In the older days, buying house/land may be the next priority if a person want to accumulate asset. Other alternatives those days were either to inheret house/land from your parents, or to open up your own land in the jungle.
Nowadays, we do have alternatives to owning a property, of a different kind. By property, I mean in a more general terms – house, land, shoplots, factories, high-rise buildings. Any real-estate.
As pointed out by myself and few others, owning a piece of property to your own right can turn into liability. For a start, you need to deal with banks and lawyers – those suckers whose interest were to enrich themself first, and don’t really give a damn whether you made a right decision or not. Before you actually own that property, you already have to pay those suckers by the thousands of RM. Not many people able to afford that.
What if you made a wrong choice after the property become yours? What if you can’t find an honest tenant? Can you sell the property quickly if it really turned into a liability?
There are risks and you know that you have to face them. But is there other alternatives?
Owning property is a good investment. No doubt. I myself own a number of properties that hatch eggs every month. But not every one can do it due to the high initial investment, and the focus and skill you need to maintain them. You need to know how to spot a good property, and how to find a good tenant. Then you need to have the negotiating skill to get a good price for it. Even or all those, you can’t control the world economy. Next downturn, and you’ll find yourself paying high interest, and can’t sell that property when you really need the money for something else.
What are the other alternatives?
One of them is called REIT – Real Estate Investment Trust. Some of you may already know this, but some may not know what’s the hell REIT is.
REIT is when hundreds and thousands of people (investors) poll a hugh sum of money, buy/lease some properties, and get a team of property management to manage that property.
As an example, few thousands of investor may come together and lease Suria KLCC and the Petronas Twin Tower, and then rent out the shoplots and office floors to businesses owners. The rents and management of those property is then being handled by a trust. Every year, the profit from the rents, minus the the management and original lease from the building owner will shared by all the investors involved.
Sound simple? Is that the closest to owning your own property, and rent it out, and manage that property and your tenant?
I can’t write more on REIT. I have to go abroad in a couple of days. For those who are interested in REIT may do your own research. REIT shares is traded in Bursa Malaysia’s counter, and KLCC is one of them (some people argue that KLCC is not REIT, but that’s beside the point). There are many more beside KLCC. Do your own research.
Bottom line, you don’t need 15K RM to start owning a property. a couple of thosand is enough to start your first investment.
Before I go, these are a couple points to share.
1. REIT is easy to buy and sell, if traded over Bursa Malaysia. You don’t need to pay lawyers and banks, unless you get bank loan to buy those shares which is a stupid thing to do.
2. REIT inheret the similar risk during economic downturn. When business is not that good, who can afford to rent office floors or shoplots? No many. Same goes to a house. But it is very easy to get rid of REIT shares if traded over Bursa Malaysia.
Latest guideline for REIT as per the Securities Commission (SC) can be found here –> http://www.sc.com.my/eng/html/re … nes/UTs/GL_REIT.pdf
