Monday, November 26, 2012

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Private Banking in Real Estate: It’s Italy time

 
We are experiencing a new Copernican shift.

Today in Italy Private Banking is in everyone’s range if you conceive it as Real Estate Private Banking.

Let’s see together some aspects of present day’s scenario. 

First clue: The crisis. In my latest posts we have been examining the crisis. Now a few months have passed and the crisis has become an opportunity because prices are incredibly low. Crisis means low price. Crisis also means perfect timing. Prices are low at this very moment, so you have to take advantage of them. Carpe diem.

Milan is Italy’s richest city, time on the market is passed by 2 to 6 months for a property in a prime area. Prices lowered of an average 30%, however in certain cases the demand to cash out is so high that the seller also accept reduced offers of 50% compared to the 2007 values.

For this reason, today investing in Italy and mostly in a city like Milan has become a unique and unrepeatable opportunity.

Even Florence can be an excellent area for a real estate investment. What do you think of a € 2.000 (per sq. mt.) for a nice apartment?

Before 2008 such prices would have been absolutely unthinkable….Actually, to make an offer with today’s prices would had been even offensive in some case.

If you like to know more about or if you have specific need, you can contact me at retirerichbyluigifoscale@yahoo.com . I will get back to you personally.

Second clue. The Brand. In Africa there are 1 billion people and according to Reuters this number is set to double in the next 40 years. Read this study from Reuters.

Same thing for China and India. So there are 3 billion people today and 6 billion in the following 40 years. The majority of these people dream and will dream about doing the world famous Italy’s Grand Tour to visit Rome, Florence and Venice….I call this the Tourism Brand.

The World Tourism Organization reports the following ten countries as the most visited in terms of the number of international travellers.
  

Rank
Country
International
tourist
arrivals
(2011)
[3]
International
tourist
arrivals
(2010)
[3]
Change
2010
to 2011
1
Europe
79.5 million
77.1 million
+3.0%
2
North America
62.3 million
59.8 million
+4.2%
3
Asia
57.6 million
55.7 million
+3.4%
4
Europe
56.7 million
52.7 million
+7.6%
5
Europe
46.1 million
43.6 million
+5.7%

The figure shows in the past two years Italy had the highest percentage of growth in International Tourist Arrivals after Spain whose first position is due to the internal economic crisis that made its prices plummeting. Source: World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

However this favourable situation needs to be supported, structured and promoted. At this regard, I recommend you my post in which I describe my formula to restart Italy’s economy.

Third clue. Property Management.

Property Management is now a well established practice globally. Indeed in the U.S. or in other economically advanced countries you can find a great number of companies that are able to manage your property. Despite the fact Italy always had a bad reputation about business management, the situation has now changed. In fact property management has become an established practice in Italy and there are many companies and professionals in this business.

The most important clue is the fourth, that concerns those who are in charge in Italy.

The so-called big wigs they know very well Italy is not at risk under the financial point of view and the undersigned is absolutely positive at this regard because I had the chance to learn that many “big shots” are now investing in both commercial and residential properties in the major Italian cities.

Talking to some of these people and to people next to them, I had the impression that all of them are convinced Italy is not in such bad waters as they want us to believe...but the contrary.

And they are totally right because as some Wall Street broker said some time ago:” Italy is too big to bail out”.

So you may now asking yourself: ”why Italy is often compared to Greece?”

Simple: Media are arm in arm with those in the government. Nobody goes against “the system”. Indeed, if this community is so successful is because somebody thinks that reality is way different from the one media want us to buy every day .

And they do it for their own advantage: indeed media are ditching something they are buying at the same time in total silence. Do you remember my post in which I revealed the secret of the spread mechanism?

There it goes. Now it’s the time of the Real Estate market.

Italy won’t fail.

Remember these words: It’s Italy time.

There are very interesting properties in Florence, Milan as they are the place with more opportunities. Today you can buy an apartment with less than 180 grand.

I am always by your side, because I am one of you

Watch out!

Luigi Foscale, One of you
 

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Warren Buffett is the businessperson of the year 2012

Dear Friends,
 
Fortune's readers elected Warren Buffett as the business person of the 2012. He is the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA).
 
Personally, I admire much him and many of his book are in my personal library. In this period of crisis he is a positive leader.
 
Yours
 
Luigi Foscale

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Article on Financial Times

Dear Friends,

in the Clippings Retire Rich by Luigi Foscale on the Financial Times you can read new interesting articles.

You can click here to get the news.

