, Sarah?

Then I’ll be twittering from Paris next weekend where we have a private box, dress circle for “Carmen”.  The pictures Heather’s been posting on Facebook from behind the scenes look AMAZING….I just can’t wait.

Have fun, we always do!

Nicola

Wait To Buy Property? Or Buy Property & Wait?

Nicola says: I received an interesting email this week from one of our Money Gym members and I was intrigued enough to pass it onto our resident property gurus to get their feedback.  I would welcome comments on the blog on this one too, from you experienced property investors out there….just click the “comments” link at the bottom of this posting.

“Dear Nicola, I was talking recently to a dear friend who has until recently largely ignored property investing although she has always made money in her own home buy buying cheap, doing up beautifully, selling on and doing the process again.

I have a dilemma, in that, because she is my oldest friend and has seen me through many ups and downs, financially and otherwise, she largely discounts anything I say about money, budgeting, equity release, debt etc., which is both annoying and hilarious!  So, since I joined the Money Gym, I have tried not to get involved in talking about it all with her.

However, she has a new man in her life, who is quite keen on property property investing and so they are obsessed with property now, and they talk about all the time.  They are currently holding cash, tracking specific properties on spreadsheets, and waiting to invest on the South Coast.

I am thrilled about it all obviously because it will sort out their futures totally!

However, Y keeps talking about the market having dropped 15% in our area, (I agree that prices have slipped back a bit as people are panicking –but 15% ????!!!) and the so-called property crash coming which he feels very strongly will make prices slip another 10-15% in the next six to twelve months.

This will make a total devaluation in our local market of over 30% according to him – £54,000 off a flat originally valued at £180,000 – and I can’t believe that is right because I know from my Money Gym learnings that prices only went down by 3% overall in the UK, even in the worst crash we all remember, in the late 80’s / early 90’s.

Obviously I know that this means some areas rose, some fell but the average over the whole country was 3%.

Y & C keep saying, they don’t want to buy something for £150k which was on the market for £180k three months ago, if it’s going to slip back to £130k in the next few months.  They keep quoting examples like this although they haven’t talked to any vendors that I can tell -  just agents.

By the time they buy a property, a year or two will have gone by, and all my Money Gym training says that this is a mistake – as Andy Shaw says “You don’t wait to buy property, you buy property and wait”  but they are having none of that!!

My thoughts are that the property they are quoting at £180k was overvalued three months ago, and if it’s now being offered for £150k it’s probably a very motivated seller too, and it’s pretty unlikely to go much lower.I also feel that it’s not an indication that all properties at £180k are now selling for £150k and are then likely to go down to £130k.

However, I can’t seem to find the arguments for why they should just get on and BUY ONE!   I tried telling them that, “consistently in this country property rises by 10% per annum, more than 10% in the South East” and “every year you wait to buy a property of £150k you are losing £15k in appreciation by waiting a year….”

It’s been bothering me that I can’t counter their arguments for waiting, even though I feel instinctively there is something awry with this argument, and I wondered what all your thoughts are on the whole topic?”