Wednesday 12 December 2007

Making money from land

With the housing market now stagnant in the UK by far the best opportunity for capital growth is in land. The government's new housing strategy has promised that hundreds of thousands of new homes WILL be built - and that land earmarked as agricultural or green belt could attract the type of permissions that will turn thousands into millions!
In the East of England there are already scores of people that have banked seven figures by getting the thumbs up for planning permission and then a sale to one of the big housebuilders. Grab some farmalnd at a few thousand pounds per acre and you could soon turn that into 100,000-plus per acre (and sometimes much more).
The issue is finding the right plot. The best starting point is to spend some time in the car looking at possible development areas, where cities, towns or villages could be expanded without too many logistical problems.
The next thing to do is get friendly with your local planning office and find out if there are already expansion plans or if they have been highlighted as a location for some of those new homes. If they have you could be on to a winner. Find out who owns that land you think is a banker and make them an offer; you never know they may just bite for a good price per acre in agricultural terms. Just don't let on you have loftier plans for it!
Has anyone else had experience of buying land for this purpose?

Monday 3 December 2007

adversity to risk and your age

Having chatted to a lot of financial advisors I now know I have very little fear for risk. Investment is all about balancing the relationship between fear and greed. How greedy can you get, how much money dare you risk before fear takes a hold. The longer you can hold out the more you stand to win but also lose. Simple logic, but finding out just how much or little you fear losing isn't a simple as it first seems.

It all depends on what you can afford to lose and just as importnatly in my opinion, your age. Risk is much easier to take on if you are at the beginning of your investment 'career' as such because it means you have longer to recoup the potential losses and most probably have less riding on the fallout.

I invested in a trio of funds three years ago and went for s S&%^ or bust approach by throwing myself into asian markets and the highest risk of those funds. What happened? I could have lost it all but because I was prepared to 'gamble' it all I more than doubled my money.

I'm about to reinvest that money now and because I'm still at an early stage in this career I want to do the same again before thinking about diversifying into some safer investment vehicles.

The plan is to keep everyone up to date with what happens but any thoughts and opinions would be most welcome...