b.Land - The Present (Part 2 of 4)

Time to discuss the second part of the Land essay. The first part is located at Land - The Past (Part 1 of 4).

The Present

The modern battle field for most places is in the ballot boxes. For large countries, gone are the days where soldiers and knights go into battles just for land occupation. However, for smaller countries, armed conflicts still exist. For that, one is advised not to stay in small places like the fucken little island. The risk is still too high for stability to be the main order of the day. With only the ballot boxes in play in larger countries, blood spilling is expected to be minimised.

Whosoever subsequently take control, they will still hope to retain law and order. Business people in this case are super sexy and wooed by all political parties. The existence of cronies should not affect the balance of equation too much. After all, all political leaders should be too busy fighting in the political arena and can only rely on business people (cronies) to help them to earn their keep. Once the politicians of the day proved to be too wayward, a new political force will rise from the ballot boxes to re-balance the harmonic equation again.

Once you have settled down in a large country, the next thing to do is to acquire land.

Land is a tricky commodity:

• New developments -   Many agents would suggest that you go for the brand new properties as they are attractive in terms of looks and feel. Most new developments are to be sold at a large premium over the existing properties. Agents love to sell them as they will get the maximum fee out of the deal. Stay away from these properties as the banks, developers and agents will collude to exact a heavy price from you.
• Location, Location, Location -   This is one of the best bullshit, one would encounter in life. Stay away from buying into a location simply because everyone claim that that's the best money can buy. Once you commit into one, you would be shackled for the rest of your life with no possibility of a come-back. You would have paid more than necessary. One should know that investing in property is very illiquid, i.e., very expensive to buy and very cheap to sell, when one needs cash desperately. A careful study into the landscape, one would realize that a rubbish in the past is now the new darling of the crowd. For example, compare the chinatown in every city last time and the chinatown  in every city now. Notice their poor state of repair and poor reception of investors and learn their reason for the demise.
• Property Type -   Contrary to common misconception, land use and zone can be changed at will if the land is large enough. One just needs to pay what's due to Caesar. Hence, buy the property type that is currently the cheapest.
• Old property -   The state of the property is not important. Normally new or domestic buyers will not compete with you. They need a home or office or factory. They don't have much cash at hand to buy over the property that is bad and renovate to their needs. Your only competition is only investors with deep pockets. They might bid up the property but they don't have infinite cash. So after a while, these investors will also run out of cash on hand to bid. That's when you should go in to play.
• Auctions -   Keep at least 50% of the cash to buy properties that are auctioned by the bank. The title is normally clean and without hassle. Have a low bid price and be extremely patient. Most of my gems are gotten this way.
• Government land -   Since the country is big, the government of the day likes to provide good land deals for the investors. Talk to the officials and find out what's the flavour of the day. Sometimes, one can receive super deals. This is the only source when one wants large contiguous land parcels. My Dato friend got free land from the ruling party. He just needs to carry balls a bit.
• Taxes -   Read this section well so that the taxes upon your death is minimum and well-prepared. One good way is to save from the rentals collected for a couple of years and joint-tenancy when buying a property.
• Hold forever -   Unless forced to sell by the government of the day, buy property to hold indefinitely. Therefore, every property purchase must be made with great care and considerations. No point getting something cheap or expensive based on emotion.
• Buy cash -   This is definitely the hardest covenant to keep. So get that first pot of gold / golden goose and all things will fall in place. Never, I repeat, never ever borrow from banks. Disagree with this covenant, you will lose immediately. Just wait for 10 years, your assets will melt to nothingness by the banks. Consequentially, the converse of this covenant is unless your cash is really spare cash, never buy any property. Get the house of the first pot of gold in order first. Make the first pot of gold flows smoothly spare-cash every month before starting to buy modestly.
• Freehold -   This is self-explanatory and only acceptable tenure.

The land investment is actually very simple and easy to implement. Even if one pays too high for one property and because of the buy-and-hold strategy, the purchase price would never become a mistake. Over time, the cleverness in determining the right price for each property purchase will improve.

The next part - The future - I will discuss the change management model and the correct attitude towards land ownership.