Conversation with a real estate millionaire ? The Punch - Nigeria's ...

Abiodun Doherty
| credits: File

We have gone through several principles on real estate investments and answered several questions and enquiries from ardent readers of this column. But it may be even more instructive to share one of several conversations that I have had with a real estate millionaire that has helped me tremendously.

I have discovered the truth of the saying that an ounce of example is worth a pound of precepts. Permit me to extract the basic principles of this particular conversation and to protect the privacy of this individual who would also prefer his name not to be mentioned.

Rule 1: Have a good source of income. This particular real estate investor started several years ago just a few years after the independence of Nigeria by exporting certain agricultural produce. He poured himself into building this business and was later joined by a few other partners. The business flourished and provided him with the regular stream of income with which he started investing in real estate.

This real estate millionaire believes in hard work and entrepreneurship. He believes that many of the youths of today will do better if they learn to walk before attempting to fly. He believes that if you are willing to serve others faithfully in their business, you?ll do wonderfully well in yours when you eventually start.

The lesson for us all in this is that real estate investment requires seed capital and to have those initial seed capital you must have earning power, you must have a means of income. You cannot put up a solid structure without a solid foundation. So,for all would be investors, first learn a skill or profession that will get you a job or start a business that you can grow and that will provide you with regular income.

Rule 2: Start saving and start investing in real estate in your own little way. Our real estate millionaire started by buying land in an area that was then a ?jungle?? but is now one of the commercial nerve centres of Lagos. He stated that it was not easy buying some of those properties then.He said he made buying real estate one of his pastimes.

He did not start buying properties in the high brow areas of the time because he could not afford them. According to him, start where you are and with what you have. If all you can afford is a parcel of land in the outskirt of town by all means start there rather than not starting at all.

Rule 3: Its good to build and rent. This real estate millionaire began to build some of his properties with the aim of letting them. Fortunately for him, as time went on ,he began to acquire knowledge of construction and building development. This accelerated his building projects and his ability to interact with builders and workmen saved him significant costs. He also began to let the buildings to tenants to generate income. As at today, his annual rental income is in millions of naira.

The lesson for aspiring real estate investors is to focus on income-generating assets. Once you have sorted out the issue of where you live, you should continue building for others to rent from you and pay to you. Some real estate investors have a goal to build a certain number of houses in certain areas over a period of time using current and projected rent as a basis for planning.

This strategy is also a form of retirement planning since rental income from such properties provide passive cash flow. Like our real estate millionaire, who is now an elderly man, but does not need to work in order to pay for his cost of living.

Rule 4: If you can?t develop some properties on your own, give them to reliable developers.This real estate millionaire had some properties that he could not afford to develop on his own because of multiple projects that he was involved in. He gave some of such properties to carefully selected developers that he gave long leases to. Many of such properties have since reverted to his control and are now giving him fantastic returns. In his thinking, it was better to add value to the land or allow someone else to add value to the land. As long as the properties are not sold they would eventually revert back to him or his beneficiaries.

Rule 5: when you do sell, reinvest all or part of the income in real estate. This real estate investor rarely sells his properties but when he does, he sometimes buys another property or uses the income to add value to another property. He is? comfortable and modest at the same time. He often has the next project or investment in sight before concluding the deal to sell.

He believes in moving his funds to better and better real estate locations that will bring in better rental income. As at today, a conservative estimate of his property assets is over N2billion.He started small,built his estate gradually but strategically and now he is reaping the reward.

Some locations suddenly became prime locations and transformed the value of his investment. His life proves that if you cast your bread on many waters you?ll find it and more someday or somewhere you least expect.

More Stories in AM Business

Source: http://www.punchng.com/am-business/conversation-with-a-real-estate-millionaire/

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Bloomberg: Nokia will buy Siemens' share of joint venture for less than $2.6b

Not all partnerships pan out, and Nokia seems ready to call it quits: according to Bloomberg, the company might announce a buy out of the German half of Nokia Siemens Networks later this week. Sources familiar with the matter say that the the Finnish firm is planning to use a bridge loan to finance the $2.6 billion purchase (less than 2 billion euros), taking the entire operation under its own wing. It's not a completely unexpected move on Nokia's part -- the company previously avoided selling off stake in the network back in 2011, opting to lean on its own shareholders instead. Bloomberg reports that Siemens has declined to comment on the issue, but we'll let you know if we hear anything solid.

