>>Is that polite? You’ve made all of 15 posts on the PI.com forum, Acey.<<

Kay, for heavens sake, what does the number of posts one has made got to do with the value (or otherwise) of a particular statement ???

>>I’m not out for your seal of approval. And please don’t think me “defensive”. I think your comments are a generalised putdown<<

The above paragraph sure does come through as you being defensive Kay. [wink]

There is absolutely no need to feel that someone is having a go at you, we all are merely having a friendly conversation.

Cheers,

Pisces

>>However I am approaching this from a different angle than you might imagine. The economic cycle is really a manifestation of social mood. We point to the stock market, mainly because it is so easily and accurately quantifyable. But we also track other things that are less easily quantifyable, including such things as Real estate, art, music/movies, politics, religion etc.<<

and

>>The social mood will affect different things at different times. These are all blunt measures of mood, so the timing of peaks and troughs in the cycle is mainly guesswork. As I said in my post above, it may not happen for a while yet, but it may have already started. Nevertheless my plan is in place and is working satisfactorily. <<

Ah, cycles. My favourite subject.

Pisces

Reading Redwing’s post it appears as if the answer is to use any sizeable increase in the value of one’s properties to buy another one and so on.

The danger is that if something goes wrong the whole pack of cards may come tumbling down.

The obvious thing to do, once one has obtained a sizeable asset worth, is to start looking how one can still continue to expand yet at the same time play defense, defense, defense.

I know of one person who did that very kind of thing by placing some assets in his wife’s name.

She ran off taking the assets with her !!! [glum]

Pisces

I am not implying anything Yack.

I am merely having a guess as to what S.I.S. means by that term.

Pisces

Domino theory ? Or should that be called the ‘Sheep follow the leader theory’ ?

Buy a +ve cashflow property, write about it by saying what a wonderfull buy it was, others will follow suit and in the process drive up the prices as more and more start looking in that area.

??????

Pisces

Well, here’s my, albeit longwinded, reply :

One doesn’t (generally) consider health as an important issue until ……….. one starts to suffer from a serious ailment.

The moment one’s health is gone, boy oh boy, does one have problems and, for most people, it is only then that one starts to value one’s health instead of taking it for granted.

Knowledge of how to make money one can acquire at anyone time once one is motivated to do so.

The problem is that so many desire money without being prepared to pay the price necessary to get it (most not even being aware that there is a price to be paid as it isn’t a matter of being lucky so much as doing the common sense kind of things, step by step).

For us, in this country, the formula is simple. What with inflation and increase in population working in one’s favour it is only a matter of time + some action and one’s wealth plan will start to unfold.

However, if one abuses one’s body and ill health starts to appear everything becomes so much more difficult if not impossible.

Ill health saps one’s energy, affects one’s drive, causes money problems for many people and produces a deteriation in the quality of life.

So in reply to Sooshies question ‘What’s important for you’ I must say :

To get my health in a better shape so as to increase the quality of my life, to generate the energy needed to walk around and enjoy life (more).

BTW for those who are starting to notice that there may be one or more healthproblems in their life one could do a lot worse than having a peek at the following website belonging to the Hypoglycemic Association of Australia :
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/indexmain.html

Hypoglycemia is seen as the starting point for a discussion on nutritional disorders underlying
most degenerative diseases and mental disorders.

I do know one thing and that is that by making slight changes in my food I have been able to rectify at least three major problems in my health.

Pisces

>>Building wise- Architects charge a fortune 2-3K a square metre, your mastertons etc are under a grand. I think a designed house would need to be done, at a much smaller cost than an architect.<<

Actually, Wrappack, the task of an architect who carries out the job of supervising the building is to obtain quotes from builders, discuss these with you, select a builder (or trades people) and thence supervise the construction.

Selecting a builder isn’t merely looking for the one with the lowest price however.

That doesn’t mean that, when using an architect, the architect is constantly on the site.

He would however keep a close eye on the job being done and pull up any trades person who does a bodgy job.

The architect may charge you anything upwards of 7% on cost. So the $ 2K to $ 3K per square metre is obviously not correct.

I would go as far as to say that anyone who employs a project builder without having another builder (or architect) keeping an eye on what is being done is penny wise and pound foolish as the saying goes.

If one doesn’t have an architect actively involved in the supervision of the construction but merely have him carry out several inspections the cost will be a lot less.

>>iii) “Thirdly, finding the right property at the right kind of price is a fulltime job.” Rubbish. it is simply a matter of knowing if the property is suitable (eg I personally need a 700m of block with a 15+m frontage on a flat <20% site, in a nice area)<<

Wrappack, we appear to differ about the time required to find the right site at the right price.

If it was as easy as you portray it, builders wouldn’t be buying any sites via a real estate agent.

I am very much looking for the same thing as you are looking for except that my criteria are so much more selective.

From the little you mentioned you are bound to run into enormous problems if your only criteria are a 700 sq, metres flat block with a 15 metres frontage (in a nice area).

Would I be far wrong in thinking that you haven’t actually done any such a project as yet ?

>>Thus, if you could buy a cheap house for 500k, or a better positioned piece for 650k, go for the more expensive, and delay your construction plans for a year or two. (the bank will revalue it higher in 6 or 12 months, giving you the equity you need)<<

Also, delaying construction for a couple of years would add some $ 75 K to the cost of the land so I doubt that that is a very good suggestion (apart from the fact that servicing such a loan would put many people here under a lot of pressure).

Pisces