RP Wang Investment

Once you understand what the term, “Bridging Finance” means, it’s easy to understand how it got its name. The purpose of a bridging or bridge loan is to provide short term cash for a real estate transaction until permanent financing is secured. Bridge loans are commonly used to “bridge the cash gap” when completing commercial real estate transactions.

Everyone knows it’s difficult to time the sale of one property to coincide with the purchase of another property. The slightest delay can wreak havoc on the transactions and create obstacles that are difficult to overcome. Having to pay two mortgages, whether for residential or commercial purposes, for any length of time can spell financial disaster. This is where bridging finance helps.

The goal of a bridge loan is to remove this financial obstacle so that a commercial transaction can proceed. In the majority of situations, “bridging finance” provides additional funding so a company can continue to pay the lease on its existing commercial property for as long as it remains on the market.

There is a process to go through before a bridge loan is approved. If you’ve already developed a relationship with an institution, that’s a good place to begin. If not, it’s time to start looking for a lender with which you feel comfortable. Go through the bridge loan pre-approval process to see how much of a loan you qualify for. With pre-approval in hand, you can act quickly once a desirable commercial property becomes available.

One general requirement for obtaining a bridging loan is collateral. Most applicants will be asked to secure the loan with some sort of significant collateral. Examples of collateral include heavy machinery, business equipment, inventory, other commercial or residential properties owned by or the applicant and even properties involved in the purchasing process.

Having a great credit history, for both your business and your private life, and a solid relationship with a lender always helps when applying for a bridging loan. There have even been situations where bridge loans were approved with only a signature – no collateral necessary!

Even with good credit, however, expect to pay a slightly higher rate of interest for this type of short-term bridge loan. One-half of a percent or more is typical. The maximum length of a bridge loan is usually twenty-four months. The lender has to make some money on the deal and the higher interest rate is where the opportunity lies. Other factors are also involved in determining the interest rate. The applicant’s calculated credit risk, the value of the items being used as collateral and the amount of time the loan is needed all factor into the equation, too.

If you think applying for a bridge loan makes sense for your situation, work with a US Commercial Lending organization that specializes in this type of loan. They’ll help with all the steps necessary and they’ll offer advice along the way. Don’t be afraid to shop around for better rates and terms! The commercial lending market is very competitive and it’s to your advantage to do business with a lender that will work with you and not against you.

By: Darren Yates

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The service of providing funds or capital for commercial or private reasons comes under the umbrella term – Finance. It is also a branch of economics that studies the management of money and other assets. It can be also defined as the management of funds and capital required by a business and private activities. Management of finance has also developed into a specialized branch within the financial sector and is carried out by finance managers.

Simply put these managers arrange money to be lent to businesses or private individuals using either money already available from company accounts or from external lenders. The simple process of optimization is used to receive the most from these funds by reducing the cost of arranging the finance whilst at the same time ensuring returns are high. The fact is that it governs most of the worlds activities and poor finance management will immediately show up as conditions deteriorate in procurement, production and sales as it affects every sphere of business activities. The finance manager’s job is to maximize profits whilst keeping the risk to a minimum so you can understand why there is a high level of stress associated with this work.

One of the most famous management gurus Lee Iacocca referred to finance managers as Bean-Counters who almost look at the expense part with a rather pessimistic view. Finance managers are people who always like to see where they have been and do not look towards the future in the same way that a sales manager does. For most small business owners there is not a clear distinction between personal and business which often leads to the funds being used in areas that are not part of the arrangement. When money is lent under these circumstances, lenders feel quite aggrieved as they have lost control of where the money is being invested.

Although resisting the tendency to use funds this way may dampen someone’s enthusiasm in the short term, it will focus the attention of the borrower and perhaps instill more discipline in the future. Fortunately, small businesses can always use the more approved methods of friends or relations to help provide finance. However, finance managers are in the position of making money for their company so out sourcing their lending can help increase their profits. The famous comedian Bob Hope best summed up the subject when he once said; a bank is a place that will lend you money but only if you can prove that you don’t need it.

