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The rising of education cost makes college education become more and more expensive; especially in today’s bad economy situation where students are hardly get a loan to finance their study. It may stop some of students from pursuing a higher education due to unaffordable education cost. Thanks to the available of online education that makes college education more affordable and becomes a better option for students to earn a degree online.According to college education & funding survey reports found, the results show that college tuition fees have increased by over 400 percent from year 1982 to 2007 while households’ income rose below 150%. Situation may become worse following the bad economy that leads to a recession, which may put higher education out of the reach for most students. An alternative education option is needed and online education is the solution, it makes college education more affordable.Online education has been around for years providing an alternative option for students for earning their degree. Online degrees have been wisely accepted in job market, most online students have no problem to use their online degree to start their career or find a job. During economy up-time, online education is an alternative; students can choose to pursue their degree either online or at a brick-and-mortar university. However, when comes to a recession, the education cost is the key consideration factor for many students, online education become a great option for students to pursue a degree at an affordable cost.Online education saves cost in a variety of ways. Most of learning materials are in downloadable format, helping students to reduce the cost needed in purchasing printed books and references. Students don’t need to travel back and forth the campus by attending classes online through internet connection, saving them time and money on transportation. For students who take the traditional path to earn their degree at the brick-and-mortar university, they may need to relocate to the area near the school if they leave far away. The relocation cost can be saved if they choose the alternative education option and earning their degree online. With online education, distance does not matter, any school that offers online degree programs can be reached at a mouse click.Generally, the tuition fee for online degree is cheaper than the same degree cost in campus-based school. Since most of teaching materials are in online format and the classes are done through the online learning system which does not require physical classroom setting, most schools are afforded to offer the online degree in cheaper way without scarifying the teaching quality. Online education provides a more affordable channel for students to pursue a degree from their computer through internet connection.SummaryThe education cost has risen 3 times faster that the household’s income, stopping more students from pursuing higher education due to unaffordable education cost. The online education helps to reduce the total cost in the ways of reducing some major expenses, making it a more affordable education option, meeting the tight budget for many students in the time of recession.

With increased competition, constantly changing algorithms and search engine rules, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) now requires much higher expertise to handle it.Having realized this fact, many marketing companies like web developers, PR firms, web hosting companies, etc. – all which used to carry out their clients SEO processes (along with their specialized services) by themselves, now agree that SEO is a process that is better left to the specialists in the industry, thus, relieving the burden off their shoulders. This has given rise to SEO reselling.A firm that wants to resell SEO services often hires a white label SEO provider, to perform the entire SEO process for its client on behalf of it. While doing this white label SEO provider remains anonymous, thus keeping the brand image of the reseller intact.Following are the key benefits of reselling SEO services from a white label SEO provider.Better quality of service: White label SEO services are offered by specialist providers, who have skilled team of professionals dedicated only to SEO. The expertise of these providers helps in developing methods and steps that strengthen the online presence of your client’s business. They monitor and track the industry trends, competitor’s strategies, check for the targeted keywords – all which are needed to improve the organic search result listings of your client’s website.Addresses your client’s requirements: White label SEO providers are specialists in SEO and understand the nature of your client’s business and implement appropriate SEO techniques that build-up online reputation of your client’s business. They also understand that your business’s reputation is also at stake, should any error occurs from their side.Offer full-fledged SEO services: White label SEO providers offer comprehensive solution for all your clients SEO needs. They offer both on-page and off-page optimization techniques to improve the search engine results.On-page optimization techniques include – development of title and meta tags, keyword rich content on home page, URL mapping, website design, image optimization, etc. On-page optimization are directly related to the usability of a website, that greatly affects the web page listing in search engine rankings.Off-page optimization techniques include – link building, copy writing, online reputation management, content marketing, searching for relevant key phrases for the business, directory listings, submission of write-ups, etc. Off-page optimization techniques indirectly promote the client’s website. They contribute more to the rankings of a website in search engines.These tactics help in improving online visibility and generate higher profits for your client’s business.Offer more services: White label SEO providers offer many other Internet marketing services that can complement SEO strategies and give more desirable results than expected for your client. Therefore, you can get relief from the burden of developing a functional, comprehensive digital marketing strategy for your client. They have staff ready for performing all these additional services too, like pay per click (PPC), display advertisements, E-mail marketing, etc. These when coupled with SEO give higher ROI.Handle technical work: SEO is a continuous process. For your client’s website to get continuously listed in first pages, the SEO team has to continuously track and monitor the performance of the website in SERP’s. This needs much higher level skills such as acquiring more links, creating content with targeted keywords in particular frequencies, continuously creating good quality content, etc. All these activities which can be an additional burden on you can be handled by the white label SEO provider easily and efficiently.You can concentrate on other essential aspects: As the provider takes care of all the technical marketing details, you can focus more on the customer service activities than on maintenance of projects. You can spend your quality time on addressing various other aspects of your client’s business like, tracking the number of sales, providing back-up for the client, efficient and regular reporting of the regular progress, following him up on various other services, preparing invoices, etc. all which can improve your client’s experience of working with you.Stays anonymous: A white label SEO provider acts as a confidential associate for you. He remains anonymous while offering good quality SEO services for your client, which thus, helps you maintain your credibility. In the end, your client is satisfied and so are you.Saves costs: As SEO gets more complicated, you need to employ more talented individuals or train your existing resources to offer better services. By outsourcing SEO needs to a white label SEO, you can eliminate these training and start-up costs of forming a technically proficient team. This also reduces your labor costs and other overhead costs that incur from deploying additional human and technical resources.If you are a firm who used to do your clients SEO strategies, but are unable to cope with the load and changing search engine algorithms, the services of private label SEO provider will be a good option. SEO being the key area of focus for white label SEO providers, they continuously monitor the SEO strategies, employ advanced offline and online techniques that can bring higher profitability to your client’s business.

