Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The Contrarian Investor

Back in May of last year, I ran a post about the state of the housing market as indicated by the caliber of Investor I was coming across in my practice. So many of these speculative buyers were lacking the basic understanding about how to invest in real estate, and were exhibiting ideas and strategies evangelized by the late-night infomercial type of real estate guru. I predicted that this was a sign of a topping market, but only that it was a sign. I did not call for a crash in housing. I spent the following posts explaining how dynamic our economy was, and why it was so difficult to predict these things...

But back to my point. The market has been pretty flat in the last year, and this type of amateur investor has all but vanished from the marketplace. But any investment professional can tell you that opportunities exist when you think against the grain. It can be tough to do, but it often pays.

With the tightening credit availability in housing, a lot of would-be buyers are going to need to turn back to renting homes. This puts a squeeze on rental supply, and causes a trickle-up in rental costs. Keep this in mind as you look for return and cash-flow on your investment properties. The opportunities will be out there...

RealEstateJournal has another interesting article today about a particular niche in Real Estate Investing - the college campus play...

Where Analytic Capital Meets Experiential Capital

This is not your typical 'fork in the road'. RealEstateJournal has an interesting article today about a study performed by a bunch of economists to look at when in life people are most likely to make minimal mistakes managing their finances.

The results vary by type of financial device or account managed, but everything landed in the 'middle age', with 53.4 years being the ideal age to make wise decisions with one's money.

But why wait until 53? and if you already saw 53, why let things slide now? The forces that cause people to miss a payment, make a late one, etc, are mostly related to improper cash flow management and inadequate liquidity. Learning to master these two aspects of financial planning is key to withstand strain presented by life's 'curve balls' and unexpected events.

Are your priorities stacked in the right order? You can accelerate the 'Experiential Capital' process by obtaining quality financial advice. If your mortgage is the biggest liability you have, or your home is your biggest asset, it makes sense to build your plan around real estate finance strategies. You certainly want your mortgage plan to be congruent with other financial objectives.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Young-With-Money Households

There is some interesting notes from a recent study by The Media Audit about incidence levels of 6-figure income earners out today... Here is a summary. For more information on The Media Audit, go here...

Thursday, March 1, 20076.2 Million Young-With-Money Households
According to a new report by The Media Audit, there are 23.2 million adults in the 87 metropolitan markets, regularly surveyed by The Media Audit, with annual household incomes of $100,000 or more, and 6.2 million are between the ages of 18 and 34.


Bob Jordan, president of International Demographics, producing The Media Audit, notes that "There are more, by both percent and actual number, adults with six figure incomes under the age of 35 than there are over the age of 54."

Among all those with six figure incomes:
26.6 percent, or 6.2 million, are under the age of 35
19 percent, or 4.4 million, are over the age of 54.
There are 43.8 million adults under age 35, and 39.8 million over age 54 in the markets measured
Eighteen percent of the "young with money" are age 18 - 20
18.9 percent are 21- 24
63.2 percent of the "young with money" are 25 - 34

Of the 6.2 million 18 - 34 year olds with six figure incomes, 60.9 percent are men and 39.1 are women.
Jordan says, "The gender differences ...are in spite of the fact that the women are more inclined to have a college degree. Fifty six percent of 18-34 year old women earning $100,000 or more have one or more degrees. Just 46 percent of men in the category have one or more college degrees."


In addition, 16.4 percent of men and 17.6 percent of women in the "young with money" group have advanced degrees. Men also get to the $100,000 income level quicker. Among women, 15.6 percent are 18 - 20 and 19.4 percent of men are in the same age group.

In spite of the gender differences, however, women buy more house. In the young with money group:
46.5 percent of women have homes valued at $300,000 or more
Among Men in the group, 42.2 percent have homes valued at $300,000 or more
80.7 percent of women in this group own their own home, compared with 74.3 percent of men

Approximately, says the report:
58.3 percent the "young with money" group are Caucasian
9.7 percent are African-American
15.3 percent are Hispanic
12.7 percent are Asian
For more
information from The Media Audit, please visit here.

A lot of the young home buyers who contact us are driven to the idea of purchasing by being confronted with their Income Tax bill. Real Estate tax deductions get more appealing as your income gets higher. Roughly half of these people have exposure in housing beyond 300k. The key takeaway here is, the other 53.5-57.8% of young-with-money people are missing out on the opportunity. If you are in this category, its time to explore renting vs. buying, and how tax planning fits in with mortgage planning. If you are not already considering buying a home, or larger home, you may be interested in seeing what happens financially if you do.