In Australia, as in many other countries, capital gains tax applies when you sell an investment property for a profit. The good news is that this is a tax that can be “managed” or minimised because it is levied at your marginal rate of tax in the year that the property is sold. In other words, if you sold your property during a year when you had no income, you could dramatically reduce your capital gains tax.

This is something that self employed people and business owners may be able to do.

Obviously the timing of the sale of the property will be an important consideration here too.

There are a number of ways of reducing the capital gains tax applicable and therefore I have 2 important suggestions for you:

• Firstly, keep good records about the property from the time you first buy it and,
• Secondly, consult your accountant about the best strategy to follow to minimise the capital gains tax applicable BEFORE you put the property on the market.

I have a simple capital gains tax calculator which you may like to check out as a guide. Remember though, to get an accurate calaculation of your potential liabaility, consult your accountant.

Technorati Tags: Capital Gains Tax, Capital Gains Tax Calculator, Selling Investment Properties, When To Sell A Property

Hans :: Feb.02.2007 :: Real Estate Investing, Other Resources :: No Comments »

It’s true that the world is made up of many different types of people with an incredible array of attitudes and beliefs. It’s also true that people from all walks of life and all types of backgrounds have been incredibly successful when they have chosen to follow proven strategies for success.

What I’ve noticed about people who succeed at what they choose to do (whether it be in sport, business, family, investing or any other pursuit) is that they take responsibility for their success.

They live by the motto: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me!”

People who are far less successful on the other hand, winge and whine and blame everyone else for their lack of success without ever looking in the mirror at the person who can do something about changing their circumstances. It’s always everyone else’s fault. It’s the economy. It’s too hard. - Whatever it is, it’s never them.

From where I sit, I see both types of people.

As you can see from the many testimonials I have received for my real estate investing education programs, I have many successful (and now wealthy) students.

I also have a handful of other people whose purpose in life is to prove that what I teach cannot be done and that it no longer works in today’s market or that it won’t work for them.

These are the people that want to speak to my testimonial providers and find out how they did it and to be assured that they can do it too. These people want to make absolutely sure that they have explored every possibility of getting their money back if they should fail. These people want someone to hold their hand for the next 20 years, every time they buy a property.

These people look for strength and inspiration outside of themselves, while winners realise that their strength and motivation comes from within themselves.

Winners look at other successful people and learn from them and model their behaviour. They work on the principle that if someone else has done it, then it must be possible and they just need to learn how to do it.

Less successful people make excuses while winners will persist until they succeed.

This message is not about judging you or anyone else for their attitudes and beliefs. We are all different and thats what makes this world so interesting.

My intention is that you will see this as a message of hope, inspiration and encouragement. I want to absolutely assure you that whatever your circumstances are right now, you have the power to change them.

Even though you may have to learn to do some things differently, even though you may need to think differently and even though you may need to ask someone else for help along the way, you definitely have the power to change things if you choose to do so. All you have to do is make a choice, and that choice is yours alone.

If people want to blame me for their lack of real estate investing success, then I’ll gladly accept the blame… And once they have finished blaming me, the economy, the interest rates, the government or anyone else, I invite them to ask themselves whether their blame game is serving them, or whether it is merely perpetuating their current situation.

Some people really need to stop and think about this.

Listen to the words you are using and when you think about them, you can ask yourself whether they are empowering you or dragging you down. Then consider what you could do to change, if you choose to do so.

Once you take responsibility for your situation, it is a very powerful place to be, because it also means that you can change what you are doing. That’s my message of hope to you.

I also want to inspire you to look at other successful people and know that you can be successful at whatever you choose to do. It’s not about comparing yourself to others and finding all the areas where you have fallen short. It’s about looking at your OWN past performance and seeing how you can keep improving.

Finally, I want to encourage you to take responsibility for your success.

You see, all of us have to face challenges and hardship on a daily basis. All of us have setbacks and all of us have our ‘ups’ and ‘downs’. It’s how we deal with these situations that sorts out the winners from the whiners.