When researching SEO companies, it is tempting to choose any company willing to offer guaranteed SEO services. It is human nature – people love a guarantee. This holds especially true for purchases where the buyer is purchasing something outside of his or her area of comfort. When companies first consider pursuing search engine optimization (SEO) as a potential marketing channel, particularly when there is an ongoing cost involved, they get a sense of comfort from purchasing “guaranteed SEO.” Unfortunately, with many SEO companies, this confidence in the guarantee is ill-placed.A lot of questionable SEO companies offer what I like to refer to as a “leprechaun repellent” guarantee. In other words, it’s a guarantee that is easily attainable – if you purchase such services and are not subsequently harassed by a pesky leprechaun, the guarantee has been met. How can you complain?The truth is that SEO companies do not control the major search engines, and any firm that claims to have a “special relationship” that gives it sway over the natural search engine results is simply counting on your ignorance. Fortunately, this does not mean that guaranteed SEO is impossible, especially when the guarantee has to do with aggregate results and the methods used to achieve them.What follows is a partial list of some of the more popular types of guaranteed SEO out there – some of them roughly as useful as leprechaun repellent, and some of them actually meaningful.Questionable GuaranteesThe “Leprechaun Repellent” Keyphrases GuaranteeMany SEO companies boast that they will achieve a certain number of top rankings in the organic results of major search engines. This type of guaranteed SEO can be tempting, especially to those who are investigating SEO companies for the first time. After all, high rankings are what it’s all about, right? Isn’t that the goal?The answer is an emphatic “No.” Quality SEO companies will point out that the real goal is to bring high quality traffic to your site. It’s quite simple to guarantee top positions if you choose non-competitive or obscure phrases – for example, “leprechaun repellent.” Want proof? Enter “leprechaun repellent into your favorite search engine. You will almost certainly find this article dominating the results (caveat – if you are reading this article immediately after its release, the search engines may not have indexed it yet. Wait a week and try again.).It is extremely easy for SEO companies to achieve high search engine positions for phrases that nobody uses. Such rankings might impress your friends and neighbors, but they won’t send you quality traffic. They likely won’t send you any traffic at all. It’s important to note that the phrase “leprechaun repellent” is used only for demonstrative purposes. Many unpopular phrases may not sound absurd. There are surely countless phrases out there that sound extremely relevant to your business that are never typed into search engines. Good SEO companies will avoid such phrases. “Leprechaun repellent” practitioners will embrace them – it allows them to attain their worthless guarantees.There is also another aspect of this type of guaranteed SEO in which SEO companies will guarantee you first place positions on unspecified search engines for more competitive phrases. Unfortunately, this type of guaranteed SEO often involves obscure engines that have very little market share and are not sophisticated enough to quickly eliminate web pages that use spam tactics. In a few documented cases, the guarantees involved search engines that the SEO companies actually owned and operated!There are really only three major search engines at present – Google, Yahoo, and MSN. There are a handful of minor engines that are also worth mentioning, including Ask Jeeves and AOL Search. Any guaranteed SEO should involve prominent engines, not obscure ones.The “Company Name” GuaranteeThere is also a common guarantee that shady SEO companies will use that guarantees that a company will show up for a search on its company name. This, much like the “leprechaun repellent” flavor of guaranteed SEO, offers no real value. Sure, if your company name is “Acme,” it may actually be competitive – but chances are that if your website does not already show up near the top of the search engine results for a search on your company name, there is an easily fixed technical glitch that will resolve the issue. Quality SEO companies will address this area immediately. Moreover, ranking highly for your company name, while obviously desirable, provides only a tiny fraction of the potential value of search engine marketing. The real benefit for most companies is that search engine marketing attracts potential buyers who are not already familiar with the company name. Unless your company is a household name, it is unlikely that having your company name figure prominently in the results is going to have a huge impact on your business.The Pay-Per-Click GuaranteeSome SEO companies will offer guaranteed SEO services that promise top positions for certain keyphrases on popular engines, but they are counting on dealing with prospects who do not understand the difference between natural search engine results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. With PPC, it is very easy to guarantee a number one result, but this result will appear in the “paid” or “sponsored” results of the engine. Say, for example, that your company installs custom swimming pools. While a competitive phrase like “custom pools” might be difficult to achieve in organic results, the SEO company is not concerned with organic results. All it has to do is outbid the current highest bidder (using your money, of course), and your site will show up as number one in the “sponsored” results. Studies have indicated that sponsored results are held in a lower regard than natural results by savvy web searchers who recognize them as advertising. Also, as soon as you stop paying, your ranking disappears.The “Submit Your Site to 50,000 Search Engines” GuaranteeThere are many variations on this offer, primarily involving the number of engines promised. Regardless of the number, this is probably the most pervasive and persistent type of “guaranteed SEO,” and it is basically