What is Real Estate Investing?

The question, "What is real estate investing?" cannot be answered without considering first, it's textbook definition and then it's conceptual definition.

The Academic Definition

Real estate has been defined as land (or immovable property) along with anything permanently affixed to the land such as buildings, and investment is the act of using money to purchase property for the sole purpose of holding or leasing for income. It is safe to say then (combining both definitions) that real estate investing involves the acquisition of real estate (or investment in real estate) for purposes of generating income, making a profit, and acquiring wealth.

The Conceptual Definition

Leverage In contrast to stock investments (which usually require more equity from the investor), it is possible to leverage a real estate investment (heavily). With a real estate investment, you can use other people's money to magnify your rate of return and control a much larger investment otherwise not possible.
Tax Shelter Real estate investing provides tax benefits. There are yields on annual after-tax cash flows, equity buildup through appreciation of the asset, and cash flow after tax upon sale.
Non-Monetary Returns Real estate investment provides pride of ownership, the security that you control ownership, and portfolio diversification.

Real estate investing is not a bed of roses, though. Real estate investment does require capital, there are risks, and rental property can be management-intensive. On the other hand, the car you drive required capital, it involves risk driving, and it certainly requires management. The difference is that a car is not a source of wealth.

How to Become a Real Estate Investor

Develop a real estate investment goal. What do you want to achieve, and by when do you want to achieve it? What rate of return do you expect to want to receive on moneys you pull out of your home or bank account to purchase an investment property given the risk?
Learn what returns you should look for, and how to compute them. You cannot succeed in music unless you can read music. Invest in a good real estate investing course or real estate investment software where you can learn how to run the returns and compute the formulas.
Be wary of Get Rich schemes. There are many so-called gurus ready to teach you how to make millions with real estate investment property. But let logic be your guide; we believe that nobody who finds a gold mine publishes a map.
Create a relationship with a real estate professional that knows the local real estate market and understands rental property. It will not advance your investment objectives to spend time with the "agent of the year" unless that person knows about investment property and is adequately prepared to help you correctly procure it. Find an agent that understands real estate investing.

What is the conclusion? That real estate investing is a business about owning a piece of ground that, when researched and purchased sensibly by impartial numbers and careful management, and with reasonable goals and caution, will likely be more valuable tomorrow than it is today.

Country Days



                                                                       Hello everyone,

           On a beautiful day last week my friend Janice and I went for a little day trip to some of our favorite places and some new back road country places that we had not seen before.
  Trust me to find some old country home and fall in love with it!
 We had a tour of an old church that has been restored and used for cooking classes-Annies Table. The pretty yellow house is her home that has also been restored-for some of the classes you get to tour the house and Lucy Maud Montgomeries birth place also. Sign me up!
     I enjoyed the day with Janice so much my husband and I went back for a drive one nice evening.
 
  The same house in the sunshine.

              We stopped to admire these beautiful horses on a very scenic farm. I love the hills in the background.

  For some reason the song "An Old Log Cabin for Sale' with an old open bucket and well kept going through my head here. It was a song my parents enjoyed many long years ago. My husband said it is an old Wilf Carter song. Anyone else know it?



               A field of Golden Rod in the evening light.

Happy Birthday to Jessica!

On a different note it was a little birthday celebration for Jessie who just turned seven and her cousin Lucas and Sasha Jessie's puppy enjoyed some fun and cake and icecream. Little Lucas is still travelling once a week to Montreal( a day trip most weeks) for a drug trial for Muscular Dystrophy as some of you may remember and we are happy with how well it is going for Lucas and his Mama.
Hope you enjoyed my' country days'.


Thank you for your visit!
Carolyn


Simple Pleasures



                                                     Hello everyone,
              Hope your summer is going well and you have had time to enjoy some of the 'simple pleasures' of summer.
               Wildflowers and a good book.
 A casual summer picnic on a sunny summer day.
                         Iced tea and a fresh juicy peach for a light snack.
                   I love this toile pillow- a gift from my sister in law.

                Did you notice the pretty parosol/umbrella?  Polks dots are one of my favorite things this year so for 50 cents-who could resist?

 With summer's end rapidly approaching I want to enjoy some of the 'simple pleasures' of summer before moving into fall.

Today,I am joining Rose Chintz Cottage for Tea Time Tuesday.

Thank you for your visit,

Carolyn

Peach Crumble Pie



                                                             Hello everyone!