Remember: Its not what happens to you in life that matters, but how you deal with what happens that matters!

If you are not happy with your situation in life right now, or if things aren’t going the way you’d like them to be, please stop and evaluate your current attitudes and beliefs and ask yourself if you are blaming others or if you are taking responsibility for how things are. If you want to change, do so now.

The first book I wrote is called: How To Be Rich & Happy On Your Income and has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. It has been published in several languages and is in its 10th print run in Australia. It has been said that this book is much more than a book about money - its a book about your life!

If you’d like to learn some strategies to improve your life, you may want to read this book some time.

Hans :: Feb.01.2007 :: Personal, Real Estate Investing, General, Business :: No Comments »

Last week a gentleman rang to ask me whether he should invest in my Super Secrets To Real Estate Wealth course, given his circumstances and I said: “NO!”

Here’s why…

Ron had a house which was worth around $720,000 and he had a mortgage on it for about $505,000. in other words, he had about $215,000 worth of equity, if everything went well.

If the banks followed their general lending criteria, he would qualify for a loan of around $576,000 (80% without mortgage insurance) on a property worth $720,000 (provided he could service the loan). This means that he would have $71,000 to put towards an investment property.

While this would ordinarily be sufficient to use as a deposit on about 3 - 4 investment properties, it would have been a very risky strategy for Ron.

You see, Ron was in his mid fifties and his wife was unable to earn an income because she faced increasing health challenges.

Ron was the only breadwinner and he was running a “one-man” business which was generating a reasonable income. He had no superannuation and no other investments.

Even though he believed the house to be worth $720,000, it wasn’t quite finished, because he built it as an owner builder and he still needed to carry out extensive landscaping work.

As our conversation developed, Ron explained that he was struggling to keep up the mortgage payments on his house.

Ron thought that if he were to buy an investment property or two using my strategies, it may help him out of his financial challenges.

I told Ron that: “Real estate investing is NOT a magic bullet and it takes time to build wealth.”

If he was already in financial difficulty now, buying an investment property or two would probably only add to his stress levels.

Ron’s house was located on the outskirts of a major city and with increasing fuel prices, Ron was finding it more and more expensive to travel to his clients who were located closer to the centre of town.

Given that this was a large house on a big block of land and that only Ron and his wife lived there, I suggested that a smarter strategy would be to sell the house (that would be a very emotional decision, since he built it) and reduce his level of personal debt.

He could easily buy a smaller house, closer to where most of his work was, manage his mortgage payments more easily and then go out and buy some investment properties. The best time for him to get hold of my course would be after he has restructured his affairs.

The idea is to have as little personal debt on your own home (because it is not tax effective) and most of your debt on your investment properties.

My suggestions in Ron’s case take into consideration his age, his wife’s ability to generate an income, his ability to earn an income and his asset position. A younger person with a stronger capacity to increase their income may be able to successfully take on more risk.

Please understand that this case study example should not be considered to be financial or investing advice. It is presented for educational purposes only. You are advised to seek appropriate advice from a licensed advisor before making investment decisions.

Technorati Tags: investment course, property investing, real estate investing, renovating, retirement planning, superannuation

Hans :: Jan.31.2007 :: Real Estate Investing :: No Comments »

In March 2004 we bought the derelict Westpac Bank building in Portland after it had been vacant for 10 years (be careful when you buy commercial real estate because even though the returns may be good, there is also a risk of prolonged vacancy if you can’t find a tenant).

If you want to know more about the deal and how I negotiated it, click here to find out the details.

The rear of the building was overgrown with blackberries, the roof leaked and the building was an eyesore in the centre of town.

One of our objectives in buying the building and renovating it, was not just to provide a modern office for our business, but also to give the town of Portland back a sense of its own history.

The area was first settled in 1828 and the town of Portland was officially gazetted as a village on 3rd March 1894, so it has a reasonably long history from an Australian perspective.