a scam that preys on ignorance.Companies that believe that they have high quality websites are predisposed to believe that the only thing holding them back from search engine success is that the search engines do not yet know that their sites exist. However, search engines measure quality in a much different way than a website owner does. A properly optimized site does not need to be submitted to search engines at all (I refer to actual “spider-based” search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and MSN, not human-edited directories such as Business.com, the Yahoo Directory, and the Open Directory Project). Engines prefer to find sites on their own.This “solution” offers no real value, except of course to the SEO companies offering the service. Also, as previously mentioned, there are not 50,000 search engines – or at least 50,000 search engines worth worrying about. Do SEO companies that offer this service meet this guarantee? Certainly – they use automated programs to do the submissions. Is this type of guaranteed SEO worthwhile? Not for search engine positions, but it may keep leprechauns at bay.Meaningful GuaranteesGiven the preponderance of “guaranteed SEO” that is meaningless, the seemingly Wild West nature of the industry, and the reality that SEO companies do not control the results of any major engine, it may seem that guaranteed SEO can never be a worthwhile endeavor. However, this is not the case. If you note the examples above, they are primarily involved in specifics – top positions, a certain number of submissions, a certain number of engines. However, good SEO companies, understanding that they have no control over individual results, should be confident enough in the results of their work in aggregate and in the safety of the methodologies that they use to offer guaranteed SEO that lives up to its promise.The Custom GuaranteeIn very rare cases, certain skilled, experienced SEO companies will be able to develop for you a custom guarantee derived from the analysis of your current traffic data, the competitiveness of your industry, and the status of your site. You will ideally be offered this type of specialized guarantee from the beginning of your dealings with an SEO firm because it ensures that you will be achieving targeted, meaningful results based on your specific situation, rather than on generalities that could apply to any business in any industry. Some SEO companies may tell you that a custom guarantee is not possible because they have no direct control over search engine results. However, SEO companies who have been in business for a while know how to weather the algorithm shifts and understand that there is more than one popular search engine. Such a firm will be confident enough to create and back a custom guarantee for you.The Targeted Traffic GuaranteeSEO companies dedicated to showing value to their clients will take a baseline reading of current search engine traffic at the outset of a campaign. While, as previously mentioned, SEO companies do not hold sway over search engine results, they should at least be confident enough in their overall skills to promise that their clients will see an increase in targeted search engine traffic based on popular phrases relevant to the business. If the firm offering this type of guaranteed SEO charges on a monthly basis, any month of the engagement where traffic for targeted phrases does not, at a minimum, exceed the baseline should not be charged. After all, you are paying on a monthly basis to protect and improve your positions. While major algorithm shifts that make results on individual results unstable can and do happen, they rarely happen on all engines at once. You should feel confident that the firm you are paying has a very vested interest in making sure it adapts to the changing nature of search engine algorithms, and few things inspire such confidence as knowing that it will not get paid otherwise. If your prospective firm is unwilling to at least guarantee that it will send increased traffic to your website from targeted phrases, every month, it may be time to look elsewhere.The “White Hat” GuaranteeSEO companies are commonly broken up into two camps – “white hats” (practitioners who remain solidly within the search engine’s stated terms of service) and “black hats” (practitioners who work to unravel the latest search engine algorithms and base their optimization techniques largely on technology, regardless of the engine’s terms of service). Both approaches are legitimate – after all, there is nothing illegal about exploiting a technical loophole for results. However, black hat SEO companies put their clients at risk of penalization or even outright banishment from the major engines. Getting back in can be a long process, and sometimes it is not possible at all. If you are concerned about potential penalization, get a guarantee from your firm that they adhere to the stated terms of service of all major search engines. If you can (and this is rare), get a guarantee that your site will not be penalized through any action of the SEO firm. This is harder for a company to offer, since the major engines frequently update their terms of service, and techniques that are acceptable today can be deemed unacceptable tomorrow. However, a confident firm that always errs on the side of caution when optimizing client websites will offer this type of guaranteed SEO services, since it will not use techniques that have a potential for penalization in the future.Abusing the Metaphor (Beating a Dead Leprechaun)Guarantees have been around for at least as long as leprechauns have been hoarding breakfast cereal and starring in bad horror films. So have guarantees that are essentially meaningless but sound respectable. A good guarantee should not only appeal to the base emotion of a potential purchaser, but it should also afford some real protection that the purchase he or she is making will provide meaningful results. Many of the most popular types of guaranteed SEO do not, and that’s a shame. The industry already has a questionable reputation due to “leprechaun repellent” practitioners – make sure you don’t go chasing their rainbow. After all, it’s your pot of gold they are after.

