The value of your property depends on who is staying in it.

I'm not buying property yet, but will be... once I have the startup capital.
Since you decided to be an real estate investor, how much per month and percentage do you put aside every month?

What are the strategies?
I believe that the interest rate should be as low as possible during the earliest years.
Should I put in as minimum downpayment as possible or higher better?
What other thing should I take in account?
Will renovating the house a little bit such as fitting plaster ceiling, grille (developer does not provide) etc bring the house value much higher? I will most probably hire contractor to do the renovation work.

what other strategies?

or do you guys know any good book that guide this kind of investment?

Buying developing project is more of a gamble, you won't know what will the future price it will be after completion. If the price remains the same when you bought it, you pay the most interest compare to resale properties.

I currently know 3 strategies in property investing.
Flip - works well in hot market
Buy and hold - when the housing price is low, buy and wait for the market to improve. Rented out but don't profit much, may even lose money.
cashflow - works well in all market, you don't need money to make money.

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Added on September 11, 2009, 3:20 pmLet's say you have a 100k property but you rent it out to someone who don't pay and he trashes the place.
You want him to move out but he kept staying.

You got fed up and wanted to sell with that tenant in there, so what is that value of that property now?
At that location, other units still selling for RM100k but this unit may go as low as RM50k.


Also, if that area has high unemployment rate.
People staying there generally move out.
Even though it's a good area, price will still drop.


When looking at real estate, look at the people staying there.

This post has been edited by jasonhanjk: Sep 11 2009, 03:20 PM