By: Francisco Segura

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When you do your weekly shopping at the supermarket, do you keep your eye out for bargains to fill your pantry? If canned spaghetti is half price this week, do you buy a couple of extra tins? Shopping for investments is just the same as buying spaghetti. We store investments to create wealth which can be spent in the future just as we store spaghetti in our pantry to be eaten later.

When is the best time to buy investments? When they are cheap. So when the price of shares drops, the logical thing to do is to buy more – right? Well, logical it may be, but human beings are strange creatures. When it comes to buying investments we seem to apply a perverse logic. Instead of celebrating the fact that there are bargains to be had, we complain that the value of the “spaghetti” we have in the “pantry” has fallen. This would of course be a problem if we had intended to sell the spaghetti this week, but it is reasonable to assume that this is not the case. What is evident throughout the history of sharemarkets is that investors buy more as prices go up, then panic and sell when prices drop. Yet logic tells us we should do exactly the opposite. The secrets of creating wealth through investing in shares are to be able to resist the emotional effects of price changes, to make sound investments at the right price and to take a long term view.

By nature, shares are volatile. Those investors who have the emotional strength to stick with the market through its troughs are rewarded with higher returns over the long term than are achievable through investments in fixed interest or property. Declines in the sharemarket are always temporary and should be seen as opportunities to buy.

One of the realities of share investing is that it is never possible to get your timing exactly right. Spaghetti might be half price this week, but next week it could be discounted by 60%, or it might be back up to full price. However, the longer the shares are held, the less important the initial purchase price becomes. If spaghetti increases in price to $5.00 a can in 10 years time, does it really matter if you paid $1.50 for it last week when you could have bought it for $1.25 this week?

If you are retired, you might argue that you won’t be around in 10 years time and that shares are therefore not an appropriate investment. This is not true. The biggest investment risk retired investors face is that they will outlive their investment funds. If you need $5,000 a year to supplement your pension and you live for less than 10 years, then you will require a maximum of $50,000 to be invested in short term, stable investments. Any investment funds over this amount could be invested long term (i.e. for 10 years or more) in shares for a higher return, thus reducing the risk of outliving investment funds and increasing the value of your estate.

By: Liz Koh

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There’s nothing complicated with personal finance. Some creditors actually like keeping their clients confused, so that they’ll be given the “advantage” of charging you higher rates and granting unfair terms. You don’t want to be manipulated like a puppet, right? So to avoid that type of situation, here’s what you need to know: personal finance is in some sense the “funding of one’s activities, needs and wants”. As we all know, money DOES make the world go round, materialistically speaking. Almost everything you see packs financial value. With money, you can buy almost EVERYTHING you want, even love (shame on those who do).

Personal finance may come in two types, the first being secured personal finance – how does it work? It does so by allowing you to borrow a certain amount of cash, but in order for you to get approved for this type of service, they’ll need you to put up collateral. Collateral is their insurance policy that you’ll payback the amount of dough you borrowed, because if you default the payments, they’ll be forced to take the asset/s you put up as collateral. Here you’re taking a risk (the loss of your asset/s), but in return, they compensate you – how you ask? Well they’ll be offering you a lower interest rate on the loan, grant a longer payback period, and have “flexible” terms.

But what if you don’t own any valid assets whatsoever, and live with your mom? Or you do have the assets to put up as collateral, but don’t have the balls to risk losing it to the lending company? If you’re that kinda guy, no problem with that, because there’s such a thing as unsecured personal finance. This variation works by allowing you to borrow cash from the financial institution you’ve plans of borrowing from without risking repossession of your “goods”. They can’t take anything away from you, if you didn’t give them anything to take from you in the first place, now can they? What that means for you is you’re left with no “risk”.

