Lessons from the lizards

While enjoying the breeze and the sound of the waves, I couldn’t doze off and ended up staring at the ceiling.

There was a bunch of lizards lying up there just like us.  The difference was that we were laid with oil and scrub.  They were treated to a meal of mosquitoes.

I soon found that there were three distinct types of lizards.  Coincidentally, they shared similar characteristics with our three kinds of attitudes towards properties.

1) The inactives

These lizards laid there motionless the whole time, regardless of any preying activity of other lizards.  Are they full or simply not hungry at all?

You are not into properties.  You are indifferent to any news or discussion on properties.  When you need to buy a place, you grab whatever available there — probably just pick one after a few flat viewings. 

2) The hypers

This type of lizards fully used their sight and smell to find their preys.  Every few minutes they crawled in a different direction to go after a different target.   But they didn’t always get what they were after. 

In fact, every step they got nearer, the mosquitoes would move further away.  Sometimes they flicked out their tongue just in time to swallow their prey.  But there were also times that the mosquitoes flied away, or simply became the food of other lizards.

You work phenadip.com hard to save enough deposit for a property you are eyeing at.  But each time you are ready, the prices climb higher. 

You step inside a new property launch on the very first day, only to find that the good units are all taken up by others during the VVVIP launch.

Just when you are about to place the 1% deposit, then come Aug 30 and only 70% loan for this investment property. 

Over the years, you keep buying and selling properties.  You finally realize that you are paying too much to the 3rd parties (through stamp duties, legal fees, agent commission, etc.).

3) The opportunists

The lizards remain stagnant most of the time.  Their tongue only flicked out when mosquitoes came near (often as a result of the chase of hyper lizards).  They made limited moves and with minimum efforts to get their lunch.

You have a game plan to play the property game.  You understand that “it is NOT how many times you buy, but what you buy” that counts.

Lessons learned

Lesson 1: Do less but do it well.  Buy less but buy it right.