Unless you paid 550 cash, you're in it for whatever your deposit was plus the capital investment to upgrade, so (correct me if I'm wrong) in, for lets say, 200 / 250 plus 100 upgrade gives you a return of 450 on 350 down not 250 on 550 - the bank has funded your mortgage you just have the cost of ownership in payments for whatever period you keep it

we bought ours for 550, I've put about 150 in to it, for a loft and en suite conversion and then a complete refurbishment. WIthout the upgrade its maybe 850, with the refurb its 995, with the loft its 1.25-1.3-ish

my return is the deposit I put down combined with the investment. I've not made any payments for owning as its always been rented

This is just, more than anything, luck - a rising tide lifts all ships. We have only ever bought in good neighborhoods so it has always either gone up more than average or down less, but in the end, the market has driven the value.

We would, were I not going to leave London, still exit but look to rent, yields have diverged from real estate costs so far that it makes far more economic sense for us to rent for a while to see what happens.

a 150k apartment rented for 850 / mo in 2010, today it rents for 1100 but its value has gone up by 35-40%

Its interesting that we're looking in a market to buy where there is no cap gains relief on primary residences - one consequence of this is that they have never seen property increases like we're seeing in London, Vancouver, NY etc and two direct consquences of this are that people genuiinely view property as a home rather than an asset and that the market moves far more slower in terms of turnover due to the costs involved with selling

TGP was tigerpaws I got tired of my friggin auto correct incessantly doing it wrong it can't screw up my 3 letter tgp!

Shoot there is nothing wrong with your approach anyone who tells you diversification and holding *good* positions is dumb is um. Well. Following 'experts' and attempting to replicate their portfolios especially in the activist hedge fund space is a fools errand. That said looking at the trends they go after can be invaluable. I'd of never heard of Scion Capital and Michael Burry if not for an off the wall conversation about his blog and the subsequent changes I made were life changers. Total dumb luck to have stumbled onto him quite frankly.

If you are bored and want to look at the world of private equity it's a real eye opener. If nothing else it's a great look into a world other than that of the publicly traded markets....it's huge there is a lot of great potential. There are some outstanding firms out there killing it and while the space is tight right now there are still some good deals to be found. I have not paid anyone to manage my money for a long time, but I'm about ready to jump in with RCP Advisors I love their team and do diligence.

You lasted longer than I did.

how exactly does that work as a private investor? in general whats the minimum level to be invested and what are the fee's associated with PE? how long are you committed for? can you describe an overview of how as a private investor you would access it, what form returns take - dividend / capital appreciation, costs associated with it?

On the phone so keeping sohrt hand will fire some links on private message tongiht. Higher investment has been the norm, but in recent years some firms like KKR have opened up pathways with as little as 20k to get in. You are locking your money up and it's for all intents and purposes it's an illiquid asset for 5-7-10 years in some instnaces. Fees are similar to hedge fund structure...in other words higher. There are also some publicly listed shares from a handfull of PE firms and funds yo udon't have to go to a management firm. There is no doubt there *can* be a lot of risk b/c the leverage is huge as a general rule, but if you get a firm that relaly knows how to do the homework and picks the right deals that risk comes way way down. PE in general is riskier, but not if the team is the right one. I'ts like a hedge fund in that sense you really have to look at who is driving the bus vs say a mutual fund where they have handcuffs and it doesn't really matter who it is.

Shut up. Eventually my Washington Mutual stock is going to make a run back into the positive.

Private equity is interesting, but you really need to be watching stuff very carefully and have a little bigger egg to invest. I have a substantial position in a private company, one of the many micro brew start ups that are popping up all over the place. There are going to be a lot of winners in this space, as it is the only area of beer that is growing at 20% a year. Regular beer is flat at the moment(no pun intended, or maybe).