The town of Portland originally flourished around the Commonwealth Portland Cement Company Limited which produced highly quality white cement that was used in Sydney and to build the new Parliament House in Canberra.

After the closure of the cement works in 1991, the town’s economic fortunes declined and the Westpac Bank was closed in 1994.

One of our first initiatives after painting the building, was to engage local artist Hans Liebhart to sketch eight historic scenes from the town’s early history from photos and photocopies kindly lent to us by local residents. These sketches were transferred onto aluminium plaques and mounted on the outside of the building as a permanent record of Portland’s history.

We arranged to have 100 prints of each of these historic scenes printed and donated them to the Portland Development Association so they could raise funds to promote the town through their website. The complete details of the prints are there on the Association’s website (look under “Prints” in the navigation bar) and I encourage you to go there and have a look. If you would also like to buy a set, the town would be very grateful for your support.

Following approval from the Westpac Museum in 2006, three large murals were painted onto the side of the building together with the words: “Bank Of New South Wales - First Bank In Australia.”

The murals depict the original Bank Of New South Wales building in Williwa Street, Portland, a bank teller scene from the turn of the 20th Century and a gold assayer.

While the building itself has no particular heritage or historical sugnificance itself, what we have done to the building has and therefore we worked frantically tonight to prepare a submission for the 2007 Energy Australia National Trust Heritage Awards.

Our motivation for doing that was basically to support the town of Portland and to help attract more tourism to the area. Therefore, if you are scratching around for something to do on the weekend and you’re not too far away, why not pay Portland a visit one day?

It’s about half way between Lithgow and Bathurst, about 16kms off the Great Western Highway. 

Hans :: Jan.17.2007 :: Real Estate Investing, General :: No Comments »

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I love to negotiate and most of all when it involves a free beer or two.

Well today we were checking out wedding venues (again) for Shaun and Stephanie’s forthcoming wedding later this year and it was a fun time of negotiating.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people succeed in business when they don’t even take care of the basics. We had arranged appointments at 3 venues and NOT ONE of them had written down the appointment time, who they were meeting and a contact number. Not one! (And we were HOT prospects!)

At the first venue, the manager was not even on site when he told us he would be. It was probably the most modern and elegant venue in the city of Orange but it was a real challenge to do business with them. The manager was arrogant and rather difficult to discuss our needs with. We had to go back twice to talk to him. When we did some more research into this venue we found that although the venue was great, there was more than one report of poor food and service that we came across. As you can imagine, we didn’t end up booking that venue.

At the second venue we were confronted with a muddle headed proprietor who once again had no idea how to present her venue in a way which would instil confidence in someone who was considering spending a considerable amount of money with her.

The 3rd option was in a beautiful historic building, but unfortunately the room was so poorly designed that it was unsuitable for the number of guests we were expecting.

That’s when we got onto the mobile phone to ring a number of venues in Mudgee which was about 1.5 hours drive away. Given that it was after lunch when we rang and had a considerable distance to drive, everyone was very helpful and was willing to stay back for us and show us their venues.

We crammed in visits to 4 more venues until about 7pm and then headed to the restaurant of the venue which was our first choice for the wedding.

The reason it was our first choice, was because the functions manager went out of their way to show us all of the facilities and assure us that they would do their very best to make our function a great success. The venue provided both function facilites, an excellent backdrop for photos and accommodation for our guests.

When we suggested that we may want to fly the bride in by helicopter, they weren’t fazed and showed us where the chopper could land. Nothing was too much trouble and we made a booking on the spot.

The meal in the restaurant was excellent too, so we were sure we had chosen a good venue.

Once we had eaten, we were all very tired and we still had a long drive back to Bathurst and then to Portland so I went over to the counter to pay. This is when I jokingly said to the cashier: “we are looking to hold my daughter’s wedding reception here and that’s why we had dinner here tonight. I was told that if we eat here, we would receive a discount. What can you do for us?”

