It has been proven time and again that property is the surest way of attaining personal financial independent. If we study how the richest people in the UK and the world make their fortunes from, we will notice immediately that 1 in 5 of their fortunes comes from property.

Using UK property as an example, property provides the investor with a variety of positive aspects:

• During the 5 years to November 2004, house prices have risen by 97% *
• The FTSE 100 index fell by 27% over the same period. *
  Property has been a consistent year-on-year outperformer of stocks and shares. **
• Over the past 18 months the market in the UK has enjoyed exceptional capital growth of between 20%-30% per annum
  The latest Government projections show an increase of households of up to 14% by 2021, whereas Halifax predict a housing shortfall of at least 400,000 by that date.
• Whilst the number of households has increased by almost 50 per cent over the last 40 years, the number of people in the average UK household is reducing. People are living longer and divorcing more frequently. There is also a greater trend towards single occupation - people preferring to live on their own, particularly in their youth and old age.
• Property has become a recognised alternative / subsidy to underperforming private pensions
• It provides the prospect of withdrawing tax-free lump sums
• It offers the potential of releasing funds for future investment purposes
• It offers strong capital growth potential
• It can be passed on in perpetuity

* Source Sunday Times Money ** Source IPD UK

It is not hard to see that a smart property investor would be well positioned to capitalise on these trends over the next decade and beyond. By utilising our investment approach any property investor could stand to make significant profit, both from escalating prices and the rental income from a steadily growing pool of renters. Building Your Own Portfolio We firmly believe in advising our clients to invest at least 25% of their assets in a diversified portfolio of properties. We assist our clients to structure their property portfolio correctly and review it on a regular basis. Investing in property is an art and many new investors do not fully understand the need for or nature of a diversified property portfolio. Some of them have far too much exposure to one market and have not addressed the need for a balanced mix between income and capital gain.

To assist in this regard, we help our clients identify their medium and long term goals and advise on products that will help them achieve these. However, we are not financial planners. We only review the property component of a portfolio and always leave general financial planning to experts in that field.