Real Estate Investing Advice

Real Estate Investing Advice: You Could be Just ONE DEAL Away from a Luxury Retirement
A Taipan Publishing Group Strategy Report
By Toby Unwin, Sheridan Enterprises Group, Taipan Publishing Group

What I’m about to disclose may unsettle you...

It may go against your cherished ideas and deeply held beliefs. You may get a little angry – not with me but with yourself for letting so many years pass by without discovering this. Because the truth is...Like me you could be enjoying a wealthy, fun lifestyle – not facing more years of daily grind.

I hope you’ll forgive me if I ruffle a few feathers. In return I promise by the end of this letter you’ll know how you could retire soon and enjoy a superb monthly income. The amount of work you’d have to do to achieve this (after you’ve completed the one-off deal I will be explaining) is as close to zero as measurable.

Let me be very clear here. I’m talking one lucrative deal – then you could be out of the rat-race forever! No more bosses. No more work. No more commuting.

Maybe you’re thinking: “One deal and then retire for life? That can’t be right. You have to slave really hard for decades if you’re to have any hope of a modest pension.” Well read on and see that what I’m saying is true - and it’s possible for you to do as well...

Before I tell you how to achieve this wonderful freedom, it’s important you know a little about me and how I achieved my current wealthy, fun-filled lifestyle. I’m not telling you this to boast, and I hope I won’t bore you. I want you to see clearly that YOU could do this as well. You need to see that I’m just an ordinary guy without special talents or abilities, otherwise you might think: “Sure, he can do this, but there’s no way I could ever do it.”
The truth is – you could do it if you followed my simple instructions...

Real Estate Investing Advice: Humble Beginnings to a Multi-Million Fortune!

My name is Toby Unwin, best-selling author of books such as “The Flake Filter” and “Wealth Without Fear.” I am also a property entrepreneur. But things were once very different...

I started off trying a few “grunt” jobs like carrying bags at a hotel, stuffing envelopes and the like but I soon realized that most work was minimum wage slavery with little hope of making ends meet, let alone getting wealthy and retiring early. I didn’t put the heating on in my apartment. I didn’t go out and rarely bought anything. I used to wear eight layers of clothing to keep out the cold. I’d eat the same thing each day (a stew I’d make at the start of the week).

Look, I’m not trying to spin some sob story. Truth is, we weren’t grindingly poor like many others. No, the point is that my background made me independent and determined to carve myself a better life. Maybe you need to have suffered a little to get that “edge”? I don’t know. What I do know is that from an early age I wanted to be rich without having to slave for 45 years then grab a little poverty-stricken retirement on a meager pension. That’s not what life is about.

One day I just woke up and thought: “This is ridiculous!” I wanted a better life – and what made it worse was that I could see lots of people making fortunes and living luxury lifestyles – whilst I was slaving. These people didn’t seem any smarter than me. If I carried on like this I could see my future... It was a future like many of the “beaten” men and women around me. They’d thrown in the towel years ago and were just seeing out their time. They’d resigned themselves to a life of mediocrity and poverty. I refused to go down that path and so I became determined to break free.

Real Estate Investing Advice: "Now things are so different. I live in a million
dollar house with stunning views"

I also own a top-of-the line Jaguar XK8 convertible and I have all the time in the world to enjoy my good fortune. Listen, I’m not telling you to brag – I don’t need to do that. I’m telling you all this for one reason... my story could be your ticket to freedom.

No matter how old/young you are, no matter how broke you are right now, no matter how hopeless your own situation seems this could be your answer. In fact I would say the worse your situation the better – it means you’ll be hungrier and want to fight more than those who are comfortably off.

Nothing stops you advancing more than comfort!

So I guess there is one qualification you must have if this is to work for you – you need to be hungry for a better life and sick of always being broke and never seeming to get ahead of the game.

Is this you? Great, maybe what worked for me will work for you too. Let’s see...

Real Estate Investing Advice: The Road to Success

I’d love to tell you a passing multi-millionaire took pity on me, took me under his wing and taught me all he knew... In fact nothing like that happened. I did it all myself. Here’s what I did (it’s quite simple really)...

I got myself a copy of the list of the world’s 1,000 wealthiest people and checked how they’d got so rich. I figured that if a lot of people had made money out of the same thing, then maybe (just maybe...) that might be a good thing for me to try my hand at too!

Talk about naïve! But hey – it worked, so who’s complaining? Well it didn’t take long for me to get one message loud and clear. Here’s how it read to me:

Property, property, steel, property, publishing,
property, property, media, property, software,
property, property, property, oil, property…. You get the idea! But stop right where you are...

