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Retirement of a giant and the rise of future leaders I looked as if I was a deer staring in the headlights when I opened the news this morning. You see I have been buried in tons of different activities and meetings over the last several weeks as I have been working on locating new partners and authors to contribute to your reading pleasure.

I have not been watching the ‘headlines” as often as I should have been. Yet I’m glad I was able to catch the headline in Barrons. Barrons states “NetJets Pick More Likely to Succeed Buffett”

I stopped in my tracks what Buffet is finally going to retire. [I had often wondered how the richest man in the world would spend his retirement and who would ever replace him? They say that David Sokol will be the new chair person after the departing Richard Santulli as the chairman and interim chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway.

So as one giant lays to rest an eon of achievement and accomplishment what will the future hold. This was really not even on my mind when I started this task today. I really was performing an experiment or assignment given to me during the intense meetings I have been involved in. So I decided to look around for a second at what inspired me to write about today.

I looked through all of the financial papers as well as pinging away at my favorite search engine to see what has the ability to grab my attention. Then it occurred to me after I saw Buffet’s headline I wanted to start with the clean slate approach I have been discussing over my last few blog posts.

Buffet has plenty of worries as this transition takes place, sure there will be a period of time for dust to settle. New energy and ideas will resonate as Buffet detaches from the ranks. New management always means change and change isn’t always easy.

So my Aha moment was deciding to change the way we all as a community think about, as well as act about money. I was challenged to choose my target market who I wanted to cater too. Teens, twenties through forties, above fifty, above seventies?

I have always generalized my information to all audiences. Now segmenting would require more change. So here’s the top 3 topics related to 3 different categories but before I begin let me state that “the green back is broken”

The U.S. dollar index is at 11-month lows and shows no signs of turning around. This frightens me to the bone, think about that for a minute Obama has been in for 8 Months now and we have a track record of exorbitant spending as well as weakening purchasing power.

No matter who you are this affects you and your ability to create and grow wealth, sure prices are lower and bargains are everywhere, yet services and products still continue to rise in cost and inflation. So now lets address the categories. As our falling DOW Jones Industrial Average fights to remain alive  we are all faced with more challenges ahead. Time to buckle down and get SERIOUS!

Teen Finance

• I found this site very interesting and informative to teenagers and finance the articles were priceless they covered topics from impulse buying, recession and teens challenges, there were also theories on why money was important.

• Next I decided to venture on to another site which had six theories on financial advice and the important rules to follow.

• Lastly I stopped by another site called the Motley Fool this article was for teenagers about becoming millionaires I find this interesting due to having a two teenagers in my life my Son and my step daughter watching their trends with money and spending are fascinating to see the path they choose to wander and the choices they make.

Parent’s

• Next we look at the teenagers life on fast forward, young parents faced with choices of survival, college planning, and retirement planning – can relate to the market segment most myself. So I found an article written on 9 ways to find help getting organized

• Then we delve right into ways parents need to talk to their children about the “economic crisis”

• Finally we run to the advice column where we look at the costs of child bearing and the importance of education

Retirement

• This article isn’t just directed towards seniors yet since there is a huge demand for medical treatment for seniors I thought I would start here. Doctors visits usually have co pays associated with them and now patients are receiving bills after treatment. Now some are even being asked to pay for the entire process out of pocket costs on the visit.
• The we roll right into retirement planning tips  straight from business week.
• Lastly on this journey w stop and cover issues of senior finance and I find only planning and health care services listed on top for these major search phrases, I know the senior citizen can face financial challenges with medical, trust and estate planning, assisted living and many other areas. Protection from fraud is huge.

So I will stop here and let you stir the info around. Remember that life goes on and we all choose to want a better life the real question is are you willing to choose a better life?Buffet chose a time to hand over the thrown in the worst of crisis and turbulent change, our new leaders will be formed under this rule. Can this giant of giants remain tall and waver through this change or will it fall and crumble. My guess is Warren Buffet made sure he had a foundation for strong growth and strength for change.

