Home Based Business is a overrun online business opportunity on the internet and if you don’t know what you are doing, then you can get lost in the big jungle of home business opportunities.Thousands are joining the home based business industry and it is true, that ninety percent of the people, who just start out, fail in the first 3 month.So why people are really failing online?The reason why so many people are failing online, is that they jump from one opportunity to the next one and they all hope, that they will find the golden apple and make money straight away.That is not the case and if you think you can make quick money online if you just start out, then you are up for a hell of a ride and maybe end up, to loose more money then you make.Secondly and the most important factor when it comes to having success in the home business industry, is that you need to build your own list of subscriber.Without a list, you will never be able to create a huge income online and compete with the big online marketer.Building a list for your home business is a must and with a customer list, you are able to build a home business success machine.You are able to provide the list of customer with valuable information and can build a relationship with them.So the first step to being successful online, is to build your own customer list and you can do that in using a squeeze page or optin page to market online.That way, you can collect information from people, who are interested in what you are doing online.If you provide them with valuable and free information, the you will be able to build up trust and that will lead to sales in your home based businessDo you want to learn more about how you can make money online? We have just completed a brand new marketing system. You Can Find It Here: http://www.choose-the-right-team.com

Are you looking for a work at home based business but not sure what to do? That can be a dilemma that stops many people from pursuing their dream. But it shouldn’t and doesn’t have to.Maybe you want to work at home to be there with your kids. That is a very common reason among parents and a good one. But you want to make sure you are getting involved in something that is legitimate and that will make you money, not lose money.Let’s talk about some ways you can do that. You can either go with a work at home based business that is an existing opportunity or start your own business from scratch. Work at Home Existing Opportunity This could be in the form of joining a direct sales company, where you would become a distributor or consultant and sell their product. Direct sales companies have been around for many years and can be a good way to provide some extra income for your family.Direct sales involves holding home parties to show and sell the products. These are usually held in the evening or on weekends, so be sure that time frame will work for you to be away from your home and working on building your business.When choosing a direct sales company to go with, make sure you use and believe in the product. You won’t go far if you don’t use the product yourself. And you want to feel good about what you are selling to others.There are some online work at home opportunities available that don’t involve home parties. Here you would mainly be selling online or marketing your products locally. Starting a Home Based Business From ScratchIf the idea of joining an existing opportunity isn’t what you are looking for, you can start a home based business yourself. This can involve offering a service or selling a product.Determine if you have some skills that others would pay you to do for them – bookkeeping, graphic or web design, or lawn maintenance. Be creative here and create a business that will be in demand.If you want to sell a product, it can either be one that you have developed yourself or you can sell other peoples’ products and earn a commission on any sales you make (this is called affiliate marketing.)A work at home based type of business can offer the flexibility and profit you are searching for. Just choose wisely.

Running an internet home based business brings with it a great deal of advantages. One of the many advantages of course is the ease given the usual costs involved with which you can start an online home based business. There is a tremendous amount of information available for you to access to do proper research on the type of business you are interested.But that is the rub. Though seemingly a big plus to get your business up and running, having access to this tremendous amount of information can lead to analysis paralysis.Analysis paralysis can be defined broadly as the inability to move out of the analysis stage of problem solving. This is usually directly related to the tremendous amount of related information available.Instead of coming to a logical conclusion when facing an issue or a problem we tend to get stuck in the analysis stage as more information comes at us.Another reason why we suffer from analysis paralysis at times is out of fear. Fearing that the decision we will make will result in something less than desirable, we become afraid to make any decision and instead seek the comfort of continuously analyzing.If you are going to run a successful internet home based business, this is one problem you have to overcome from the outset.Given the online environment, if you are plagued with this habit of analyzing and analyzing you are going to experience a low level of success in your business.So how do you avoid the analysis paralysis phenomenon when running or planning on running your internet home based business?The answer – adopt these 3 basic principles and execute your plans accordingly.1. Know where you are going.2. Know what it takes to get there.3. Constantly measure your progress.Know Where You Are GoingAll this means is know where you are taking this business. Whatever the business may entail, you have to know just how much you as the main player is willing to put on the line for it.Know What It Takes To Get There There is no use starting out on a journey without knowing what you will need to get there. You can avoid a lot of frustration if you are clear about the resources you will need to run your internet home based business.Constantly Measure Your ProgressIf you are going to stay on track, you have to know when you are off track and when to take action to get you back on track with your internet home based business.So what does the above has to do with avoiding the analysis paralysis syndrome in running your online home based business?You know your target; you know what it takes to get there; and you know if you are off track. What this means is that in each instance you are able to focus on getting to a decision point, on moving the process forward to a logical conclusion.This is a powerful, simple and manageable strategy you can use to avoid analysis paralysis in running your internet home based business.

