How often do you go for a health checkup? Once a year? Once every 2 years?
The Ministry of Health recommends that health screening checks to be conducted once someone crosses 40 years old.
The advisory is that you should be screened for diseases like high blood pressure, cholestrol & diabetes once you leave your 30s.
But why? That’s because at age 40 – you are still young enough to turn around any potential issues that can come about. Some conditions are reversible if they are caught early and remedies can be made.
(of course, no one is too young to fall sick but statistically – health declines after crossing the age of 40)
Similarly, your financial health should be worthy enough to warrant a checkup as well.
As an agent, I have seen enough cases of negative sales and selling at a loss transactions. And when I check out all these loss-making transaction data – I realize it is a matter of waiting too long before taking action. For some it is just pure ignorance and a lack of awareness.
For others, it is simply lack of time because really…. Who takes the time to check? Between work, family and other responsibilties – we are constantly finding that we are very pressed for time.
But if you take your finances as seriously as you take your health – then you will take the time and focus on the next 10 minutes to check on your own portfolio.
Below I developed a simple checklist for you to check on your own property portfolio.
#1: Check on your property portfolio. Is it stagnant, increasing or decreasing in value?
One of the best tools you can use is SRX.com. You will need to create a free account to get access to the report: https://www.srx.com.sg/xvalue-pricing.
This gives you an idea of how much you can get from the sale of your home.
There is also a graph that allows you to check whether your property has reached its peak price or whether it has started to decline.
#2: What is the loan quantum you are eligible to obtain?
You can get an estimate on the amount of loan you can obtain based on your income. PropertyGuru has a mortgage affordability calculator that is helpful for you to estimate a rough figure. Link here: https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/mortgage/affordability-calculator
Of course, it is far more accurate to check with a bank and submit your income documents.
An In-Principle Loan Approval (IPA) can provide useful information on your financial health and credit history.
The key benefit of an in principle approval is that it gives you a fair idea about how much you currently have and how much you need to borrow.
Once you understand your loan eligibility, you can further plan on how much money you need to arrange if you wish to make a higher down payment.
#3: Is your current property performing better than the inflation rate?
Inflation is the insidious force that slowly erodes the value of your liquid cash in the bank.
Your home is likely the biggest purchase you have ever made in your life. With so much of your monies parked into it – doesn’t it make sense to let it provide some returns for you?
With the right property – inflation can work for you – instead of working against you. In the fiat system where we all live in – the only way to prosper is to park your monies in investments that outpaces inflation.
Without such investments, your purchasing power will dwindle over time because higher inflation slowly confiscates savings.
#4: How open are you to making uncomfortable choices?
You don’t have to be a financial genius to do well in property investment. One of the things that I observed of those who are successful at investing is that they have – discipline, resilience, and patience.
They liken paying down their property monthly installments as an “accumulation” phase – where they need to exercise discipline in their spending and saving. You need resilience because bull markets will eventually turn into bear markets.
During the 2008 recession, alot of investment portfolios were shrunk by almost 50 percent. Patience and some holding power is required. Time in the market is more important than timing the market.
Those who continued to hold on reaped the rewards when they extracted their gains a few years later.
(Above is the Private Property Price Index in Singapore)
Other examples of uncomfortable decisions – moving to somewhere further away but has a greater chance of making bigger gains in the future.
But you might have to give up some conveniences for a few years to achieve better returns for your investments.
Becoming uncomfortable now allows you to be more comfortable later.
#5: How much time do you have left – to grow your retirement nest egg?
If you’re like most people, you want to retire someday. You might love your job and plan to work well into your 70s. Or maybe you’re part of the financial independence retire early (FIRE) crowd and want to escape your corporate ball-and-chain at 40 years old.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is the time you have left.
As you grow older, your income drops. Given the high cost of living here, and the risk of long-term inflation constantly chipping away at our spending power, we really can’t afford to delay planning for our golden years.
As the chart shows, the amount you have to save depends a lot on how early you start. If you begin setting aside money at age 20, you have to save $319 per month to reach $1 million. If you start at age 30, though, that number nearly doubles: You need to save $613 per month.
Time is your best friend that you will need at your corner in order to achieve the financial numbers that you want.
Bonus Question: Are you in control or letting go of control?
You are in the driver’s seat of your financial life. Your property portfolio makes up a significant chunk of your overall networth.
Are you going to sit back and fold your arms and let it run itself into a longkang?
Or are you going to keep both hands firmly on the wheel and control and direct this power to a specific, worthwhile purpose? It’s up to you.
You see – the very law that gives us success is a two-edged sword. We must control the way we view situations.
You’re guided by your mindset.
The same rule that can lead people to lives of success, wealth, happiness, and all the things they ever dreamed of for themselves and their families—that very same law can lead them into the gutter.
It’s all in how they use it…for good or for bad.
Conclusion
Jeff Bezos once found himself at a crossroads in his life in which he had to make some tough personal resolutions. He came up with a concept he termed the “regret minimization framework.”
Project yourself to age 80. Imagine yourself looking back on your life at that age, knowing that you want to feel as few regrets as possible.
Ask yourself, “In X number of years, will I regret taking this action (or not taking this action)?”
This framing of thinking takes short-term emotional turmoil out of the equation and really forces perspective.
When you project to 80 years old, you suddenly gain clarity on what matters and what does not. Regret is a powerful factor that might tell you more than all the positive sentiments in the world.
Security vs Freedom
Spending your life pursuing security in the hope of winding up with freedom is impossible. Many people are motivated to feel secure and there are certainly plenty of things that may make us feel secure.
But feeling secure and being secure are not exactly the same thing. In this increasingly insecure world, feeling secure is often an illusion.
‘It’s not whether you are right or wrong that matters, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you don’t lose when you’re wrong’. – George Soros
Investing success depends on the quality of our decisions.
We tend to start investing too late, and in so doing miss our once-in-a-lifetime chance to build significant personal wealth. While many miss out on this chance, you don’t have to.
I invite you to contact me for a no-obligation discussion to explore your options in terms of property.
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