Overseas Property Investing Risks

 

Property disputes in Batam

Need we say more?

Another good example in showing the difference between knowledge and wisdom....

That's why my former Swiss expat boss have a lawyer vet through his employment contract each time he got a new overseas assignment - especially when big money is involved. 

Ever puzzled why companies have to pay millions in compensation when firing their CEOs?

The CEOs got good, better, best lawyers drafting their employment contracts!!!

It reminded me of a legal case I learnt during night class decades ago...

A construction company agreed to hand over a property development to the owner AFTER completion of a 12 floor office building.

Guess what?

The construction company just build up to 11 floor and never handed over the building, citing construction delays... Meanwhile conveniently leasing out the lower floors in its possession.

Like that also can!?

So when people "promise" a lease extension for a "premium"... The wise and savvy ones would ask, "What is a premium?"

You "assumed" its a few hundred Ks? 

People can ask for a billion or a trillion! Nothing wrong right?

You think why big daddy dropped the 99 year leasehold bombshell on us years ago?

Its to prepare the ground for the day they take back those "ancient" HDB flats when their 99 year leases are up - without compensation.

Not every citizen got study Business Law...

Show with example the best:

Geylang private homes returned to State

Glad our repossessions are done more professionally; no fuss, no muss.

Many years ago when a Mainland Chinese supplier told me he prefers to work with Singaporeans, he has to be very alert when working with Hong Kongers and Taiwanese, I didn't take it as a compliment. 

What he meant between the lines is that Singaporeans are follow the law straight straight "bei kambing" little red riding hoods... Much easier to deal with! 

Sure, overseas property investing can be "cheaper". 

If going overseas to do your university degree, you would want to go to universities that are more prestigious than our local universities right?

But doing overseas property investing, similar to you no choice have to go overseas to study as you can't get into our local universities, is same same but different!

Same same overseas degree; academic respect not the same. 

As evident in your starting pay...

Just ask yourself. Would the Batam developer do what they did if majority of the owners were local Indonesians?

Any property developments that are targeted exclusively to foreigners, is that a good thing or bad thing?

Don't look far, just look around back home. Wink.

Passing tourist dragon can't beat local local snake!

I Guess I Should Be Grateful?

 

This year blew by so quickly that it just occurred to me I just had a "lost" year!?

I mean I didn't learn or accomplish anything new.

Talk about "stagnation"...

LOL!

Still, I guess I am grateful on how the year has turned out.

From the macro side, grateful that Singapore has no tornadoes, typhoons, or hurricanes! Imagine your home or life's work just blown away by the forces of Mother Nature?

Earthquakes and volcano eruptions? We lucky to born here or what?

How about 1 in 100 year floods? Ours reach ankle level we complain and whine; other people's floods can result in actual deaths one...

Must give credit when credit is due. Big daddy has done a good job on what we can control when it comes to flood alleviation works. 

What we can't control, as in actual rainfall, we leave it to the heavens.

On the micro personal side, no major accidents or health issues for family, thank goodness nothing to worry about.

I've tempered my expectations on this Wuhan virus thingy.  Beginning of this year was a bit angry and down as I thought the most this Wuhan virus pandemic would last was at most one year... How wrong I was!!!

Frustrating right? Just when we thought we can move forward and treat it as endemic, this new variant came knocking...

Now we have a few clusters of the new variant, hope we don't become like UK next year, that will already be a blessing!

 

Goals and resolutions for next year?

Nah!

I'll follow the discipline from my trading and investing.

Focus on what I can Control.

Let go of things I can't control nor influence. (Of course be conscious and aware of what they are, but what's the point of getting angry or worry about them?)

Got time left over then maybe can work on things I can Influence. (Like encouraging mom to go for her booster shot)

We old fogeys have it easier. 

I mean 2 or 3 years don't matter that much at our age.

For youths below 18, they have already lost 2 years that's never coming back...

But there's something that no virus or pandemic can take away:

Youths, your strength is you don't know what cannot be done!

You Are Not Their Customer If It's Free!

 

In gacha mobile gaming, its the Free-to-Play players that make the most noise and laughable complaints.

I'm FTP by the way. (Its an inside joke in the gacha gaming community)

But at least I know my place.

These FTP players are clueless they are not the customers of the mobile game. We are part of the game design!

Why do players dump money into a game as Pay-to-Win players when we can play for free?

Because it feels good to thrash other players!

I mean no one will brag about beating AI characters; we all know AI bosses suck.

But its different when we know there's a real life person behind that nick we are beating into a pulp. Wink.

There's a running joke that gamers have no life, no friends in the real world, that sort of thing...

So as a form of "escapism", who doesn't like the accolades and adulations you get as one of the top players in the virtual world?

Have the rarest of rare heroes, or god-like gear that we FTP cannon fodders can only dream of?

(You think why men buy flashy cars and women buy luxury handbags in real life?)

This only works if there are enough FTP weaklings for these PTW players to bully. 

Hence game developers have to attract enough FTP players or else the game dies.

Have you ever thought how do brokers that offer "FREE" trading make money?

Of course you are NOT their customers either.

With access to all the collective order flows (you are part of the product), these brokers will sell this valuable information to their real customers - the PTW institutional players.

You may also want to check around. Do institutional traders/investors, with their millions in transactions, use these "FREE" brokers? 

They could be saving tons in transaction fees alone!

Strangely, "FREE" brokers are only targeting retail traders/investors. Hmm... I wonder why?

In retail, when you purchase something for $100, and it turned out to be a lemon, of course you can bang table and ask for a refund.

The retailer will give you your $100 back. 

When you use a "FREE" broker, just when the market is most volatile exciting, the platform dies due to overload, causing you to either miss an opportunity of a lifetime; or worse, drowning you in steep losses because you can't get out in time...

How do you get compensation?

You paid "FREE"; they refund you "FREE".