Smart Ownership – Women Investing in Real Estate
“Asset protection” is one of those terms that cause eyes to glaze over and minds to wander. Think of asset protection as part of a lifelong practice of Smart Ownership. We real estate Investor devote so much of our time, money, energy and thoughts to building assets that protecting those assets should be at least equally important. Let’s think of it as a Smart Ownership practice that is proactive, knowledgeable and wise stewardship of our assets in keeping with the people, priorities and principles that we value.
Most of us value ease over anxiety; our loved ones or favorite charities over the taxperson, our economic independence over financial dependence on our life partner. If forced to make choices like those above, almost all of us would select the former. However, these options are not always available. A former rapper once chanted, “more money – more problems,” and real estate investing is one of those wealth builders that sometimes seems to come as a combo meal, with a super-sized side of problems.
Asset protection has unique applications for women real estate investors arising from the unique ways in which investments, life events and lifestyle decisions interact in their lives. For example, savvy woman, who are also moms, tend to be devoted to building wealth to pass along to their children – a Smart Ownership goal that is helped by estate planning. Additionally, many savvy women have built greater-than-usual wealth while single, or independently while married. The ability to protect and direct assets after a marriage or a divorce is also a Smart Ownership undertaking.
In its purest form, Smart Ownership approach to real estate investing includes activities as diverse as smart pre-purchase investments analysis, values-driven mortgage decision-making, and vision-based exit strategy forecasting. The started version of your Smart Ownership practice should address and account for at least these issues, which we will call the “Four Ds”: Death, Divorce, Disability, and Disaster. The Four Ds are scary to some, and at least one of the four is inevitable. Many of us will face two or three of them. The ones that aren’t inevitable are largely unavoidable. We have two choices: to avoid the inevitable and the unavoidable out of fear, or to face them head on.
Please join me on my Blog while we discuss the Four Ds and the good practice of Smart Ownership.
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By Lorena Tankersley SFR, CHRE. Lorena is Listing and short sale specialist with Keller Williams and president of the Women Investment Group (WIG). You can find her at http://www.womeninvestmentgroup.com/
