There is no best way to do that. For me, I will check the URA website for last transacted price, I also will try to factor in the rental yield and scan newspapers to get a feel of what owners of similar units are asking for rental.

For commercial properties, they are typically on shorter leases of 30 years, not so sure about financing options, i.e. haven’t talked to banks yet on how much are they willing to loan.

I’ve tried investing in REITS. When property prices and rentals are going up, it’s all good. When the economy tanks, the valuations and yields go down, then it’s tough especially if REITS cannot secure funding.

Be well and prosper.
Panzer´s last blog ..Maybank iSavvy Time Deposit Rates

How do you go about checking whether a unit is of a good price? I only know of the URA site.

I’m also interested in commercial properties after going to some talks. Are you also considering that?

What’s your opinion on arm-chair investing via REITs?

Thanks.

Sure, I’ll put your your blog link in my links section.

Be well and prosper.

you got interesting posts on various finance topics.
I would like to exchange links with you

My blog address is http://www.beginningwithf.blogspot.com
It is a blog on personal finance, frugal living and tips to save unnecessary expenses.

Cheers

Yes, it can be timed as well!

Property investing can be timed too Just take a look at the charts. All the best in your property investment.

The ironic thing about being an accountant is that I realise it is at times better to be fuzzy and correct rather than exact and wrong.

I think if I compute inflation I will have much smaller returns (and some years even negative!) but overall, I use CPF and fixed deposits and treasury bills because they are the virtually “risk-free” equivalents.

I’m also too lazy to compute exactly the CAGR but my benchmarks are more approximate, i.e. pay off housing loan by xx years, pay off car loan by xx, achieve xx% of investible net-worth of $1m.

One thing I learnt about investing is that stick to one’s own game plan and to take responsibility for the outcome. That way, it doesn’t matter if people agree/disagree with you. Just do what one thinks is right (subject to laws of the land and morality) and take care of family and loved ones including oneself.

Be well and prosper.

I think 1 question createwealth8888 may have been trying to ask is what is the CAGR of your returns over the 2003-2008 period? I have been faced with the same problem of trying to quantify my investment returns over the years, and using a simple average will not suffice as the value of your portfolio changes over time as you add and subtract from it. The proper way to measure it is to use the XIRR Function within MS Excel, but as I do not have it I am unable to determine my real-adjusted returns.

My current unrealized + realized gains are about 25% of my current cost of capital but for all I know, my CAGR since 2005 may have been -ve or even lower than inflation as I made many withdrawals and additions during this period.

But of course, being able to exit the market with some realized gains is still better than having realized losses. And for that I saulte you.

Cheers,
Musicwhiz