The ability to wake up, eat breakfast and take just a few steps in order to be at work is a dream that was previously held as something that would happen in the very far future. The truth of the matter is that having a successful home business online is a goal that can be achieved today. There are a number of distinct advantages that a home business has which traditional business does not. These advantages are also what make the idea of having a home business much more approachable by someone who may or may not already have a full-time occupation. This piece of writing aims to explore a good number of the advantages that coincide with having a home business.A home business can literally do anything. Most business owners who work from home created their business with the idea of extending a hobby into a full-fledged profession. The simplest example of this is a sketch artist or painter who takes orders for commissions online and then sends the finished product to a customer. This can further extend to custom parts for automobiles, devices that make home living easier and even something like home remodeling guides.The great part about having a home business online is that it doesn’t have to involve anything physical. In some cases, there’s no need for shipping a finished product. A number of businesses that are maintained from home deal with purely electronic media. An example of this is a woman who was passionate about gardening and started a website that sells gardening guides that are available in PDF form. Once again, the sky is the limit when it comes to home businesses.One of the most alluring benefits that a home business maintains is that it has minimal start-up costs. There is no need for a physical location to be purchased, no need to buy a franchise license, nor is there a need to employ any additional workers. Even a website and domain are unnecessary for some people in the beginning with the use of online classified ads. A home business can succeed with as much investment as the owner is willing to put into it.Another benefit of an online business is that if an employee does need to be hired, that employee can be hired from anywhere in the globe. This makes outsourcing a viable option for cheaper labor. It also makes hiring relative experts from other parts of the globe a much easier job to do. These employees can also be hired as one-time independent contractors. That means there’s no reason to actually have a payroll that is paid weekly or even monthly. It makes sense that employees get paid as they are needed.While an online home business has many advantages over a traditional business, there is still one more key feature that may make it more appealing over a brick-and-mortar business. That one feature is that a home business’s success lies solely upon the shoulders of its owner. Unlike other businesses where location is everything, an online business only needs to be advertised to the right group of people in order to attract customers, which should only further act to illustrate the point that an online business is dependent upon its owner for success more than anything else.

A personal loan is a sum that any adult individual borrows to fulfill his financial requirements. There are many purposes for which any individual can take a personal loan. Personal loans can be used to provide funds to buy a car, pay for your dream cruise or that remote island escapade, buy a boat, pay mortgage arrears, finance your home improvement plans, payment of alimony or paying for credit card bills etc. In fact personal loans can be taken for most of the financial emergencies you can think of.There are many banks and financial institutions, which provide personal loans. All of them have their own terms and conditions. To get the best deal on your personal loan you must ensure that you contact and consult as many lending institutions as possible. Tell them about your financial requirements and situation. Get quotes from them and check whether you can repay the personal loan with ease.The banks will provide you with a lump sum amount when you complete the formalities of getting the loan. The money can be used to fund your requirements. The amount banks will recover from you will include the debt, coupled with the interest charged on it over the repayment period. The longer the repayment term the less will be the interest to be paid on the personal loan.Personal loans [http://www.easyfinance4u.com/secured_personal_loan.html] are preferred due to their flexibility. The two most common types of personal loans are secured and unsecured personal loans. The option of secured and unsecured personal loans are linked to the fact whether you can offer any property or fixed asset as collateral for the loan. These loans are discussed below in detail.Secured personal loanA loan secured against some immovable or movable asset is called a secured loan. These loans are easy to get since the lending institutions feel comfortable while giving them. The reason for their comfort is the collateral you provide. Secured personal loans have lower interests and easy repayment options. Lending institutions don’t hesitate in giving a large loan against high value collateral. Generally, secured personal loans are given against house owned by a person, but if you have put your house on mortgage you can still avail a secured personal loan against the proportion of the home you own.Banks and financial institutions often overlook negative credit ratings, CCJ, defaults or pending debts since they get collateral for their loan. Secured personal loans are available to individuals within 30 days of giving an application.Unsecured Personal LoanIn an unsecured personal loan the amount given by the bank or financial institution is not secured by collateral. The lending institution gives the loan solely on the creditworthiness of the person concerned. This type of loan has a greater element of risk for the lenders, so it carries a greater rate of interest and is often followed by a through background check on the financial soundness of the individual. The loan amount can start from as little as £500 and go up to £25,000. Since the loan is unsecured, lenders are wary of giving large amounts as loans. Unsecured personal loan is good for tenants, people who don’t own their homes and those who cannot offer anything as collateral.In case the borrower defaults on payments then the lender will use the credit agreement and take legal help in recovering the outstanding amount.Before jumping to a decision, the interest rate charged should be given a serious look while taking a personal loan. The amount of interest you will be charged, will decide what you finally pay to the bank. Lenders have a legal obligation to tell you the interest they will charge on your loan. The APR (Annual Percentage Rate) shows the real interest rate the banks will charge from you. The lower the APR, the better it will be for the borrower. The borrower is also advised to investigate whether the interest charged by banks is fixed, or a floating one. Ask the bank about prepayment penalties and other cost incurred in getting a loan.Every financial institution has its own way of enquiring about the borrowers. Some might want to ask personal questions, get a feel of what you will do with the loan amount and how you wish to build your future before lending you anything. Be prepared to answer such queries.Every loan that is taken has to be repaid. The banks and financial institutions derive part of their profits by the interest you pay. It is fine if everything goes as planned, and you repay the entire loan in due course with no hiccups. However life is known for its glorious uncertainties. Plans fail, calamities come and something disastrous often thwarts our plans. This might lead to repayment problems. This happens and one should not get panicky in such situations. If you get into one such situation, the first thing that you should do is to talk to your lender. They are interested in recovering their money, a mutually agreeable solution can be reached, which is less tense for you to manage and appears promising to lenders also.