Of course there will be lots of losers now too since so many are entering this arena, but to be expected when you see companies sell for a billion dollars that were just recently selling beer to their state, or just a few. And it is pretty much the only beer I will drink these days, along with most of my friends, so it seems like it is going to be a sustained growth area for some time.

My short positions are taking it in the shorts today, but just added some more when the S&P was up 27 points. Come on Brexit!!!!

Seems to me like you're foregoing diversification in favor of 'buying' one segment of the market - namely real estate/housing. I'm certainly no investment guru but, frankly, no one is - the ones who say they are just have a better grasp of the terms but no more insight into future market performance.

Not really. Land is very cheap in the Philippines. I bought 2 lots, enough for a very large home and lawn, and it cost $50,000. I'm not sure if I will ever build a home there, I'm just going to sit on the land for a while.

For now, I'm just sitting on the sidelines for a while. Real estate in Vancouver is way out of control so will not be buying here.

Tough to find any attractive discounts in that space right now though back then it was 6-7% now its less than 2 they have been performing great.

Yeah, I had some very good performing stocks so the decision was to sell now and capture the gains or wait and see. I think the downside is far greater than the upside, not necessarily for the stocks I owned, but the market in general. I've been hearing this for years though but a lot of people I respect started sounding alarm bells and they aren't the usual doom and gloomers.

We may get caught put but there is no bookies in the uk offering longer odds on staying. Every single one puts us staying

Now yes, only 40m has been bet relative to total market investments but those funds dont vote

As they have all said undecideds and some on leave will bottle it in the voting booth

Its going to be a nervous week. More so that the london market slowed by 80 percent april to may. A vote to remain will get it started again and from a purely selfish view it could be great

You called it last time so your street cred is pretty good with me.

Honestly, I got lucky. The markets crashed and I had never invested in my life. That was partly due to not having any money but also because I had no clue how to even buy a stock. I did my homework, and at that point started making money so it was good timing.

No one can predict the future but a number of people I know, who are almost always positive, see some warning signs. I just thought, why not cash in now, take your gains, and then stop reading the headlines. During most of the time I owned stocks, I was out of touch, not having access to the internet or newspapers so it worked out well. Now that I am back in civilization, I don't want to worry about the stock market.

There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between a company and it's stock prices. It seems prices are more driven by headlines, not the performance of the actual company so that makes me nervous. For now, I just want to stop following the markets.

As TGP pointed out, there are some publicly traded ones (KKR and BX are prominent names). But they get trounced by the S&P 500 under almost any relevant time frame.

Most private equity funds require $500K, some are higher. I am sure there are exceptions. However, they will also typically charge you 2% of your investment annually as a mgmt fee and they will take 20% of profits upon monetization. Some of that has changed recently but I would make those assumptions going in. So it will REALLY need to perform well in order to earn back fees and pay you a handsome return after taking the mgmt co's share of profits.

Unless you are a sophisticated investor that has a considerable amount of $ laying around and are already well diversified, I would look the other way.

I am not. I dont have that kind of cash to risk. I will look but do not think its for me.

What would you do - other than bonds - if you had a significant sum to do something with for 6- 12 months. To be used for a house. Low risk.

I assume you mean treasury bonds or other "riskless" assets.

6-12 mos is a very short time horizon. Too asymmetrical - the risk (pain) of losing $ and having to come up with more for a house will greatly outweigh the reward (pleasure) of making a few %.

If the $ is to be used for a house, put it in cash. You can get 75 bps-1% in online banks like ING/capital one, or Ally.

If you really wanted to invest in something for the sake of it, i would stick with investment grade bonds and maybe some tax exempt muni bond portfolios.

If you plan to retire in 30 yrs and have money to invest, the answer is still not private equity but is different than the strategy above.

Anyone that says they can beat the market hasn't been investing long enough to make such a statement.