                         I hope you had a good weekend. We finally got some rain here-which made a lot of people happy. I enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon reading out on the veranda listening to the sound of gently falling rain.




                         It is peach season now -we don't have peach orchards here on the Island but I love to get the Ontario peaches this time of the year. There are so many good things to make with peaches.
                            One of my favorites is Creamy Peach Crumble Pie.
               So I made a couple of them one for us and one to give away.
                     


  If you would like to have this recipe click here. This recipe was taken from my Robin Hood home baking book which has so many great recipes in it.


   I hope your day is just peachy!

                   Carolyn


Simple Charm



                                                    Happy Weekend!


                                              Just some simple charm today.
                                           From my kitchen windowsill

Thank you to all of you who left kind words yesterday on our "labor of love".

I am joining Bernideen's Teatime Blog for Open House.

Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage did a lovely spread on her visit to our garden last week if you would like to check it out. As some of you may know Sandi and I go way back as we used to play house together as little girls.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Carolyn

Real Estate Investment Clubs

The real estate investment clubs provide tremendous resources for both beginners and experienced real estate investors. The real estate investment club is a place to meet and network with other investors. Patient and skillful application of investment knowledge and information is required for a successful real estate investing. For success in real estate, there should be a combination of the power of investing knowledge and the power of market information. A real estate investment club through its thoroughly researched real estate investment ideas can arm you with all the necessary information to invest wisely in real estate.

As the competition in the field of real estate are high, Real estate investors need to keep themselves updated constantly on the new trends and developments in real estate investment. There can be new laws and taxes governing real estate. All this is hard to maintain if you are not a full time real estate investor. A real estate investment club is then the ideal place for you. All issues regarding real estate investment can be discussed and sorted out through the medium of real estate investment clubs. Being a part of an experienced and efficient real estate investment club in itself should form a part of the strategy to become a successful real estate investor.

Details regarding all other aspects of investments related to real estate like mortgage investments can be discussed in real estate investment clubs. The real estate club members bring out several publications to guide real estate and home buyers. Most real estate club members also provide information through Internet. Today, there are several different real estate software programs available in the market to help real estate investors. Before selecting software, you can discuss it with your real estate club members as some of them might have already used it and have opinions on it. A good real estate investment club can act as a good forum to clear all your doubts regarding real estate investment.

