All Forum Posts by: David Nolan

@Nicholas Settoon Thank you for your kind words!

Buy the winning lottery ticket 9 days before the winning numbers are drawn.

@Peter Sanchez

$27 compounded at 7% per annum between 1626 and 2019 = $ 9,532,095,711,754.88!

I wonder what the total value of all the real estate is in Manhattan today?

@Jan Gates

I suggest you seek the advice of an experienced note investor and possibly some legal advice to get a broader understanding of the process, the risks, and the costs involved, and then determine if the investment makes sense. I am sure you can find some people here on BP that could help you. You may need to hire them though.

Notes can be a good investment when bought correctly or a potential nightmare when bought incorrectly. Whatever time you spend learning the pros and cons, and getting professional advice before you make your offer to buy them will be money and time well spent.

Good luck on your journey!

@Ikaika Farmer

Why a million? What do you expect that to do for you?

Most people are looking for financial freedom. But what is financial freedom? I imagine there are many people here on BP that have many millions of dollars and still want to do more deals. Why is that so? I would suggest because they love what they do. Loving what you do basically means you have the freedom of choice to live the life you want to live without the burden of earning a living to survive. Working for the man so to speak.

The most valuable asset we all have, and we have it in equal quantity not matter how large our bank balance, is time. Every one of us has the same 60 seconds in every minute. The question you might want to ask is not, how do you get a million dollars? The better question is how do you get to have the maximum discretionary time you can, to live the life you choose with every 60 seconds you have?

@Jay Hinrichs spends vast amounts of his precious time sharing his wealth of knowledge here on BP. I don't imagine he does it for the money! I believe, based on his comments on this site, that his desire to help people gives him a huge amount of pleasure. He has the freedom of choice to spend his time doing what he chooses to do. This makes him wealthy beyond what money can buy. No amount of money can buy you time when yours runs out. Without sounding negative, we are all using our allocated balances of time up every second, minute, hour, day etc, so what are you doing with yours?

So, perhaps you might want to start another post with, "How do you secure all the discretionary time you could possibly want to have?" It may be better than how do you earn a Million dollars.

Good luck on your journey!

PS: A simple answer to your question is don't buy a boat.

@Alison Lee

You have not mentioned anything about your motivation for a new investment. What are you looking to achieve? Do you want income, or do you want capital growth, or both? What is your personal risk profile? Are you predominantly a risk taker or are you a more conservative investor? What is your view on debt? Are you comfortable with the concept of being in debt or not? What is your investment time horizon? Is it short term or long term? How much experience do you have with investments? Are you a seasoned investor or a novice? Do you want a passive investment or do you want to be, "hands on"?

These are just a few of the questions you should be answering before anyone could possibly give you an opinion of how you might invest your money.

There are many ways you could invest your money. However, you really would be wise to answer the questions I have detailed here to be able to develop a strategy. Once you get clear on your risk profile and your investment objectives you will be able to focus on investments that meet those criteria and stay away form investments that do not.

Good luck on your journey!

@Mike Griffin

The stock market is a zero sum game. For every dollar someone gains in the market someone loses the equal amount. This happens because money invested in the market, other than IPO's, does not go the company whose shares you might be buying. The money goes to someone who is selling those shares. They obviously don't want to keep them at the price you are prepared to buy them for. If they are correct in their assessment that the shares are at their highest price then you could see your value decline and lose money if you sold. However, if they are wrong in their assessment of the value of the shares they are selling then you could see the share price rise thereby increasing the value of your shares.

Similarly, buying real estate has the same result. Someone selling may sell because they believe that the value of their property is at its maximum. You, as a buyer, may think otherwise, so you buy believing that the property will rise in value. Once again a zero sum game.

The answer to your question then becomes where is the real value in these types of investments? When is an investment being offered for sale at a value less than what the market typically expects to pay? It is paramount to understand how to value these different types of assets, both property or shares. If you are not able to do this then I suggest some learning on valuation techniques would help.

When Warren Buffett buys large positions in companies he does so knowing from his own past performance that his method of valuing an asset is profitable, so he acts on those valuations. When he sees no value he does not make purchases. Likewise, experienced property investors buy assets when they see value based on their individual valuation technique that will have been proven and tested.

One of the key advantages of property over shares however, is that with property you have the ability to add value to the property through your own personal efforts, i.e. you can do a rehab. Yo cannot add value to a publicly listed company's share price, unless of course you can buy volumes as large as Mr Buffett can buy. So, for us mere mortals, buying property where you can add value is the best road to take. If the property is also undervalued to start with even better.

Good luck on your journey!

@Rahul Handa

You might want to study up on risk reward ratios and what they mean. Real estate investing is more than simple numbers. 

Good luck on your journey!

@Alexander Hunter

Yes I am. 

If you would like to chat sometime please reach out to me.

Local knowledge is of great value. Be sure to thoroughly research whatever market you want to invest in, be it local or otherwise.