The Best Advice I Can Give As A 44-Year Old Father and Property Investor

As parents and caregivers, we all aspire to provide the best life we can for our children.

As a father, I feel this responsibility is even more important as I am highly aware that my sons will watch carefully what I do or don't do.

So we carefully mould them to be caring, healthy, happy, and educated. But how often do we focus on their financial education?

Especially in the context of Singapore?

This is something I am beginning to discover as I upgraded my perspective in this real estate journey.

Here I share some of my thoughts about embarking on this journey of uprooting ourselves from a comfortable HDB to pursue this dream of property investing.

#1: Avoid Getting Stuck In Your Own Story

Did you think our journey towards upgrading started only when our HDB flat hit MOP?

Actually, no.

It started way earlier than that.

It started years back when I first became a father.

When I realized that I am now responsible for more than myself.

In life, we create stories in our heads based on what we see around us.

It started with the results we observed, usually those of adults around us.

And then, it continued with the results we create, usually very similar to the ones we observed as kids. This can be a vicious cycle.

Our story is created from our experiences.

Each time we have an experience, we filter it through our feeling and reason to either confirm or deny the truths we believe.

For example, when you were growing up, you noticed a family member invested in real estate but lost money.

Your takeaway was "don't invest in property!"

But in life, we do have choices.

We can choose either to learn from the experience by taking the lesson and building a new experience.

Or to get stuck in the drama of this story, which in the first place has nothing to do with you.

To be honest, I never imagined being able to upgrade to private property. Let alone two properties.

I didn't think it was possible because I grew up in a HDB all my life.

But as I educated myself, I started to realize it was actually possible.

I did my own numbers, my own research and talked to various agents.

What stories are you putting in your head about your own capabilities?

Are these stories supporting you or self-limiting you?

#2: Condition Our Children Since Young

I grew up in a HDB flat all my life. So did my wife.

We had no negative perception on property investing but our parents did not exactly equip us with advanced financial knowledge as well.

I don't think I can help my son buy his first apartment at 12 years old.

But I definitely can provide him with opportunities to expand his mindset that going after your dreams is possible.

We condition our kids that our lives are abundant and have an optimistic relationship with money.

And when they hear us say this regularly and announcing our dreams to upgrade from HDB to a condo, something intangible happens within them.

It programs their mindset that "if daddy and mummy can do it, then it means it is possible for me to do so one day."

It becomes a prosperous cycle that starts with you, what you believe, and just as important, what you say.

Once you’ve begun to master your own language and affirmations, help your child do the same.

Don’t let the negative conditioning you may have received in the past carry on to any more generations of your family.

#3: Let Go of Outdated and Limiting Beliefs

My wife and I made the conscious decision to upgrade our perspective on how to view our residence.

It cannot be just a home and a roof over our heads.Why?

Since we are already going to park significant sums of our retirement monies within this property anyway, it now has another purpose.

It has to serve us as another investment vehicle to achieve our retirement goals.

If we had left the money in our CPF OA, it would continue to earn 2.5% returns courtesy of the CPF Board.

But since we pulled it out to pay down our property mortgage, the property has to provide returns that are better than 2.5%.

Otherwise, we are the ones responsible to provide the 2.5% returns.

And so, we realized that we had to find a choice that was better than our existing HDB flat.

This was the first belief that we had to let go of.

And it also the most difficult one.

Because we had been conditioned all our lives by our parents and families that our HDB is the property we must hold on to for the rest of our lives.

A lifelong property.

But we also been told that our leases will run down and our HDB value will depreciate as time passes.

(By the way, this also applies to private properties.)

That's why we had to make a choice.

To exchange our HDB at the point where it is at its highest value and highly sought after....

To a property that can provide better performance in the future.

The Monkey Trap Story

There is this story I heard about how people used to trap monkeys.

The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut, chained to a stake.

The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole.

The monkey’s hand fits through the hole, but his clenched fist can’t fit back out.

The monkey is suddenly trapped. But not by anything physical.

The monkey is holding on to what it thinks is a "prize".

And continues to hold on and never thinking about unclenching its fist. What happened?

He’s trapped by an idea.

The idea which has become its life principle.

A principle is that "when you see rice, hold on tight!"

This principle will ultimately trap the monkey and kill it - especially when the hunters that set the trap arrive.

A lethal way to go just because it refuses to let go of a belief.

What Are Your Beliefs That Are Holding You Back?

This is a useful question for you to examine.

Is what we holding on to a prize or a liability?

I like to highlight there is no right or wrong answers here - it really depends on how you view your own situation.

But do be careful. What beliefs that have might served our parents and grandparents well - it might not serve us that well.

The difficulty lies, not in accepting the new ideas...

But in escaping from the old ones.

It is hard to escape from conditioning that we been brought up with since childhood.

Conclusion

In order to achieve that transformation that we want, we have to reset our minds and psychology to reinforce what it is that we want.

Instead of supporting the very thing from which you would like to move away from.

Are we "Playing to Win or Playing to Not Lose?"

If you do not recognize your truths, you will continue to affirm negative truths.

And if you continue to procrastinate, just remember that tomorrow isn't promised to any of us.

If you ever wondered what are your own options for yourself and your family, feel free to contact me for a no-obligation consultation.

Drop me a whatsapp message here: https://wa.me/6597733445/