That also means that the company you loan from takes a risk when they lend you a certain amount. So as to compensate for the risk they take in trusting you, they’ll have to charge you higher interest rates, a shorter payback period, and terms that aren’t bent so easily (unbreakable even). Which ever of the two you choose, it’s entirely up to you – I ain’t your mama telling what you need or have to do. When you do get approved, you can do whatever you want with the sum you’ve borrowed (legal of course) – not so sure on what to spend it on? Then allow me to give you some ideas: you could use the dough to finance the education of your child.

Or you could use it to restore or improve the beat up shack which has been crumbling for years you live in. Getting a paint job might be able to cover all of its needs, but if you’ve got the cash, why not remodel it? Paying the bills or going on a vacation are other of many options you can use the loan pulled off for. For a more complete list of lenders to borrow from, check out the web – online lending companies can offer some of the best rates and terms there is to date.

By: Rick Goldfeller

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Most personal finance gurus continually stress the importance of budgeting for monitoring and modifying poor spending habits. However, I have noticed that most people who attempt to implement a family budget eventually give up on the activity, mainly because it takes the fun out of spending money. You know what, I agree! An impulse purchase here and there feels good! And as it turns out, an impulse purchase made on occasion won’t necessarily create a big problem for most us. The problems arise when we decide to make them on credit. Here’s an excellent personal finance tip for all you budget-haters out there – pay cash for all non-investment expenditures and eliminate your need to budget.

What is a Non-Investment Expenditure Anyway?

First off, let’s define investment expenditure. By my own definition, an investment expenditure is a transaction that involves the purchase of an asset that appreciates in value. On the flip side, a non-investment expenditure represents all other transactions. One quick check you can make before whipping out your credit card to buy something is to ask yourself, “Is there a high likelihood that I will be able to sell this item in the future for more than I am paying now?” If the answer is “no,” pay cash. If you don’t have the money, you can’t make the purchase. It’s that simple.

Examples of Non-Investment Expenditures

Unfortunately, the vast majority of our everyday spending is classified as non-investment expenditures. Groceries, fuel for the vehicles, dining out, your cell phone bill, a new pair of designer jeans – these are all non-investment expenditures. Some of these items may be extremely important, even life sustaining. But purchasing on credit, even for life sustaining expenditures, encourages excess. Let’s take food, for instance. To purchase enough food for the family to survive really does not cost much money. What costs us a pile of money are the rib-eye steaks, junk food, alcoholic beverages, and sodas we routinely buy. Moreover, these foods are bad for our health! Grocery shopping with cash forces us to reconsider the food choices we make, in terms of both health and money. And that’s a good thing.

What Else is There?

You may be asking yourself, “Would any of my spending be classified as investment expenditures?” For me, two things come to mind – your home and your education. A home is rather obvious because, over time, houses have always increased in value. A college education would also be considered an investment because it provides one the opportunity to earn more money than he would otherwise make. Because these two items are considered investments, taking out a loan to pay for them can be justified. In addition, home mortgages and college loans offer some of the lowest interest rates of any form of credit, making them even more attractive expenditures.

One Caveat to Consider

Although following the above advice can eliminate the need for a budget, one other choice must be made to assure financial success in the future. An automatic investment plan must be initiated to make certain your investment accounts are funded before all the money is spent. If you work for a company that offers a 401k plan, this is done automatically. If you have outside accounts, you will have to notify the firm to initiate automatic transfers from your checking account. With most firms, you can set up the automatic transfers yourself from your online account interface.

Summary

Although a budget is a fantastic tool for monitoring and modifying our spending habits, the cold hard truth is that many of us will never stick to one. Should these folks be doomed to financial hell for the rest of their lives for this so-called lack of discipline? Of course, not! Just follow our simple personal finance tip to pay cash for all non-investment expenditures and you, too, will reach financial success in the future.

By: Charles Hebert

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If you are getting serious about rental property investment, you will need to be able to determine if a property is likely or not to be profitable for you. The last thing you want to do is invest in a piece of property and find out that you are loosing money each month because your expenses on the property are more than your income from renting it! One of the best ways you can begin to evaluate your potential investment property is through the use of an investment property calculator. You can easily find investment calculators of all kinds on the Internet.