My guess is you will mold yourself to model the master and to grow your children with values and respect for currency and cash, to respect credit and to create wealthy lifestyles for comfort and enjoyment.

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When it comes to wealth creation planning is the most crucial element. This requires forethought as well as accountability to your financial advisers, your actions as well as your overall strategy for amassing wealth.

Planning your way means you actually sit and evaluate your past, present and future financial needs. You need to stop and simply ask yourself “Is this where I need to be financially, do I have enough funds at the end of the month left over or am I barely scrapping by? Have I been contributing to my retirement?

This is your first assignment and you cannot I repeat cannot go any further without performing this simple step. I have often wondered why people don’t take the time to make these very important plans in the first place.

Very few people have actually stopped to plan out their needs for retirement or their short term financial strategy either. Most people contribute to an IRA or 401K plan and rarely check to see if the plan is going towards helping their futures. Simply put many people are blinded when it comes to financial planning and making sure that they have enough saved up to cover them in case of sudden financial set backs.

Simple things like ignoring the needed maintenance of a home or vehicle can suddenly cause financial strain when you don’t have the needed funds to cover major repair costs. People live on equity and credit cards as a means of having extra capital available on demand.

This si fine until you realize that the credit cards and interest are eating up every last cent you make. For many this is a true fact and we’ve seen it before especially during the economic crash of 2008. People were loosing everything due to poor financial preparation. Even as the crisis continues people are complacent with what they should do about money.

More often than not families experience pain and short falls of capital which lead to stress, relationship or marital complications and the mental anguish , and eventually a realization of change sets the precedence for the moment.

I have experience this first hand. I know what lies ahead down a dark dusty highway, peril at every twist and turn of fate. Wishing and hoping for a miracle that will never happen until you set the change into motion. Planning takes a little time to asses where you are and where you need to be.

Start with yesterday and today these are simple; do you have a savings account for necessity, one for contingency (emergency) funds, and finally do you have enough cash flow to cover all of your needs starting with your future? If you answered no to any of these questions then you need to stop and implement changes before you go any further.

Next we look towards the future, what is in your current retirement account are you saving every dime you can. You know that the rising costs of food, fuel and inflation will devalue your dollars purchasing power. So what does this all mean? Simply explained you will need to make more money in the future to cover your necessities of today.

Your dollars need to work harder than ever before. If you thing a 10% ROI is s good deal I can prove to you that you need more. More than what you have ever expected. To receive a residual income of say $5000.00/ month your going to need at least $2,000,000 in cash with a ROI of 4% to earn the $5,000/mo. Are y9our needs more than five thousand then adjust accordingly. How are you going to get there? If you had $100,000 in an account with a 10% ROI your money would double approximately every 7.2 years.

Using this formula you can see how long before you wish to retire vs. how long it will take to retire. It would take over 30 years to make the $2,000,000 amount. Are you willing to put in another 30 years to reach that goal or are you ready to make a shift in your habits to produce better results than what you are currently receiving?

Planning your way to wealth is the only true way to achieve the true success and financial independence you have longed for. So take the time to make your plans take the action to realize them and enjoy everything life has to offer by simply taking a look at your financial situation and planning your path to wealth and prosperity.

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• Retirement of a giant and the rise of future leaders Retirement of a giant and the rise of future leaders I looked as if I was a deer staring in the headlights when I opened the news this morning. You see I have been buried in tons of different activities and meetings over the last several weeks as I have......
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When it comes to planning for retirement you really have only a few choices to make for your future. Strategically speaking many people take the approach of “I hope it works.” People really never give their retirement a thought until it’s to late. When they decide it’s time for retirement is when people decide to take a look at their accumulation of wealth for a hard 30 to 40 years of work.

It’s at this time when people realize they have not set enough aside funds to carry them from retirement date to the end of their lives. Realizing that they have to embark on a new career just to compensate for their costs of living and the needs of the individual. Rising costs of living are enough to drive the value of your dollars to an all time low.

