Why You Should Invest in Property

First of all – why bother investing in anything? Well, everybody wants to be rich. You can dress it up or try and deny it if you like. Call it “financial security”, “being comfortable” – whatever makes you happy, but it boils down to the same thing: being rich.

I’m well aware that money can’t buy you love (thanks for that, John) … or happiness for that matter, but I do know I would prefer to have money than not to have it. Money gives you choice. It gives you freedom. And seeing the number of beautiful women fawning over rich old men, I venture that it can probably even buy you a certain sort of love.

I assume, as you are reading this My Making Money Magazine, you are not one of those hypocrites, who play the lottery each week, but moan about money being the root of all evil, and believing all rich people are selfish and greedy … blah, blah, blah! Get real.

Want to help the poor? That’s great but, as the saying goes, if you really want to help the poor, don’t be one of them. People are always moaning about rich people like Bill Gates and the “obscene” amount of money they earn. Well, just think, without that money, Bill Gates would not have been able to donate billions of pounds to charity. No doubt, he will donate billions more during his lifetime …and afterwards.

Just imagine all the good his generosity will do. What have the moaners and groaners ever done to help the needy? In fact most rich people, I know, are more generous and less selfish than your average person on the street and not just because they can afford to be. I believe they acquired that wealth, in part at least, because of their positive, generous attitude. I mention this for a very good reason: if you have a unconscious limiting belief that money is evil, you will in actual fact be sabotaging your own efforts ever to become rich.

81% of us, according to recent research, would like to give up our jobs (an acronym for Just Over Broke) or at least not have to work when we didn’t want to. However, the realities of life mean that you need to earn money to live, and if you want to have the big house, the BMW, the 5 star holidays and the early retirement, you have to earn a great deal of money.

Most people believe the only way to do this is to work hard. That is certainly one way of doing it, though most people work hard all their life and never get the things they desire, so it certainly isn’t a guaranteed method.

Building a business and then selling it is probably the best way to create wealth. However, to do it successfully, you will normally have to be prepared to devote your every waking minute to your business for many years. (Bye-bye family, hello divorce courts!). You will normally need large amounts of start up capital and, of course, it will entail you leaving the security of your job.

To leave your job to start up a business is a very daunting prospect. I remember the first morning I started my working life as my own boss, after I had left my nice, “glamorous”, well-paid job as a music lawyer the previous week.

I was all set, ready to leave my flat to drive to my trendy new office in Notting Hill, when the enormity of what I had done suddenly hit me for the first time, and I had a full-on panic-attack (never had one before or since). I was literally shaking and couldn’t breathe properly for about half an hour. What on earth was I doing? Why had I been so stupid? Do you think they’ll take me back? Where’s my mum when I need her? How the hell was I going to afford to eat – let alone pay for my expensive lifestyle?

It is well established that 9 out of 10 businesses fail, so giving up your job to start one it is a very brave (or foolish) thing to do.

But the fact remains that starting your own business is the only way most people stand any chance of becoming rich.

So, I suggest the ideal compromise is to start a business you can operate in your free time whilst keeping your job until you are making enough money from your own business to afford to leave your job. Ideally, you need a business you can run from home, without big overheads, without large sums of capital and without much risk. And a business which is flexible enough time wise to ensure your job performance does not suffer.

Over the last 20 years, I looked into many home-based business opportunities and have determined that absolutely none of them can compare to property. Would I say they are not in the same ballpark? No, I would say they are not even in the same country.

For starters, you can run a property business easily from your kitchen table. You don’t need any staff. You do not have any overheads and you do not need to deal with the general public to try and persuade them to buy your products or services. All VERY BIG advantages.

If that wasn’t enough, you are able to start from scratch with virtually no money at all and it’s completely flexible, allowing you to spend time as and when you like, building the business up.

Financially speaking, starting a property investment business will enable you to make tens and tens of thousands of pounds profit in your first year, in return for comparably few hours work, perhaps even from just from one transaction. From then on you can increase both your income and your net worth every year.

It is also, in my opinion the least risky business venture in the entire world – if you educate yourself properly and follow proven paths to success.

But best of all is the fact that property is a business that can continue to produce passive income for you year after year after year.

Have you ever considered the sheer joy and wonder of passive income?

If you are not familiar with the concept, it means, in a nutshell, that you do something that, following some initial work, continues to produce income for without you needing to do spend more time on it. That’s right. It continues to pay you without you having to lift a finger – apart from having to pay in the cheques that keep arriving that is.

Just think – a regular income that isn’t dependent on you going to work 40 hours a week. Can you see the potential? You make money whilst you sleep, whilst you go on holiday and most importantly you will continue to make money, even if you are ill and can’t work. It gives you freedom and security.

So even if you decide property is not for you, I highly recommend you start doing something that will help you build a passive income.

One of the ways you can accomplish it is by writing a hit song. Remember Hugh Grant’s character in “About A Boy” – well it’s true, many a songwriter has set themselves up for life with just one song that may only have taken an hour to write. I know – as an ex-music lawyer, I’ve seen the royalty statements from one hit wonders. Other ways include writing a book although you have to be very good and very lucky to have a real best seller, a network marketing business with a multi-level down line, inventing something (or buying the rights to something) and licensing it, or by investing in assets, such as shares or property, that produce income as well as growth.

Of those choices, I believe property is by far the business most people have the best chance of succeeding in. Very few who try succeed at songwriting or writing, inventing or creating a profitable and long lasting MLM down-line.

It is something most people stand a good chance at doing successfully if they take the time and effort to learn how. So over the coming months, via this column, I will be sharing my opinions and my property investment experiences so hopefully you can learn from it and avoid making the same mistakes I made along the way – and believe me there have been plenty!