She looked at me in amazement and said: “Oh well, in that case you can have the beers for FREE”. We had 4 Coronas which were shown on the menu at $9 each so that was a $36 discount. Given that the food bill was $117.50, this represents a massive 30% discount. That’s quite good in my books. What do you think? Would that work for you?

The important question to ask yourself is: “how hard was it to ask?”

I’m sure you’ll agree that it wasn’t hard at all. It just meant mustering the courage to ask. Now I agree that can be hard at first, however the rewards for mustering the courage can be significant.

Another important question to ask yourself is: “what’s the worst that could have happened by asking?”

Once again I’m sure you’ll probably agree with me that the worst that could have happened was that the cashier could have said something like, “Sorry I’m not able to give discounts.”

While I would have persisted, I always keep the saying in mind: “You can’t lose something you never had.”

Technorati Tags: business coaching, negotiating, wedding venues

Hans :: Jan.13.2007 :: Personal, Real Estate Investing, Business :: 2 Comments »

2007 is going to be a very exciting year for us and a very high energy year as well. We spent the day today organising a new office for our website developers and graphic artists, and doing a major clean-up job. It’s always a bit of a challenge getting all of the services connected and working when you move into a new building, however things are coming together very well.

We have been recruiting website designers and developers for this new office as well as graphic designers and we are very excited about the dynamic and creative young team we are putting together. As well as working on our own websites, this team will be available for other businesses interested in tapping into the internet marketing skills and strategies of our very successful team.

I expect it will be a few weeks before everything is at the stage where I can tell you more about this exciting new development, so if this is something that interests you, stay tuned.

In the meantime, what I can tell you a lot more about is how I negotiated an excellent rent for this office space. I must say that this is also the first time I have rented space for very many years because I generally like to own the buildings I have my businesses in.

I’d rather be the landlord and tenant, all in one, through separate entities.

In this case however, I was able to negotiate such a good deal that it is more cost effective for me to rent than to own. It is also a transition time for us while we wait on Council approval for the development of the Bathurst Business Park development. We will be building a new office and warehouse for our businesses, once all the planning approvals are received.

Here’s the low down on the negotiations for our extra office in Bathurst.

The landlord was asking for an annual rent of $15,581.17 including GST for 121 sq metres. Now if you are in a larger city you’ll probably say that’s quite reasonable and I’d have to agree with you. However you need to make sure that you compare apples with apples.

You need to make comparisons within the SAME real estate market rather than across different markets. In the Bathurst market you’d probably come to the conclusion that this was about the going market rent at the moment.

I spent an afternoon looking at various premises with a number of real estate agents before Christmas and came up with a short list of 3 potential properties within the Bathurst CBD. A few days earlier, I had sent a fax to all the real estate agents in Bathurst explaining what I was looking for, however only 2 agents actually came back to me ahead of my deadline with some options.

Some of my real estate investing students complain that the agents don’t get back to them. Guess what? It happens to me too! Don’t stress about it though. Take control and follow them up yourself.

During my afternoon of research with these real estate agents I determined that:

1. there were quite a few potential office space options available to us at the time which would adequately meet our needs
2. some office premises had been vacant for a long time (this is always a risk with commercial real estate. You can certainly get some good returns, however when the premises are vacant, they can be vacant for a long time. In other words, the returns can be better than in residential real estate. but the risks are higher too. That’s not necessarily a problem, - you just have to be aware of the risks and be able to cope with long periods of vacancy without going under.)
3. The real estate boom in Bathurst has been and gone and there were several retail businesses who were feeling the pinch and who would be closing down just after Christmas. This meant that there would be even more options available in the New Year.
4. Several new retail projects are under construction in Bathurst right now and these will be nearing completion in the next few weeks and months. This may attract new national franchisees into the local retail scene and create more pressure on local retailers which in turn could lead to more vacancies, especially in older premises.

Armed with this information and the asking prices of the 3 properties on my short list, it was time to negotiate for my preferred choice of property. Remember: if I could not get this property, I still had two more options as part of my ‘exit’ strategy.

After a bit of asking around I found out that the property has actually been vacant for the last three years.