With a little patience, goal setting and a needs analysis for the individual needs and the needs of the family through the time of their retirement years. People expect that the flow of cash (income) will never stop; yet with a twist of fate, peoples lives can be affected in an instant. This is some of the areas people need to consider for their goal planning and choosing their “NUMBER”.

What’s the number you ask? The number is the “NET” income you need to achieve after retirement takes place. So let me ask you to stop for a minute and figure out your number. If your current expenses require a monthly budget of $5,000 while you are working; you’ll need to almost double it to cover your taxes, medical needs, and the standard costs of living.

By the time you retire you loose certain advantages, for example your home will be paid off so your tax deductions are reduced, medical costs increase since you loose your benefits at retirement. Certain perks that may have come with working suddenly disappear. What if your income suddenly stopped before you were ready? Have you ever given that a thought? If not you should, at a minimum you need three to six months of living expenses socked away to cover any sudden pitfalls in your income.

So how do you plan strategically for retirement and the normal bumps in the road that can pop up in your path at any given time during the travels of your life? Simply put you need to be proactive in your affairs and handle yourself first. This means you ALWAYS pay yourself first! Then you move about your personal business.

Set up your incoming income stream(s) to work for you instead of against you. The first priority is to take care of your retirement and pre tax dollar savings. By setting up your retirement savings you tackle two birds with one stone. A) you are creating a better future for you and your family; B) you are reducing your tax liability and therefor you are saving on the amount of income tax that you pay.

You need to check with your tax person or CPA to make sure you are not saving too little or too much. This way you are reducing your overall exposure to the tax laws and keeping more money in your pocket.

Secondly you need to make sure you are setting aside 10% of your income for personal expenses in the bank. You need to build a nest egg equivalent to three to six months of monthly expenses to shore up your confidence and set you ahead of the rest of America.

Once you have established these cash reserves you can pull back and your cash savings and start a new stream of income not based for retirement, these are accounts to keep liquid money available for quick access and no penalties. By the way liquid investments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, cd’s, and etf’s etc should not be used as the main source for your retirement. Strategically planning for your retirement means seeking out the best opportunities for capital appreciation, preservation, and conservation. What I am suggesting to you are solutions that aren’t commonly expressed or shown to people by the big financial institutions.

These large institutional financial companies are showing you a path for disaster, look at the dot com bubble bust, the most recent melt down in our economic system. People lost thousands to millions of dollars overnight. Stocks are risky in fact one of my mentors called it “legalized gambling” which in fact is the truth.

Your placing your hard earned dollars into a stock(s) which allow companies to leverage your money for there benefit. If they make a profit you share in the winnings; however if the CEO makes the wrong decision(s) it’s your loss! Whew that’s a lot to think about, your trying to create wealth, build your future and all of the sudden BAM!

You just lost your precious nest egg, you’re about to retire and the next thing you know you are faced with the option to keep working and don’t retire or retire and live a miserable, uncomfortable lifestyle. Strategy means you plan through the mini setbacks, allocate & diversify properly. One of the best ways that you can prepare for retirement is by placing “select pre-developed real estate [land banking] into your portfolio.”

When doing so you need to know how to locate the the property, look for the crucial signs of future development, have an exit strategy or use the specialists who know all of these details and then some. Strategic land banking is one of the surest ways to grow your retirement portfolio, avoid risk exposure to the stock market and preserve your capital.

You can invest in companies accounts receivables and many other types of non traditional investments that are more secure than stocks or other types of investments that are not as receptive to market volatility. Your retirement is something you need to take seriously. I have many friends who are approaching their early to mid forties and they have no cash reserves or retirement nest egg to speak of.

They are working a plan that will ultimately set them up for failure and certain disaster. The differences in planning for today versus tomorrow are quite simple. You have the ability to fail in your planning for the short term and still have time to recover from the losses. However when you don’t plan ahead for retirement you are risking the comfort and security for your future.

