Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Plutonium
Love it!
Cliff notes: we are all wrong buying real estate, we need to by pens.
Thank you.
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LOL, let’s hope not. I’d prefer to avoid the competition
Real Estate can be a fantastic industry to get in, don’t get me wrong, but it takes a good bit of capital to get started, and you can get yourself into some serious trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing. It can be one of the best or worst investments if you’re not careful. Eventually, I
WILL get into real estate investing, but at 25 years old I'm currently saving for my first house (let alone other properties).
Pens work for me personally. I actually got into pen collecting by accident. I bought a Parker 51 Fountain pen for $1 at an estate sale and realized it was worth about $100.
My best estate sale find ever:
Two 1 ounce gold coins, 8 silver eagle coins, 12 proof sets- Bought at a garage sale for $20. I sold both gold coins for $1850 each back when gold was trading at around $950/ounce. That’s a $20 investment that was worth over $2000.
When I tell that story, some people ask me if I’m still kicking myself for selling them at that price after gold eventually went to almost $1900/ounce. I took a 10,000% gain in February 2009 in a market that was down over 50% from its high point in 2007. I’m pretty comfortable with those numbers
I’ll buy pretty much anything and everything if it is worth my time and effort.
Here is one of the funniest things I ever sold. It was a mobility scooter that I bought for $30 at an estate sale. I bought two $25 batteries for it and sold it for $330.
All of this took time, and I’ve been buying and selling for years now. I started buying and selling truck parts. I didn’t have any money to mod my truck back in high school so I learned to buy things on craigslist and sell them at a higher price.
A few years later I started going to garage sales to look for furniture for my college house. Oddly enough, I found the gold coins at one of the first garage sales I ever went to.
I then progressed to estate sales and antique stores. I’d look for things that were very old and had engravings or that where signed. I’d plug that name into ebay and see how much it sold for. If it was something that I could turn a respectable profit on, I bought it. That was how I learned to significantly lower my risk before buying anything.
If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to share some more pointers. Investing is investing to me. There are people who have made fortunes from the stock market, real estate, cars, jewelry, stamps and everything in between.
By the way, Bill Gross sold his stamp collection for $9million. I'd dare to say that he's one of the best investors of all time.