Improving a property investment portfolio is as difficult or as easy as you want to make it, depending on how emotionally or psychologically involved you become with your investments.
Many investors do in depth research into investments, but when it comes down to the final few they choose based on a gut feeling, or a notion of their superior judgement skills and investment aptitude. Because their feelings are brought into the equation, poorly performing investments are often kept far longer than they should be, because rather than force their ego to admit they made a mistake, they continue to give it chance after chance to pick up.
Others simply choose an investment or investments based on brochures, websites or the word of a high street sales advisor. The chances are that they have ended up with underperforming property investment portfolios, and the worst thing is that they probably don't even know it.
The best investors continue to look at the statistics, the reports, their own calculations and projections until a final choice can be made based on cold hard facts. These investors end up with investment property portfolios filled with only the best performing investments. If you are reading this and it is touching a cord, then you are probably worried that you have fallen into the first category, and made the wrong choices when it comes to property portfolio investments. Thank fully it is not too late.
The good thing about statistics, calculations, projections and cold hard facts is that they are always there, constantly recording, unquestionable and all there in black and white. We simply need to look at them.
At least once a quarter -- once per month is better and once per week is better still -- we should be opening the book, looking at the performance record of each of our investment products, and comparing it with the rest of the market across the same category. We may want to increase our exposure to bond-based-funds, which are often safer, and reduce our exposure to mortgage backed securities. In one quarter Reports might indicate the east European REITs have been hotting up, meanwhile those in Asia have started to overheat, so we reduce our exposure to Asian REITs and increase our exposure to those in Eastern Europe.
In almost every quarter we will be changing something about our investments, especially as volatile as the world is right now. Another good idea is to create watch-lists; sometimes good investment funds, with good projections will have a really bad quarter. In this case they wouldn't necessarily be reduced but they would be put on a watch-list for increased monitoring. If we do a full check once per quarter, then we would check our watch lists monthly.
Fund managers will try to tell you that investments should be made over the long term, and that you should stick with them through the rough times to enjoy the full benefit. This is true of actual real estate, but when it comes to funds and shares it is better to be ready and willing to catch on to short term trends.
*This page is provided for information purposes only and should not be construed as offering advice. IPIN is not licensed to give financial advice and all information provided by IPIN regarding real estate should never be treated as specific advice or regulations. This is standard practice with property investment companies as the purchase of property as an investment is not regulated by the UK or other Financial Services Authorities.