Smart investing idea profiled in Money Magazine, but the author chickened out!

Smart investing idea profiled in Money Magazine, but the author chickened out! Posted: 14 Apr 2008 08:53 AM CDT Finally, an article in Money Magazine about buying real estate NOW! Typically, financial magazines advise their readers to buy mutual funds. However, in the April 2008 issue of Money Magazine, Jean Chatzky wrote an article titled: "Now's the time to hunt for a vacation home." In her article, she indicates that she is considering a second home purchase right now because of the recent dip in pricing in beach and vacation areas. Her reasoning is as follows: 1) The market is soft in vacation markets here in the States 2) Mortgage rates are now down to 2004 levels I couldn't agree more. Early in 2007, I purchased a 3 bedroom, 2 batch condo in Myrtle Beach. My wife and I successfully rented our new vacation condo on a weekly basis throughout the summer of 2007. We made a few mistakes and learned a great deal. This year, compounding our lessons from last year, we increased the weekly rent by 20%. As of today, our condo is pretty much booked for the entire summer with substantially higher weekly rents. I believe we have one remaining week available in June. This remaining week will be rented by the end of April. When we purchased our ocean front condo, I negotiated an attractive price. Today, I could probably buy the same condo for $30,000 less. Am I mad? No. Why you might ask? Well, this investment is long-term for us. When our kids head off to college, in about 13 years, we plan to sell this condo and buy a true retirement home for ourselves. I plan to use the cash flow generated from the investment to pay off the mortgage. Today's price doesn't impact us in the slightest. As long as our condo rents out each week during the summer, we are happy as could be. Now, as an investor, I'm actually thinking of buying a second condo in the exact same complex because of the drop in market prices. I see the decline as an opportunity. Why wouldn't I? Our weekly rents are up 20%. Our first condo easily rented throughout the summer. We have learned a great deal already from our first condo. Prices are down. Interest rates are down. We could leverage our existing marketing and rent out two units, instead of just one. This would lead us to higher net profits on the second condo. All of this means that my risk has been decreased. I now can see having two condo's paid for when our kids go to college. What kind of retirement home would we be able to afford by selling two ocean front condos? I plan on paying CASH for our retirement home. If you stop and think about it, our retirement home will be FREE to us, because our weekly vacationers paid for our condos. Back to the Money Magazine article... At the end of the article Jean Chatzky writes: "I have more research to do.... I'll do some off-season visiting and keep my eyes open. And my credit score high." She has decided not to buy now. She chickened out... This is typical from the "wanna be" investors. They research, they study and they actually "see" opportunity. But then they hesitate. Down the road, they then kick themselves for not buying. Not me. I don't hesitate. I have learned that opportunity only knocks once. Opportunity doesn't wait for you. You either take advantage of it, or you regret. Refer to the August 2007 Income for Life Newsletter for my article titled "How to Profit from Weekly Vacation Rentals" for how we rented our condo over the Internet. In this article, I explain, in detail, everything we did to advertise and rent our first vacation condo. This newsletter can be downloaded from the Income for Life Member's Only website. Also, if you're thinking of buying a vacation property yourself, contact your Income for Life center. They can connect you with experienced Income for Life Wealth Coaches with access to fantastic deals in several vacation hot spots including: South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, California, Alabama (Gulf Shores), Colorado, New Jersey and more. Rob Minton