Property is a Girl's Best Friend

By Propertywomen.com

Whether you're 18 or 80, whether you have $800 or $800 000, you can invest in property — you just need the know-how.

Property is a Girl's Best Friend is the essential property investing guide for Australian and New Zealand women who want financial freedom.

With case studies and hot tips to inspire and guide you, let Propertywomen.com show you:

• 7 property investing strategies for capital gain and cash flow — find out which suits your personality
• the 25 steps to teach you property investing
• techniques to uncover great deals that one property woman used to buy 26 properties in just 28 months
• 16 ways for you to eliminate costly habits that hold you back financially how one property woman made $1 million in just one year with a $1 option
• 11 top tips to reduce tax legally and increase cash flow.

Move over diamonds, property is now a girl's best friend!

Property is a Girl's Best Friend is the essential property investing guide for Australian and New Zealand women who want financial freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Feb 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9780730376095

Book preview

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Chapter 1: Mindsets:

getting your mind over the matter

Annie Stoker

The yeast that will make your investment rise is you.

You’ve made up your mind: you want to secure your financial independence and assure your future income, and you’ve decided to do this by investing in property.

Then reality starts to niggle; soon it starts to bite. Investing in property is not like splashing out on a pair of shoes — it’s not even like buying a new car. For most, it involves borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars; taking on considerable debt in the hope of getting some, or all of it, repaid by tenants. Of course, the long-term view is that the asset will appreciate and you’ll make money on it. In the meantime, you have to service your debt; deal with vendors (sellers), real estate agents, mortgage brokers, banks and maintenance issues; pay the bills and still manage to sleep at night.

Are you afraid? Of course you are!

Fear can be crippling. It will keep you in a state of inactivity for as long as you let it. You need to feel the fear and do it anyway. Let your logic prevail and keep a lid on the emotional responses that will prevent you from reaching your goal.

In this chapter, we’ll look at the mindset that’s required to make a successful property investor, and we’ll explore the characteristics that need nurturing to get your mind over the matter.

A shining example

Consider Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. I wonder if you’re familiar with these aspects of his biography:

bullet In 1831, his business failed; he declared bankruptcy.

bullet He was defeated for a place in the Illinois General Assembly.

bullet In 1835, Lincoln’s sweetheart died.

bullet This was followed by a nervous breakdown in 1835.

bullet In 1843, he was defeated for nomination for US Congress.

bullet And again in 1846.

bullet Lincoln was defeated for US Senate in 1854.

bullet In 1856, he was defeated for nomination for US vice president.

bullet And again in 1858.

bullet In 1860, Lincoln was elected president of the US.

This exceptional man reached his goal despite enduring setback after setback. Lincoln embodied the idea that you cannot fail unless you quit!

But what is it about a person that makes them excep-tional? Exceptional people have an understanding of how the world works and the universal laws that govern humankind. They know that if they continue moving towards their goal, regardless of the obstacles they might face, they will not be denied greatness. In a nutshell, they have the right mindset for success.

Your mindset is the way your mind is conditioned to see and understand the world around you. It is an internal model of your environment, governed by your beliefs, thoughts and emotions. It is also influenced by your family and friends, and even your own subpersonalities. Let’s deconstruct some of these elements to examine how they work.

The power of belief

A single belief — such as debt is bad — has the power to stop you in your tracks. If you are setting out to become a property investor, this can happen even before you are faced with the bevy of professionals you will encounter over the course of a property purchase. Even though a belief is simply the result of a few random neurons firing in the brain, its effect on your life can be profound.

Many of us may have been brought up believing that debt is bad. While this can be true, there is such a thing as good debt. (See chapters 5 and 13 for more information on gearing and finance.) Let’s look at an example of a learned belief at work.

Jane’s story

Jane was brought up by parents who believed debt to be burdensome and best avoided at all costs. Her parents’ life’s work was dedicated to paying off their mortgage before retirement. Clear in Jane’s memory are her parents’ conversations regarding the financial troubles of an impulsive friend, who got burned when she took out a car loan.

One day, Jane’s husband comes home with a property magazine, full of excitement about the investment oppor-tunities it holds. A feeling of dread settles in Jane’s stomach as the teachings of her parents spring to the fore of her mind. She becomes annoyed with her husband and they argue.

Jane’s is an unconscious reaction of fear and anger that has rendered her incapable of seeing her husband’s ideas in a positive light. She is unlikely to change her mind and her attitude may prevent her from studying the benefits of good debt. Even if she did decide to investigate the possibilities good debt would bring her, her pre-existing attitudes may lead her subconsciously to seek out negative data to support her beliefs. She may be unable to assess information objectively because of her knee-jerk, fearful reaction to the topic. Beliefs form the boundaries of your mind and, therefore, dictate your experience. If Jane were to examine her beliefs about debt and wealth creation, with an open and objective mind, she could question whether those beliefs are still serving her well. (If they are based on fear then, by definition, they are not.) An objective examination might help Jane evaluate the validity of her beliefs. If they were proven to be invalid, she’d be able to drop them and put more positive and productive beliefs in place.

Getting emotional

Your thoughts and beliefs create your emotional reaction to any given situation and, therefore, determine your response to it.

Try this exercise:

bullet Say to yourself: ‘I wish I owned a house as beautiful as my neighbours’. I’ll never be as successful as them’.

bullet How do you feel?

bullet Now turn it around. Say: ‘I am so grateful to be in a position to focus on successful property investing. Most people on the planet will never be in so lucky a situation’.

bullet Now how do you feel?

The first statement should have left you feeling negative and disillusioned, while the second should have you ready to take on the world! This is because the way you think determines your emotional experience.

Have you noticed how your emotional state determines your behaviour? Decisions made when you’re feeling doubtful and discouraged will be a world apart from ones made when you’re feeling enthusiastic and positive. It is not actually the emotion, but, rather, your response to the emotion, that is important to understand. The good news is that you can determine your emotional response to anything. The great news is that emotions pass.

More facts about beliefs

Here are some facts to help you to see your unhelpful beliefs for what they are.

• Just because you believe something to be true, doesn’t necessarily mean it is. (For years, people believed the earth was flat!)

• Beliefs are a collection of thoughts, which in turn are impulses in the brain — they are insubstantial and fleeting electrical activity. It is the weight we give those thoughts that gives them importance.

• Positive beliefs improve your life experience; negative ones limit your experience and lead to suffering.

• Beliefs are optional and can be changed.

Subpersonalities: a conversation in your head

Your personality is made up of separate sections that not only interact with each other in internal conversations, but also emerge in different situations. For this reason, you may find you feel, think and behave differently at work than you do at home. Each of your subpersonalities has its own values, beliefs and concerns. Take the following inner dialogue, for