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Claim: 'Recent El Ni?o behavior is largely beyond natural variability ...

From the University of Hawaii at Manoa:

El Nino unusually active in the late 20th century

This graph shows El Ni?o variability derived from tree rings (blue) and instrumental measurements (red). The dashed lines indicate boundary for natural variability. Recent El Ni?o behavior is largely beyond natural variability. Credit: International Pacific Research Center

Spawning droughts, floods, and other weather disturbances world-wide, the El Ni?o ? Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impacts the daily life of millions of people. During El Ni?o, Atlantic hurricane activity wanes and rainfall in Hawaii decreases while Pacific winter storms shift southward, elevating the risk of floods in California.

The ability to forecast how ENSO will respond to global warming thus matters greatly to society. Providing accurate predictions, though, is challenging because ENSO varies naturally over decades and centuries. Instrumental records are too short to determine whether any changes seen recently are simply natural or attributable to man-made greenhouse gases. Reconstructions of ENSO behavior are usually missing adequate records for the tropics where ENSO develops.

Help is now underway in the form of a tree-ring record reflecting ENSO activity over the past seven centuries. Tree-rings have been shown to be very good proxies for temperature and rainfall measurements. An international team of scientists spearheaded by Jinbao Li and Shang-Ping Xie, while working at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, has compiled 2,222 tree-ring chronologies of the past seven centuries from both the tropics and mid-latitudes in both hemispheres. Their work is published in the June 30, 2013 online issue of Nature Climate Change.

The inclusion of tropical tree-ring records enabled the team to generate an archive of ENSO activity of unprecedented accuracy, as attested by the close correspondence with records from equatorial Pacific corals and with an independent Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction that captures well-known teleconnection climate patterns.

These proxy records all indicate that ENSO was unusually active in the late 20th century compared to the past seven centuries, implying that this climate phenomenon is responding to ongoing global warming.

?In the year after a large tropical volcanic eruption, our record shows that the east-central tropical Pacific is unusually cool, followed by unusual warming one year later. Like greenhouse gases, volcanic aerosols perturb the Earth?s radiation balance. This supports the idea that the unusually high ENSO activity in the late 20th century is a footprint of global warming? explains lead author Jinbao Li.

?Many climate models do not reflect the strong ENSO response to global warming that we found,? says co-author Shang-Ping Xie, meteorology professor at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Roger Revelle Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego. ?This suggests that many models underestimate the sensitivity to radiative perturbations in greenhouse gases. Our results now provide a guide to improve the accuracy of climate models and their projections of future ENSO activity. If this trend of increasing ENSO activity continues, we expect to see more weather extremes such as floods and droughts.?

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Citation: Li, J., S.-P. Xie, E. R. Cook, M. Morales, D. Christie, N. Johnson, F. Chen, R. D?Arrigo, A. Fowler, X. Gou, and K. Fang (2013): El Ni?o modulations over the past seven centuries. Nature Climate Change. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1936

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB955600), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, FONDECYT (No.1120965), CONICYT/FONDAP/15110009, CONICET and IAI (CRN2047).

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Source: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/01/claim-recent-el-nino-behavior-is-largely-beyond-natural-variability/

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First day of summer 2013 has nothing on northern Norway's 60 days of sun

The first day of summer 2013 in the United States, the longest day of the year, still has less sunlight than northern Norway right now. Territories in the arctic circle have, effectively, 60 first days of summer.?

By Saleha Mohsin,?Guest Blogger / June 21, 2013

The first day of summer 2013 is the year's longest day in terms of sunlight, but it still pales in comparison to the amount of sun in northern Norway. This photo was taken in North Cape at exactly midnight.

Courtesy of Saleha Mohsin

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Today the sun will shine for 18 hours, 50 minutes and 1 second.

