The holidays are a time for family and festivities - not reading wealth creation newsletters.
I always respect your in-box, and there is nothing to write this time of year that merits distracting you from connecting with family and friends. The goal is true wealth - not just making money - so the last thing you need is something more to read during this busy time of year.
I wish you happiness, peace, inspiration, joy and laughter in 2011
I will resume the regular weekly Friday Minute newsletter in January 2011.
As you line up your financial goals for 2011, you may be wondering if you can still save money on your mortgage.
Here are two good options for you. First, there's the obvious appeal of refinancing-which I wrote about in March. Interest rates are about as low as they were then.
But if you don't want to refinance, or you're not sure how long you're going to be in your home, you could make a slightly larger mortgage payment each month-or make one extra payment each year.
Pre-paying your mortgage gives you some of the advantages of refinancing, in that you save quite a bit on interest-but don't have to pay the fees.Example:
A $250,000, 30-year mortgage at 5.5% gives you a monthly payment of $1,419.47 .
At that rate, you'd pay $261,010 in interest alone, after 30 years.
- If you added $100 per month, you'd pay $216,132 in interest, and your loan would be paid in 26 years-saving you $44,878.
- One extra mortgage payment per year would save you almost $50,000 after 25 years.
But let's be realistic, and assume you stayed in your home for 10 years. If you made one extra payment each year, you'd still save $4,200 in interest-and you would have paid down $18,397 more in principal.
Real estate investors have mastered 5 key skills that have made them successful.
- Mining
- Money
- Maintenance
- Marketing
- Managing
Mining is finding really good deals. Deals that will guarantee an exceptional return on your investment of money and time.
Money means finding the funding to purchase your real estate investments. Unless you have an endless supply of money,
it will be necessary to develop the skill of finding an endless supply.
Maintenance, the easiest to master, is getting an investment property ready to market. Just find a good and honest maintenance contractor, train him or her to do what you want and how you want it and you are done.
Marketing is critical to the success of real estate investing. You must learn how to rent, sell or lease option the property quickly.
Learn quickly and move the property quickly. A real estate investment sitting unoccupied can and will put a dagger in your chances of success.
Managing renters is probably the most difficult skill to master. Not because it is the hardest to learn but because many investors just don't spend the time and effort necessary to learn how to manage their investment properties.
By learning and becoming really good at each of the 5 M's you will increase your chances of investing success one hundred fold.
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