Cash Flow Planning For College & Retirement - College Funding: Fill & Download for Free

Yes, yes, yes! I can understand Madeline’s answer but if you’re not in a recession, you should be able to get positive cash flow with a down-payment of 20%.If you look for rental property data ahead of time, you can get a sense of what your income and expenses would be, allowing you to confirm that you’re buying a positive cash flowing property.Positive cash-flow is the number one most important thing when owning a rental property.Investors should make positive cash flow their priority when on a property search because it means paying the mortgage, building equity, and profiting every month. While appreciation is a huge benefit in real estate investing, it should not be the main reason for investing due to the uncertainty of the market’s future. Positive cash flow should be achievable with a down payment of 20%. Here are different ways to minimize costs and ensure positive cash flow.1. Use Analytics When SearchingWith the big data that is available today, finding a property’s potential income and expenses has been simplified. Mashvisor predictive analytics provides users with a breakdown of estimated expenses, income, cash flow, cash on cash return, and more with each property that is clicked. This data is based off of past trends and algorithms to predict future trends and outcomes. With this type of online tool, understanding cash flow and selecting positive cash flow properties is easy.Knowing all costs ahead of time is the foundation for planning monthly costs and for calculating cash flow. Read more about different costs in this guide to real estate investing.While on a property search, it’s important to get an idea about the revenue, vacancies, and tenants of nearby properties. This can require a lot of different searches but Mashvisor also provides neighborhood insights and comparative data to reveal this type of information.Search for positive cash flow properties on Mashvisor and use promo code MASH30 to access data for free for an entire month. Use this before the end of May 2016.Related: How To Find An Investment Property Using Analytics2. Pick Hot LocationsIt can’t be said enough: location, location, location. Pick a location that is profitable, not convenient. A profitable location has high demand, a good job market, infrastructure development, and market growth. Follow people’s movement. College towns provide great investing potentials because of the high and stable demand, low vacancies, and premium location.When looking for locations, home prices and rental rates are the most important factors. Home prices and expenses should be compared to the market condition to determine if the property is worth the costs. The rental rates should provide enough income to cover expenses and generate profit. Depending on your budget and market conditions, try targeting neighborhoods that have high rental yields.3. Make RenovationsWhether purchasing a flip or an as-is property, getting an inspection will reveal any issues and give the investor the opportunity to make renovations ahead of time and save costs in the long-run. Renovations – big or small – help increase a property’s value and rental income. Find ways to economically make renovations; sometimes a property just needs repairs as opposed to replacements which can save money. A deep cleaning and adding some minor touches like light fixtures can go a long way for tenants. Consult investors and contractors to know when something needs complete renovation, a simple repair, or if a property is just not worth the investment.Related: 5 Must-Have Features of an Income Property4. Look for DealsThere are different ways to save money when acquiring an income property. Short sales, pre-foreclosures, auctions, and foreclosures are all alternative ways to buy a property for a smaller price. There are also different ways to buy a property below market value. This usually involves acting quickly when making offers, looking for sellers who want to quickly sell the property (such as investor-owned homes), negotiating, and being patient.Related: Top 5 Alternative Ways to Find an Investment Property5. Manage Interest Rate RiskInterest rate risk is the risk that the value of an investment will fluctuate with fixed interest rates. Managing interest rate risk is important in order secure your investments. Find out the different ways to manage interest rate risks to protect cash flow.Creating and maintaining positive cash flow is the essence of a successful investment. This is created by exploring different approaches to minimizing costs when investing. The cash flow should be more than just having a little money left over after breaking even; investors can aim for a 5-20% return. Use an investment property calculator to determine what kind of income is required in order to meet the returns hoped for.Find positive cash flow properties on Mashvisor.Source: How To Have A Positive Cash Flow Income Property