The traditional process of buying a car is a familiar procedure. Keeping a rough idea of the car in mind, you set out to look for the dealerships that offer the models that interest you. Prior to making a selection, you carry out research pertaining to the car and finally come to the stage of filling out the paperwork. This chain of activities is known. However, investing in automobiles is a crucial decision and getting your loan pre-approved is one of the smartest steps that you can undertake to ensure a solid backup of financing.What is a Pre-Approved Auto Loan?Typically, a pre-approved auto loan means that you have already found yourself an auto lender who is willing to finance the money for your car that you wish to purchase. The money that is sanctioned for the auto loan is at your disposal for you to buy the car. It is helpful as you can buy a car that is of a lesser amount than the pre-approved loan amount and invest the remainder of the money elsewhere.Why is it a Smart Decision to get a Pre-approved Auto Loan?· It helps you to stay on your BudgetMany a times, people get swayed and are pressurized into making an undesirable car purchase that is higher than the cost of the car that they had originally set out to purchase. However, with such auto loan, you can exactly map out the amount of finance that you require and focus on the cost of the car. It is ideal as you can stick to your car buying budget and also keep yourself from succumbing to sales tactics that pressurize you into buying a car that exceeds your budget.· You are able to identify the Best Interest RateSurely, shopping around car dealerships is a convenient method for purchasing a car. However, getting such auto loan can protect you from falling for high interest rates. Also, it will enable you in finding out accurate interest rates at the same time. Therefore, by getting pre-approved, you can be sure that you have secured yourself the best interest rate for your auto loan.· Check your Credit ReportOne of the great aspects of getting a pre-approved auto loan is that a credit report is required by your auto lender before you can start car shopping. Essentially, a credit report can be a great means of checking if you have been behind on any payments. Also, a credit report can help you to fix your credit score before you purchase your new car. It comes of great help as a good credit score ensures a good bargain for a lower interest rate. Hence, by applying for a pre-approved auto loan, you can fix your previous bad credit rating and improve your credit report.A pre-approved auto loan will not only back you up with sound financing, but also help you get the best deal for your car. Thus, before you set out to purchase your dream car, a pre-approval may be one the smartest options for you out there.

Whether you are new to the field of commercial real estate or you have been involved in the field for some time, you probably are always looking for great ways to make the whole process much easier. At times it can be a bit difficult to find commercial properties that are for sale; however, technology has now made it easier than ever to find excellent commercial properties quickly. The internet is an excellent way to find commercial properties that are suitable for you without having to do a great deal of foot work on your own. One of the easiest ways to use the internet to find great commercial properties is to take advantage of the commercial real estate databases that are available for your use.Commercial Real Estate DatabasesA commercial real estate database is basically a compilation of various real estate listings, and most of the feature listings all over the country, although some are a bit more local specific. These databases allow you to search for the type of properties that you are looking for. Databases make it much easier when you are looking for commercial properties online because they take listings and put them in one convenient place. This saves you from having to scour the web for listings that are various different local pages. While there are many real estate agent webpages that list commercial listings as well, it could get very tedious to have to go through so may webpages and never find what you are looking for. With the help of the database, you have access to thousands of listings and only the relevant ones will be shown when you do a search.What Information Will I Find?There is a great deal of information that you can find at a commercial real estate database. First of all, you will, of course, find great commercial property listings. Not only will you be able to search commercial properties for sale, but you can also search through commercial properties that are for lease as well. If you are interested in finding a broker, most commercial real estate databases also can provide you with information on various brokers in your area. You can also find information on commercial loans at these sites and various breaking news stories in the area of real estate in general. If you are selling commercial real estate, there are often wanted boards as well, with posts from people who are looking for a specific type of property. Once you start using a real estate database, you will be able to benefit from far more than just the commercial real estate listings.How Can I Use a DatabaseIf you are new to the internet, or even new to using an online database, you may be wondering how you can use a commercial real estate database for your benefit. First of all you will need to know what kind of property you are looking for. If you are looking for commercial real estate for sale, then you will want to choose the option to search these listings. In order to do a simple search, you can just enter the state that you are looking in, and the type of commercial real estate that you are looking for. In some cases you may be able to designate a specific part of the state as well. When you hit the “search” button, you will be presented with listings that match your search results. If you find that your results are too broad, then you may want to choose an advanced search, which will allow you to narrow the search parameters. This type of a search will ask for more than just your location and use for the property. You will able to specify the acreage or square feet of the property, and you can also narrow the search by your price range as well. This will enable to get even more specific search results.A Few Helpful Databases to ConsiderYou may find yourself wondering where to get started when it comes to online commercial real estate databases. There are several databases for you to choose from, and you may like one more than the others, or you may decide to use them all. One great database to consider is LoopNet. You can find this database at loopnet.com and it considered to be the largest commercial real estate database on the web. Another very excellent database that is worth trying out is CityFeet. At cityfeet.com you will find a huge amount of commercial real estate listings, and this site provides a variety of helpful tools for those who are involved in the commercial real estate market as well. A few other great commercial databases to check out include commrex.com, land.net, cimls.com, and realestatejournal.com.While you can try using search engines or even local real estate pages online, one of the very best ways to find great commercial real estate listings quickly is to use the available online databases. As a busy professional, you may not have time to be chasing wild leads, but using these online databases can help you find great properties that are worth checking into further. You will already know that the fit the price and the basic parameters of what you are looking for, so you will find yourself one step ahead of the game. Start making the most of your time and consider using these great online databases as a part of your commercial real estate business.