Yours

Luigi Foscale

Friday, November 16, 2012

The Yes Generation

 
In my latest post, "The No Generation" , I dealt with a difficult reality. However if I decided to write that post it's to let people understand that a hope does exist.
 
Indeed there is also a Yes Generation.

If the NG is the NO generation (no job, no income, no asset), the YG is represented by who has a job who makes money or has an asset, like properties or a patrimony.

If I had to mark the main psychological traits of the YG, I would say optimism and self-confidence to its own future are the main features.

On the opposite, the NG is passive, pessimist and tends to complain about its own condition.

The YG has many problems as well because it lives in a situation of general crisis. However it's the very desire of redeem itself, to express its own creativity that pulls the YG to think mainly how to overcome any problem. 

It would be wrong to paint the YG like a generation that lives an idyllic situation or that it pleases itself in the la la land.

However if it handles to overcome its problems it's because it sees beyond. It's because it's focused on its goal, on the solution and not on the problem. If we had to re-read it all, the YG applies the attraction law in a positive way; the NG applies it in a negative way.

If your mental attitude is continuously moaning about the situation you found yourself, the result will be to attract more problems. If your attitude is instead to find a solution to the problems, so it's easier to get out of it. And to build up something.

So your creative desire together with the planned action are the fundamental features of the YG.

Those who belongs to the NO Generation, you can't say they don't want to be successful. Everyone can say that loves to be successful, but to desire something in a generic way it's not enough. in order to be successful you got to do something.

However, despite the global crisis in which we find ourselves today, we might find the Yes generation acting in the most unexpected places, like in Eastern Europe, where many young successful folks found their way. 
 
I am talking about folks I personally know. It's about young people between 23 and 40 who live in countries like Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and the common thread it's the typical YG features: Creativity, Problem Solving attitude, being optimist rather than spending your time moaning.

An YG example is given by C, a Croatian physician who graduated in Medicine in Rijeka (HR). Since not a long time she moved to another country and today she works in a Health Care Center.
C lives with his boyfriend who also has a job, she bought a house with a mortgage and she's now planning to have a family. Why this story should be considered so extraordinary?

Simply because this physician is only 24 years old and in a country like Italy for example when you re 24 you re still in school like a good Italian slacker!

In Italy many people even in their 30's or 40's they still have to decide what direction they will take, they live with their parents...in Italy this situation is so spread out that they also made tv shows on this category of people without provoking any kind of disdain because that's a situation that completely fits with the concept of normal for Italy's culture.

In many countries when you re 24 you re a grown-up person since a long time.

Italy fully represents the NO Generation attitude. Complaining is an usual custom.

If you talk to a retailer you will realize these people always complain about something both we are in a financial crisis or in a surplus.

Italians have a bad habit because not only they complain about almost anything, but worse they don't do anything to change their situation. Actually they try to find other people who are in their same situation of disquiet, or better failure and once they find each other, once they're together they can better hate and envy whoever is successful.

This is the major difference between the YG and the NG.

If somebody today thinks to be in a better situation only because he lives in a "rich" country he makes a great evaluation mistake. 

Those who live in advanced capitalism countries, the so called rich countries, they are actually living in mature economies (or worse "old economies") And mature economies have many debts... because they are countries that have been living for years in over their heads.

In a little while all the chickens will come home to roost. Actually they already came, you can look at the unemployment level of the young people in Italy....

Personally I admire the Yes Generation, of whatever country, religion or ethnic group they belong to. The YG is a generation that wants to create its own future with their own hands. The YG is transversal because there are people with similar features in different world areas.

Today the world has new balances, you have to be quick and pick them up. Otherwise you re left out.

What worked three years ago, today it doesn't work anymore. Once they said "you study you become an engineer, and you find your way to the industry" . Today it isn't true anymore, so those who based their own lives upon this certainty in a little while they will receive bad news...

The Axiom "I live in a rich country and I have a permanent position ( I relax myself) it's not valid anymore, because today we live in a new era with a new physics.

The Western World generation that today is between 25 and 45 should learn from who has found his way or is making a fortune in the BRIC countries (Brasil, Russia, India, China).

Look how many company managers under 45 there are in Russia and you make a comparison with Italy....In Italy there are people in Congress since when Nixon was at the White House.

We have seen that there exist a YG and a NG and these two represent two different ways to understand life. At this point, I would rise a question. How can I in a simple word distinguish the two generations? And again, how can I understand in a very short time if a person belongs to the YG or the NG?

The answer is very easy.

When you feel if you are hungry or you feel your stomach is full, you are able to understand if you are a Yes or a NO.

