You've without doubt seen all of them or examine them. Glossy advertisements or four-color spreads in magazines and newspapers promising to show you all of the juicy information about successful real estate investing. And all you should do to learn every one of these real property investing surface encounters chuck russo secrets is to pay a rather high sum for a one-or two-day seminar.
Often these types of slick real estate investing classes claim that you could make smart, profitable real-estate investments with simply no money lower (except, of program, the large fee you buy the workshop). Now, how appealing is in which? Make a make money from real estate investments you created using no funds. Possible? Not probably.
Successful owning a home requires cash flow. That's the character of any kind of business or perhaps investment, especially real estate investing. You put your hard earned money into something that you wish and plan is likely to make you additional money.
Unfortunately too little newbies towards the world of property investing think that it's a magical type of business exactly where standard enterprise rules don't apply. Simply put, if you would like to stay in real estate investing for a lot more than, say, a day time or two, then you will have to come up with money to utilize and make investments.
While it might be true in which buying real-estate with simply no money down is straightforward, anyone that is even made a simple real estate investment (like buying their own home) knows there's a lot more involved in property investing that will set you back money. For instance, what about any necessary repairs?
So, the number one rule people new to real est investing should remember is always to have obtainable cash supplies. Before you decide to actually do any property investing, save some funds. Having just a little money inside the bank when you begin real property investing surface encounters chuck russo can help you make more profitable real estate investments in rental properties, for example.
When property investing inside rental qualities, you'll want every single child select just qualified tenants. If you've no cashflow when real-estate investing inside rental properties, you may be pressured experience a less qualified tenant because you need somebody to cover you money so that you can take attention of maintenance or attorney fees.
For almost any real estate investing, meaning leasing properties or even properties you buy to sell, having funds reserved can allow you to ask for any higher value. You can ask for a higher price from your investment because an individual surface encounters chuck russo won't feel financially strapped as you wait for an offer. You won't be backed into a corner and forced to accept just any offer because you desperately need the money.
Another downfall of numerous new to real estate investing is actually, well, greed. Make any profit, yes, but do not become thus greedy that you simply ask with regard to ridiculous leasing or resell rates on all of your real estate investments.
Those new to real est investing must see real estate investing like a business, NOT a spare time activity. Don't believe real est investing will make you rich overnight. What enterprise does?
It will take about half a year to decide if property investing in for you. If you've decided that, hey I enjoy this, then offer yourself a few years to truly start making money. It often takes at least five years to get truly successful in real-estate investing.
Persistence may be the key to success in property investing. If you might have decided that real-estate investing is made for you, surface encounters chuck russo keep plugging away at it and the rewards will be greater than you imagined.
(h/t Heather at VideoCafe)
It is a truism rarely acknowledged in this country: the single most important infrastructure investment we can make for the future is in education. I'm not talking about retrofitting the buildings or constructing more classrooms. No, we provide for the future by educating our young people, preparing them to become productive members of society. Study after study shows that the higher one's education level is, the higher the median income and the less likely one is to suffer unemployment.
But we're not doing that. No, in these austerity times, politicians clamor to cut services and jobs. Teachers are demonized. Vouchers are touted as the answer, when it's simply a way to privatize profits away from public schools. Hell, some GOP would be happy if we eliminate the Department of Education altogether.
A rare and welcome progressive appearance on the Sunday shows, Rep. Maxine Waters bemoans the disconnect between what politicians say we need to focus on and what they're really doing about it:
To tell you the truth, the plight of education in this country is shameful. Just a few days ago I learned that more cities, more states are reducing the number of education days down to four instead of five. And I could not help but stop and think, "Is this America? Is this the country that said and continues to say that education is a top priority?" Why are we not investing more in education? Why do we have dropouts? Why do we have educational systems that are failing? Why is it that we have a situation where many of our young people will not be able to compete in this high technological society because they're not properly educated? And so, no, we do pay lip service to education. We don't really invest in it, and that's got to change. But let me just say this, Americans want to work. This joblessness is not only hitting the middle class, but it is hitting all classes. It is absolutely unconscionable what is happening in the minority communities. When we look at this no jobs haven't been created in August and we find in the African-American community it has increased from 16 percent, 15.9, 16 percent, up now 16.7 percent, and now we're going to talk about cutting government by $1.5 trillion, this new 12 committee membership that we have after the raising the debt ceiling debate? And that means that we're going to lose more jobs, that means more people are going to be unemployed. The African-American rate will probably go up to about 20 percent. I don't know how our country can sustain that kind of...
