Absolute Wealth The Secrets To Positive Cash Flow
Absolute Wealth The Secrets To Positive Cash Flow
Absolute Wealth The Secrets To Positive Cash Flow
Assets put money into your pocket. Liabilities take money out of your pocket. It is as
simple as that. The former represents your money working for you and the latter is
you working for money.
Regardless of what people may call it, your house is a liability. Even if it is completely
paid for, when a house takes money out of your pocket for upkeep, taxes, and
repairs, it is moving you further away from exiting the Rat Race.
The Rat Race is the all too familiar pattern of getting up, going to work, paying bills;
getting up, going to work, paying bills. When you buy and own liabilities, instead of
assets, you have to work day after day, week after week, month after month to pay
them off. Even then, they can still take money out of your pocket.
Positive cash flow and assets, on the other hand, are what allow you to exit the
Rat Race.
When you buy assets that produce positive cash flow, you begin to create true wealth
for yourself. That is because true wealth is not measured in terms of dollars, but in
terms of time. When your assets produce enough positive cash flow to cover all of
your expenses, you never have to work again. You exit the Rat Race. Your assets
whether they be real estate, businesses, or paper assetswork around the clock
putting money into your pocket.
If you want Absolute Wealth, then you must understand and follow the secrets to
positive cash flow. In the pages that follow, well discuss the secrets that will help you
successfully approach investments in three of the most popular asset classes.
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In taking on that responsibility, the ones that really succeed are the ones that have
learned to think like the rich. They understand that breaking from the shackles of the
E (Employee) and S (Self-Employed) quadrants necessitates a new way of thinking.
The great thing, however, is that anyone can train himself or herself to think like a
successful real estate investor.
In this section, we explain five secrets to help you think about the art of real estate
investing like those who have gone before you and successfully exited the Rat Race.
More people know what they dont want rather than what they do want.
They know they dont want to work for someone else. They know they dont want to
live paycheck to paycheck. They know they dont want to spend another day in the
Rat Race. However, when asked what they do want and how exactly they intend to
get it, they only offer blank stares and shoulder shrugs.
Successful real estate investors, on the other hand, know exactly what they want to
accomplish and how they are going to go about it.
Instead of knowing they do not want to live paycheck to paycheck, they know
how much money they need per month to cover their current expenses. They
have developed a detailed plan to generate that amountand then someover a
definitive timeframe through investing in a specific property type or types. In fact, they
have determined the exact number of properties they will need to purchase. They
also know when and how they will roll their portfolio over into a larger cash flowing
property thataccording to their calculationswill produce enough passive cash
flow to cover all their expenses. They can even show you the spreadsheets that map
out their anticipated cash flow on a monthly and yearly basis along with the number
of investment properties required to support those numbers.
Now whether or not someone could accomplish this is beside the point. The point is
that there is a detailed plan. Maybe an assumption or two is off and it takes six years
instead of five. On the other hand, perhaps halfway into investing they learn how to
cut their remodeling expenses, thereby increasing their cash flow, and are able to hit
the target in three and a half years. The plan evolves. It is fluid. As markets change
and education increases, the new reality is incorporated into the plan. Nevertheless,
you cant revise something you dont have.
So what is it EXACTLY that you want to accomplish in real estate? Do you know how
much you need and how you will get it? How long will it take you to get there? The
answers to these questions and a whole host of others are what you need to know if
you are going to think like a successful investor.
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Real Estate Secret #2 Invest for Cash Flow, Not Capital Gains
Not too long ago, you couldnt turn on the television without seeing a show where
a couple of guys, a married couple, or whoever were buying a property for a steal,
fixing it up, and selling it for huge profits (all in less than an hour).
Now stop and think of how many shows there were where the star of the show would
walk out of the house to the mailbox, take out the rent checks, and walk back into
the house? Not exactly must-see-TV, but if this show was on, you would have a
better look into how a successful real estate investor thinks.
Robert Kiyosaki has always extolled the virtues of investing for cash flow as opposed
to capital gains. If a property happens to appreciate while you own it, great; however,
if the sole reason you are purchasing a property is because you hope and pray that
the value will go up, then you arent a true investoryoure a gambler.