Important: Please hold-off from any preconceived notions you might have at this point. What I am proposing is VERY different and unlike anything you will have seen. I did not make one deal to retirement from residential buy-to-let property!!

But at the time, I thought “Great! So I’m going to buy property, rent it out and in no time I’ll be rich... yes?

Erm…How About…NO?!

Okay, cue loud sound of needle being dragged across a record. It was a nice fantasy... but the truth was about to hit me hard.

Like you perhaps I heard this fact about property being at the route of the world’s millionaires, but a crucial detail was omitted about this, which I will explain in this letter. A detail which means you’ve been fed a load of nonsense in recent times. Anyway, on with my story...

Real Estate Investing Advice: Heard of “The Madness of Crowds”?

About this time the residential property rental boom was beginning and the frenzy of activity fired my own enthusiasm that property was the way to go. It seemed that everyone was jumping on the bandwagon to buy properties to rent out. Even the taxi drivers I knew were getting involved (I now know that should be a strong signal to get out – but I was less savvy in those days.)

But even given this rather dull outcome, I wanted “in” and I wanted it badly. So I scrimped, saved and borrowed and finally managed to build a modest portfolio of homes to rent out.

It was about this time I discovered the power of negative thinking...

Real Estate Investing Advice: The Power of Negative Thinking!

You’ve heard of the power of positive thinking? Well this was a wake-up call caused by the power of negative thinking. Yes, that has its uses too...

I started to think:

“Okay, so I’ve been a good boy and got a few houses rented out- so why am I putting so much work in and getting so little out? A few hundred bucks extra a month for all that effort?”

…Big deal!

This was a total reality check for me. I put in five years of back-breaking labor just to get a fingernail into the property market - and even that hadn’t made a bit of difference. Something was screwy here. Property wasn’t a way to get wealthy fast after all it seemed.

Real Estate Investing Advice: The REAL Shocking Truth About Residential Property Investment

Here’s what I found about residential “investment” the hard way. By this, I mean individual houses or apartments:

• Low Yields: Everyone is doing it so yields are insignificant. The typical return you get now is about 3% after all costs. That’s less than you get by putting the money in the bank. Yes, there’s the capital growth, but you’re paying way over the odds for the property in the first place, at the peak of the market, so the growth for the next five years will be minimal or negative i.e. you are most likely to lose money if you buy now.

• Too Much Competition: You are in tough price competition with those who are buying to actually live there, so there are far fewer, if any, deals. (Remember, 95% of houses and apartments are sold to people who want to live there.)

• Too Much Time Needed: These property gurus all reckoned I needed to physically view “only” about 100 properties to find a good deal. What are those guys smoking? Who has time to do that these days?!

• Larger Property = Even Lower Yields! The more expensive the property, the worse the yield. This means that 3+ bedroom and executive homes are almost impossible to buy and rent out at a profit (unless you go into the ultra-hassle “student house” business). Meanwhile, as I’ve said, there’s a truly massive demand for 1 and 2 bed places resulting in the price of these being artificially high. This class of property is exactly that sought by the first-time buyer as well, pushing the prices up even further!

• Negative Cashflow! Low rentals means negative cash-flow. This means you are usually paying out money each month, not banking money.

• Management and repair fees eat a big chunk of your income. Wide-eyed new investors in this game never factor-in these expenses. You will also end up doing a lot of your own cleaning, decorating etc.

• Vacancy/High Tenant Turnover: Your house is usually occupied by a single person who will stay for 6 months typically. So lots of hassle with constantly changing tenants. Often it can seem more like a holiday cottage let than a long-term residential let!

• Finding good tenants is a constant headache. And with the very high turnover, this is an ongoing project. The more individual apartments you have, the bigger the headache. Ten apartments can easily turn into an almost full-time job if you do your own tenant-finding, decorating, repairs, cleaning between tenants etc.

• Many Properties Needed to Retire: Far from being “one deal from retirement” you have to buy dozens of these to even have a shot at retiring. And you are hoping and praying for a capital gain which may or may not come soon – if ever.

• Tenant Hassle: I spoke to several people who own 10+ apartments and they experience constant aggravation from tenants calling and wanting a light-bulb changed, a leaking faucet fixed etc. etc.

• Big Deposits Required: Banks usually demand that you put in more than the usual 10% deposit if it’s for rental. The minimum you can get away with is 20% - some want 25-30%!