Of course, David Gregory interrupts her at this point, because Lord know, the plight of the African American community doesn't concern him. But then again, he has the gall to say that we only play lip service to the importance of education. You know, the same guy who only pays lip service to journalism and who spent the better part of the last two years telling his viewers that Americans cared about the deficit when poll after poll proved him a lying hack with a corporate agenda.
Socially responsible investments might be emotionally compelling investments, but do they necessarily have compelling financial returns?
The term "Impact Investing" has taken on many meanings in the past few years. I want to end the confusion and underscore that impact investing must by definition deliver impactful and compelling financial returns.
Impact investing has been labeled as a subset of socially responsible investing (SRI). But, it is not a subset of SRI.
The basic premise of socially responsible investing is to avoid investing in businesses that cause harm to the environment or society. Since SRI's approach to investing is narrow and passive, it is by definition often a niche investing strategy, which in many cases has delivered lukewarm returns.
SRIs don't necessarily impact an industry, impact investments necessarily do. Yet, many organizations still treat SRI and impact investing like synonyms - causing confusion.
For example, here is the definition of SRI from ecolife, a website that is an online guide to green living:
"Socially responsible investing is an investment strategy employed by individuals, corporations, and governments looking for ways to ensure their funds go to support socially responsible firms. The concept goes by names like sustainable investing, impact investing, community investing, ethical investing, and socially-conscious investing; it is a non-financial gauge that is used when selecting various investment options that takes into account factors such as environmental, social, and ethical values."
The reality is that some socially responsible investments can be impact investments, but not all impact investments are socially responsible investments. So, SRIs are really a subset of impact investing. According to the Monitor Institute's new report "impact investors want to move beyond 'socially responsible investment'."
All impact investments have the potential to move towards a new economy - an impact economy, not all SRIs will. In fact, most SRIs won't.
Why? Impact investing is socially responsible and must have compelling returns. Returns that make the professional investor consider it seriously as a critical piece in the portfolio. According to Dr. Arjuna Sittampalam, research associate with EDHEC-Risk Institute, "in other words, the investor makes an active decision to seek a social or developmental return alongside their financial return."
Since impact investments create compelling returns, they have a greater chance of attracting more serious professional investors than SRIs -- a necessity for creating worldwide social change and impact.
The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) defines impact investments as those that: "aim to solve social or environmental challenges while generating financial profit. Impact investing includes investments that range from producing a return of principal capital (capital preservation) to offering market-rate or even market-beating financial returns. Although impact investing could be categorized as a type of 'socially responsible investing,' it contrasts with negative screening, which focuses primarily on avoiding investments in 'bad' or 'harmful' companies - impact investors actively seek to place capital in businesses and funds that can harness the positive power of enterprise."
This definition is more on target with the real definition of impact investing, but to revise part of GIIN's definition: Impact investments only include investments that can offer market-rate or even market-beating financial returns.
So, my definition -- impact investing must achieve four significant goals:
1. Make an impact in solving a pressing problem of our time,
2. Generate compelling returns for investors,
3. Generate growth for economies, and
4. Generate prosperity for developed and developing nations.
An example is my own case-in-point. I founded SunEdison that created the power purchase agreement (PPA) model for the solar industry. This business model used net metering, streamlined interconnection standards, ways to connect to the grid, and actually provided a new solar power service to customers.
Investments in PPAs are delivering 7-12% unleveraged after tax returns. In today's financial environment; these are compelling returns given the low risks.
Plus, PPAs have lowered the use of fossil fuels to deliver electric energy; created thousands of jobs worldwide and are growing. They have impactful financial returns and impact a big problem.
According to the Monitor Institute's new report Investing for social and environmental impact: a design for catalyzing an emerging industry "it is certainly plausible that in the next five to 10 years investing for impact could grow to represent about 1 percent of estimated professionally managed global assets in 2008. That would create a market of approximately $500 billion. A market that size would create an important supplement to philanthropy, nearly doubling the amount given away in the U.S. alone today."
But that is only a start, a start to an "Impact Economy." To really make a difference - to leverage impact investing to create an impact economy, it must be larger. Some estimate that we need to invest over $1 trillion to combat issues like climate change, poverty, and lacking global health, to put the world back onto a stable more equitable footing.
So, let's put our money where the impact is. Stop selling impact investors short.
Jigar Shah is CEO of the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit that harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change and create a post-carbon economy.
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