{"id":8,"date":"2009-12-28T00:02:52","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T05:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wordpress\/?p=8"},"modified":"2009-12-28T00:02:52","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T05:02:52","slug":"christmas-keeps-on-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=8","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Keeps On Giving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Christmas    present that keeps on giving:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/..\/images\/GooglePresent.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">How    to build your 2010 portfolio, <\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Useful articles    to read:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #000000;\">+    Constructing a Cautious Portfolio for 2010 by Amit Chokshi in <a href=\"http:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/article\/179355-constructing-a-cautious-portfolio-for-2010?source=email\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Seeking    Alpha.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Money Lessons    of a Lost Decade by Brett Arends of the <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703478704574612533936177614.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Wall    Street Journal.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Yesterday&#8217;s    column by yours truly (in case you missed it). Click <a href=\"..\/..\/2009\/Dec23-09.php\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>InSearchOfThePerfectInvesment.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Real    estate bargains are finally emerging.<\/span><\/strong> Rules (at least my rules):<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Only buy what    you can rent. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ You must earn    a minimum of <strong>12%<\/strong> &#8212; cash on cash. That means the net profit (before taxes    and before leverage) should be 12% on the total price.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Bargain your    heart out as if you don&#8217;t care whether you win or lose the property. Be thoroughly    content to walk. There are plenty of fish in the ocean. You should buy something    today at less than <strong>half<\/strong> what it sold for three years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Don&#8217;t fantasize.    Don&#8217;t figure in turning a rental into a condo. Don&#8217;t fantasize about flossying    up the lobby and upping the rents. You get what you get.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Don&#8217;t borrow    short-term, believing you&#8217;ll refinance in two years. The banks might be just    as bad then. We don&#8217;t know. And then, you could lose it all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ Don&#8217;t figure    on any appreciation on your building. That&#8217;s not just conservative. That reflects    the fact you could bulldoze a third of America&#8217;s retail and office space and    probably not make one penny difference to rents. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">+ And don&#8217;t buy    a building whose design is dysfunctional.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/..\/images\/ChristmasArchitecture.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"458\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Your    Christmas present to me. <\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I&#8217;ve spent a lot of    time in 2009 telling my investing mistakes and begging you not to follow my    idiocy. It&#8217;s your turn to throw your best investing ideas my way. Please send    me an email. It may be my best Christmas present. <\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #000000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/..\/images\/harrynewtonEmail.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"123\" height=\"11\" \/>.    I&#8217;ll share the best ideas. Please send me that email.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #000000;\">I&#8217;ll    see everyone on Monday after I&#8217;ve kissed the family and made good cheer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Chanukah    Stamps.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong>A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Chanukah cards.    She says to the clerk &#8220;May I have 50 Chanukah stamps please.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;What denomination?&#8221;    says the clerk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The woman says    &#8220;Oy vay, my God, has it come to this? Okay, give me 6 orthodox, 12 conservative    and 32 reform.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Christmas present that keeps on giving: How to build your 2010 portfolio, Useful articles to read: + Constructing a Cautious Portfolio for 2010 by Amit Chokshi in Seeking Alpha. + Money Lessons of a Lost Decade by Brett Arends of the Wall Street Journal. + Yesterday&#8217;s column by yours truly (in case you missed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}