We cannot understand the present unless we understand the past. The first question to be asked is when did the real estate crisis become inevitable? The correct answer is in the time period between 1980 and 1982. It has been forgotten today but the last real estate crisis in this country were the twin real estate crises of the 1980s. In the early 1980s the first crisis was brought on by double-digit mortgage interest rates. Then in the late 1980s there was the savings and loan crisis, which in those days provided most of the nation’s mortgage capital. In response to these twin crises congress passed two laws that made today’s real estate crisis inevitable.

After these acts were passed it was only a question of time until the stars aligned correctly for the volcano to erupt. In 1980, congress passed the DIDMCA Act. Prior to this time, it was illegal to charge less credit worthy customers a higher rate of interest on their mortgage. Then in 1982, congress passed the AMPT Act, which allowed adjustable rate mortgages or ARMs for the first time. Prior to this act adjustable rate mortgages had been illegal.

If you go back to 1896 when reliable housing records first began to be kept you will find that from 1896 to 1996 housing prices tracked the rate of inflation. Then suddenly from 1996 to 2006 housing prices doubled. The problem of course in that the income of the American people did not come anywhere near to doubling in that time period. When you stop to think about it, you will realize that it is impossible for the price of housing to exceed the rise in the income of the American people for any sustained period of time. Unless there is an enabler, a speculator’s tool that allows this to happen. What was the speculator’s tool or device that enabled this process to occur? What was the enabler?

In the whole of American history there has only been one prior real estate bubble that resembles the real estate boom and bust that we are now witnessing. It was the great Florida land boom of the 1920s. Real estate has always been expensive. What has always held real estate prices in check was that people just did not have enough money to bull prices up for very long. The money is just not there. The device that enabled the Florida land boom to occur was the “binder.” This is a real estate term that has gone out of use today. In the manner in which it was then used it was essentially an option payment on the down payment if you can conceive of such a thing.

What it boiled down to is that people thought they were speculating on real estate but in reality they were speculating on real estate options.

The stock market has long been the ultimate proving ground for speculative tools. Those of us who are stock market speculators are very familiar with stock options. The only thing that the reader has to know about options is that they are speculating tools that possess tremendous leverage. In other words, you can make a killing on a chump change investment.

Both the binder of the 1920s and the ARM are in reality real estate options. All options expire worthless if they are not exercised prior to their expiration date. Most ARMs were written to expire in two or three years, the fixed interest rate period. At that moment the option had to be exercised or rolled over because the option would become worthless. People were deluded into believing that they were buying real estate. When in reality they were speculating in real estate options. As we have seen, the tools for the bubble were in place by 1982. the only thing lacking now was the mania. The boom years from 1991 to 2007 provided the mania. Real estate prices rose relentlessly. It was a boom that seemed like it would never end. You couldn’t lose in real estate because no matter how much you over paid because rising prices bailed out everyone.

Today in the aftermath of the boom, we are already discounting the impact on the human psych that manias and bubbles produce. To put it bluntly by the end of the boom almost no one could believe that real estate prices could fall. This nearly universal belief gradually eroded prudent behavior. The more risks you took the more you were rewarded. There was no down side.

In the early 90s the use of sub prime mortgages and ARMs were limited-since almost all sub prime mortgages were also ARMs they will be considered as a unit- but as the boom progressed their importance grew and grew. Mortgage brokers just could not stay away from sub prime mortgages. They were three to five times more profitable than standard mortgages. Once they had sold one they didn’t want to sell anything else. The caution that lenders had originally shown toward the new mortgage products was relentlessly ground away as the endless boom continued. Caution wasn’t being rewarded, it was being punished. There was a Gresham’s Law in effect- Gresham was an economist-in which bad or reckless behavior which was constantly being rewarded by lush profits drove out good or cautious behavior because the profits were inferior. In the final years of the boom, conservative firms could not even keep their mortgage brokers from bolting to subprime lenders.

Then around the year 2000 Minsky’s Law kicked in. Hyman Minsky was a Noble Prize winning economist.

Minsky’s Law Over periods of prolonged prosperity the economy evolves from financial relationships that engender a stable financial system to financial relationships that produce economic instability. The longer the trend persists the more violent the correction when the trend reverses.

As the boom rolled on the most important factor was that almost everyone was a winner. This was true in spite of the fact that subprime mortgages were constantly defaulting at the higher rates that had been predicted. Not only was the higher default rate not a problem but everyone was making out like a bandit with subprime mortgages. This included the subprime borrower. As soon as he fell behind his friendly subprime mortgage broker would be there to write him a new subprime mortgage. In fact he often got to take out new money when he refinanced the mortgage. It was not unusual to have subprime borrowers take out new mortgages every two or three years during the boom.

