Property investment as a long term strategy
April 8, 2009 by · 9 Comments
The real estate investments market is extremely volatile at the moment. Many small investors have seen as much as ten year’s accumulated profit wiped out in one short year. Largely thanks to over-borrowing when credit was offered to poor risks.
Real Estate investments should be seen as a long term investment only. Any wishing to get in and out quickly are at the mercy of the same market forces as any other commodity market. Values go up and down, but invariably the trend is a long, slow upward movement, with blips up and down along the way. 2006 saw the beginning of the current decline in values of homes and this trend looks set to continue downwards for the immediate future. At some point this will change, but it is almost impossible to predict exactly when this will occur.
Some markets are seeing more volatility than others. Dubai for instance has seen drops of over 50% in value in a few months time. Some are suggesting that Dubai’s luxury home market is finished, and those wishing to invest in property in Dubai should consider carefully the implications of buying real estate in a foreign land.
The long term future should be good for house prices, but the short term certainly looks bleak. As with any investment decision, bear in mand that values go up as well as down, particularly over the next 5 to 7 years as global economies struggle to come to terms with the enormous losses of the financial services sector.
No one is in a position to accurately call bottom, or predict the future price of properties.
Miles Apart, Garage Doors Without End
December 31, 2008 by · 7 Comments
looked at as a trip of vanity, our story has few bright spots to speak of and even fewer precious memories to recall. Starting with our humble beginnings and concluding with such things like the 1974 disaster, you will soon see our future, at least to many of folks, was as likely as a trip to the sun on and an iceberg.
People had pretty much written us off from the word go. I mean who would have imagined that two boys from Butte, Montana could start a business fabricating remote garage door openers in there personal garage and now, own more real estate than Donald Trump. I would have never considered it myself, believe me. The beginning ten years, were not exciting by any any stretch of the imagination and the coming ten barely improved for that matter.
It wasn’t till the late 80′s that the Tarpman business took a giant up swing and Chamberlain wireless garage door openers had at last made the big time. Henry and myself were at a loss for words, when overnight it seemed people went berserk for these things.
That year we employed about 30 crews and initiated shipping beyond 600 units. Within the next two years, we had just over 200 crews, nation wide and were shipping an average of 400 units a month. You talk about madness, forget it, we had more to do than we could handle. We began investing in 1994, mostly real estate, and by 2000 we were multi-billionaires, with investments coast to coast, and in 9 different countries, including the now off the chart city of Dubai.