The easiest money I ever made (and lost) was in the stock market.
Here’s the story of my wild ride, and how I invest my money today…
In 1999, when I was just 24-years-old and fresh out of university with a degree in finance, I found a “sure thing” investment.
Ireland’s government-run telecommunications company Telecom Eireann was transitioning into the private-sector with a floatation on the Irish, London and New York stock exchanges.
This meant Joe Public could buy shares of the company and get fabulously wealthy in the new internet era.
At the time it felt as if the entire country was going all in. I wasn’t going to be the only sucker to miss out, so I tapped my life-savings, virtually ALL of my life savings, and feverishly bought too…
Across the country it was a party atmosphere. As if everyone had won the lottery at the same time. In all some 500,000 investors bought Telecom Eireann from the government. I was among those 500,000 “savvy” investors…
I had invested over £5,000 which was a lot of money for a 24-year-old kid. It was almost everything I had. I even became part of the media hype train when a national newspaper came by my day job in Dublin. I told the reporter, “I felt there was no downside.”
My picture appeared on page 3 of the Evening Herald, with the headline “Waiting for the Dough to Flow.”
I was young and I was confident. Remember, I was a finance grad and even had a little success in stocks already.
But what I didn’t realize is that I was investing in the end stages of a massive bubble in telecom and dotcom stocks (I’d learned plenty about bubbles at university, but apparently the lesson needed a painful, real-life reinforcement)…
Within about 12 short months my Telecom Eireann shares had soared and then tanked. It was a classic stock market roller coaster ride. My common sense eventually kicked in just in time and I escaped with a small gain, but many suffered significant losses.
I consider myself very fortunate, not that I made it out with my life savings intact, but that I learned a valuable lesson very young—I hate stocks!
500,000 Investors CAN Be Wrong
As a young guy in awe of financial experts on TV, and trusting of the government, and seeing how they got it so wrong and were so arrogant and unapologetic about it as people lost their life savings, I came to the conclusion the stock market was one big casino.
Furthermore, I realized that half a million investors CAN be wrong. Sure, the more people who get aboard a hype train, the faster the train moves. But it also leads to a far more painful crash when it eventually derails.
The thing is, when it comes to stocks, I realized I was flying blind. I didn’t know what was going on in company boardrooms or what deals were being made behind closed doors.
I was an outsider…
And I didn’t want to play that game.
So I sold any stocks I owned and have owned no stocks since.
Now, on weeks like this, when I open a newspaper and see that Amazon stock values dropped after a poor quarter or Facebook stock rallied after announcing a name change, I can feel relaxed knowing that my financial wellbeing is not tied to the whims of the stock market.
Sure, I might occasionally be missing out on a big win but I’m also sleeping soundly at night.
That’s because I’ve found a much better way to get rich. Not by taking a crapshoot on a company I know little about, but by investing in an asset where I not only have access to the insiders…I am one.
Getting Rich as an Insider
A benefit from being burned by stocks early is that I switched my focus to real estate investing and then international real estate investing.
Investing in real estate is harder, slower going, and sometimes more boring than stocks. You have to work and wait for your money.
But real estate is not subject to the rapid and wild fluctuations you see with the stock market. It can generate income. If you buy right, it can make you very rich. You can live in it, vacation in it, enjoy the life you’ve always dreamed of…all while making money.
It’s telling that real estate is a favorite asset of some of the world’s wealthiest families. It builds the kind of generational wealth that the elites can live off without ever diminishing their fortune.
A home in an inherently desirable place will always have value. That’s the kind of reliability you can’t get from a tech stock.
Plus, in times of high inflation like we’re experiencing now, having a tangible asset like real estate gives you huge peace of mind. You see, real estate is one of the best hedges against inflation there is. As prices rise, so does the value of real estate. Not only that, so does your rental income.
But that’s not even what I like most about real estate…
Like I said, real estate is an asset where you’re not forced to be a spectator, always on the outside looking in. You can get in the game. You can be an insider. It just takes commitment.
For the past two decades I’ve been quietly building a global network of influence. My reach is rare in this industry. I’ve got contacts all over the world. I see it as an essential part of being ahead of regular investors.
And with insider status, I get access to deals that regular investors don’t ever see. These are off-market deals that I negotiate on behalf of members of my Real Estate Trend Alert group.
It works like this…
Because of my network of contacts, I’m able to get meetings with top developers around the world. I can then negotiate with the developer for a deal that’s well below retail pricing.
Developers are happy to give a big discount because they know the reputation of my Real Estate Trend Alert group. They know that we have incredible group buying power. We can offer them a large number of rapid sales, but only if they give us a price that makes it worth our while. So, it’s a win-win.
And this strategy has handed my group discounts that have amounted to millions in savings.
For example, in the most recent RETA deal you’ve been hearing about this past week, members had the opportunity to buy luxury condos off-market in Tulum from $198,600.
To understand just how insane this exclusive price is you need just to look at condos close by. We’re paying so much less… I’m talking $68,685…$88,770 and even $116,781 less.
And we’re getting so much more too, nothing compares to the level of amenities in our community.
As the saying goes in real estate: “You make your money buying.” And that’s exactly what my group of insiders and I do. By buying way below regular retail pricing, we can see rapid appreciation on our deals from the outset.
If you want to put this advantage in the language of stocks, it’s the equivalent of owning stock before it goes public. Or being privy to company secrets that no one else has access to.
In other words, it makes us the insiders…and in turn it can make us rich.
One way to get an insider’s edge is to join a real estate syndicate. This is a group of investors that combine their capital and knowhow to make real estate deals they couldn’t make as individuals. You can find out more about this by simply searching Google for real estate syndicates in your area. But of course, beware of frauds and always do your due diligence.
Perhaps I’m biased, but an even better way to become an insider is to simply join RETA…
As a member of RETA, you benefit from the combined buying power of our growing group of real estate investors, you tap into an insiders network I’ve built over 20 years, and you get boots-on-the-ground intel from me and my roving real estate scouts as we search for the world’s best real estate opportunities.
And right now you can take RETA for a 90-day test drive. Join up, have a look around, see what the next 3 months brings…and decide if being a member is for you. Go here for all the details.
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