The Making of our Garden



Hello everyone,
                     Today I have been asked to do a guest post for Kathy at A Delightsome Life for her Summer Series'  How do they do it' so I thought I would share a little information on the making of our garden. I seem to remember I promised awhile back to answer some of your questions also, so today is the day!
    Our home and garden is on Prince Edward Island and we have 10 acres of land. We garden on aprox. 3 acres of it with the rest being a small woods with a brook and a  pond - new last year.We have lived here for 36 years and I started gardening when the youngest of our 7 children started kindergarten. The garden slowly evolved until about twelve years ago when we did some major expansions for a couple of years.
     For a number of years I watched almost every garden show and poured over garden magazines and books looking for ideas to incorporate into our garden.Fortunately,my husband Andrew was always helpful in making new beds etc. Our red soil here is pretty fertile on it's own but when we made new beds we always added several inched of mushroom compost. If you live in an area with poor soil it is very important to build up the soil first with manure,compost etc. Also, when making a new bed it is a good idea to make it wide enough to hold several different perennials so you can have color all season. I usually followed the rule of tall plants at the back,medium in the middle and short at the front but pulling a taller one forward here and there to give a more natural look. Some of the books I found helpful was The Art of Perennial Gardening by Patrick Lima when I was designing as well as Lois Holes Favorite Trees and Shrubs.I also enjoy The English Garden magazine and P.Allen Smith books and Suzy Beales garden books-to name just a few. Now, there is so much info about care of plants etc. on the internet as well.
  Our garden is an English Style garden with shrubs and perennials closely mixed in every border. We don't use any pesticides or chemical fertilizers on the garden so it is a safe haven for birds and bees etc.
 Sometimes I am asked about garden pests - we have no deer here and rabbits are not a problem either. So far, we do not have the Japanese Beetle in our garden but it  arrived on the Island a few years ago so probably only a matter of time before it discovers our garden. We do have some slugs,Japanese Lily beetles,aphids,however.I did get rid of most of my lillies because of the beetle-it was too hard to keep ahead of them so I gave up.
   We live in a zone 5b but we have had milder winters lately so Zone 6 plants will often survive here now,especially if we have good snow cover.Most of the plants in our garden are hardy and need no extra protection for winter with the exception of the English roses which we cover with several inches of mulch or compost.Our garden season here starts somewhere in April (depending on the year) and we do our last garden chores somewhere around the middle of November when the garden is put to bed for the winter and we enjoy a little break for the winter.
    Many people ask how many hours we spend in the garden as we have done all the work ourselves. In the spring there is always a few weeks that we would spend aprox. 40 hours a week getting all the cleanup done but after that it would drop to 20 hours for a few weeks and by midsummer probably 10 hours a week. It is a good thing we enjoy it! Although the garden started out as my hobby now that my husband is semi retired he also enjoys spending time in it.
    For the past several years we have many visitors from Japan tour our garden through local tour companies but also guests from several other countries as well. This sort of evolved as was not the plan when we started gardening.
   Our garden includes many old fashioned plants such as peonies,lilacs,rose,delpheniums,phlox,etc. but also newer varieties of perennials too. For awhile I was always on the hunt for new varieties of plants but now our garden is very full and probably as big as we can handle so unless something dies or gets removed there is little need for more.That being said,if something looks very interesting,I can always squeeze it in somewhere!
   I have often been asked where I got my love of gardening ,often thinking it is the 'Dutch" in me,but it was my Dad who enjoyed gardening and encouraged me to start by giving me some plants from his garden which I still have today.
   I tend to love pinks,purples, whites and pastels in the garden as opposed to hot colors but having bought many plants at yardsales etc. there are sometimes little surprises that pop in.I have noticed that I have several orangish daylillies this year that I don't think I had a few years ago-I am guessing that some are reverting back to their parents color-anyone else notice that?
   Andrew has built most of the fences,arbors,birdhouses and structures in the garden over the past number of years which really add to the gardens appeal. I also love having pretty seating areas and garden statues tucked in various places in the garden ,adding a touch of romance.
   I think much of gardening for me has been trial and error-so if something doesn't work in one spot don't be afraid to dig it up and move it somewhere else. The garden is always changing and evolving. I read somewhere that it takes 15 years to make a garden so be patient!  My advise is to take lots of pictures,study them to see what you like and what you don't like and then improve the things you don't like. I study the garden every winter,making notes about what improvements should be made in the spring. Little by little you make a big difference!
  Well, I have probably totally bored you by now but if you have any other questions please feel free to ask and I will answer them here shortly.
 This is a picture of our home shortly after we moved here. You can see that not only did our garden grow and our family but also our house as we added a wing onto it. The verandas are facing south and the side is west-now the picket fence area is there.
This is a  diagram of the layout of our garden taken from the Canadian Gardening magazine  June 2004. The garden was expanded since then so I drew in the new additions.

 This is part of the bed at the road.
 The house as seen from the driveway. Going through the arbor takes you into the picket fence area. This part of the garden was one of the first that we made.
 The east side - shooting from near the pond.
 Inside the picket fence- shooting toward the barn.
 We had this little garden 'cottage' built several years ago.
 Picket fence garden. As you can see our garden has several rooms.
 This is a corner of our Chelsea Garden. North of the 'cottage' and to your right coming in the driveway.
                                   This is shot from the upstair balcony.
                               Looking into Chelsea Garden.
                    The hillside garden looking up to the house and shooting from the woods.
 Martha's Garden is tucked in behind the barn and enclosed by a fence and an old hedgerow of trees.
                                            We enjoy all four seasons in the garden .
                                                                   Spring
                                                                             Spring          
                                                              Summer

                                                        Our Autumn colors
                      Last year this pond was added to our property on the east side of our house.
                                                 South gardens in summer.
                                                     Summer morning.
                                               Color combos I like.
                        More color combos and some favorite flowers peonies,roses and meadow rue.
                   The garden is sleeping beneath the snow for the winter.
 
Well,this is definitely the longest post I have ever written. I hope this has answered some of your questions and not put you all to sleep! I have to say gardening on this scale is not for everyone but we love being outdoors surrounded by nature and I feel blessed to be able to do it.

 Thank you,Kathy for asking me to be a guest on your lovely blog A Delightsome Life and to you my delightful readers!

I am also joining My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.

Carolyn



     
 

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