When you think about your monthly budget, some non-negotiables take priority: mortgage, food, utility bills, insurances and your kids education. However, once you have accounted for these necessities, you may find yourself in the fortunate position of having some spare cash. If you are financially astute, you may park this money in a savings account to accrue over time. This is the safest option and requires minimal risk on your part. However, as your cash begins to stack up, you may find yourself wondering whether your increasing stacks of cash are working in the most effective way for you.

One major alternative to a regular savings account with a bank is to test your resolve on the property market. Investing in bricks and mortar has paid dividends for many over the past few decades. Lucrative returns can be had in the short term if you are quickly flipping a house, and also in the long term, if you are building up a rental portfolio. Take a look at these tips to help you decide the sort of property investment that you may be tempted to make.

Research Like You Have Never Researched Before

Although you may be impatient to see some of your hard earned money invested in the realm of property, it’s vital that you understand the styles of property that are in demand. If you are thinking of purchasing an inner city dwelling, the chances are that apartments and penthouses will cater for the needs of young professionals, with their lack of gardens and low maintenance requirements. If you are opting for the land of suburbia, you may want to consider larger townhouses and condos that will accommodate wealthy families, that are spacious and located within highly regarded zip codes.

If you are tempted to try your hand at purchasing a property to renovate and sell on quickly, ensure that you purchase the worst house on the best street and not the other way around. You can always alter a property by bringing in a team of tradespeople and renovating it, but you can never upgrade where it is.

The Rental Option

If you are going to dabble in the property market for the long haul, you may wish to let your investment. You’ll need to do your homework and make sure that the rent you receive each month covers the mtal-ortgage that you have taken out to purchase the property. Try and buy somewhere close to other rental properties. You may want to look at a location close to a university to attract students or a hospital that may appeal to doctors or nurses working nearby. If your property is close to good transport links and is easily accessible, it will appeal to more potential tenants.

You may be worried that you could end up leasing your freshly painted and coiffed property to nightmare tenants who refuse to pay their rent resulting in you getting into financial difficulties. Don’t worry. Use a credit referencing agency if vetting your tenants yourself or pass this responsibility over to a specialist letting agent who’ll take care of it all. For a small percentage of the rent each month they will manage your property, take care of maintenance issues and deal with any problems as and when they arise.

Investing In Property For Your Family

You may disregard the idea of flipping or letting a property altogether. Instead, you may be keen to upgrade your current home and take a few extra leaps up the property ladder. You might even be keen to build your very own dream home totally bespoke to your family. You could opt for an eco-home, a waterfront property or one of the many mansions designed by Playoust Churcher. The architect you choose will create your dream home designed and built specifically for you. By investing in property this way, you are enjoying the fruits of your money, as well as ensuring that you have a humble abode that will increase in value if you come to sell it at any point in the future.

If you have extra money each month, you can, of course, build up your savings for a rainy day. However, if you want to see greater returns on your investment, it pays to consider either purchasing a second property to rent or to flip and sell on quickly. You could also think about building your own dream dwelling. You never know, if you clue yourself up on potential locations, housing types and property market forecasts, you could be at the embryonic stages of forming your very own property empire.

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We always want to know little hacks for daily life, usually in the form of needing less effort to accomplish something or finding a cheaper way to fix or obtain items. However, situations vary a lot and the more serious the issue, the more we search desperately for ways to get around it. So what can you do if you’re out of work? First of all, don’t worry. If you’re out of work, whether it be your fault or not, there’s plenty of things you can do to make ends meet each month. There’s never any shame in needing a little help, even in the form of looking to someone else for answers, so read on for a few good ideas that can bring in some easy cash to make the hard times a lot easier.

Important First Steps To Take When Out Of Work

First of all, considering hiring a service such as LaPorte Law Firm if you think you were unfairly dismissed or aren’t getting the benefits you’re legally entitled to. It’s the best move in a situation when you’re out of work and your dismissal doesn’t feel right. Finding someone who specialises in social security means bills will also be a lot cheaper!

Also, try digging into your savings account if you have one. It can help pay off any debts if you’ve been laid off, and keep a few things at bay, most of all any collectors. Your number one priority at this kind of time is looking for a new way to bring in a stable income; in other words, a new job. Make sure you’re getting all the help you can with things like rent and mortgage most of all, so see if you’re owed any back pay or deductions in terms of tax.

If You Have The Commitment, Join A Blogging Platform

Making money at home couldn’t be easier when you have an internet access and some spare time. Vlogging and Blogging means you’re exposing yourself to some kind of audience, which also means advertisers will be exposed to them as well.