Now as you can imagine, I was looking for a good deal, however in order to get that good deal, I also had to think about what would be important for the landlord who has had no income from this part of his building for the past 3 years.

I figured I would offer him a substantial up front payment in return for a reduced rent because that would give the landlord immediate gratification and a sum of money which would make an immediate difference to him or her.

As you may remember, the landlord was asking for $15,581.17 including GST.

Here’s what I offered:

1. $9,000 rent including GST for 12 months, paid in 2 instalments, 6 months in advance
2. no bond
3. no outgoings
4. 1 week rent free to clean and move in

The landlord basically accepted my offer but asked me to increase the annual rent to $9,500 instead of $9,000.

As you might imagine, it didn’t take me long to accept the landlord’s counter offer and we had a deal!

What I haven’t told you yet is that the office came with air conditioning and heating, an alarm system, a 6 line telephone system and cabling for a computer network which is exactly what we needed for our business.

If I had to instal all of these items myself, I would be looking at an investment of between $15,000 and $20,000 on top of my annual lease.

Do you see why I feel I got a good deal?

Can you also see that I structured the deal in such a way that the landlord was happy as well?

Because this office area had been vacant for such a long time, there was a bit of cleaning to do to and we steam cleaned the carpets. We also had to get a telephone technician in to help with recommissioning the phone system for ourselves and we have asked an airconditioning firm to clean and check the air conditioning unit. All in all, these costs will be less than $1,000 and we have ourselves a great new second office!

What can you learn from the way I approached this deal and negotiated the leasing arrangements?

Could you apply these ideas to other areas of your life or business?

Even if you are not looking to rent some commercial office space, ask yourself how you might use these ideas to negotiate a different type of lease.

If you are a landlord with a vacant property, ask yourself how you might be able to attract a tenant with a different (more attractive) type of offer.

I just love negotiating! It’s a lot of fun and financially very rewarding.

I encourage you to get good at it too.

If you’d like to become a better negotiator, you might like to check out the information here.

Technorati Tags: commercial real estate, real estate, real estate investing

Hans :: Jan.03.2007 :: Real Estate Investing, Business :: No Comments »

I hope you’ve had a happy start to the New Year wherever you are in the world today. I’d like to wish you a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2007!

My wife and I went to a friend’s place last night and we had a very enjoyable evening. At this New Years Eve party, we met Russ and Jaquie who run a swimming pool business. Jaquie told us that she would be celebrating her 65th birthday in mid January and was hoping to cut down her workload to maybe 2-3 days a week soon. They drove a late model Mercedes Benz coupe and they looked like they were very successful in their business.

During the evening, Russ asked the party hostess about the average house prices in the area. He was told that in that part of town, average house prices were around $450,000. “Hmmm”, he said, “I wouldn’t invest here.”

He didn’t know who I was and about my interest in real estate and I just listened intently to what Russ and Jaquie told me. They said that in addition to their swimming pool business they also had a keen interest in real estate investing and that they liked positive cash flow real estate. Well that was definitely a group of people after my own heart!

They said that they buy houses in country towns for around $50,000 - $60,000 on average, and spend about $5,000 doing cosmetic renovations for a $120 - $150 a week rental return. They said that many of their tenants are school teachers, nurses and tradespeople with regular incomes.

Jacquie said: “The thing I like about theses types of tenants in the country properties is that they don’t ring you up every 5 minutes asking for a light bulb to be changed. They are generally quite resourceful people who are used to taking care of things themselves. They look after the property and pay the rent on time. That’s all we want.”

I was at the party to have a good time and not to “talk shop” to just one couple all night so I didn’t pursue the real estate talk.

What is interesting however, is that in just a few minutes, Russ and Jaquie explained their strategy, spoke about why positive cash flow works so well and why it didn’t make sense to invest in “pretty houses” with poor returns. They gave examples of some of their friends in Sydney who were really struggling with their investment portfolios because they were focused on just the capital gain at the expense of the regular cash flow rental returns.

