Investment

After nearly 3 years of working, I am now entering the saving/investment stage.

I have been saving a little bit in my maxinvest and asb through monthly deduction but that is quite insignificant. Being in the investment world, I am presented with all kind of products, which offer varying returns, depending on the amount of risk you are willing to take.

Since I got burnt through shares investment last year, I am now taking baby steps in this investment business. However, I am looking to diversify my investments, to ensure not to put all-eggs-in-one-basket as the saying goes.

Hence, this year, I have decided on 2 long term investments:

1) Property investment - Bought a 3-bedroom medium-low cost apartment for rental purpose in Kajang. Very near to my current house, which makes it easier for monitoring, I hope. Signed loan agreement, S&P etc... Waiting for all that to be processed and the next step is the key taking event, which marks me as the rightful owner of the house. Hopefully will have a new tenant by then as the current tenants' contract ends in May and they have no intention in renewing it.

2) Applied for ASB loan - This one has been pushed to me several times a few years back but I had no intention to invest here as I was led to believe (by myself) that saving small amount of money monthly is more beneficial than taking this big amount loan. However, since the topic was brought up by Hudam in the email loop the other day, we had the opportunity to revisit the topic and discussed about it extensively. Conclusion, still a good investment to take as long as dividend > interest charged on loan. So yeah, just signed my application for that too... Split the big amount into two so that it would be easier for me to prepay the amount in the event of high interest rate later.

I initially had the intention to own 3 houses by the age of 30... The value of the houses need not be big as I have budget constraint but they need to be in an area with high rental demand. Now that I have found ASB loan, I might have to cut down on the houses or extend the deadline. I do think the ASB loan is a good investment now, given that PNB keeps making money and pay that high dividend they are currently doing.

Have fun investing, ppl!