During this Circuit Breaker, I had wanted to pick up a skill. Similarly, for the longest time, I had been discussing with my friend on starting an Udemy course to share about REITs investing. Well, the profits people get from Udemy can be up to six-figures as seen on Youtube.

Passive income
It will be so good! You just have to spend a few months to create a course, and you get to enjoy passive income for the rest of your life!

Well, after some thought, it doesn't gel well with my personal beliefs. I deliberated for weeks and thought, this should not be done with money as the end goal. At least, not the initial phases.

I do not believe in Udemy
Udemy is a great platform and is skills-future applicable if I recall correctly. However, have you tried attending any Udemy course before? It is either poor quality, standard scripted lectures, and that annoying robotic voice behind the video slides.

I researched greatly, and found out that I can do the same thing. To create Udemy videos, we just have to write proper scripts, make slides, and feed the scripts into "Word-to-voice" softwares. Some of these softwares cost a little, but there are free ones out there.

Tada! There you get, a video that is as good as reading a textbook. Good knowledge to be gained, but just a tad too boring to me.

Why Youtube?
Youtube is a more lively and interactive place. Yes, there is this fear of putting poor quality content, or that no one ever watches the things you post.

Youtube videos looks nice, but requires a huge amount of effort. It is one of the ways to force me into learning video editing software. I am now pretty good at using VSDC and it serves as a good starting point for beginners.

I tried using Adobe Premiere Pro and I can get pretty lost. Still, for a basic REITs video, I can spend up to 5 hours of editing.

That is not all. You have to create Youtube thumbnails too, and I use Canva for that. Not forgetting the video description that you need for each video.

I must say, I have learned and improved along the way, but can only do so if viewers provide more feedback to me.

Certainly, I have more to grow in adding video effects and giving good speeches.

So wait, what is your motivation for doing this?
Yes, I am not paid or sponsored in anyway. Perhaps in due time, I could seek donations to upgrade the equipment and software for video making.

I guess you can say I am trying to pass on what I learnt from my friends. Since they are willing to teach me for free, why not I use my spare time to share the knowledge with more people.

Also, the reason why I continue to keep making videos is because of the 61 subscribers. They may not know it, but it means alot to me and it gives me a reason to keep on improving and making better videos. The numbers should not matter too much, but it still serves as a good ego boost.

At least, I know there are people watching my channel that I started less than a month ago.

Why REITs? Why not stocks?
In my humble opinion, REITs is more unlikely to be disrupted given time. Yes, prices can be volatile, however if done in the right way, REITs still serve as a pretty stable investment instrument.

I do not dare to guarantee the performance of any stocks, as we see the darlings of SGX falling - Sembmarine, SPH just to name a few examples.

REITs have a tax advantage too, and hence able to give you better dividends. However, we do have to be mindful of the fees the Managers and Trustees charge. Well, I still believe whatever they charge, is lower than the 17% corporate tax, and the fees you pay to a financial adviser.

Future plans for your Channel
Right now, I do not have any grand plans yet. I just wish to complete the REITs Series. As of now, this is my latest video on Industrial / Logistics REITs.

If you find the videos useful, remember to subscribe okay!
This is the link to my Youtube Channel.

Thus far, these are the topics being covered. I meant for it to be a complete course for beginners or intermediate investors to begin REITs investing.

LlamaFinance REITs Series 1. Intro to REITs 2. Vol 1 Visualizing a long-term investment plan 3. Vol 2 REITs vs Condo
4. Vol 3 What exactly is a REIT with examples
5. Vol 4 REITs vs Business Trust, Knowing what you are getting into 6. Vol 5 Everything about Retail REITs 7. Vol 6 Everything about Hospitality REITs
8. Vol 7 Everything about Industrial and Log REITs
9. Vol 8 Everything about Healthcare REITs (Coming up)

I intend to finish up on REIT sectors with a Healthcare REIT video next (I have finished recording this). Following, it will be REITs metrics and how exactly we should invest during COVID crisis.

The 2 main ideas I wish to share is really on:
1. Balancing exposure of REITs portfolio to different sectors.
2. Use value averaging concept and invest consistently
3. Looking at trends using 20 MA and 50MA on key indexes
*I do not invest technically. Technical aspects serves as a guide only.

Sharing on stocks is possible, but only after the REITs portion is completed. Once again, it is not just about the knowledge. The main reason why people pay thousands of dollars to attend courses, is also to join a community, and to hone their mindsets. Definitely, you will be more confident to invest if you do it with other people.

I didn't believe in this, until my friend taught me. It certainly helped frame my mind towards investing.