Bond CEF's are where I'm sitting with the majority of the rest patiently waiting in dry powder.....it's frustrating, but I also do not believe the financial engineering can keep up with the revenue and earnings decline problems on an infinity basis so I'd rather be on the outside looking in. PE would be a huge departure for me, but I've been fortunate to view the quarterlys from a friend invested with this firm for about 2 years running. It's just something I keep crawling closer to.....makes me pucker....it's a new world I'm at least considering.

As far as sounding the alarm same here I have one friend and one acquaintance in/out of the biz. One was with Oppy forever and is retired the other is with an 800 lb gorilla firm. Neither are tin foil hatters(but my Oppy buddy told me I was an idiot for investing in Scion Capital which was widely viewed at tin foil madness). Both of them are primarily in cash/equivalents/highly liquid 90 day maturity stuff and have been since last summer. Interesting to chat with the guy still in the finserv capacity how he can put his head on the pillow at night when he is given marching orders to tell his clients to stay invested while he has pulled most of his own money out. Not sure I could do that and get to bed peacefully. I would not want to manage other people's livelihoods too much stress.

That sounds like a fun thing to be involved in, but I know nothing about develping a micro brew. Would be cool if you put a thread up on that and updated developments. Along those lines I have pondered reducing some leverage in my business for safety margin if the economy does indeed begin to put on the brakes in a big way.

Why is that? I've never sold a stock for a loss either. But I've probably only bought 8-10 stocks in my life. Puts/calls/options/shorts.....yeah I've gotten killed or made a killing via these avenues. Just b/c someone doesn't "play the market" via traditional main-street investing doesn't mean they don't know how to work the market.

And I'm excluding my 401k from the "never lost" statement. I've never done well there which is why I don't use traditional 401k stock-based contributions as an investment strategy.

I don't think the traditional market is for suckers as much as some ("Wolf of Wall Street" lunch....), but aside from a few friends who struck the MSFT/FB type lottery, I know very few who have gotten super rich on WS vs using alternative investment methods as a path to wealth.

---

____________
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers

That sounds like a fun thing to be involved in, but I know nothing about develping a micro brew. Would be cool if you put a thread up on that and updated developments//

I just might do that. The beer company is in Northern CA and called Headlands Brewery. If anyone is interested, they are in the process of doing their last round of fund raising right now. Not for the faint of heart of course, but I personally know the brewmaster and the beer has won several national awards already. And one of the prime investors is also from the triathlon world, owned several different business's and companies in the triathlon arena. You all can PM me if interested..


On the stock market front, I chickened out today and sold 2/3 of my short positions. I just have a feeling that Britian will stay in the EU, and another one that the market will pop with that news. I now have a pretty neutral position for it going either way, with dry powder to jump onto any trends. If they stay and there is a huge up day, I will put on the shorts again at that point.

Sure glad I took most my shorts off yesterday, looks like a stay vote by all accounts. I did put a 1/3 back on when the S&P was up 22 today, it it goes past 30 I will put back the rest. Just think it is already priced in that they stay and then it will be the next thing that puts pressure downward. And if they actually leave overnight while the markets are closed, I have a winning lottery ticket I guess...

in general, thinking about tomorrow... Also the Russell index updates.

Only problem with tomorrow is that the news is going to hit tonight after markets here are closed. So i will watch closely today and try and get a feel for where Brexit is going, and then put some money in last second.

Like I said, I think the stay is getting pretty priced in now, maybe another 100pts on the dow when it is official, but not some huge 500pt day. Could be wrong here of course, but that is what it looks like to me..

hold your horses - stay 51/49 and we'll be here again before you can say - Daley and Chicago

consequences of a close vote - cameron almost certainly out, boris in, second referendum at some point before 2020, probably sooner - its going to be messy but certainly if its stay in - make hay whilst the sun shines, i fully intend to......

real money odds makers have it 9/2 to stay and 6/1 to leave, so they seem to be a lot more positive on the stay vote. But of course those bets are peanuts compared to the money being bet on the markets, stock and currency ones.

just saw that over 100 million has been bet on this outcome, most on any political item ever.