So you've decided to seriously look at property investment to help you achieve your long term goals but, you feel yourself gripped by terror at the prospect of investing in property.
It might be time to confront your fears. At least that way you can decide whether they are rational and do something about educating yourself to overcome them, or make a fully informed decision to keep away from bricks and mortar investments.
For some people buying your own home isn’t as big a deal as buying a home as buying an investment – I guess the rationale goes that because you’d be paying rent anyway, it makes more sense to be putting your money into an investment, rather than simply paying off someone else’s mortgage in your rent money.
Rachel Barnes from property investment education group, Property Women, says ‘confusion’, ‘lack of confidence’ and ‘feeling overwhelmed’ are all reasons people commonly cite for holding back on investing in property.
“People are scared of the unknown, they hear horror stories from people who might have done it once or twice and not succeeded, or they might be listening to the wrong people," Rachel says.
Here are 3 top tips to help you address the doubts and demons you may have:
1. Get yourself educated about property investing generally – find out what options there are, and what the positives and negatives are for different ways and different places for investing. A specialist property investment company is a good place to start.
2. Choose an investment strategy that suits you – your education will help you align your personal, emotional and financial goals.
3. Find out your borrowing capacity – seek out a finance broker who is an expert in property investment finance and who will work with you to structure the best finance strategy that is most appropriate for your situation.