If you are looking for research and advice on property investments there are many books, forums and experts willing to give their opinions and talk about their experiences. Many of these will be extremely in-depth, very interesting and give you an idea of what to expect when building your own property business. However, sometimes just to hear quotes from somebody who was been there, done it and bought the T-shirt, can make you think.
We will now take a look at some interesting quotes from leaders in the world of business and property which could inspire you.
“Make money from property and do business for fun”
Would you be surprised to learn that Lord Sugar, of Amstrad and Apprentice fame, was behind this quote? This is a man who was been there, done it and has billions of pounds in wealth to show for it. While he is ultimately famed for his business acumen and business skills, he has made the vast majority of his current fortune in property.
If a person rumoured to be worth in excess of £1.4 billion suggests that you make money from property and do business for fun, who are we to disagree?
“90% of all millionaires become so through owning real estate”
Andrew Carnegie, the billionaire industrialist, is behind this very interesting quote which would suggest that real estate is the key to long-term wealth. While there is no doubt that building businesses has also created extreme wealth around the world, even successful businesses tend to have a significant exposure to real estate markets. When you also consider that business owners very often invest their own personal wealth in real estate, perhaps the idea that 90% of all millionaires become so through owning real estate may not be as far-fetched as it might seem?
“Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity but cash is reality”
While nobody has specifically been credited with this particular quote it is one which is well known within the investment world. Turnover means nothing unless your business is profitable, while profit means nothing unless you can exchange this into cold hard cash. At the end of the day, it is cold hard cash in the bank which pays the bills and while all investment assets can be volatile it is perhaps real estate which maintains its long-term value better than most. That is before we even consider the potential for long term rental income streams.
In a roundabout way this quote simply means that “cash is King” which is nothing surprising to those in the investment world.
“In the broad definition of the world, the word leveraged simply means the ability to do more with less”
This is a quote which is accredited to successful American businessman Robert Kiyosaki and simply highlights the ability to leverage your assets and your investment funds. While leveraging is not for everybody, as there are obvious risks, even the most basic personal mortgage on a property is a means of leveraging your deposit and future income. Lord Sugar once suggested that “I’ve got £300 million of property – if this was leveraged properly it could be £3 billion overnight”.
While debt and leveraging opportunities need to be respected, in many ways it is more harmful to your long-term investment success if you do not leveraged the funds and assets that you have today. However, this must be done within a controlled environment.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”
This interesting quote was attributed to American author Robert Kaplan suggesting that only cold hard assets which you can touch and feel can be measured and managed correctly. While this may have changed slightly in the cyber world of today, it does highlight the fact that with property investments they are measurable and manageable. People will always need somewhere to live, demand for rental property continues to grow and quite simply the world is not building enough houses to meet anywhere near the growing demand.