Successful investing is smart investing. Investment is all about making the right choices, so that not only are you able to satisfy your immediate needs and requirements, but are also able to ensure the same for the medium and long term future. Just as no two individuals can be exactly the same, the financial needs and investment patterns vary from person to person. However one can follow certain definite markers to ensure that the path taken is the right one.Understand Your Needs: Investment goals come with different time frames and different objectives. One may invest for a short term goal like buying a car or even a holiday abroad. On the other hand, one could consider a long term investment plan to cater for the period when one has retired from work. How much one is able to commit to investment is dependent entirely upon one’s risk taking ability.When it comes to risk taking there is some truth in the adage that greater the risk, more the reward. That does not however mean that one should be reckless. Everyone possesses a risk threshold that they will not consider crossing. Factors like the level of a person’s income, one’s net worth, one’s ability to understand the investment scenario and the objectives behind investing drive how and how much a person invests.Early Bird Catches The Worm: The younger that one embarks on one’s investment journey, the better are the gains. The compound interest that you will make as a young man would fetch quite impressive gains by the time you started getting along in years. For instance if one started investing $93 every two weeks starting age 25 one would reach an amount of $500,000 when one hits sixty.This is a painless and easy way of building up a fine retirement fund. At age 25 if you are not married; you would hardly have any major expenses to worry about, and could afford to put away some money. As the years go by your responsibilities and expenses will increase, but so will your income, and you will not feel the pinch of the regular installment you committed to paying when you were so much younger.Invest Regularly: This definitely makes a lot of sense for most people considering that it is far easier to invest small sums regularly than investing a large sum at one go. Firstly one might not be able to afford the latter and secondly one does need money for things other than investment, which will get tied up in large investments. Also it gets you used to the idea of setting aside a certain sum of money regularly. Monthly and quarterly investment options, where a certain fixed sum gets debited from one’s account regularly is a fine approach to take.Spread your investment: That you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, applies to investment more than it applies anywhere else. Taking care to spread one’s investments over a diverse range of options will both reduce your exposure to risks and optimize your long term returns. You will be better inured against downturns in any specific sectors. So even if a part of your investments takes a temporary hit, there will be the other part still working well for you.Track your investments: Your investments come out of your hard earned money, and you should therefore track them with a hawk’s eye. An annual appraisal, either with the help of a finance industry professional or on one’s own is very much in order to see that one’s investment objectives remain on track. There is nothing that stops you from recasting your goals in light of the changes one goes through in life over a period of time. These may be on account of personal milestones like marriage, children’s education, impending retirements or even the prevailing market situation. The idea is to guard one’s money zealously and make every penny count.Make the right kind of investment: One needs to make different kinds of investments for the short term and the long term. Short term investments need to be less risk averse and easily encashable. The latter type of investment on the other hand need be of the late maturing growth oriented type.Sound investment may not be rocket science, but one would be amazed at how often people, who should know better make a hash of things. The above steps can be used as basic template for sound investment. As one goes along the path of planned and systematic investment one is better able to understand the finer nuances and nitty gritty of the process and obtain optimal results.

The two most frequently asked questions by investors are:What investment should I buy?
Is now the right time to buy it?Most people want to know how to spot the right investment at the right time, because they believe that is the key to successful investing. Let me tell you that is far from the truth: even if you could get the answers to those questions right, you would only have a 50% chance to make your investment successful. Let me explain.There are two key influencers that can lead to the success or failure of any investment:External factors: these are the markets and investment performance in general. For example:
The likely performance of that particular investment over time;
Whether that market will go up or down, and when it will change from one direction to another.
Internal factors: these are the investor’s own preference, experience and capacity. For example:
Which investment you have more affinity with and have a track record of making good money in;
What capacity you have to hold on to an investment during bad times;
What tax advantages do you have which can help manage cash flow;
What level of risk you can tolerate without tending to make panic decisions.When we are looking at any particular investment, we can’t simply look at the charts or research reports to decide what to invest and when to invest, we need to look at ourselves and find out what works for us as an individual.Let’s look at a few examples to demonstrate my viewpoint here. These can show you why investment theories often don’t work in real life because they are an analysis of the external factors, and investors can usually make or break these theories themselves due to their individual differences (i.e. internal factors).Example 1: Pick the best investment at the time.Most investment advisors I have seen make an assumption that if the investment performs well, then any investor can definitely make good money out of it. In other words, the external factors alone determine the return.I beg to differ. Consider these for example:Have you ever heard of an instance where two property investors bought identical properties side by side in the same street at the same time? One makes good money in rent with a good tenant and sells it at a good profit later; the other has much lower rent with a bad tenant and sells it at a loss later. They can be both using the same property management agent, the same selling agent, the same bank for finance, and getting the same advice from the same investment advisor.
You may have also seen share investors who bought the same shares at the same time, one is forced to sell theirs at a loss due to personal circumstances and the other sells them for a profit at a better time.