A true investor understands that while the thrill of receiving tens of thousands
of dollars for a fix-and-flip may sound appealing, by selling the property, they
are cashing out an asset that can put money in their pocket for years to come.
Appreciation is just the frosting but not the cake itself.
One can look no farther than the recent crash to see the wisdom in investing for cash
flow. When a property has a positive cash flow, the investor is covered. Regardless
of whether the value goes up or down, the positive cash flow is there to cover all the
costs and put money in the owners pocket. However, if an investments entire return
hinges on the price going up, what happens when the market goes down? Just ask
the investors who lost everything when the real estate bubble burst.
Real Estate Secret #3 Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst
No one ever invests with the intent to lose money. Unfortunately, it happens to even
the best investors. The secret to putting the odds in your favor is learning how to
minimize the potential risks that could derail your success. You do this through
conducting due diligence before you purchase any property.
Conducting due diligence is a term that has been so overused that it has fallen into
the MBA-speak lexicon along with creating a win-win, right-sizing, and thinking
outside the box. All that aside, it does not change the impact and necessity of the
process. Thoroughly examining a potential investment will help minimize risks and
determine whether an investment still makes sense for you.
A beginning investor may naively think that as long as rents cover the debt services,
then all is well. However, if vacancy rates, repair costs, replacement values, and a
number of other contingencies arent factored in to the final analysis, then an asset can
quickly turn into a liability with the owner wondering, Why didnt I think of that earlier?
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This goes beyond the financials too. For example, suppose an investor through an
analysis of the propertys financials determines that an investment will cash flow. He
closes on the deal, has tenants lined up, and then finds out that according to the
CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions) of the property, the homeowners
association will not allow the property to be rented. What now?
None of this is meant to scare anyone from investing in real estate, but to point out
the need to be thorough in evaluating a potential investment. Now, for some, they
will misinterpret this to thinking they need to know everything before they can invest.
While a noble pursuit, it is completely unrealistic. For those who understand the Rich
Dad philosophy, they will build a team of advisors who they can count on to ask them
the question, Have you thought about this?
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inclined to take a care of the property than they would if the property had discount
appliances and builder-grade carpet. This in turn helps keep maintenance and repair
costs lower as well as increases how long tenants stay in the property.
While there is no definitive answer to how much or how little to upgrade, you will
need to understand the rental market in your area and what is considered standard.
By understanding your competition and listening to the feedback of prospective
renters, you will get a good sense of what will help you attract and retain tenants.
In order to help get the numbers in your favor, you always have to be looking.
However, you are only one person and regardless of how hard you work, you can
only cover so much ground. If you really want to expand your reach, you need to
establish multiple ways of finding opportunities. Better still, if you can set it up so the
opportunities come to you, then you will be even more efficient. One way to have
opportunities come to you is by using a birddog.
A birddogwhen it comes to real estate investingis just what the name implies: an
individual that hunts for and brings back investment opportunities.
So who might be a birddog? Friends, family, neighbors, or co-workers might be
potential birddogs. Anyone who is out in residential neighborhoods on a regular basis
is a good option too. Examples here would be mail carriers, pest control workers,
home inspectors, landscapers, house cleaners/maids, companies that prepare
foreclosure properties for sale, etc.
When recruiting a birddog, you will want to take some time to educate the individual
on exactly what you are looking for, how to find it, and what you are willing to pay.
You will want to cover the following:
Potential properties Emphasize that you are only looking for properties
without a For Sale sign in the yard. (The reason being is that you can find
for sale by owner and agent listed properties on your own.) Of particular
interest to you are vacant properties with a real estate agents lock box on the
property but no For Sale sign. Typically, banks own these properties through
foreclosure and have yet to list them on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
Finding these properties before banks list them can give you a leg up on your
competition.
Telltale signs Explain how to spot vacant houses: fresh snow with no
footprints, tire tracks, or plowed driveway. Boarded up windows. A pile of
newspapers in the driveway or on the front porch. Mail stuffed in the mailbox.
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Broken windows and doors. No curtains or blinds. Over grown or dead grass.
Missing electrical meter.