If there wasn’t enough equity to suit the lenders, real estate speculators would be pounding at his door offering to take the property off his hands as soon as the notice of default had been published. Often at a profit over his purchase price.

The banks were the greatest winners of all. They were making a killing. It is obscene how much money a bank can make during the foreclosure process as long as someone buys the foreclosed property. Not only do they receive all the back payments but the brutal penalty fees as well. Indeed the most profitable scenario that can be imagined for a mortgage lender is to make nothing but high profit subprime loans and then to have them all default. Their profits would be enormous. That is, so long as the lender never has to take back the property.

Agricultural land investment is clearly the hot ticket of the moment, with every level of investor from institutional funds such as Schroders and Barings investing millions of pounds, to smaller retail investors with a few thousand seeking good quality farmland for investment. Whether you have access to 50 million or 20,000, there are projects and strategies available on the open market to suit your budget and requirement, from the UK to Australia, and from the Ukraine to South America, all with subscribing to different investment strategies, and some less credible in terms of end value than others.

One part of the current trend that alarms me is the apparent rush of retail investors to invest in farmland overseas, buying up title or leases with little or no comprehension of the true value of the underlying asset. For which they are parting with hard earned cash for. Agricultural land produces soft-commodities (food), and as such the value of the land is intrinsically linked to current pricing trends for whichever commodity is being produced by that land, along with a host of other factors. Currently food commodity prices are at a forty year low, indicating a huge margin for growth in value of both soft-commodities and therefore the underlying asset that produces them, yet investors that lack experience seem to be purchasing or leasing farmland outside their domiciled country without sight of any kind of credible, regulated valuation, seemingly smitten with the story of growth and income, without truly understanding the fundamentals supporting farmland investment, risk, or exit strategy.

When speaking to clients on a daily basis about the relevance of investing in farmland as part of an overall low-risk strategy, I think it is most important for investors to understand the fundamentals supporting agricultural land investment, as well as the various investment strategies that can be employed to gain exposure to this sector and asset class, and more importantly, investors should have enough knowledge to decide whether farmland investment is a suitable asset allocation strategy to suit their own needs. Here are some of the broad profiles of investors that should or should not investigate the prospect of investing in farmland:

- Investors that Should Consider Farmland
- Investors that Should Not Consider Farmland
- Investors holding cash as part of a low-risk portfolio
- Investors with a requirement to leverage
- Investors requiring stable, consistent income
- Investors with a high-risk approach / strategy
- Investors with a necessity to hedge inflation
- Investors with a risk-averse approach
- Investors desiring exposure to property

Current Market Conditions

If this article is to be well-rounded and achieve the goal of helping the investor to make an informed decision, it is important to explore the current market conditions that have led to this whirl of interest in farmland investment from both the retail and institutional sectors.

Firstly, we are seeing price volatility in more traditional asset classes such as stocks and bonds, which is a result mostly of the fact that the world is still in a precarious economic position with very poor levels of forward visibility. With Economists unable agree with each other and comfortably project where our global and national economies are headed, it is very difficult to price and value assets such as companies, and therefore the shares that make up these businesses.

Secondly, on a global basis, and specifically in the UK, the central bank has undertaken a policy of quantative easing, i.e. printing more money and flushing it into the main supply in an effort to kick-start the economy. This will lead to higher levels of inflation to some degree, and in an inflationary environment investors seek to protect their wealth by purchasing assets that have a positive correlation with inflation i.e. their value rises when inflation rises, providing growth for the investors over and above the rate of inflation..

Thirdly, investors have always kept back some cash as part of their portfolios, feeling it is the safest of assets offering the lowest level of capital risk, whilst at the same time providing an income return relevant to the interest rate they achieve. In the current climate with central bank interest rates so low, investors have lost these risk-free returns, so must seek out an asset that not only grows in value, but also produces an income to replace the lost revenue.

These three characteristics that define the current economic playing field all combine to draw investors to the idea that investing in farmland is a sound strategy, and that a well-placed farmland investment will provide not only the inflation beating growth that is required, but also replace the income lost from cash deposits, as well as provide the low-risk stability that is required in times of poor visibility, as farmland is one of the very few assets that are absolutely essential to the survival of the human race yet is in ultimately short supply, ensuring that sound fundamentals support a continuation of the current value growth, and increasing income streams as food commodity prices start to increase to previous levels.

So how does arable land perform as an investment asset? Well some of the key characteristics of agricultural land investment are as follows:

Investing in farmland provides a proven inflation hedge, with data showing very clearly that tillable land shares a positive correlation with inflation. Historically farmland values increase faster than inflation, which lend investors confidence in the asset as not only an inflation hedge but also a capital preservation tool as farmland is viewed as a low-risk asset as the investment is underpinned with an asset that is in limited supply but where demand for food is increasing at an astounding, and frankly unsustainable rate, and unlike other commodities that we require for day to day operation such as oil, metals or gas, farmland is a renewable resource that continues to produce food season after season.