They were not afraid to travel away from where they lived to invest in property. They were willing to go to wherever the good deals were. That’s one of the things you need to be willing to do if you want to be a successful property investor.

After watching my FREE real estate investing DVD, some people say to me: “but I can’t find any positive cash flow properties where I live!”

That may be true, but who says you have to invest where you live?

Russ and Jaquie live near the Hawkesbury River, Sydney. I’m sure they live there for lifestyle reasons and not because that’s where they want to invest. I live on a 435 acre farm at least 40kms away from the nearest large town. Other successful investors live in high priced suburbs in their favourite city or town. Just because that’s where you choose to live, that doesn’t mean it’s the best place to invest!

If you want to catch fish, you have to go where the fish are.

If you want to invest successfully, you have to go where the best deals are!

For smart investors, 2007 will be a great year. My family and I certainly have some very exciting plans for 2007. How about you? Will you make this a great year for you and your loved ones?

Will you commit to learning more this year and perhaps learning new things this year?

Technorati Tags: cash flow, negative gearing, positive cash flow, property investing, property investment, real estate, real estate investing, real estate investment

Hans :: Jan.01.2007 :: Personal, Real Estate Investing :: No Comments »

“Is that the best you can do?” is a very important negotiating phrase that I use in my real estate negotiations and also in my every day life. Remember this one. It can potentially save you thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars!

It’s also a very powerful response when someone quotes you a price, which, when used correctly can save you even more.

Let me give you an example.

Today my future son-in-law, Shaun and I went into town to collect the engagement ring my daughter Stephanie had chosen.

We were also in town to look at offices to rent for a new business venture that we are starting in January, however, as you can probably imagine, the engagement ring was one of the first items on the agenda.

Going in as a team, allowed us to play the “good cop, bad cop” routine as well.

Shaun was very excited and very emotionally involved, but he was still determined to negotiate a good deal. He knew the ring was priced at just under $2,500 (it had been discounted from about $2,800) and he had a mental target of $1,900 which he wanted to get the price down to.

When he walked into the jewellery shop he presented a card to the shop assistant which had the exact description and size of the ring he wanted, and the asking price. He told her: “I’d like to pick up this ring and get your best price.”

Now please remember that he’s rather excited because this is obviously a big event (and that’s good thing from a relationship point of view). From a negotiating point of view that is not so good especially if you are faced with a skilled and experienced salesperson.<

He would have placed himself in a far more powerful position if he would have started the conversation with: “I’m here to have another look at this ring, which is one of three on my shortlist, to see if we can negotiate a good deal so I can take it with me today.”

That would have given a signal to the salesperson that they still had to work hard to get the deal over the line.

Fortunately the salesperson, came back and offered him the ring at $1,880.

Now at this point Shaun had great difficulty holding back his excitement because he would have been very happy to get the price down to $1,900.

He responded by saying something like: “Oh great.”

Now I wasn’t as emotionally involved as he was and I just couldn’t help myself. I looked the salesperson straight in the eye and asked: “Is that the best you can do?”

She said: “Yes that’s an excellent deal.”

Well not being one to take no for an answer, I continued by asking: “Oh come on, I’m sure you can do it for $1,800.”

(Now that $30 discount was enough to pay for lunch!)

I still pushed a bit harder by saying: “Thanks that’s great, but surely we can do a deal at $1,800.”

When she said: “No that’s definitely the best I can do,” I asked: “In that case, what else can you throw into the deal?”

Now that caught her off guard, because I was no longer pursuing a lower price. I was now looking for some extra value.

She looked thoughtfully at me and said: “OK, I’ll throw in this little bracelet charm.”

“Thank you, you’ve made someone very happy.”

Always remember that negotiating is a psychological game that you must practise to become really good at. At first it can be rather daunting however, the more you negotiate, the more confident you will become, the more fun you will have and the more money you will save along the way.

Even though it can be a bigger challenge when you encounter a particularly skilled salesperson, they will generally throw something into the deal, because they respect you for asking.