The truth is that hunger is the basis of everything. The burning desire to be successful is the real key to success.

If we pick up the hunger metaphor as a key to success, we have to acknowledge that unfortunately the only thing that the NG has learned "is to find their dish ready" as they say in Italy, in other words they never learned is to stand on their own feet. And that's exactly what made them so weak.

And now that they have to make a living on their own they don't know how to do it.

Actually they found a way, because they don't resign themselves starving without a whimper (also because that's what they do best). Their strategy is to occupy squares asking the government for a job. Governments must create the basis to develop the economy through the business development, if the government doesn't do it, then it's right to protest.

However the hypothesis of a social salary is wrong anyway, because it strengthen the idea of welfarism at any cost, that completely kills the survival instinct which in the NG is already weak.

We should always keep in mind the Chinese wisdom: "don't give your son a fish every day but teach him how to fish". So he will be able to get the fish for his entire lifetime.

Hungry is willing to create. This is the YG.

Angry is fear of losing. This is the NG.

According to the Law of Attraction, everyone is right. Both if he thinks to belong to the YG or the NG. Although remember: the more you focus on a status the more this will tend to broaden. It's called Resonance and this is also another universal law.

Think positive!

Luigi Foscale

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Article on Financial Times

Dear Friends,

I suggest you to read the article clipped on "Retire Rich by Luigi Foscale" on the Financial Times.

Click here to go to the page on the Financial Times.

Yours

Luigi Foscale

Friday, November 9, 2012

Yes, leverage is now good…

When we talk about Leverage, the common meaning is “financial lever”. The financial lever is a fancy way to mean debt. In the past few years, we overindulged on home equity loans not only as a financial tool but we overindulged in those fancy words throughout which the mainstream media dressed all the swindles the Wall Street folks did to us!!! In my latest post, "Is Leverage still good", I wrote that certain use of debt financing were not convenient anymore because they were real scams.

In addition I also explained there's good and bad debt. The good debt allows you to generate cash flow, while the bad one it'll eat your cash flow.
 
However even the good debt could eventually become bad if we are over-indulging in refinancing.
 
What we mean for over-indulging? It's really simple: If I buy a $100 grand apartment and I ask for a loan of $70G I have to invest $30G. This is obviously a use of the debt as a financial tool. However if through those same $30G I try to get a $3M mortgage, even a 10 year child would tell me maybe I am over-indulging a bit.
 
Unfortunately this is what happened with the financial crunch. Someone got incredibly rich, at the big masses' expenses and these people are now paying the crisis.
 
You got to know how to keep your debt under control and you have to know how to manage it. However if I am here today, it's because I want to give you a new vision of the leverage as a financial tool and not only.

 Here you'll read how the leverage can become positive.
 
Today the world has changed and the old economic laws have been swept away by the digital system. Today you can be in more places at the same time and make money side by side. If you start using these tools you can really give your finances a boost. 
 
You know when they say "that person has that little bit extra?" ...there you go! if you keep reading my posts you can have that bit extra too.  
 
Job Leverage in one example: If you are a seasoned pro, you can decide to work 10 hours a day and being paid on an hourly basis. If you devote yourself more than usual, you can work 12 or 14 hours a day.
 
However if I am telling you: you can increase the value of that same day like about 40 or 100 hours more, would you believe me? The point is really simple. If you write a book, every reader pays a fee that's represented by its price-tag. If your readers become 40 or 100 you multiply your presence and your fee as well.
 
The difference is the simplest: while before the boost you worked 1 to 1, this way you work 1 to infinite. Obviously this is just an example but it gives you a clear idea about the difference.
A form of leverage that allows you to make money is Real Estate.
 
If you buy a property, you receive a rent for every time-lapse. If you buy 2 properties you obviously have 2 rents for each time-lapse. This way you keep growing.
 
However you can make a fair objection like: "I have limited resources". Being this the situation you can get a mortgage. Obviously it has to be financially solid. In practice it's your tenants who pay your mortgage rates, then you automatically grow richer. At this point your new job is finding a property that once it has been rented out it can repay your mortgage back. Even a bank leverages its customers. For every deposit, the bank can clearly loan a higher size of it. And if you think about it, there are analogies between the bank's role and that of a Real Estate entrepreneur who invests in rental building.
 
Another form of leverage is the one of the Multilevel Marketing. A very discussed subject and in some cases even controversial. However like in every field there are bad apples that ruined a business that in the past demonstrated to be very efficient instead. For those who don't know what MLM is, when you enter a MLM, you can sell or look for distributors by creating a pyramid scheme. The commissions you generate are shared among all the people above the distributor. Paradoxically, after you worked to recruit a network of distributors, you can even make money without too much effort. All these leverage forms were linked to some form of works.
 