One of the main ways you can start bringing in extra cash every month is through placing ads on your pages. The most popular way to utilise an ad is to host a CPC (cost per click) banner or sidebar. Every time a visitor to your site turns into a customer by clicking through the ad, you get paid for it. It’s that simple!

Yet depending on the amount of visitors you have to your blog, some advertisers may even approach you with exclusive offers. If you can offer them exposure then you’re guaranteed a few offers from all different kinds of products, whether they be big companies or small. You can even write sponsored posts to advertise something in the form of reviews, and they’ll often send you the product for free!

Sell Off Your Surplus

So this category is going to have a lot of stock to it, but that’s just representative of how much you can sell off if you don’t want or need it anymore. So, got some clutter laying around the house? Spruce it up and put it on an auctioning platform! This can seem a lot like common sense, after all, everyone uses a yard sale or Ebay at some point to get rid of something. However it’s a much more lucrative market than you may have first thought.

We need to get into a lot of detail here. A lot of specialty stores and sites exist for each kind of item, so look around for a good place to get the best money for value. DVDs and CDs are one of the main sources for this, so polish up any old records and get rid of them.

You can even use social media to find the best market place and the most competitive prices. It’s also a lot easier to talk to people in real time. Facebook is good for this kind of selling, as it is specialised for this kind of action.

You can find cash for clothes centres, meaning you can just fill a sack with any clothing items you no longer want or fit you and finally get rid of them. It even means you get money in hand on the same day.

If you have a vegetable patch in your garden, now’s a good time to harvest and sell off what you don’t need at places like farmer’s markets, if you like being surrounded by competitive prices and the good smelling produce. However you can once again sell off anything you’ve grown online, and find advice on making the most money for value.

Write Your Own eBook Or Make Images

If you have some writing skills or photoshop proficiency, then you can sell anything you craft from these online as well. Creating products in a digital format means anyone will be able to access them, immediately increasing the market you can sell to.

With an eBook, you should have a good amount of time to work on writing a story if you’re out of work. Don’t just rush something out because you need the money and think people will be interested in whatever you have to offer. Making quality content is the best way to get visitors and potential customers to click on you. Similarly, drawing in photoshop takes some time to do well, and you can even take commissions from people.

It’s even better if you already have a blogging platform to work off of, as you can introduce your products to loyal readers and have them interested from the start, which means word of mouth advertising in real life as well.

So there you have it, a few hints as to what you can do to bring in some money when you’re out of a stable income. You can do any and all of these things, so don’t panic about how little each one seems to make alone.

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Everyone wants to make money in the real estate business but for every billionaire property magnate there are a dozen bankrupt chancers sitting in motel rooms wondering what they Hell happened. Investing in a property as an absentee landlord is one thing, but going from renting out of flipping one property to growing a portfolio of properties is a huge and expensive transition that carried with it a certain amount of risk. Buy hey, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it!

Buying property for investment is very different from buying a home and it requires a different set of skills and priorities. While neither a seasoned investor or someone looking for a new home wants to buy a turkey, the more you invest, the smarter you need to be. Here are some important things to consider when building your property portfolio…

Focus and strategize

When you’re just starting out, your investment strategy will be something along the lines of ‘buy property’ but buying indiscriminately is the surest way to a loss. When your portfolio grows, however, you need to think a little harder about when and where you buy. Do you want to buy properties, renovate them and let them out while you live off the passive income or would you prefer to buy and flip them, maximizing the profits and reinvesting your capital in your next project? These will determine the types of property you buy and their location.

Diversify

A portfolio that’s richly diverse in terms of property type and location has a great chance of longevity and profitability. Investing heavily in hip, upcoming area is a great strategy since rental demand will be consistently high and your yield will tend to grow but you run the risk of keeping all of your eggs in one basket. If something happens to compromise the value of property in any given area, though, this can create huge problems for you. Thus it’s a good idea to hedge your bets by investing in a variety of different locations, even if they are similar properties to those in areas where you’ve already invested.

Don’t be afraid to refinance

Making money in property involves considerable and ongoing investment. While you need capital to acquire new property, you also need to have sufficient liquidity to manage your properties in terms of maintenance fees, ground rent and other fees not paid directly by the tenant. It’s important to be able to move quickly in the property game and having all your cash tied up in your investments can cause you to miss golden opportunities when they present themselves. Strategic refinancing can allow you to expand your portfolio, thus generating more revenue from rental income which means more disposable income for you!