You’re older and the Government places restrictions on your contribution limits, your age prevents you from having the time to successfully rebuild your retirement nest egg to a point that it can sustain you for the rest of your years.

Sure people bank on the inheritance they may receive I have a friend right now that is doing just that; she’s unemployed and the inheritance monies is being held up for many months while the trustee takes care of paying all of the creditors and lien holders, sell the shares of stock and remove their share of the proceeds before the disbursements ever take place.

Now she is facing eviction, loss of her car and other parts of security that comes with being financially prepared. Creating wealth isn’t rocket science, it’s a simple mathematical equation that simply says it’s not how much you make it’s how much you keep.

More and more people are faced with job loss, foreclosure, bankruptcy and other financial hardships that place unneeded stress, health implications and burdens that can cause sever health problems. Being financially sound creates peace and comfort in your life. Take the time to learn the knowledge, plan your finances strategically and retire with surety and ease.

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Even though the “free fall” of the housing market has apparently stopped or could be ending soon depending on the information you research, investing in select California real estate commonly referred to as “land banking” is still the safer alternative to your typical cyclical market corrections and downturns.

It’s apparent that the hardest hit areas of the foreclosure explosion are starting to pick up in activity levels although the foreclosure rates will remain a significant problem in California until the mid to end of the year 2009.

Certain parts of the Bay Area and Southern California are starting to feel some improvement from increased sales compared to last year although many investors are still holding back before making any drastic decisions.

By contrast the land banking community goes unscathed from the violent turbulence felt for miles around in any given city in the nation. Quietly these passive investors are raking up the profits and not even batting an eye towards the chaos around them.

With the advent of bank owned (REO’s) properties and the vast count of mortgage derogatory payments and a stable and normal housing market is a long way off. Even with the onset of the housing bill coming into effect in early October the sign of a market upswing is quite a ways from appearing.

California will recover from this market correction; will your finances make the grade when all is said and done. Taking advantage of the real estate market is a great way to build wealth for the longterm. Risk is greatly minimized, profit potential is increased and assured when the proper real estate is chosen as a growth vehicle.

When you look at market volatility we are socially acceptant of the fact that stocks and mutual funds fluctuate almost every hour, minute or even second in some cases when there are strong public awareness campaigns.

When it comes to the real estate market the volatility is much less in comparison. Looking even further into land the fluctuation is almost eliminated. No structure to depreciate, no maintenance, no broken appliances or mortgage crisis to affect your investment.

Instead you wind up keeping your hair in your head instead of pulling it all out. Yes land is the truest choice for wealth, you can bank on the simple fact that it’s here today and it will be here tomorrow. No one is directly influencing your company stock prices, choosing the incorrect buy and sell cycle for your intangible assets.

Instead you keep growing your wealth day by day year by year until the point that it’s time to sell and reinvest your proceeds for the next harvest. Why complicate your investment strategy? Make the conscience choice to do the right thing for your life.

Stop being influenced by the main stream media, or your best friend or family. You need to choose what’s the best path for your prosperity and sanity as well. Choose correctly the first time and learn to bank on the development of outlying communities to promote profitability and performance into your life.

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The factors that determine growth and long term appreciation with real estate.

It’s common knowledge that the majority of millionaires come from investing in real estate. If you’ve been around long enough or up all night  you have seen the infomercials claiming vast fortunes in foreclosures, tax liens and deeds and probates.

Unless you have been living under a rock or in a cave you have undoubtedly seen in the main stream media the making an epidemic of the “housing bubble” and the fold of the sub prime lending market.

This wasn’t an unexpected event or random acts that led to these catastrophic events. Instead it was negligence, defrauding of federal lending  institutions and plain old greed from mortgage brokers and loan agents.

If you are a home owner or a landlord faced with these challenges I deeply sympathize with you. We’ve seen the growth and we’ve seen the demise of the industry and the one fact that stands out is no one ever talks about where the wealth truly comes from.

