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Buying a house isn't such an easy thing.
First, if you're buying a house as an investment, you definitely have to consider whether to sell it or rent it.
The rental yield of domestic properties has always been very low. The city where Finance's aunt invested in that property doesn't have a large population, and there's more than enough housing available for rent, which makes it impossible to raise the rent.
Finance's aunt also knew this and was definitely looking for a good opportunity to sell the house.
I believe that's what everyone who invests in real estate in the country thinks. They wait for the right moment to cash out.
How does an average person calculate a successful investment? If the money made from the sale of the house is more than what was paid for it, isn't that a successful investment?
Gu Nuan, who studied finance, would never think that way.
Investment is all about the return on investment (ROI).
In finance, ROI needs to be compared across multiple projects both vertically and horizontally. Simply calculating the ROI of a single project on its own is essentially meaningless for an investor who specializes in investing.
Even if the property goes up in value by a thousand per square meter, if it's not rented out during that period, it means it generates no income while sitting empty. The property's future value might depreciate rather than appreciate, because if there's no continuing net influx of urban population, the room for property value increase is limited.
Even if it's sold now, after paying taxes and other costs, which are to be included in the principal, the actual return might be less than expected.
On a horizontal comparison, if the money spent on buying the property had been invested in other projects, the ROI could be higher. For instance, investing in properties in major cities. The property values in big cities can increase much more over five years, and the likelihood of them continuing to appreciate is greater.
On a vertical comparison, the domestic currency has been consistently depreciating. Such a small increase in value is not sufficient to offset inflation.
To put it more bluntly, the returns from Finance's aunt's property investment are just marginally higher than the yields from government bonds. Then, with a more respectable title, "I made a fortune investing in property," she keeps up with the times.
That said, considering the state of Finance's aunt's husband's business, Gu Nuan would think that Finance's aunt was blind to have bought that property. It's simple – the property isn't easy to sell, meaning it can be quite difficult to find a buyer.
You can ask for a high price, but when you urgently need money and are in a hurry to sell, can you really sell it at its market value?
No.
Finance's aunt's husband is just a small local entrepreneur. Even the bosses of major companies may find themselves in a liquidity crunch that requires them to liquidate their fixed asset investments to obtain capital for business operations and bail out their companies.
If Finance's aunt's husband should find himself in an unfortunate situation where he urgently needs money, it's very likely they'd have to sell the property at a low price. At that time, there would be no point crying over it.
At this point, we can't say that Finance's aunt is completely without merit. She actually has really good luck.
Gu Nuan can only remember how both her mother and father would say that Finance's aunt's luck was extraordinary. Among all the relatives of Gu's father, it was Finance's aunt who was the luckiest. Being the least attractive among her sisters at home, she still managed to marry a business owner and enjoy the life of a lady; what doggone luck.
Yes, some people are just born lucky, the kind of doggone luck that no amount of jealousy or envy can change.
It's like what somebody said, "There's nothing I can do about it. Being rich is just my destiny!"
Now that they've gotten out of the car, Gu Nuan looked up and saw the mountainside inherited by Finance's aunt from her father.
Is it really just exceptional doggone luck?
No!
It's because Finance's aunt's father was the person in the village with the most investment foresight.
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