• “No Money Down” was a myth! I tried to buy several properties for no money down and was laughed off the phone by the sellers. They’d never heard of such a thing. I Actually Believed What All Those Property Seminars Told Me! “No Money Down?” I was met with stark disbelief and laughter. I’m not saying that nobody has ever, in the history of residential property done a “no money down deal” – but this has never happened to me or anyone I know in residential property. The more I looked into it, the more fishy the whole thing seemed and the more disillusioned I became. It seemed like some people were making money selling books, tapes and seminars about deals which didn’t really happen. I felt conned. I’d wasted a lot of time and I was pretty fed-up.

Real Estate Investing Advice: Why Would Any Sane Person Get Into This?

Answer... no reason... not now at least.

If you bought the same residential property five years ago, the numbers start to look far more attractive. But now? It’s not something I would do. If you do currently own such properties, maybe now is the time to head for the exits for something better which I’ll explain here...

Okay, that’s the difficult bit out of the way. If I’ve done my job I will have convinced you residential rental property sucks big time and that you should consider giving this a very wide berth if you were thinking of getting into it.
Don’t. It’s way, way too late. But...

Real Estate Investing Advice: Let’s Get Real About Property

I started to think seriously about the whole residential property thing. And the more I got to thinking... the more I got to wonder what on Earth was going on. Stay with me on this one because it has huge implications for your future wealth...

I am about to reveal how my “negative” train of thought led me to a massive breakthrough which led to my unique “one deal from retirement” method...

Real Estate Investing Advice: I wanted to do just one deal which would make me a lot of money in the near future and a steady income now, allowing me to retire immediately.

Think about this for a second. I don’t know your exact circumstances, but if you had about three grand a month coming in for zero effort, you could retire tomorrow, right?

For you it may be two grand or four grand, but you get the idea – we’re in the right ball park. We’re not talking a million a month here... just a few lousy grand to free you forever from wage slavery. Not to mention the nice little one million dollar plus cash bonus I’ll show you how to get a few years down the line.

Real Estate Investing Advice: My Awakening – Your Salvation!

So if residential property investment to rent out is currently a very, very bad idea... and yet... property is the way to go... and we’re looking for just one deal... what do you think came to me in a blinding flash one day?

Answer:
Commercial property.

Please, for the moment, kill any and all preconceived ideas you might have when I say “commercial property”. I don’t want to be rude, but chances are, you know absolutely nothing about what I’m about to explain to you.

So if you want to get in on this “one deal to retirement” idea, please clear your mind right now and listen carefully to what I’m about to explain to you... This is not dry theory. I’ve done many such deals and bought millions of dollars worth of property.“What? Many deals? I thought you said this was a ‘one deal’... er... deal?” Correct. I said it is “one deal from retirement” – and that’s true. Retirement means three grand a month (or whatever). But if you do more deals, you could become a very, very wealthy man or woman with $20k, $30k, $50k or even $100k a month coming in. It all depends on your vision.

Now, this is important...
Remember the list of the world’s wealthiest people? Many people had made it in property, right? What was the one, obvious question I had omitted to ask?

Real Estate Investing Advice: Property Makes Money, Right? But what TYPE of Property???

Um... duh... I can’t believe I missed this stupidly obvious question! I’d just assumed that property meant... well... houses and apartments and stuff... Wrong!

When I did further research, I couldn’t find a single “Rich List” person who’d made millions buying and selling single-family homes and one-bedroom apartments.

Donald Trump and other millionaire property investors certainly don’t go around buying a series of single-family homes, one at a time until they’ve built up a portfolio...

They buy one commercial property at a time. And by the way, don’t think you have to go and buy a skyscraper like Donald Trump; many, many commercial properties I will show you are cheaper than residential ones!
And remember, I will be showing you how a single commercial property can be your ticket to retirement whereas you would require many, many residential properties to achieve that!

What a moron I was – trapped in the thinking of my conventional upbringing. The same upbringing that teaches you to work for fifty years and then retire with a gold watch and a pat on the head like a good doggie. The same sad “nest egg” thinking that teaches you not to get above yourself and not to think you could actually stop working or... heaven forbid... get rich... and, sin of sins... do it with almost no effort!

However, I had now found the exit. Would you like to know how to get there too?

Real Estate Investing Advice: Now I Knew This Was The Way To Go!

I had no doubt in my mind at this point as I’d done a lot of research. However, there was a teensy-weensy problem of a young guy, with no real credit history and no deposit... +buying commercial property- something I had no experience in...

But, I was in for a big (and this time pleasant) surprise for I was soon to discover that every single one of the “negatives” in residential property turned rapidly into a positive with commercial property.

“Toby Unwin’s system has proved invaluable to me during several transactions. His methodology has allowed me to capitalize on this expanding market with little or no money down and has increased my portfolio dramatically while minimizing my risk. I would highly recommend his winning strategies to those serious about creating wealth in commercial real estate.” Damon R. Cox