Skip to next paragraph Saleha Mohsin

Saleha Mohsin is an American journalist living in Norway with her British husband, Faisal, and their two-year-old son, Mazen. She grew up in Ohio and worked in London, where she wrote for the popular British tabloid?The Daily Mirror and?Businessweek. Her experiences as an expat living in Oslo are the basis of her Edge of the Arctic blog.

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Now I realize that in December, when the days are short and the imposing darkness begins to wear on me, I?ll regret having said this: I?m tired of the sun. My body needs the kind of peace that only a dark, starry night can provide.

At first I was looking forward to being in Oslo on June 21, the longest day of the year. The best remedy for a grim Norwegian winter is the buildup to the summer solstice. But I went on a whirlwind trip with the Foreign Press Association into the?Arctic Circle?where, for five days, I didn?t see a cloud in the sky. Just the intense, bright yellow sun. In northern Norway towns like?Kirkenes,?Honningsv?g,?and?Vard?, the sun doesn?t set for 60 days. Even when the peak of the midnight sun has passed, twilight increases by just 40 minutes each day. There isn?t a proper dark night from April through August.

The first two days I was charmed by the whole thing. Sunshine all the time! Having to wake up about four hours earlier than I?d like?didn?t feel so tough because the brightness and surprisingly warm weather lifted my spirits.

After a few days I started to feel tired. The sun was there when I got up at 6am for a press conference with the prime ministers of Russia and Norway, and at 2pm when we drove to the Norwegian-Russian border for a ceremony. When I clambered into bed at 11pm, I could see the sunshine bursting through the ineffective hotel curtains. My eyes opened for a moment around 3am and the blazing sun made me feel like I had fallen asleep watching television in the middle of the day. Even after eight hours of sleep I still felt like all I?d had a power-nap.

By the end of the week I was programmed to fall asleep when the lights were simply turned off. I nearly nodded off during a Power Point presentation by an oil company executive.

Fortunately for them, localers are used to 60 days of sunshine in the summer and 60 days of darkness in the winter. I spoke to a native of Finnmark County in the High North and he said besides being a little more tired than usual in the summer, he didn?t find it too challenging. ?We aren?t depressed drunks in the winter, nor are we hyperactive in the summer,? he said, debunking ubiquitous myths. ?It?s really not a big deal.?

I was lucky enough to have the chance to go to?North Cape?(Nordkapp?in Norwegian), a 1,007-foot-high cliff with a plateau that attracts tourists from around the world to see the midnight sun in the summer and?northern lights?in the winter.

North Cape is the second northern-most point of Europe, a mere 2,102.3 kilometers from the North Pole. It has restaurants, a small chapel for weddings, a museum, a theater with a short video about the natural beauty of the High North, and a cheesy souvenir shop.

North Cape offers panoramic views of the point where the?Norwegian Sea,?which is?part of the?Atlantic Ocean, meets the?Barents Sea, part of the?Arctic Ocean.

The midnight sun can be seen from 14 May to the 31st of July. The sun reaches its lowest point from 12:14 ? 12:24am during those days.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Fs9zy2UzoXk/First-day-of-summer-2013-has-nothing-on-northern-Norway-s-60-days-of-sun

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Flooding forces 75,000 from western Canadian homes

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) ? Flooding forced the western Canadian city of Calgary to order the evacuation of its entire downtown Friday, as the waters reached the 10th row of the city's hockey arena.

Overflowing rivers washed out roads and bridges, soaked homes and turned streets into dirt-brown waterways around southern Alberta. Police say as many as four people might have died.

About 350,000 people work in downtown Calgary on a typical day. However, officials said very few people need to be moved out, since many heeded warnings and did not go to work Friday.

Twenty-five neighborhoods in the city, with an estimated population of 75,000, have already been evacuated due to floodwaters in Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics and serves as the center of Canada's oil industry.

Outside the city, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said two men were seen floating lifeless in the Highwood River near the hard-hit community of High River on Thursday, but no bodies have been found. They also say a woman who was swept away with her camper has not been located. And it wasn't clear whether a man who was seen falling out of a canoe in the High River area was able to climb back in.