Agricultural land investment is also a good strategy for stable, consistent income, as unlike other popular low-risk investments such as gold, farmland also provides regular income, either from the commercial farming activities, or from renting the farm to a farmer to work the land and capturing a rental income instead. With farming tenancy occupancy rates at nearly 100% in the UK, this income is stable and regular, making investing farmland ideal for those investors seeking low volatility income.

Investing in farmland also provides some excellent tax planning opportunities and many investors look to farmland investment to provide relief for IHT and various other tax strategies.

Aside from all of these characteristics that help farmland investment fit very well into the current market conditions that we described earlier, investing in farmland is simple and transparent and very easy to overcome one of the first hurdles I mentioned in this article; value for money. One choosing to invest in farmland in the UK for example would commission a regulated Red Book Valuation undertaken by a RICS regulated Chartered Surveyor, ensuring that the investor receives value for money. Again, one of the biggest mistakes that investors are making right now, is purchasing asset without knowing whether they are overpaying as there is no evidence to support the sale price. One piece of advice, if it doesn’t have a proper valuation, don’t buy it, simple.

So exactly how can investors gain exposure to this low-risk, income producing inflation hedge? Well there are various investment strategies available to the qualified investor with liquid capital in the region of 20,000 +, here we will cover the two main options, and also break down the various sub-categories to give the reader a broad understanding of the options available to him/her. The two main options available to the retail investor are farmland investment funds and

Aside from taking into account the particular investment strategy, all farmland investment funds share the same pros and cons as any other type of investment fund when compared to direct asset ownership. The fund will be managed by person or persons with the relevant experience and successful track record (or not) of investing in agriculture. You will own shares in a vehicle that will own many different underlying assets rather than focussing your capital and attention on one asset you believe to show good qualities. Essentially the investor relinquishes control of his capital to the Fund Manager who will invest it on their behalf, hopefully scoring well. In actual fact many studies have shown that the benefits of spreading the risk of investing capital over many different assets is equalled by the added risk of acquiring much larger assets in the first place, and should one particular acquisition turn out to have an overall negative effect, then the value of the entire fund is likely to drop.

Investing in Farmland Directly

Investing in farmland directly allows the investor ton gain exposure to the raw asset that is increasing in value, and allows the investor to dictate the terms of the investment strategy, location, size of the investment, and most importantly in my opinion this is the only strategy that allows the investor the opportunity to directly own a tangible asset that has no correlation to financial markets and is most likely to increase in value above the rate of inflation and also gives the investor the chance to have their asset produce an income.

Selecting a good quality piece of farmland is the key of a successful strategy here, and this is where expert advice is useful. To keep things nice and simple a good rule is looking at how much revenue that land could produce, this will give an indication of the level of income that could be generated through rent of farming activity. Also, carrying out a Red Book Valuation via a RICS regulated Chartered Surveyor with comparative values and working historical data to get an idea of whether this farm has increased in line with, above, or below the national average.

In my opinion, when investing in farmland, the only land that should be considered at all is land that is part of, or could be part of a profitable working farm. Using this as your golden rule will ensure that you only invest in farmland that produces revenue and profit and therefore will grow in value in line with commodity prices and inflation.

This all leads me to believe that whilst farmland investment funds are an option to take a hands off approach, direct ownership of farmland as an investment asset provides the investor with less risk, a tangible asset, and full control of their holdings.

Risks

Farmland investment is not a risk free affair, as with any opportunity to part with cash, investing in farmland presents the investor with a number of risks that should be considered when assessing the asset for acquisition as the income produced may be contingent upon them.

Firstly one should assess they type of crops being producing, seasonal or row crops are best as they van be changed each season to take advantage of whichever foodstuff is commanding the greatest price on the commodity market, these crops include wheat, maize, soy, and barley. These crops are much more reactive to market than permanent crops such as vines as vines will not produce any income within the first three years during their maturation period and also are much more susceptible to disease during this period.

Secondly one must consider whether to buy existing farmland for investment, or to buy a Greenfield site and convert it to agricultural use. Investing in farmland that already has a proven track history of producing revenue offers the investor the lowest risk and also the lowest cost.

Lastly the structure of the deal to which the investor commits will dictate overall risk profile to an extent. You may choose to simply rent out the land to a farmer for a fixed rental payment, this in my opinion offers the lowest risk and most stable income as any default in the rent van result in eviction of the farmer. Another option is to start a farming enterprise and work the land for a profit, only seriously experienced and successful farmers should consider this route. Also there is some middle ground here too, with the landowner sharing in the revenue from crop sales and also taking a top up rental payment, and whilst this does allow the investor to participate in any spike in commodity prices, it also exposes the investor to unnecessary risk.