Nonetheless, if you really want to leverage the leverage we have to look inside of us. There's indeed an Inner Lverage. This is our stream of thoughts. You may have read in my latest post how the Law of Attraction works. In short, you get what you re focused on, no matter if you want it or not. Thoughts become real things.
 
Here it is, the leverage of this extremely powerful law lies in the fact of thinking more often about what you really want. You have to figure it out, you have to feel it, you have to live it, you have to imagine the whole thing so intensively that you really would feel like as you'd already got it. And you have to do it often. More often than you can ever think and more times than when you think of those things you don't want. The non-objectives become real too if you just focus on them. The non-objectives are worrying racing thoughts. What you don't want: a negative person or somebody who hurt you, a bad situation, a situation to escape from. All you don't want becomes real if you think about it too often and with an "associated pattern" as said by the Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
 
According to the NLP When you are "associated" you are "inside the event" or picture looking around you and to the outside. When you are disassociated you are outside of the event or picture looking inwards, watching your own behaviour. When you are associated you live your experience through your emotional sphere, when you are dissociated you live your experience without the weight of the emotional sphere.
 
So the power of the mental leverage is not only in the use of the law of attraction. It's about using it all the time! 
 
This form of leverage also includes writing down your objectives and as we said in "the Survival Handbook" , the Tracking Ob is meant to impress in your mind what you'll become. At the end of the day you might understand that leverage is linked to time.
 
If you are able to break the rules of time. If you manage to assign time not a 1 unit value but infinite, you will be able to understand the value of leverage.
 
The new value of leverage...
 
Luigi Foscale

 

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Article on Financial Times on Ecomomy

Dear Friends,

in our Clipping List on the Financial Times, "Retire Rich by Luigi Foscale", you can read an article on global economy.

Enjoy reading!

Luigi Foscale


Luigi Foscale
Retire Rich by Luigi Foscale on Financial Times


Friday, November 2, 2012

The No Generation

 
We all know many baby boomers are now next to retirement and if we look at how life has treated them we find an happier generation than ours: they had jobs, a secure income, they had the chance to buy a property home and most of all, they enjoyed life. They created wealth.
 
Now the situation has changed: today even if you have a job or you own a business, everything is less stable. 
 
If you are under 30, you are in the “No generation” but if you are jobless and in your forties, you are deeper in the “No generation”.
 
No income, no Job, no Assets.
 
A dark future. In particular, if you are more than 40 years old but you had many career changes and you are used to be fired within few months, the situation is much more dramatic.
 
Maybe you feel like a passive viewer of other people’s success… and maybe you complain about other people’s fortune too… Maybe you need a new car every three years… and in your household you have a couple of brand new cars…. and you have many hobbies and in the end you are like a child... but you are an adult! And if you meet a successful person you may envy him because you think you are better than him. He’s got a successful life while yours sucks. However you don’t think about what he went through to reach that kind of success. 
 
If you are in this situation, or if you are in the “No generation” and you really want to change your life for good, you only need one thing: Changing your mindset. 
 
Don’t blame others for their success and stop complaining about the crisis. 
 
Start working to improve your situation. If you accept your difficult position you already did 50% of your whole job.
 
The odd part is to work diligently everyday and take the challenge! Instead of blaming others, you should learn the word “humility”. 
 
You need to accept your mistakes and clearly acknowledge you got a problem. Look at your past mistakes. Look at your work attitude. Look at what you could do for your boss, and not what he should do for you. Look at your thoughts. Are they positive? or negative? If, they are negative, there is something wrong in your long standing way of negative thinking.
 
This is the first point. Accept your fault and start doing something about it. Thus, write clearly what you want from life.
 
Second point: Look at your income and your lifestyle.
 
And if you find a gap, please do not hesitate to make some cuts to your spending. Maybe you have some expensive hobbies… or maybe you got some bad habits, I know it is hard, but this is the time to give your life a makeover.
 
If you start cutting unnecessary expenses, your household will improve. Although you got to be honest with yourself and don’t lie. This is not the time to lie to yourself …unless what you want is a miserable future. Because that’s what you re going to get if you don’t accept your situation. Please be aware If you lose the train, you will only have a miserable future.
 
Only after you accept your mistakes and tear your pride apart, you can set your goal.

If you want to succeed you need to start walking in a diligent way!

Luigi Foscale