An investment calculator can assist you by showing you many of the probable outcomes you can expect of your investment. Investment property calculators use very complex mathematical equations to give you fair financial analysis of your potential investments. They look at all of your routine mortgage and upkeep costs, and they also can give you an idea of your income and tax considerations for the property, as well.

By simply looking on the Internet, with a good search engine such as Google, you can very effortlessly find a multitude of free investment property calculators which you can easily use to evaluate rental property. Into the property investment calculator, you will input all of your monthly rental income, the monthly loan repayment costs associated with any financing you have on the property, and the operating expenses which are necessary to maintain the property in question each month.

From all of the data you have entered the calculator will then give you rough estimates of your monthly cash flow you can expect from the investment, your annual building tax deduction which you can legally take, and any changes which might occur in the amount of taxes you will be paying on the property.

Mortgage investment calculators are complex enough to take both positive and negative values into consideration such as income, taxes, and payments. The calculator is a great way to determine if your potential investment property will earn you money, or conversely cost you money. It can also be helpful in determining the rent which you will want to charge your tenants for rental of the property.

Most mortgage calculators do have some limitations which you need to be aware of, however. Most of them assume that your expenses are the same each month over any given year. While it?s a nice basis, we all know that you can have a very costly repair and your numbers will no longer be anywhere near close to accurate. But, in this scenario you can run the calculator again and re-evaluate the numbers it gives you.

Many mortgage calculators also do not take into consideration many of the important tax issues you will be faced with. They do not see any rebates you might receive, or any tax deductions which you may be eligible to claim which would reduce your overall tax obligation

While investment property calculators can be very valuable tools for you to use, you will want to understand that they do have some limitations and as always you will want to consult with professional tax accountants when necessary.

By: Andrew Stratton

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In a moment, I will tell you a true story. It’s about a group of lovely grandmas who are infamous for making a classic investment mistake and lying to the public about their investment track record.

An expert’s image is created by packaging, and it counts for everything at seminars and workshops and on radio and television. Yes, show business trumps the facts, and the track record that many experts present to the public is not always what it seems.

You have heard it a thousand times: Things are not always what they seem. You will have a better chance of not shooting yourself in the foot if you stop wanting something badly enough (fear and greed) to rush into giving yourself reasons to make a bad decision. At the moment you make a decision, you will not know that you may have made a bad decision–that is why it is called a mistake.

The Beardstown Ladies investment club was packaged and they were naturals on stage. These Grandmas were so charming that no one questioned the lies they told us about how they crushed the experts on Wall Street with their stock picking skills.

Now, lying on TV and radio is not anything new. Many experts leave out material facts about their track record for the purpose of making themselves look like something they are not. But the bottom line is this. If you leave out material facts about your track record, you are deceiving the public.

Prior to this, did you know that leaving out material facts is a form of lying? It is lying, and that is why you need to ask the right questions before you invest your hard-earned money. The first question you should always ask an expert is this. Do you have at least a ten-year track record of beating the market? If so, show it to me, but do not try to fool me by cherry picking investments that you did not own back then. And don’t try to fool me by cherry picking time frames, either.

My point is this. The media and the public fell in love with the Beardstown Ladies, but it was the kind of hoax that not even these grandmas knew was a lie. They were happy with the growth of their investments, because they did not realize that most of the growth in their portfolio came from their own money that they invested each month, not from capital gains. And even their investment adviser, who became famous along with them, did not know how awful their real Return on Investment (ROI) was. The bottom line is this. The adviser did not know that he and the lovely grandmas were lying to the public about their track record.

Do not make the same mistake that these grandmas and their investment adviser made regarding their ROI, because if you make it with your own investments it may cost you a fortune–long term. How? You will be satisfied with your awful investments that underperform the market, and it will never occur to you to switch to investments that are designed to match the market.

Here is what I am talking about.

The Beardstown Ladies had to apologize for lying to the public after a reporter named Shane Tritschm looked at the facts. The facts showed that the growth in their portfolio came from their own money, which was the deposits that they made into their investment account, each month, and not from the huge capital gains they claimed they earned on their stocks.

