Making a financial investment without first determining your real goal and timeline is like jumping in a car to go on vacation without knowing your destination even. A plan is simply having a path to achieve your goals. A good financial plan seeks to find the most enjoyable, direct path that expands future choices and achieves personal and financial objectives.

Most people include Property in their Financial Plan. Paying off your home is normally one focus. Many people also use property as a tool to earn additional income. People may focus on future capital gains, not needing additional income now. Others desire regular rent (rental income) to supplement theirr income. Many people fall somewhere in between, wanting some income now and desiring a capital gain in the future. A good Property Plan facilitates the changing financial needs of a person over their lifetime particularly as income, family size, interests and priorities change. Property can safely facilitate all these changes.

 My Financial Plan

I enjoyed 16 years as an acrobat with Cirque du Soleil. When I began I knew I could only be an acrobat for so many years. My personal plan was to have five fully paid-off rental properties by the time I turned 35 to provide a reliable future income. Upon achieving this goal and still being fit and healthy and enjoying my acrobatic career, I extended this plan to have ten paid-off rental properties and residences in both the US and Australia before turning 45. To achieve this I used a combination of Cash Flow, Balanced Return and Capital Gain focused property investments.

I'm fortunate to have many talent, focused elite sports people as friends. They are great at determining their goals and planning to achieve them. But many focused more on their athletic goals, ignoring their financial plan.

Of course, there are those of us who have a more haphazard approach, but who know they need to do something for their future and know how much spare cash they have to do it with. They don’t believe their superannuation, social security, pension, or 401K will be enough and are looking for something with returns that will move with inflation.

Property Made Easy.com has grown out of the help I have provided to my colleagues, friends and family. Any real estate agent can sell someone a house. I, and those I associate myself with, go to great lengths to ensure that our clients have the knowledge and tools available to determine the Property Investment that is right for them by matching their unique personal and financial goals.

Our service DOES NOT END when your property purchase closes. Indeed, once you’ve bought a property you may realise that was the easy part! The ongoing management and review of your investment (portfolio) is vital in achieving your goals, and goals change as life changes.

To achieve my goal of twelve, paid off properties I decided that I needed to purchase a total of 36 homes, estimating it realistic I should have a capital gain of 35% of more over the next 10 years. (Many investors think property doubles every 7-10 years. Well, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.)

So that was my plan. Kind of simple! Buy 36. Sell 24. Pay off 12. At worst, I'll be adjusting along the way. Well we had the crash of 2010 and the 6FC, so it took me 13 years instead of 10. And review it regularly - that's the point. Have a plan, act on it, and build in multiple safety nets along the way. I used a lot of cash flow, some Balanced Return, and a few Capital Gain focused investments to achieve this.

So for my business, your property purchase is just the start of our regular relationship. My clients continue to contact me years and decades after their first property purchase, as their life circumstances change, when considering new directions or just for a financial review. They are looking for advice on the performance of their property assets; how to safeguard them as their life situations change and how to achieve additional gains from further investments. My clients are long term clients, just as our property purchases tend to be long term in nature.

Common questions in considering your Property Plan or US property purchase:

• Your age and years to retirement.

• A Spouse /Partner, and/or children and their ages.

• Planning for future children?

• Current income potential

• Tax bracket

• Your current employment and its stability.

• Your current focus? Your possible focus in 5/10/15 years?

• When and how might you supplement your income?

• Other investments? What industries or locations are they dependent on

• Can you spread the investment risk?

• Are you planning on receiving a pension?

• Will you be eligible for social security when you retire? Will it exist or will governments have cut back e.g. Greece

• Where might you like to reside?

• What is your risk tolerance? Your partners?

• Are there financial dreams you have for yourself or your family eg a holiday home, college tuition etc

• What do you need your property investment(s) to do for you?

• Do you prefer to pay cash or take a loan? Do you have alternate sources to access cash or equity?

• Can you qualify for a loan?

• Do you have a USA green card, social security number, ITIN number, ‘guaranteed’ income and good credit?

• Will your upcoming property investment(s) need to target Cash Flow, Balanced Return, Capital Gains or some mix of these?

• Have you planned best case and worst case scenarios?

• Does your plan consider changing property prices, rent increases, exchange rate gains, benefits of being invested in multiple economies and loan amortisation?

• What are your fall back strategies?

• What other experts do you need to assist with your plan?