Property specifications - What information do they need to submit? You will
want specifics such as type of property, property address, city, state, and zip,
and approximate square footage of the house. (Birddogs can estimate the
square footage by simply measuring the length of their stride, stepping off the
property and making an educated guess.)
Property assessment Have your birddog include an assessment of the
condition of the house. Is it Good, Bad, Really Bad, or Awful? Give
examples and define how you would classify the descriptions so the birddog
and you are using the same evaluation system.
Photos Request six or more digital pictures of the property that show the
front, back, both sides and the house on both sides of the subject property.
The more pictures they provide the better. In addition, you also need pictures
of the garage if detached and any other buildings.
Just imagine expanding your finding efforts exponentially. Birddogs are a great way
to further your reach and always be looking so you can find deals before your
competition.
Successful real estate investors do not think like most people and chances are if
you are reading this, neither do you. A desire to control ones destiny and attain the
financial education to see opportunity where others only see risk are the hallmarks of
those who separate themselves from the pack.
Learn to incorporate the secrets contained here and you will be well on your way to
making money in real estate.
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When Robert first returned from Vietnam and decided to become an entrepreneur
and investor, rich dad simply told Robert, If you want to enter the world of business,
you must learn how to sell. Taking rich dads advice to heart, Robert got a job
at Xerox. He did so, not for the paycheck, but for the opportunity to learn. He
recognized that if he could overcome his own fears and doubts by learning how to
cold call, make a presentation, and close a deal; he would possess a skill set that
would allow him to negotiate with business partners, secure funding for investment
opportunities, and lead with authority.
If you are an entrepreneuror considering becoming oneyou must honestly
evaluate your ability to sell.
One of the keys to evaluating your sales skills is to consider how well you
communicate with others. If you can effectively communicate with others, you will be
well on your way to master the art of selling.
The first step in becoming a master communicator is learning how to listen. Most
people pretend to listen, but are actually thinking about what they will say the
moment the person they are listening to shuts up. As a result, they make responses
and statements that often have little to do with what the buyer was talking about in
the first place. If you are anxious for the person to whom you are presenting to be
quite so you can get to your pitch, odds are that you will end up missing the mark.
Too often salespeople offer a solution (the product or service) without even listening
to the problem or goal of the buyer. They are focused on making a sale. They see the
buyer more as an obstacle to overcome than an individual to serve. Rich dad taught
Robert, True selling means being passionate about your companys product or
service and being compassionate with the wants, dreams, and needs of your fellow
human beings.
Learn to listen and serve and you already know how to sell.
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If you are not careful, you can easily become disconnected from your passion and
once your passion is gone, your days are numbered.
Most entrepreneurs become detached from their passion because the get caught up
in the thick of thin things. In other words, by spending so much time, energy, and
effort on the administrative activities of the business, they have little, if anything left
over to devote to the visionary activities.
The key to overcoming this obstacle is to schedule time for your passion. (It should
be noted that while it is good to be passionate about your product or service, this is
only a small part of a successful business. True entrepreneurial success lies when the
entrepreneur is passionate about the entire business.)
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By adopting the mindset of fail fast and fail often, you begin to leverage the power
of iterationthe process of repeating and refining a process in order to meet a goal.
The ultimate goal for your business is to make money and to thrive. In order to
accomplish this goal, you must iterate until you find the breakthrough that makes
your business a self-sustaining entity.
When you are starting a business, speed is critical for success. The tighter you can
run experiments and the faster you can iterate, the more chances you will provide
yourself to find that winning combination. That winning combination helps you
become scalable. And scalability is what allows you to realize your big dream.
So do not be afraid of making mistakes. Fail fast, fail often, and learn even quicker.
You have to try, make mistakes, learn, and try again. If you try, make a mistake, and
give up, you will never be the success you could have been.
Being an entrepreneur is hard, but the reward that comes from being successful is
true freedom. It is freedom to do what you want, when you want, with whom you
want, all while making money for yourself.
By carefully considering and implementing the entrepreneurial secrets listed here,
you can become more successful in building a business. Selling, having passion,
believing in your product, knowing what activities bring success, and a willingness
to learn from mistakes will all make you better than you are today and help your
business to be profitable.