I have even seen the same builder building 5 identical houses side by side for 5 investors. One took 6 months longer to build than the other 4, and he ended up having to sell it at the wrong time due to personal cash flow pressures whereas others are doing much better financially.What is the sole difference in the above cases? The investors themselves (i.e. the internal factors).Over the years I have reviewed the financial positions of a few thousand investors personally. When people ask me what investment they should get into at any particular moment, they expect me to compare shares, properties, and other asset classes to advise them how to allocate their money.My answer to them is to always ask them to go back over their track record first. I would ask them to list down all the investments they have ever made: cash, shares, options, futures, properties, property development, property renovation, etc. and ask them to tell me which one made them the most money and which one didn’t. Then I suggest to them to stick to the winners and cut the losers. In other words, I tell them to invest more in what has made them good money in the past and stop investing in what has not made them any money in the past (assuming their money will get a 5% return per year sitting in the bank, they need to at least beat that when doing the comparison).If you take time to do that exercise for yourself, you will very quickly discover your favourite investment to invest in, so that you can concentrate your resources on getting the best return rather than allocating any of them to the losers.You may ask for my rationale in choosing investments this way rather than looking at the theories of diversification or portfolio management, like most others do. I simply believe the law of nature governs many things beyond our scientific understanding; and it is not smart to go against the law of nature.For example, have you ever noticed that sardines swim together in the ocean? And similarly so do the sharks. In a natural forest, similar trees grow together too. This is the idea that similar things attract each other as they have affinity with each other.You can look around at the people you know. The people you like to spend more time with are probably people who are in some ways similar to you.It seems that there is a law of affinity at work that says that similar things beget similar things; whether they are animals, trees, rocks or humans. Why do you think there would be any difference between an investor and their investments?So in my opinion, the question is not necessarily about which investment works. Rather it is about which investment works for you.If you have affinity with properties, properties are likely to be attracted to you. If you have affinity with shares, shares are likely to be attracted to you. If you have affinity with good cash flow, good cash flow is likely to be attracted to you. If you have affinity with good capital gain, good capital growth is likely to be attracted to you (but not necessary good cash flow ).You can improve your affinity with anything to a degree by spending more time and effort on it, but there are things that you naturally have affinity with. These are the things you should go with as they are effortless for you. Can you imagine the effort required for a shark to work on himself to become sardine-like or vice versa?One of the reasons why our company has spent a lot of time lately to work on our client’s cash flow management, is because if our clients have low affinity with their own family cash flow, they are unlikely to have good cash flow with their investment properties. Remember, it is a natural law that similar things beget similar things. Investors who have poor cash flow management at home, usually end up with investments (or businesses) with poor cash flow.Have you ever wondered why the world’s greatest investors, such as Warren Buffet, tend only to invest in a few very concentrated areas they have great affinity with? While he has more money than most of us and could afford to diversify into many different things, he sticks to only the few things that he has successfully made his money from in the past and cut off the ones which didn’t (such as the airline business).What if you haven’t done any investing and you have no track record to go by? In this case I would suggest you first look at your parents’ track record in investing. The chances are you are somehow similar to your parents (even when you don’t like to admit it ). If you think your parents never invested in anything successfully, then look at whether they have done well with their family home. Alternatively you will need to do your own testing to find out what works for you.Obviously there will be exceptions to this rule. Ultimately your results will be the only judge for what investment works for you.Example 2: Picking the bottom of the market to invest.When the news in any market is not positive, many investors automatically go into a “waiting mode”. What are they waiting for? The market to bottom out! This is because they believe investing is about buying low and selling high – pretty simple right? But why do most people fail to do even that?Here are a few reasons:When investors have the money to invest safely in a market, that market may not be at its bottom yet, so they choose to wait. By the time the market hits the bottom; their money has already been taken up by other things, as money rarely sits still. If it is not going to some sort of investment, it will tend to go to expenses or other silly things such as get-rich-quick scheme, repairs and other “life dramas”.
Investors who are used to waiting for when the market is not very positive before they act are usually driven either by a fear of losing money or the greed of gaining more. Let’s look at the impact of each of them:
If their behaviour was due to the fear of losing money, they are less likely to get into the market when it hits rock bottom as you can imagine how bad the news would be then. If they couldn’t act when the news was less negative, how do you expect them to have the courage to act when it is really negative? So usually they miss out on the bottom anyway.
If their behaviour was driven by the greed of hoping to make more money on the way up when it reaches the bottom, they are more likely to find other “get-rich-quick schemes” to put their money in before the market hits the bottom, by the time the market hits the bottom, their money won’t be around to invest. Hence you would notice that the get-rich-quick schemes are usually heavily promoted during a time of negative market sentiment as they can easily capture money from this type of investor.
