Creative Wealth…!

June 2010

This month I thought it was be refreshing to focus on one of the skills in building wealth and that is CREATIVITY. I have interviewed huge numbers of investors and affluent movers and shakers and creativity is one of their key traits. Anyone that is entrepreneurial in nature generally has a creative streak however with serious investors they have a very different way at looking at things! They ask themselves different questions that result in a win-win scenario. Let me tell you a couple of stories that highlight a creative way of thinking that you may want to apply to your own wealth strategies!

I was at an event for ladies last Friday and I met a fantastic Canadian lady, with 4 children and a Dutch Antillean husband who described her life and some investments she had made over the years. She already has beach front residential property and decided to invest in a few other properties in her local area. As she did not have a million dollars spare at the time when looking at one of her initial property investments, she approached the owner and asked him why he was selling and what he really needed. He said he desperately wanted to get back to the USA and see his family. He was in his sixties and was ready to leave his then home. So instead of selling through an estate agent, she persuaded him to agree to structure a deal where she pays a monthly amount and slightly larger chunks of capital when she could, with a remortgage after 3 years where she could release money through her own bank. The house owner went for it and agreed a sale at $150,000. A sum of $2000 a month was reached…and the house later remortgaged. To give you an idea of how CREATIVITY PAYS, is that the house was later appraised at over $600,000! She didn’t consider herself to be entrepreneurial but that it just made sense and she wanted to help as well as get a ‘steal of a deal’. She seemed to follow this formula of delivering what the other person really wanted and finding a way that worked financially for her that was not with her means at the time. Her current portfolio must be worth a few million dollars as its now all quite desirable beach front property! An impressive, inventive lady.

One of my own examples is that I bought a studio apartment in West London in quite a nice area. But because it was not the MOST sought after postcode (literally a few metres away from the revered W4 zip code!) it was about 25% cheaper but would still grow well in value as the whole area was going up. I decided as it was an L shape studio to turn it into a 1 bedroom flat. This cost me £6000 with some lovely Polish builders and also included an upgrade of the kitchen (I replaced the white cooker and sink with chrome ones…all the rage – I did NOT replace the WHOLE KITCHEN as some developers do) I purchased the apartment for £165, 000 and with the conversion it was reappraised at £230-235,000! Rental potential was also excellent and it’s now rented out for 2 years. Once again – alittle ingenuity and leverage can create true wealth.

So what questions could you be asking yourself to be creative with your wealth plan this month? Where are the opportunities you could go for if you just ASKED?

We all have the potential to be FAB at creating our own wealth, so what are you committed to do for yourself this month?

Have a momentous one.

To your health, wealth and success

Amanda x