The same is true when starting a business of real estate investing, just find another way. Include in your simple plan a few hours here/there just for such 'emergencies'. If you have no emergencies, do something else that will get you closer to your destination, or just relax and enjoy where you are. In your simple plan for starting a business of real estate investing, you must set aside part of your working time to plan, set goals, promote and advertise your business, not simply work along in your business, doing the things you do. In today's world, when starting a business of real estate investing, you will most likely have a website. You need to spend a certain portion of your time (even 10 hours per week total) on getting more visitors to that website. The more people that see what you have to offer, the quicker your business will grow. EDUCATION: Now this "Poor Man's" Guide is not going to suggest that you spend tens of thousands of dollars like you would attending college, but be mindful that education is the key. Sticking with the theme of this article we understand that money isn't a surplus so we suggest going to your local bookstore and getting a basic real estate investing book so you have a foundation to build upon. Don't assume you already know all there is to know about investing in real estate, but be willing to learn. The web is a wellspring of knowledge and information from which you can pull information and expand your real estate investing education. I STRONGLY suggest a person spends a minimum of one year educating themselves before actually trying to conduct a transaction. GROUPS: Groups cover many aspects but were going to focus on two groups. Group One, the groups of people you're around in your daily life. These people are your family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. This is the right time to invest in real estate, if you have ever thought about it. You may be thinking that since the real estate market is in the tank at the moment and that it cant possibly be a good time to get into this market. But you couldnt be more wrong! If you have ever thought about investing in real estate, now is the time. You may be thinking that since the real estate market is in the tank at the moment and that it cant possibly be a good time to get into this market. But you couldnt be more wrong! There are more foreclosures than ever right now and that presents a ton of opportunity for us investors who have been waiting for prices like what we are now seeing. I know the media is out there saying the sky is falling. However, there are many successful investors quietly sitting back and laughing as they make money hand over fist. With turbulence and uncertainty in the economy, more investors are looking at alternatives to the usual stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. More investors are becoming interested in precious metals, especially gold, as an opportunity for diversifying their investment portfolios. One of the factors driving this interest is the fact that many experts believe that gold at present is much undervalued. Imagine what a diminishing dollar is doing to the value of your retirement portfolio and the effect it can have on your future income. With the stock market riding at record levels and the national debt ceiling as high as it's ever been, it would seem that a strong market correction is in order. Whether this amounts to a strong correction or a full-scale meltdown remains to be seen. What no one wants to see is a return of what happened in 2008 when retirement accounts lost $2 trillion in value in only 15 months. The smart investor knows the value of diversification. Based on recent history, gold - and more to the point, gold coins in a gold-backed IRA - would seem to be one of your more secure investment choices. Gaining this clarity in the real estate marketplace is a function of examining hard data and asking objective questions of it. What do I mean by that? While there's no "crystal ball" that will tell you where to buy property and when to buy, and when to sell, there ARE certain economic and social indicators we can use to trigger our decision to invest or not invest (and even HOW to invest) in a given geographic area at any given point in time in the real estate marketplace. Together, these indicators that drive the real estate market cycles can be uncovered with good real estate investing research. It's a lot easier to focus your investing efforts when you can do two things, which this article will teach you how to do:1. Invest nationwide (or even worldwide), choosing markets that make sense for the current local real estate market cycle 2. Easily eliminate potential markets from contention that are less attractive than others right now.Please understand that these are macroeconomic factors, independent of where you live. So you want to evaluate whether investing in a particular geographic area is a good idea or not. This procedure, called 'mark-to-market', is performed by the futures broker that conducts the trading transactions. If performance of the SSF runs contrary to the position that was taken, additional funds must be added to maintain the minimum margin requirements and to continue trading the SSF. Failure to meet this margin would result in forced liquidation of the SSF contract. Many industry participants believe trading SSFs is straightforward. Buy or go 'long' on a SSF if you expect the price of its underlying share to appreciate. Should the price going down, then sell or 'short' the SSF. The ability to 'short' a SSF is often cited as its main advantage. This term refers to selling a security that the investor doesn't own. This is similar to regulated short selling (RSS) for selected stocks, which is slated to begin in the third quarter of the year, but there's one big drawback with RSS. The 'up tick' rule only allows investors to short the share if its last price movement was 'up'. This rule is designed to keep short-sellers from driving down the price of a falling share even further than it would go otherwise.