On the other hand, you may find some rather subordinate and unskilled salespeople who will respond by saying something like: “I’m not allowed to discount the price. My boss would sack me.”

That’s when you respond by saying: “I understand, so could you please ask your boss what type of deal he will do for me.”

I will then suggest that they need to go to the see the boss or supervisor, or ring them if they are not in the store.

Even though this generally pushes the salesperson well out of their comfort zone, it’s amazing how often you can strike a better deal.

Having said that however, there have also been cases where I’ve simply walked out of a shop and bought elsewhere because I couldn’t strike a deal.

When you are not making any headway with your negotiations and you want to go somewhere else without burning your bridges, an elegant way to keep the door open is to say something like: “Thanks for your time today. I’m interested in XYZ, however I was hoping we could negotiate a better deal so I can go ahead with my purchase today. Since that’s not the case, I’ll need to think about it for a while longer and I’ll come back to you when I’m ready. Is that OK?”

Now a clever salesperson will not let you escape if you say something like that. Sometimes they may suddenly become willing to negotiate if they can see that you are serious and will go elsewhere.

In other cases, it gives you the opportunity to research other outlets and if you can’t do any better, you can still come back without losing face.

The more research you do beforehand, the more options you will have and the better you’ll be able to negotiate.

Here are my Top 10 Negotiating Tips in a Nutshell:

1. Never appear too enthusiastic to buy when you approach a salesperson. Always give them the impression that you have not yet decided to buy. You are just considering the possibilities.
2. Start your negotiations with something like: “If I were to buy this item today, what sort of deal could you do for me?”
3. When they respond, ask: “Is that the best you can do?”
4. Whatever they say, you need to continue to haggle by saying something like: “Oh come on, surely you can do it for $X”
5. If they say no, come back with a counter offer. You might say: “What about $Y?”
6. Once you feel you’ve gone as far as you can go on the price, ask for something else to be thrown into the deal.
7. Don’t be afraid to ask to speak to the boss or a supervisor to ask for a better deal.
8. Being willing to walk away from the deal is an important strategy when you are negotiating, however, always leave the door open for future negotiations.
9. The more research you do before you start your negotiations, the more options you will have and the harder you’ll be able to negotiate.
10. Finally, when you are happy with the deal, show your gratitude to the salesperson by thanking them and telling them they’ve made someone very happy.

If you’d like to learn more about negotiating please click here

Hans :: Dec.13.2006 :: Personal, Real Estate Investing :: 1 Comment »

Tonight I held a FREE teleseminar to answer people’s real estate investing questions.

Some of the many questions I answered included:

• What do you consider to be an ideal investment property in the current economic climate?
• Do you prefer fixed or variable rate loans when financing and why?
• What’s the first key thing you need to do to get the ball rolling with property investing?
• If you can only afford to purchase one property, is it better to purchase an investment property or a home to live in?
• When do you know its time to sell?
• Will climate change affect property sales?
• Should you ever buy property without physically inspecting the property?
• Given the current drought situation, the rise in interest rates and the ageing population, what would you say is the best type of property to invest in right now?

From time to time I will pick some of the questions on this list and answer them on this BLOG. Of course if you were one of the lucky ones to have been on the call tonight, you’ll have these answers and more.

I’ll be holding more teleseminars in the future, so keep a look out here and I’ll let you know when the next one is.

Hans :: Dec.12.2006 :: Real Estate Investing, Other Resources, Seminars :: No Comments »

I spoke at the 2nd Wealth Creator Alternate Property Investment Seminar this weekend and it was great to catch up with so many of my successful students at the same time.

It was an enthusiastic crowd and we had a lot of fun.

Some of the speakers presenting other than myself included Michael Yardney, Tony Melville, Peter Comben, Patrick Bright, Chris Lang and Bill Zheng.

Many people commented that it was great to be able to listen to such a good cross-section of speakers on so many different topics.

Hans :: Oct.23.2006 :: Real Estate Investing, Seminars :: No Comments »