I am 33. I live with my wife and newborn. I make 3.5 lacs per month in salary (post taxes). Another 1.5 lacs per month through financial investments (this is average notional value increase and not necessarily cash flow).I have a technical and a business degree from two of India’s best colleges. Currently working for an internet startup.I started at a salary of 35k, 10 years back, so it has taken some time and effort to reach here.My expenses are70k Rent + Maintenance + Utility bills + Maid.10k - Grocery30k - shopping20k - Entertainment and MiscAs you can see, on an average, my notional return on investments cover my expenses and I invest my salary back. I suspect, with the very different skill requirements for the high paying jobs in the not so distant future, i will be deemed redundant. So, I am looking to make whatever I can by 40 and then retire/semi-retire and move on to managing my money (either by buying franchises or through financial investments). I hope the earnings will be enough for me to not take up a full time job again.I have no real estate investments, and I plan to move back with my parents once I am done with the corporate rat race. My parents, though living in a small town, are independently wealthy and own more than one house.Edit 1; Why Rent vs Buy. First thing, the rent is 40 K. And its an upscale apartment though on the outskirts (not Mumbai). The rest are maintenance + Club + Utilities (electricity, broadband, phone, DTH etc) and maid. The house I stay in is 2 crores +. My rule of thumb is - “Never buy if rental yield is less than 3%”. There are tons of other reasons but I guess this post is not about that.Edit 2: Investments - Roughly 50% debt Mutual funds that return 9 to 10% and 50% equity mutual funds which have returned 15 to 25% over fairly long holding period. Additionally, I keep 6 months of expense in savings + FD.Edit 3: Why anonymous - I am not going to shout out my salary and expenses in my social circle. Also, what I earn is above average but not extraordinary for my peer group.

Is persistent and continuous China bashing good for the US?Sigh! When all this is over, people will have to invent a new word, stronger than “moron”, to describe the policies of this US Administration.Basically, before the US-China trade war started in 2018, the US has a PRODUCT trade deficit, and a SERVICE TRADE SURPLUS with China. The US bought more manufactured goods from China than China buying oil and beans from the US, but then, about a third of the trade surplus was recycled back to the US through tourism and education - that’s basically the Chinese middle class vacationing in the US and sending their kids to college in the US. On top of that, there was significant cash flowing from China to the US in the form of asset purchase and investment (i.e., rich Chinese buying houses in the US. Rich Chinese bankers invest in start-ups in the Silicon Valley). If you take all these cash flows into consideration, the real “trade deficit” between China and the US was about $10 - 20 billion a month.OK, so, this group of gentlemen started their little “easy-to-win” trade war in 2018. First they unilaterally jacked up tariffs, which persuaded the Chinese that their American trade partners are not reliable, so whey don’t we buy wheat and gas from Russia, and beans from Brazil. Then they went after the Chinese companies (Huawei, Tiktok), and practically overnight, all the Chinese investors ran away. Then they went after the Chinese students and visiting scholars, and immediately the tourism and the education sank to zero. In the meantime, the Chinese government is not going after American businesses and banks in China, so all the major US banks and mutual funds are pushing money into the Chinese market! Then the US Government did a Stimulus Package, and because of Covid, people saved portions of it, which cycles through Mutual Funds to more China investment. So now in the US, from the poorest to the richest, all the way to the government itself, are all handing China more money at the same time.In the last two months, China has been running $60 billion monthly trade surplus, plus less service deficit (~ another $15 billion), plus more American capital flowing into China (~ another $15 billion)! Double Surplus in both Trade and Capital!China says August exports beat expectations, jumping 9.5% from a year agoBasically China is minting about a third of France’s monthly GDP every month just from trade alone, even with all that jacked up tariffs, and with global trade down because of the pandemic! It’s almost like, you try to tell the guy “plan A is bad. Plan B is also bad”, and this guy goes and picks the worst aspect of plan A and plan B to make a really bad plan C, and then throw in some extra of his own invention, to make it a super duper bad plan D! The kind of bad plan that you wouldn’t even dream of in your worst nightmare! A normal brain can not even comprehend this!