Looking at real estate we can divide it up into three sections “undeveloped raw land”; “predevloped land”; and “developed property”. Further more looking at these three different stages of real estate we can see the costs and profits between them.

Undeveloped land has little cost and low profit potential. Developed property has a high cost and again little profit left when you factor in all of the costs for development.

Last but not least we have the most profitable property which is pre developed land. This unique property has all of the profit potential built right in.

It’s the gap between undeveloped and developed real estate. The hidden profit center lying directly in the path of growth. Growth then in turn drives the value of the real property up.

Let’s take a look at two scenarios to illustrate the example.
Let’s go back in time to an area we all know as Silicon Valley. San Jose 1976 where you could have purchased a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath home for $25,000. Fast forward to today, what is that house worth?

In todays market it sells for  $600,000 to $750,000 a nice 25X to 30X return on your initial investment. Now then to the predevelopment stage of real estate we go back to the same time frame in San Jose where just 5 to 7 miles outside of that nice house where vacant orchard land was selling for $8,000 to $24,000 per acre.

You chose the cheapest land at $8,000 per acre and you purchased three acres for a grand total of $24,000. Again let’s fast forward to today in San  Jose. Do yo have any idea what those vacant parcels of land are selling for? If you can find them.

They sell for $1,500,000 per acre. Since you had three your now sitting on $4,500,000 to $5,000,000 a nice 180X return on your initial investment. That’s 18,000% over 30 years a nice average of 600% per year.

Now then scenario two let’s just say your a new parent and you want only the best for your new child. So you decide to start saving for their college education. You take and sock away a huge $25,000 investment. Where should you invest for the safest and most aggressive growth.

For College Education

What if you had invested $25,000 for your child’s education 18 years ago?
A CD yielding a 5% return per year*
————————$60,165
A Mutual Fund yielding a 10% return per year*
———————–$138,998
California Land yielding a 30% return per year*
———————–$2,811,385
*Note: These are for illustration purposes only and do not reflect any specific returns.

So now coming back to the strategy of long term appreciation you need to understand why predevelopment stages of real estate are essential for growth as long as they meet certain criteria.

There are four key factors that determine growth; they are population density, the local economy and the job market, half price or affordable housing, and the 10 key indicators of a growth path.

These factors are exactly the key ingredients to create long term appreciation in real estate.

All 10 of the key elements of the growth path must be present in order for success to be assured and risk of principle to be minimized or eliminated. These 10 factors of the growth path are as follows.

1) The predevloped stage of real estate must be level, build able and usable.
2)There must be an abundant and accessible water supply for todays current requirement as well as for the next 40 to 50 years.

3)The area must be accessible by freeway, train or air.

4)You must have adequate utilities for future growth.

5)There must be an educational system in place from primary schools through college and universities.

6)You must have a close proximity to a large metropolis.

7)There must also be planned industry and commerce to continue job growth and the tax base.

8)Continued growth of commercial and residential developments.

9)All sources of information should come from authoritative sources not just a random tip from the grape vine.

10)Last but not least there must be master plans for a community in place (streets, roads, sewer, electric and gas).

With all of these indicators in place you can rest assured that long term capital appreciation will prevail. If you miss just one of the key elements you can rest assured this is a recipe for disaster. Learn the science and engineering of a great deal right from the start and avoid the disappointment later.

BIO [ There are many ways of making money in real estate, but nothing makes sense unless you have a road map and a proven method for finding profitable deals. Land banking in California is a “proven formula” that provides safe, high growth, long term appreciation.

When you have a system that locates areas that mimic historical trends of Los Angeles, San Jose and San Francisco you have certainty and control over your financial future.

Get your free 30 minute no cost, no risk, no obligation consultation with Ryan Wegman and Learn how you can do it too.

Goto http://www.ryanwegman.com and schedule your appointment with Ryan Wegman. Ryan is a Land Banking Specialist

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