I thought I knew it all, being an Accountancy graduate. However, what I lacked was the ability to plan and the vision of my portfolio. I do believe you need some sort of guidance before investing. And who you seek the guidance from is important. If you seek it from an insurance agent, you are going to end up with unit trusts. If you seek it from a banker, maybe you get Fixed Deposit or Securitized bonds.

In time to come, I would also share about how I got into REITs investing during this COVID crisis.

Message I aim to bring across
I believe most sensible investors out there know this. There is no such thing as a good or bad investor. You are only as good as your next investment. A single bad trade can wipe out the gains you accumulated so far.

Well, this is the price you pay for not buying that endowment product your insurance agent or financial adviser propose to you. Managing your own investments is a tough job. But, can be an enjoyable and fruitful one.

There are so many investment courses out there, teaching you all the methods with ROIs up to 30% per year. I have made one video to describe such methods too. Link

There is too little people who advocate boring investments
Well, I enjoy reading blogs that publish openly their portfolios. However, more often than not, they have great amounts of capital, either through years of hard work, or from investment gains.

How about the rest who are still working? How about those who still believe in investing consistently? Especially those struggling to make ends meet.

If you belong to this group, I believe the investment method I propose suits you.

It is nothing exciting, but it will at least confidently build up a retirement portfolio for yourself and family. If you ever toyed with the LlamaFinance net worth calculator, a simple 5% dividend yield with assumed 1% dividend growth can make you a millionaire easily by retirement.

Monthly $1,333 dollars invested with 5% annual dividend, 1% annual dividend growth rate (Compounded every half yearly) can give you close to a million after 30 years

We have not accounted for any potential capital gains and greater dividend growth rates. In fact, with value averaging concept, we would be investing more during downturns. I am confident that returns will be higher than this conservative estimate.

Most importantly, no leverage, no need to ask a bank for money, nor to borrow from family members. You rely on your own discipline to farm for a desired retirement.

Of course, I lack wisdom
I am only 29 years old. We have to continuously learn from the older and more experienced for we lack wisdom. This explains why we have to seek out mentors, or read up on blogs who share their investment ideologies. Better if they share their mistakes.

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is FI35. I feel his sharing is so genuine and it is worth catching on to his wisdom since he started investing since 16.

Why should I learn from "Gurus" who are only in the practice for a few years? Might as well read more blogs.

The greater good of the society
Well, if its not for the money, then what? Will you ever believe if someone forsake a potential promotion and a reward trip to US and Canada to switch career to a more meaningful one?

Well, I did so. I think I am stupid. Well, let's remain so.

I felt even stupider when I cannot help the people around me. There was once my neighbor, a retired old uncle in his 70s asked me for help.

"Ah boy ah, help me whatapp!"

"Orh, what do you need?"

"Come here, whatapp for me. Come" And, so I went to his house.

"Take, I want whatapp these 2 paper to this number"

You guessed it. The 2 paper are CDP statements owned by himself and his wife. The number was written on a piece of white paper.

I wondered why on earth would you whatsapp your CDP statements to someone. But that is not the point. I shall respect his privacy.

When I glanced at the CDP statements, I could not believe my eyes. There were a good number of stocks that they hold in their respective CDP accounts. Each CDP statements were worth a good 6-figure.

However, it was a great pity. In it, not a single one are blue chips, nor stars like valuetronics or AEM.

There were only penny stocks! One caught my eye because I bought it before - Newwave. As much as we know, most penny stocks eventually close down, and they were still holding on to these penny stocks.

Talking about finances is awkward, especially true with family and friends. I was thinking how much potential returns they have lost, because the penny stocks they own were all Top volume counters years back, and are illiquid today.

This makes me question on what I can do to help more people. Irony is I could not help my own family and neighbours, at least not without engaging the sensitivities of the older and more prideful generation. On the other hand, there are people who invest successfully via blue chips too, who includes retired taxi drivers, civil servants or teachers that I know of.

For now, I wish to help fellow peers who wish to get into investing, including Mrs Llama, to gain a good foothold to begin their investment journey. Hopefully, my efforts can prevent people from investing like my neighbour.

Famous? View counts?
Well, if I wished to be famous, I'd feature my handsome face in the videos. Kidding. Well, I do care about the view counts and number of subscribers.

Yet, there is never the main purpose. I just wish that one day, Mrs Llama watches the content, including people around me who watches, and all join me in my investing journey.

To a state where we can discuss finance openly and freely.

How to subscribe
As promised, here are the steps to subscribe to the Youtube Channel.

Step 1: Go to youtube
Step 2: Search for LlamaFinance
Step 3: Click on the Red subscribe button as shown in the page below

You can also subscribe while watching the video too. Scroll down and click on the red subscribe button. It should work for both computers and phones.

Step 4: Upon subscribing, please remember to click on the bell to activate notifications. So you will know once a new video is uploaded on my Channel.

~ Mr Llama


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