You just need to go do it.
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A persons context is really what keeps them from or allows them to make money
not the market.
So how do you change your context? How do you shed the messages you have
received repeatedly and develop the mindset possessed by the rich? You begin to
poke holes in the old contexts that have been holding you back. You force yourself to
think differently than the mainstream. You do this through educating yourself.
As you educate yourself on financial matters, it becomes obvious as to what is truth
and what is lazy thinking. As the truth becomes more apparent, new contexts begin
to develop that lead you to approach investing in a different mannera manner
radically different than the millions of people that keep buying mutual funds and
dumping money into their 401(k), paycheck after paycheck after paycheck.
So, if you are ready to expose the flawed thinking that keeps people stuck in the Rat
Race and unaware of the secrets of positive cash flow, keep reading.
Paper Asset Secret #1 You Dont Know Everything and Thats Okay
Believing in your ability to invest successfully in paper assets is good. Crossing the
line and thinking you are infallible is bad.
As a rule, most people think they are smarter or more competent than they actually
are. While being optimistic is a good outlook to have in life, when it comes to
investing, that same outlook can hurt you when you begin to think you know more
than the market.
Remember, the market is not a person or even a thing. It is a collection of opinions.
Some of the opinions are informed and some are misinformed, but they all come
together to establish market price. When you think you know more than collective
opinions of all investors, you cross the line and believe your opinions are infallible.
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This thinking leads you to take greater risks, make trades more often than you should
(bringing on additional trading costs which eat into your return), and become lazy in
your research by relying more on tips and hunches than on actual information.
All of which points to the importance of being comfortable with knowing you dont
know everything. Knowing that you do notand cannotknow it all leads you to
never stop learning. You dig a little deeper in your research. You ask more questions.
You listen. Most importantly, you learn from your mistakes, which leads us to the
next mindset.
Poor investors only remember their great tradesa habit that compounds the
problem of overconfidence. Successful investors, on the other hand, remember their
mistakes not because of the mistake itself, but for the lesson it contained.
It is human nature to block out mistakes, gaffes, and oversights, especially when
we are the cause of the blunder. Nevertheless, if you take a moment to understand
how the mistake was made as opposed to who made it, then a wealth of learning
is at your disposal.
Keeping an investing journal is one of the best tools to help remedy the problem
of dismissing your mistakes. An investing journal forces you to clarify the facts of
the trade gone wrong and not the opinions. Whether it is a spreadsheet, notebook,
or folder, an investing journal is your designated repository for the details of your
investing decisions.
By recording why you made your buy and sell decisions, you become able to spot
trends over time. Was there a particular piece of information you failed to consider?
Did you violate your investing rules with this order? Or, did you fall in love with the
company/tip even though the data didnt back up the decision?
Just like the professional golfer breaking down his or her swing moment by moment,
your investing journal will help you learn from your mistakes so you are not doomed
to repeat them indefinitely.
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An unwillingness to accept defeat and move on can drag down returns for stubborn
investors. In fact, Philip Fisher wrote in Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits that,
More money has probably been lost by investors holding a stock they really did not
want until they could at least come out even than from any other single reason.
Successful investors continually ask the question, Would I buy this investment
today? They then know that if the answer is no, they must think long and hard as
to why they continue to own it.
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Nowhere is this more apparent than in the casinos. Watch people gambling and
those on a roll will begin to take more risks and place larger bets. Their rationale is
that the money is in fact house money so if they lose it, they really have not lost
anything.
Because of the freedom that house money represents, some investors can be
prone to take the earnings from a successful investment and be more aggressive
than they normally would be on their next investment opportunity. They trick
themselves into thinking they are investing with someone elses money.
Successful stock investors know investing is not gambling and recognize that any
profit from an investment is a result of their research, diligence, and disciplinein
other words, their hard work. They also understand that money is money regardless
of the source. As a result, they stick to their investing rules and invest every penny as
if they earned it and not as if they found it.
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By developing the same mindsets in your stock investing, you too can develop a
more objective sense of what is a worthwhile investment and what is not worth
your time.
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