Working a job that you love is great if it pays high. If it doesn’t, well, sorry you can’t buy that muscle car you’ve been eyeing for a few months. Adding insult to the injury is the ever-increasing inflation rate, which has almost doubled since 2010. It’s why a secondary source of income is important, and this is where investments come in.
Year 2018 features a wide variety of investments that give you an edge over others in terms of simplicity and low risk. Investment experts Clint Haynes, Gennady Barsky, David Henderson, Andrew Denney, and David Anthony suggest the top 5 investment opportunities you should take in 2018.
Real Estate is one of the best and safe investments one can make. Sell, put it on rent, or use it for yourself, it’s the only asset with a high value that can be used in multiple ways. Over time, the market value of properties inflate, be it residential or commercial. Making certain additions to the property increase the worth as well.
Realty investment expert Gennady Barsky advises that real estate investment is the safest bet for amateur investors. He says, “There’s no reason amateur real estate investors can’t profit from small, individual property purchases. With home values currently rising 3.9 per cent year-over-year, and expected to rise another 2.6 per cent over the next year, why not allocate some of your savings toward real estate?”
Clint Haynes advises that peer-to-peer lending is a good alternative to some of the more mainstream investment channels. It’s close to lending money to an acquaintance on a percentage of interest decided by both the lender and the borrower.
There are money-lending companies where signing up is easy. Unlike banks, they don’t have stringent requirements. The rate of return can range from 4 per cent to 8 per cent or even higher in some riskier cases. Your money is divided into several parts, which are as small as $50.
The best part about peer-to-peer lending is that you can open an account with a very limited amount of money. A lot of peer-to-peer accounts are opened for $1,000.
Stock markets can be both risky and easy, depending on the market conditions and the amount you’d like to invest. It is advised by most financial advisors to avoid rushing into stock trading. It is better to invest a small sum over a long period of time.
There’s a technique for the same that you can use. It’s called ‘dollar cost averaging’. David Henderson from Jenkins Wealth explains, “When the market is high, you buy fewer shares and when the market is low you buy more shares.”
Investments made in Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are better, as most of them don’t charge you for managing your money.
David Anthony from Anthony Capital says that annuities can bring stability and security to an investor’s portfolio if they’re used right. An annuity is basically an agreement between an investor and a fund provider where the investor receives four main services:
• A fixed income provided over a few years, or even lifetime
• Asset growth
• Posthumous benefits
• Long-term care benefits
A wide range of annuity options are available to the choosers. Sometimes annuities need professional help when you don’t know what you want exactly. It’s one of the reasons why a lot of people don’t choose this investment channel. Yet, annuities are simple to sign up to and generate a lot of benefits.