Years ago, in my early 20s, I had my first taste of investment success. I wish I could dazzle you with a great story about a goldmine in the jungle or negotiating land rights with warlords… Unfortunately, no. All that would come later.
Rather, my first deal was a set of very plain brick apartments on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. They weren’t very sexy, but I was able to pick them up for pennies on the dollar… and it was a hell of a learning experience.
Over the next several months and years, my property investments grew, until eventually I became a ‘known player’ in my local real estate market. Bankers and developers even started calling me to ask advice or offer deals.
My success was based on developing and sticking to a system for valuing real estate transactions based on three methods– comparative market value, “replacement cost,” and income.
I actually use these same three approaches today to value companies as I run around the world in search of exciting business and investment opportunities.
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Tagged as:
investing,
real estate
We have a really intelligent group here.
All the comments from yesterday, plus the dozens of private emails I received, underscore one of the big reasons why I do this in the first place– to build a community for like-minded, sharp, successful people who are lions instead of sheep… bold winners who think outside the box and take action instead of find excuses.
The comments were spot-on, even the one about the massage parlor (you know who you are). Everyone appropriately captured the challenges that will befall Panama over the coming years.
To be clear, no place is perfect. The United States has enormous fiscal, monetary, and social challenges ahead of it, and a long tradition of serially incompetent politicians who make things worse. Notwithstanding America’s woes, most of Western Europe is in an even leakier boat. I will be reporting more on this in the coming weeks.
Panama undeniably has its own problems. It has been under US influence since its infancy and continues to be awash with US government sponsored spooks, thugs, and bureaucrats. Years ago when I first started traveling there, the US Customs and DEA thugs in Miami used to stand on the jet bridge and randomly search passengers for drugs. Today they search people for ‘monetary instruments.’
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Tagged as:
panama,
real estate