Be prepared to let go of a dud investment

Investors can very often be their own worst enemies by obstinately clinging to properties that just aren’t working for them. Every now and then you may need to bite the bullet and take an up front loss. While a bitter pill to swallow, it’s far better than missing out on more opportunities because you’re shovelling all your capital into a money pit.

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Every standard investment advice consists of making a big purchase in the shape of a house, as it’s generally viewed as one of the best ways to get a good return, or if you ask for another item to invest in, most people will say get another property! But are there other options for investment that don’t involve four walls and a roof? Well, surprisingly enough, there are!

Precious Metals

Precious metals like gold are considered to be quite controversial assets. Some people see them as a no-brainer and are a foolproof investment, and while others may view them as a nightmare, the fact is that the truth is neither here nor there, but they are responsive to certain market conditions. Precious metals appear to gain value when the dollar is weak, and then weaken when the dollar is strong in value. However, this is not an exact science. And of course, we don’t know when this will occur, so it’s best to have some precious metals available at all times. The great thing about items like gold bullion is that you can purchase them and keep them safely at home.

A Boat

A lot of people would consider a boat to be a terrible investment. However, this is largely due to the upkeep and maintenance of the boat. The financing alone can be crippling, but there are sites like boatfinancing.co that can show you the best options for getting a loan to purchase a boat. As time goes on, and the concerns about rising water levels and the threat of natural disaster at every corner, it would be very sensible to own a boat. So not only is it a sensible investment right now, but it’s something that is going to be highly desirable in the coming years.

Peer To Peer Lending

As a way to remove the middleman out of the equation, this is a great way to get a higher rate of return. It benefits both sides, the investor, and the borrower, as the borrower gets a lower rate. Many organizations specialize in peer to peer lending, such as ratesetter.com, but there are plenty of other peer to peer lending platforms that have a decent return on investment, you just need to look for them. But you need to beware that with certain lending platforms, you may be required to invest more than $50!

Wine

Yes, believe it or not, wine is a great product to invest in because it can increase in value as it ages. With the right type of vintages, these can be highly sought after, and you can make a decent amount of money. Of course, to make the most out of this investment, you need to have a good understanding of wine generally, but you also need a room to store them in that is temperature-controlled. To get a substantial profit from your wine, you will also need to buy in bulk. In addition, you need to keep notes of when you bought certain vintages and where from, as these are vital trinkets of information to wine connoisseurs.

You see? There are more investment ideas than a house. So take some of these ideas on board and start investing!

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When a person invests in real estate, he or she doesn’t go to an auction. Usually, they find a realtor, view a variety of properties, and make a few bids. There is nothing wrong with this method. In fact, it’s a tried and tested technique which has provided excellent results on many occasions. But, that doesn’t mean that an investor only has one path to walk. Regardless of how you feel, auctions provide a range of benefits which make them a no-brainer. For the non-believers, below are the reasons why they are great places to find cheap properties.

Seller’s Circumstances

No one likes to address this topic, but the conditions of the seller play a significant role in the price. Anyone who can afford to wait doesn’t have to go to auction. Instead, they can put their house up for sale and go through the normal channels. By definition, people at auction can’t do the same thing. They either have to make a quick sale for financial reasons or have gone bankrupt. Again, it isn’t nice to admit, but this is an opportunity. Because people need an immediate injection of cash, they will accept lower offers and you can pick up a bargain. Sometimes, the bank will set the price and that will reduce the value further.

Less Popular

There is no doubt that the majority of people use the method above to find an investment property. Therefore, auctions are less attractive and not as well frequented. The reason this is important is due to a lack of competition. If there are fewer people at an auction, the price is bound to stay steady. When that happens, you pay less for the building than normal. Yes, auctions are usually packed, but not every person bids on every lot. For the most part, you will have competition from one or two people and that will keep the price low.

Perceived Risks

Another reason an average investor stays away from traditional and online auctions is the risk factor. In their eyes, the negatives outweigh the positives. Yes, there are risks and you will have to take a gamble of sorts. Still, the dangers aren’t as big as people like to imagine. After all, everything is in document form, signed and accounted for. Plus, there is a description of the house flaws. By reading this, you can get an idea of what to expect. Ultimately, the stigma keeps investors away and increases the chances of a bargain.

Play The Game

Think of an auction like a game of poker. By bluffing the other people in the room, you can keep your cards close to your chest. If they don’t know which properties you find appealing, they won’t up bid and increase the price. For example, a great trick is to bid on lots which aren’t attractive. This will get the ball rolling and people thinking the property is a keeper. When it comes to the one you want to buy, the competition will be less as everyone will have made their bids.

As you can see, an auction is an excellent place to find an investment property.

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