In downtown Calgary, water was inundating homes and businesses in the shadow of skyscrapers. Water has swamped cars and train tracks.

The city said the home rink of the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames flooded and the water inside was 10 rows deep.

"I think that really paints a very clear picture of what kinds of volumes of water we are dealing with," said Trevor Daroux, the city's deputy police chief.

At the grounds for the world-famous Calgary Stampede fair, water reached up to the roofs of the chuck wagon barns. The popular rodeo and festival is the city's signature event. Mayor Naheed Nenshi said it will occur no matter what.

About 1,500 have gone to emergency shelters while the rest have found shelter with family or friends, Nenshi said.

Nenshi said he's never seen the rivers reach so high or flow so fast, but said the flooding situation was as under control as it could be. Nenshi said the Elbow River, one of two rivers that flow through the southern Alberta city, has peaked.

The mayor suggested that levels on the Bow River ? which, in Nenshi's words, looked like an ocean ? would remain steady for the rest of the day as long as conditions didn't change.

Police urged people to stay away from downtown and not go to work.

The flood was forcing emergency plans at the Calgary Zoo, which is situated on an island near where the Elbow and Bow rivers meet. Lions and tigers were being prepared for transfer, if necessary, to prisoner holding cells at the courthouse.

Schools and court trials were cancelled Friday and residents urged to avoid downtown. Transit service in the core was shut down.

Residents were left to wander and wade through streets waist-deep in water.

"In all the years I've been down here, I've never seen the water this high," resident John Doherty said.

"I've got two antique pianos in the garage that I was going to rebuild and they're probably under water," he said. "We're shell-shocked."

Alberta Premier Alison Redford promised the province would help flood victims put their lives back together and provide financial aid to communities that need to rebuild. The premier said at a briefing that she had spoken to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who travelled to Calgary and promised disaster relief. Harper met with the premier and mayor.

Redford urged people to heed evacuation orders, so authorities could do their jobs. She called the flooding that has hit most of southern Alberta an "absolutely tragic situation."

The premier warned that communities downstream of Calgary had not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters.

It had been a rainy week throughout much of Alberta, but on Thursday the Bow River Basin was battered with up to four inches (100 millimeters) of rain. Environment Canada's forecast called for more rain in the area, but in much smaller amounts.

Calgary was not alone in its weather-related woes. Flashpoints of chaos spread from towns in the Rockies south to Lethbridge.

More than a dozen towns declared states of emergency. Entire communities, including High River and Bragg Creek, near Calgary, were under mandatory evacuation orders.

Some of the worst flooding hit High River, where an estimated half of the town's residents experienced flooding in their homes.

Military helicopters plucked about 30 people off rooftops in the area. Others were rescued by boat or in buckets of heavy machinery. Some even swam for their lives from stranded cars.

A spokesman for Defense Minister Peter MacKay said 354 soldiers are being deployed to the entire flood zone.

Further west, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, photos from the mountain town of Canmore depicted a raging river ripping at house foundations.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/flooding-forces-75-000-western-canadian-homes-205858183.html

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Beagle-boxer-basset wins World's Ugliest Dog

PETALUMA, Calif. (AP) ? A huge-headed, duck-footed mix of beagle, boxer and basset hound was the upset winner Friday at the 25th annual World's Ugliest Dog Contest.

Walle (WAHL-ee), a 4-year-old mutt from Chico, Calif., who was entered at the last minute, was judged most unsightly of 30 dogs at the Northern California competition.

"This dog looked like he's been photo-shopped with pieces from various dogs and maybe a few other animals," judge Brian Sobel said.

Walle overcame the dominance in recent years by nearly hairless Chihuahuas, Chinese cresteds, or combinations of the two.

Owner Tammie Barbee got the dog when he was three months old.

"People come up to me and say that dog is not right," Barbee said, "but I love him."

Judges said they were especially impressed by Walle's bizarre waddle of a walk.

Walle wins $1,500 and will make several network TV appearances next week, including NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

The contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds gets worldwide attention, with media from around the world traveling to Petaluma, about 40 miles north of San Francisco.

