critical, bold views against HERD instinct or conventional mainstream thinking
For me, cash flow is not among the top 2 retirement challenges :
People have a fear of the unknown, and unfamiliar. The alternative investments often come with legality concerns.
I like to do the legwork, ask my load of questions and seriously consider a proposed private equity deals like :
Defensive portolio is an important and popular theme, popular with retail investors, important in academia.
It assumes cashflow is the most important human need (necessary and almost sufficient factor), but how about food supply, healthcare, family?
Look at the blogpost such as G5 Shields@family_livelihood .. Adequate-cashflow-when-needed is only one of my top 5 protections, therefore overrated.
In a blackswan event (not as rare as earthquakes) such as the covid19 pandemic, ordinary people like me worry about food security, hospital overrun, restriction in travel and family reunion. These human needs … are beyond what cashflow can provide.
How about street safety, air/water pollution, water shortage, climate change?
Background — A Luxury home (including most SDXQ homes) is comfortable and built for the affluent family, not for multiple blue-collar families. Most tenants in the market are blue-collar people, not affluent families.
— absolute sqf size
A luxury home has slightly higher psf pricing than regular homes, but twice or even more in sqf size. A 3000 sqf home can house 4 families but only if built as a MFD. Luxury homes are not MFD, therefore very low rental yield.
— For rental yield,
(This kind of blogpost is best done in git-blogging 🙂 The consumerism has hijacked this phrase “finer things in life”, but to me, most finer things in life are free or easily available to the lower-income families.
— %%preference4fine dining
After the considerations in this bpost, I have to ask myself “how much/little value, personally?”. Fine dining may give high satisfaction to some individuals, but its value is rather low to me. With $20 I can get excellent dining experience, and fine dining rarely surpass it.
There’s nothing “exceptional” here. Such a level of experience doesn’t exist.
Overall, Cosme experience was no really better than DosToros. Both felt like Mexican to me.
A crude but useful analog — sexual satisfaction. Some people try novel techniques, use fancy products, go to /exotic/ places,,, to elevate their experience. For other people, a quick rutine once a month with the same old partner is all they need. They don’t experience anything exceptional even if they spend a million dollars to create it.
— not too fatty like visible fatMeat/mayo/butter, or deep-fried
— not too filling like Starchy, thick cream,,,
Seafood is generally lighter and easier to digest
I am learning to enjoy low-starch dishes, though Starch is a major component of 80% of fine-dining dishes.
— trySomethingUnfamiliar .. I need to see the photo to be sure. If it doesn’t look enticing, then poor prospect.
— desserts at fine dining tend to be tiny and shocking expensive. You pay for the preparation and subtle differentiation. These unfamiliar and fancy desserts have never surpassed my old favorites [cheasecake, brownie, chendol,,] which never exceed $10. If I benchmark 性价比, then it’s an obvious no-no.
The differentiation has $0 value in my mouth.
— raw veg .. (including salads) I tend to eat lots of raw veg in my everday diet. In an expensive dish featuring raw veg I don’t want to pay for them.
Unlike cooked veg which often adds unique flavor, raw veg could never really enrich the other “things”, definitely not in my taste.
I have learned to enjoy raw veg as bland (often flavorless), light, simple, clean, protective, life-enhancing,,, foods, nothing more nothing less, even when mixed with something (anything) fancy.
I feel lucky to have Singapore citizenship. Now I feel SG citizenship is better than U.S. green card because
Q: If SG citizenship offers so many tantalizing carefree features, then why are they unattractive to so many shrewd Chinese professionals?
— rental:
Contrary to some claims, the same price two studios are faster to rent out than a 2BR. Now I feel it’s “much faster”.
Perhaps 2BR has better windfall potential but windfall takes a long time, and at this stage of my life I care more about current income, as long as NAV is not sacrificed.
The current income should come from “free cash flow”.
— resale: I have the same bias. See Cambodia residential properties for China investors #XR
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I have come across a tiny number of assets featuring higher return, lower risk than the standard assets, but not obvious so insight or due diligence are required.
Q: how many millionaires are there per 100 people in your country?
I think SG is a rich population of relatively “even distribution”, giving rise to more millionaires (per 1000 population) than other cities including NY, HK etc.
All the discussions so far include home value as part of NAV. By this definition (i.e. NAV definition 1), many paper-millionaires are cash poor and paper-rich, with huge portions of personal wealth locked up in illiquid assets. Retirement account[Annuity…] is another illiquid asset class.
Compare FullerWealth definition. Those paper millionaires by Definition1 are often very poor by FullerWealth.
NAV Definition 2: NAV excluding your primary residence, including all retirement accounts that belong to you.
NAV Definition 3: NAV excluding your primary residence, including _only_ retirement accounts that you can use within 3Y.
In SG (and other cities), Definition 2 could cut the millionaire count by half or more.
The millionaire renter family is an interesting case. They often own investment properties.