With so much uncertainty in the securities markets recently, smart investors are finding better alternatives for their portfolios and real estate is one of the most appealing strategies. There are ways to directly and indirectly include real estate investments in your portfolio, some of which you may already be familiar with and others that might be somewhat less common. While all of these can give you a good return on your money, some require more “care and feeding” on your part. Here’s a quick overview. Residential rental property Investing in single-family...
Few of you probably know many Americans who grew up during the Great Depression. The men and women of that generation are among those who fought and won World War II. Newsman and author Tom Brokaw gave them the label, “The Greatest Generation” and I think it’s a fitting honor. If you’re fortunate enough to know any members of The Greatest Generation, you’ll know that the hard times of the Great Depression gave them a deep appreciation for the value of money and the risk inherent in the stock market. I bring this up because I think the generation we call the...
Have you ever been stereotyped? We all hate it, don’t you agree? We hate it because people take one thing they know about us and then make all kinds of wrong assumptions about who we are and how we think, and it simply makes us feel small. Our country has been fighting a battle against stereotyping people for many years and while we probably have a long way to go, I think we’ve made some progress. In many ways, I believe that when we stereotype people, we’re being lazy. It’s much easier to find out one thing about a person and then jump to a long list of...
The fundamental goal of investing is to make the best return on your money given the level of safety that you require. Simple and smart, right? It would be great to meet this goal with an equally simple investment. The fewer things we need to worry about, monitor and manage, the better; it gives us more time to enjoy our lives and concentrate on the things we do well. The financial world has exploded with investment instruments and strategies over the last couple of decades. Today, even the average investor can easily get involved in stocks, mutual funds, hedge...