Organizers say the dogs are judged for their "natural ugliness in both pedigree and mutt classes."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beagle-boxer-basset-wins-worlds-ugliest-dog-034143349.html

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Milan moves to reinvent fashion week

MILAN (AP) ? Burberry has packed up for London, abandoning Milan after a decade of menswear fealty. Giorgio Armani has scolded Italian designers who regularly show in other fashion capitals. And Donatella Versace even called for a fashion summit in a bid for unity.

Concern that Milan is losing prestige to London, Paris and New York is starting to crack the composure of the city's usually reserved fashion world.

The Italian National Fashion Chamber has been moved to action, announcing a reorganization this spring and making Prada's outspoken CEO Patrizio Bertelli the chamber's No. 2 with the goal of revitalizing Milan fashion.

Bertelli's first act: a letter to restaurants to stay open late during this week's menswear fashion previews that start Saturday. That may seem a small step, but consider that the fashion world spent 120 million euros ($157 million) in Milan over four fashion weeks in 2009, according to Bain & Company figures, a slow year as the key U.S. market was mired in crisis at the time.

Milan may have built-in fashion pedigree, but it does not have the same inherent tourist appeal as the other fashion capitals, which is reflected in their luxury sales that eclipse Milan's ?4.5 billion ($5.9 billion) in 2012. New York was four times that, Paris double and London more than one-third higher, according to Bain.

As for the source of the malaise, the economic crisis that has now stalled over Italy has zapped resources from the fashion houses, local government that might otherwise provide a boost and the world of fashion media and fashion buyers that feed the system.

Fashion insiders and analysts say Milan doesn't do as much as other fashion cities to integrate cultural and artistic events and promote new designers to create buzz.

"For sure, some cities have invested more in creating a very powerful setting," said Claudia D'Arpizio, a Bain partner who analyzes the luxury goods market. "I think that is what the new fashion chamber is going to do, to make Milan very visible."

More recently, designer spats, not cooperation, have been the norm. The summit called by Versace apparently never took place, pre-empted by the fashion chamber's own reorganization.

Armani has put pressure on Italian designers to regularly show their collections in Milan, and not in other fashion capitals, reportedly making their return a condition for his participation on the policy-setting fashion chamber board.

The remarks targeted Prada's second line, Miu Miu, which shows in Paris, along with Valentino's ready-to-wear and couture collections.

Armani pointed out that he has done his part, long taking the last major fashion week slot at the chamber's request to keep the fashion crowd from rushing off to Paris. "Of course, this over time has brought various problems, such as, in some cases, the absence of some of the most important writers," Armani was quoted by Corriere della Sera as saying recently.

He also debunked any logistical difficulties that other fashion houses might have showing two lines in a single week, pointing out that he does it with the Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani collections, four times a year.

The fashion chamber's long-time president Mario Boselli expressed confidence that the issue would be resolved and Armani would join the board.

"We are confident that with the relaunch of Milan, and some brands will come home," Boselli said in an interview.

He is not promising quick fixes to what are very complex problems, and won't give hints of what's to come, but says some changes will be in place by the September preview shows.

As an early sign of progress, Boselli points out that there will be 78 designers showcased at this week's menswear shows ? more than in previous editions ? and they include runway shows by four new names: two Italians, a German and a Chinese. Armani has opened up his theater to one of them, Andrea Pompilio.

Boselli also was understanding of the Prada Group's decision to show Miu Miu in Paris, especially at a time when many fashion houses, from Versace to Dolce&Gabbana, have abandoned their second lines. In Milan, Miu Miu risks being overshadowed by Prada. "By going to Paris, it's as if there were two first lines, each with its own identity," he said.

As for Burberry's decision to decamp, Boselli accepts it as part of the business. But he takes it as a victory for Milan that British designer Vivienne Westwood did not follow, despite apparent attempts to woo her.

"The people who decide to stay in Milan, do so because they believe in Milan, period," Boselli said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/milan-moves-reinvent-fashion-week-203525610.html

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