The ladies and their investment adviser claimed that their highest annual return was 23.4 percent, which was amazing for that time-frame, but facts are stubborn things. A Price Waterhouse audit uncovered a yearly return of 9.1 percent. In other words, their stock picks underperformed the market for that same time-frame.

These lovely grandmas could have invested in no load, low cost, index funds and not paid their trusted investment adviser a bunch of money in commissions. Had they done that they would have matched the market less the cost of their funds, and they would have enjoyed the following benefits:

They would have had more money, because they would have at least matched the market’s performance–long term. Instead, they underperformed the market. They would have had more time, because it requires less time to research index funds than it takes to research stocks and managed mutual funds. They would have had less stress, because it is comforting to know that your investments will match the market’s performance less your cost and that your ROI will be good enough to beat the pants off most experts.

If you want more money; more time; and less stress, you can do it the easy way: invest in a mix of investments that will match the market’s performance. That way it does not require more than a few minutes of your time to invest, because you can pick up the telephone and tell the brokerage firm’s representative what you want him or her to do for you. Easy! Never ask an investment adviser what you should do about your investments because he or she has inherent conflicts of interest. Instead, give him or her instructions on what you want to invest in. See?

Summary: Your IRA account, 401(k) plan, or 403(b) plan may be growing because of your own money that you contribute each month, and not because of capital gains from your investments. A time-weighted return will show you the truth about your investment picks because it accounts for deposits, withdrawals, and gains or losses during a certain time frame. Or you can you can just match the market’s performance. That way you will not have to worry about if you are doing the right thing for yourself and your loved ones.

The bottom line is this. The worst thing you can do is to be happy and/or satisfied with your investments that underperform index funds; especially, if you do not see what is happening with your hard-earned money until you retire.

By: Frank Cirullo

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Eastern philosophy is based on the concept of balance. The symbol of Yin/Yang illustrates the theory. (If you can’t visualize this symbol, a Google search will lead you to several illustrations of the Yin/Yang.) Day and night, good and evil, pleasure and pain, inner strength and physical strength are examples of opposites that need each other in order to maintain equilibrium.

The approach commonly used in personal financial planning focuses on a rigid set of rules that works well in business budgeting but fails too often when used by individuals. In developing a business plan the primary day-to-day expenses, such as rent and utilities are identified first. Then the next level of expenses is listed, and so on. Having all expenses prioritized in this manner allows for a systematic reduction of expenses when income targets are not met.

Individuals are told to do something similar. Review all personal expenditures and categorize them into two categories, “needs” and “wants”, forming a table.

After you pay for all your “needs”, you can then decide which “wants” can be fulfilled with whatever money that’s left after the “needs” are paid for. People fail to meet their goals with this system for several reasons:

We live in an “instant gratification” society. We’re encouraged to buy now and pay later making the distinction between “needs” and “wants” difficult. The rigidity of partitioning all expenses in a table form is intimating requiring a level of discipline that few people have. No expense fits neatly into either category. For example, you can pay $500.00 a month in rent or $5,000.00 a month. There’s no question that you “need” a place to live but there certainly is a “want” component in determining how expensive a place you decide to live in.

Developing this table is an effective starting point; after all you can’t reach your goal of improving your financial health without knowing your current position. It’s from here is where the concept of balance comes into play.

Visualize Yin/Yang in your mind, the black half is your “needs” and the white is the “wants”. There is fluidity in the boundary between the two halves of the circle. The “needs” and “wants” of your life not only continually cross back and forth but will straddle the boundary.

It’s only after you recognize this fluidity can you focus on understanding what you need to do and begin to implement your changes.

If you’re serious about improving you personal finances you need to acknowledge that it’s going to take time. No major change in life happens overnight. It’s also not going to be easy and mistakes will be made. Is it surprising that oriental philosophy also holds perseverance in high esteem?

By: Don Romano

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