Very often, something negative begets something else negative. People who are fearful to get into the market when their capacity allows them to do so, will spend most of their time looking at all the bad news to confirm their decision. Not only they will miss the bottom, but they are likely to also miss the opportunities on the way up as well, because they see any market upward movement as a preparation for a further and bigger dive the next day.Hence it is my observation that most people who are too fearful or too greedy to get into the market during a slow market have rarely been able to benefit financially from waiting. They usually end up getting into the market after it has had its bull run for far too long when there is very little negative news left. But that is actually often the time when things are over-valued, so they get into the market then, and get slaughtered on the way down.So my advice to our clients is to first start from your internal factors, check your own track records and financial viability to invest. Decide whether you are in a position to invest safely, regardless of the external factors (i.e. the market):If the answer is yes, then go to the market and find the best value you can find at that time;
If the answer is no, then wait.Unfortunately, most investors do it the other way around. They tend to let the market (an external factor) decide what they should do, regardless of their own situation, and they end up wasting time and resources within their capacity.I hope, from the above 2 examples, that you can see that investing is not necessarily about picking the right investment and the right market timing, but it is more about picking the investment that works for you and sticking to your own investment timetable, within your own capacity.A new way to invest in propertiesDuring a consultation last month with a client who has been with us for 6 years, I suddenly realised they didn’t know anything about our Property Advisory Service which has been around since April 2010. I thought I’d better fix this oversight and explain what it is and why it is unique and unprecedented in Australia.But before I do, I would like to give you some data you simply don’t get from investment books and seminars, so you can see where I am coming from.Over the last 10 years of running a mortgage business for property investors:We have executed more than 7,000 individual investment mortgages with around 60 different lenders;
Myself and our mortgage team have reviewed the financial positions of approximately 6,000 individual property investors and developers;
I have enjoyed privileged access to vital data including the original purchase price, value of property improvements and the current valuation of close to 30,000 individual investment properties all around Australia from our considerable client base.When you have such a large sample size to do your research on and make observations, you are bound to discover something unknown to most people.I have discovered many things that may surprise you as much as they surprised me, some of which are against conventional wisdom:Paying more tax can be financially good for you.This one took me years to swallow, but I can’t deny the facts. The clients who have managed to get into a positive cashflow position have paid a lot of tax and will continue to pay a lot of tax, whether it is capital gains, income tax or stamp duty. They don’t have an issue with the tax man making some money as long as they continue to make more themselves! They regularly cash in the profits from their properties and reduce their debt, but always continue to invest and park their money where the return is best. In fact, I can almost say that the only people who enjoy positive cashflow from their investment properties are the people who have little concern about paying taxes as they treat them as the cost of doing business.Just about every property strategy works. It just depends on who does it, how it is done, when it is done and where it is done.When I first started investing, I went and read many property investment books and attended many investment educational seminars. Just about every one of them was convincing and this confused the hell out of me. Just when I was about to form an opinion against a particular property strategy, someone would show up in one of my client consultations and prove that it worked for them!After testing many of these strategies myself, I came to realise that it is not about the strategy,(which is only a tool) but rather it is about whether the person is using the tool appropriately at the right time, in the right place and in the right way.There is no such thing as the best suburb to invest in, forever.If you randomly pick a particular property in what you think is the best suburb over a 30 year window, you will find that there are periods during which this property will outperform the market average, and there are periods when this property will underperform the market average.Many property investors find themselves jumping into historically high growth suburbs at the end of the period when it is outperforming the average, and then stay there for 5-7 years during the underperforming period. (Naturally this can taint their view of property investing as a whole!)There is no such thing as the worst suburb to invest in, forever.If you pick a property in the worst suburb you can think of from 40 years ago, and pitch that against the best suburb you can think of over the same period of time, you will find they both grew at about 7-9% a year on average over the long-term.Hence in the 1960s, a median house in Melbourne and Sydney was valued at $10k. The worst property around that time may have been 30% of the median price for then, which was say about $3k. Today, the median house price in these cities is about $600k. The worst suburb you can find is still around 30% of that price which is say $200k a house. If you believe a bad suburb will never grow, then show me where you can find a house today in these cities, that is still worth around $3k.Median Price growth is very misleading.Many beginner property investors look at median price growth as the guidance for suburb selection. A few points worth mentioning on median price are:We understand the way median price is calculated as the middle price point based on the number of sales during a period. We can talk about the median price for a particular suburb on a particular day, week, month, year, or even longer. So an influx of new stocks or low sales volume can severely distort the median price.In an older suburb, median price growth tends to be higher than it really is. This is because it does not reflect the large sum of money people put into renovating their properties nor does it reflect the subdivision of large blocks of land into multiple dwellings which can be a substantial percentage of the entire suburb.In a newer suburb, median price growth tend to be lower than it really is. This is because it does not reflect the fact that the land and buildings are both getting smaller. For example, you could buy a block of land of 650 square metres for $120k in 2006 in a newer suburb of Melbourne, but 5 years later, half the size block (i.e.325 square metres) will cost you $260k. That’s a whopping 34% annual growth rate per year for 5 years, but median price growth will never reflect that, as median prices today are calculated on much smaller properties.Median price growth takes away people’s focus from looking at the cost of carrying the property. When you have a net 2-3% rental yield against interest rates of 7-8%, you are out-of-pocket by 5% a year. This is not including the money you have to put in to fix and maintain your property from time to time.Buying and holding the same property forever doesn’t give you the best returns on your money.The longer you hold a property, the more likely you will achieve an average growth of 7-9%. But you will be bound to hit periods where your property outperforms the 7-9% growth and periods where it under performs the 7-9% growth.The longer you hold a property, if its growth is at or above average, the lower its rental yields will become.The longer you hold a property, the higher the capital gains tax you will need to pay when you sell, and the less likely you will be able to sell it.The longer you hold a property, the more likely there will be a need for an expensive upgrade of the property.The longer you hold a property, the more likely you will forget which part of the equity actually belongs to the tax man, AND the more likely you will be to try to leverage the equity that doesn’t belong to you. This can get you into a negative equity position with a negative cashflow forever, unless you have proper financial guidance.