What bathroom scales can teach you about owning real estate
A set of humble bathroom scales can teach real estate owners and investors some important lessons about growth, balance and avoiding pizza.
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BATHROOM scales occupy an unusual — and often frustrating — place inside our brains.
Some of us step on them every morning to decide whether it’s a good or bad day. Others hide them in a cupboard, afraid to check, while some weigh themselves weekly just before a food binge.
Bathroom scales can also highlight how to increase wealth through property ownership and investing.
So take off your clothes, step up and take a weight of your mind with these shared lessons.
1. MEASURE YOUR GROWTH
Knowing what you weigh, and what you’re worth in property wealth, is the only way to track your progress over time.
Scales do this in a simple form. And measuring movements in the value of your real estate is equally important when wanting to borrow more money or grow a property portfolio.
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Websites such as realestate.com.au show recent sales of homes in an area based on factors such as number of bedrooms, bathrooms and carparking spaces.
When borrowing more money — perhaps for future investments — you may need a professional property valuation, which can cost hundreds of dollars. Speak to your lender as they might offer a free valuation each year.
2. DON’T CHECK DAILY
Weight loss is a long-term game and property ownership is too. Dwelling on daily fluctuations — as many people do with shares — is dangerous and can lead to knee-jerk reactions.
While weekly weigh-ins may be a good way to fight flab, real estate really only needs to be measured perhaps every six or 12 months.
3. PUT THINGS IN CONTEXT
Your weight and your real estate wealth won’t move in a straight line, up or down. There will be fluctuations, often beyond your control, caused by things such as wider real estate market movements or a pizza night.
Think about tracking movements over time using fitness or wealth apps, a simple spreadsheet or just a graph drawn on paper. This will paint a more accurate picture of longer-term movements.
4. CHECK MORE THAN JUST WEIGHT
Doctors say relying only on scales is not a good measure of your health, because the real aim is reducing body fat and you might gain weight if healthy and dense muscle is added to your frame.
The best tests for your health are often how your clothes fit and the notches on your belts.
Similarly, testing your wealth should include factors such as interest rates, potential for rental income, and where your city sits in the property cycle.
5. SET GOALS
If you don’t write down where you want to be in six months, 12 months and 5-10 years, how will you know when you get there?
It’s a great idea to write down short-term and long-term goals and regularly revisit your progress. Pablo Picasso once said goals could only be reached through planning: “there is no other route to success.”
He’s onto something, whether its wiping a few kilos off your weigh or adding a few hundred thousand dollars to your real estate wealth.
Originally published as What bathroom scales can teach you about owning real estate