Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Health care system in Germany
Here is an excellent health care system, that is much better than America or Singapore. Look to Europe for good examples, e.g. Germany or Switzerland.
RED Portal (15) - Rental Rates
If you are a owner of a condominium, how much should you offer your unit for rental? The RED portal has a tab called Info. It shows the range of rental rates for various condominium projects.
If your condominium is not listed, you can look at the benchmark price (BMP) for sale. Most condominiums are rented at between 0.25% to 0.4% of the BMP price. For example, if the BMP price is $1000, the rental rate should be between $2.50 to $4.
As a guide, you can take 0.33% (4% pa) of the value of the property. If the sale value is $1 million, you can rent it for $3,300 per month.
If you wish to list you unit for rental, click on the Offer tab (for your housing project and give your details. Our staff will contact you.
www.easysearch.sg (Real Estate Data)
If your condominium is not listed, you can look at the benchmark price (BMP) for sale. Most condominiums are rented at between 0.25% to 0.4% of the BMP price. For example, if the BMP price is $1000, the rental rate should be between $2.50 to $4.
As a guide, you can take 0.33% (4% pa) of the value of the property. If the sale value is $1 million, you can rent it for $3,300 per month.
If you wish to list you unit for rental, click on the Offer tab (for your housing project and give your details. Our staff will contact you.
www.easysearch.sg (Real Estate Data)
ProTrader - Financial Trading Game
Monday, September 28, 2009
Impact of a reduction in yield
If you save $500 a month over 35 years, your total savings is $210,000. If you earn 5% per annum during this period, you should get $569,000. Unfortunately, you will not get this full sum, as the financial institution will take away a portion of your gain to pay for their various charges, such as marketing, fund management, administration and profits.
Most high cost products can reduce you yield by as much as 2%, giving you a net yield of 3%. This 2% yield may appear small, but over a 35 year period, it could take away 34% of the accumulated amount, giving you a net amount of $373,000. You are left with a net gain of only $163,000. The amount taken away from you, representing the reduction of 34% is $196,000. In other words, you are left with less than half of the total gain.
It is important that you find a product where the reduction in yield is as little as possible.
If you invest directly in shares, you will not suffer any reduction in yield, but you will need to monitor the shares and make sure that you collect the dividends and rights issues. You may also suffer a big loss, if the particular business performed badly.
To avoid this risk, it is better to invest in a unit trust where the investments are professionally managed and and you enjoy diversification. However, the charges for most unit trust is 1% per annum, which is rather high. The fund manager will tell you that he can add value by picking the good stocks that will perform better than the market, but studies have shown that most fund managers are not able to generate this value.
You can invest in an exchange traded fund, which is benchmark against the stocks comprised in the market index. An example is the Statestreet Trakker fund, commonly known as the STI ETF. The management fee is 0.3% per annum. This is a low charge, compared to unit trust.
Read this table to see the impact of a reduction in yield on a monthly savings plan over a number of years.
Most high cost products can reduce you yield by as much as 2%, giving you a net yield of 3%. This 2% yield may appear small, but over a 35 year period, it could take away 34% of the accumulated amount, giving you a net amount of $373,000. You are left with a net gain of only $163,000. The amount taken away from you, representing the reduction of 34% is $196,000. In other words, you are left with less than half of the total gain.
It is important that you find a product where the reduction in yield is as little as possible.
If you invest directly in shares, you will not suffer any reduction in yield, but you will need to monitor the shares and make sure that you collect the dividends and rights issues. You may also suffer a big loss, if the particular business performed badly.
To avoid this risk, it is better to invest in a unit trust where the investments are professionally managed and and you enjoy diversification. However, the charges for most unit trust is 1% per annum, which is rather high. The fund manager will tell you that he can add value by picking the good stocks that will perform better than the market, but studies have shown that most fund managers are not able to generate this value.
You can invest in an exchange traded fund, which is benchmark against the stocks comprised in the market index. An example is the Statestreet Trakker fund, commonly known as the STI ETF. The management fee is 0.3% per annum. This is a low charge, compared to unit trust.
Read this table to see the impact of a reduction in yield on a monthly savings plan over a number of years.
Tan Kin Lian
Taking a housing loan
Here are some tips on taking a housing loan. Do not borrow to the limit. Have some margin to allow for future increase in interest rate. Have some spare savings in case you lose your current job. Ask your bank to give you a special term to defer repayment for up to 12 months in the event of loss of employment.
Using bicycle for the last mile
Here are my suggestions for a bicycle service to bring people from their homes to the MRT station and back.
Accumulation of Savings
This table shows the accumulated amount of savings at various rates of interest, and the reduction caused by the charges taken away from your savings by the financial product.
For example, if you save $500 a month and earned 5% per annum for 35 years, you will get an accumulated amount of $569.018. If the financial product takes away 2% per annum (which is quite common) to give a net return of 3%, you will get an accumulated amount of $373,656, or a reduction of 34%.
A good financial product will take away a reduction of 0.5% leaving you a net yield of 4.5% and an accumulated sum of $510,894 or 37% higher than $373,656. An example is an exchange traded fund (ETF) or a low cost unit trust.
Choose a financial product that takes away not more than 1% of your yield. Avoid financial products, including most life insurance policies, that takes away more than 2% of your yield, leaving you with a poor return.
When you buy a life insurance policy, you get a benefit illustration. Look at the figure shown as "reduction in yield". You will find the reduction to be more than 2%. If you do not know where to find it, ask the insurance agent to tell you (it is the duty of the agent to explain this infromation to you).
If you have already bought a whole life, endowment or investment-linked policy, or a variation of these plans, you can ask the insurance company to send you the benefit illustration again and tell you about the reduction in yield.
A survey carried out in my blog indicated that 80% of people who bought a life insurance policy were not told about the distribution cost (which causes a large portion of the reduction in yield) and, after learning about it, almost all of them felt that the distribution cost is too high. They felt that the agent should have told them about it.
The remaining 20% who were told about the distribution cost could have bought a single premium policy where the distribution cost is quite small and is likely to be explained by the agent.
Tan Kin Lian
Note: This new chapter will be added to my book on Financial Planning: Practical Steps
For example, if you save $500 a month and earned 5% per annum for 35 years, you will get an accumulated amount of $569.018. If the financial product takes away 2% per annum (which is quite common) to give a net return of 3%, you will get an accumulated amount of $373,656, or a reduction of 34%.
A good financial product will take away a reduction of 0.5% leaving you a net yield of 4.5% and an accumulated sum of $510,894 or 37% higher than $373,656. An example is an exchange traded fund (ETF) or a low cost unit trust.
Choose a financial product that takes away not more than 1% of your yield. Avoid financial products, including most life insurance policies, that takes away more than 2% of your yield, leaving you with a poor return.
When you buy a life insurance policy, you get a benefit illustration. Look at the figure shown as "reduction in yield". You will find the reduction to be more than 2%. If you do not know where to find it, ask the insurance agent to tell you (it is the duty of the agent to explain this infromation to you).
If you have already bought a whole life, endowment or investment-linked policy, or a variation of these plans, you can ask the insurance company to send you the benefit illustration again and tell you about the reduction in yield.
A survey carried out in my blog indicated that 80% of people who bought a life insurance policy were not told about the distribution cost (which causes a large portion of the reduction in yield) and, after learning about it, almost all of them felt that the distribution cost is too high. They felt that the agent should have told them about it.
The remaining 20% who were told about the distribution cost could have bought a single premium policy where the distribution cost is quite small and is likely to be explained by the agent.
Tan Kin Lian
Note: This new chapter will be added to my book on Financial Planning: Practical Steps
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