Thinking of becoming a Landlord ?

By Andrew Histon

Introduction A lot of people consider buying a house to let , there are many reasons in the UK, especially before the recent recession. The recession though has forced many unlucky people into rental accommodation. So if you have the money to invest now may be the time. This article though is about some of considerations you should be thinking about before making those first steps.

What is the right house to let ? Some of the fun is finding one for yourself but it is possible to hand over all the 'buy to let' process to property management company. Even using a property company to find the house requires you to make some decisions and below is a very in complete list of some of the obvious questions you should be asking yourself.

Some of my advice would include: Is the area a common place for renting , i.e students ? If you did need to sell the house quickly, could you ? Is the house right for renting ? meaning does it have expensive fittings that would cost a lot to replace if broken. Does the house need renovation before you could start renting it out, is it ready to go ? People renting are not looking for a place forever, it is properly a stop gap for while.

Should I engage a property management company ? Now you maybe thinking how hard can it be ? Surely renting out a house is just a case of keeping one eye on the property and make sure the rent gets paid. My advice would be unless you really comfortable with the idea or have experience of handling the public then consider a property management company. The property management company can deal with all the awkward side of tenants and you collect the money. Depends on what deal you strike

A good company should offer the services shown here: Collection of rent each month Inspections (reports on request) Regular Contact and Updates Service of Notices Initial rental valuation Arrange safety checks Accompany viewings Check References Estimates for repairs and refurbishment Insurance claims dealt with Receipt of Damage Deposit in cleared funds Final Inspection at the end Tenancy Agreement

The 'No hassle' factor does come into play and it only means a little lose in fees. It's like the old story 'if you have time and no how, if you don't then leave it to the experts'.

Things you have to do, some are lawful requirements and some aren't ? As of October 2008 all buildings, whenever they are built, sold or rented out, will require one. Improving the energy performance of buildings - Energy Performance Certificates. The EPC provides 'A' to 'G' ratings for buildings, with 'A' being the most energy efficient and 'G' being the least, with the average to date being 'D'. The EPC is designed to bring about a series of measures being introduced across Europe to reflect legislation which will help cut buildings carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

Property Maintenance It may be necessary to carry out general repairs on your property from time to time. Maintenance problems may occur at any time, day or night and to any property. When such a repair is reported by the tenant, you or the property management company will assess the repair. Based upon the inspection, you will need to repair or get someone to repair. You don't hold all the liability of repair and you should think about this when interviewing a potential tenant.

Hopefully repairs won't occur very often, but when they do, please remember that it is in the interest of your property, your investment, to ensure that these repairs are carried out quickly and efficiently.

Buildings and Contents Insurance The policies available may cover a full replacement value for possessions buildings, (Subject to terms and conditions of selected policy). Are you aware that you might have inadequate Buildings and/or Contents Insurance?As you are letting your property you current insurance may be void if there were ever to be a claim. You will need an insurance which is designed for tenanted properties housing professional, working, DSS or students.

Gas Appliances Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations Act 1994, any person (Landlord) who is letting (Renting) properties must maintain all Gas Appliances and have them checked for safety by a CORGI Registered engineer or company at least once every twelve months. The records of these checks including any repairs are to be kept by the landlord or the landlords agents (which ever is carrying out the letting) for the tenants to see upon request. You are therefore legally obliged to have all the Gas Appliances in the property or properties you are letting out checked for safety and bought up to standard by a qualified engineer or company.

It should be noted: These requirements are by current British Law. You are therefore allowed to use any company or engineer of your choice to carry out the safety checks provided that they are CORGI registered and can provide certificates. It is in your own interest that you ask to see copies of this certificate beforehand to ensure that they are properly qualified to carry out the checks.

Summary Make sure you get good advice from the right people, all people will have a point of view on renting, but the right advice for you is what you need. Hopefully this article hasn't put you, if it hasn't, then you could make good money from renting out property.

Andrew Histon compiles articles for Investment opportunities , and other money website. He has many articles published on the internet. What interests Andrew about Lettings in peterborough is that so few websites offer good impartial information. - 23223

About the Author:

Based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire Andrew Histon has written articles for Investment opportunities sector. This is just one of many articles about money, of which Peterborough Lettings are is just one tiny part of.

Understand Forex

By E.Jonson

All traders aim for incessantly flowing profits and one that speaks about unremitting gains. If you are serious to learn forex and make this a profitable business, one must go out of his way to learn all encompassing and embracing knowledge about the trade. Learning the trade does not only call for the basics, but also in finding the best software to facilitate you when its time to take your turn in the forex market.

The name of the game is statistics, and the first rule is that you must be aware there is no such thing as a sure thing on the forex market. While you can never be 100% sure at any given time of the next move that will be made on the market as a whole, being able to read statistics and interpret them will place you ahead of the pack in regards to "guessing" what will happen next.

Forex trading is a lot like gambling. If you can keep track of the cards that have already been played, you are more informed, statistically, regarding what is likely to be dealt next, meaning you can place a bet with greater insight than someone who has no clue what has already been played. With the forex market, if you have information as to what has already occurred over the past few days, months, or even years, you are again placed in a better position to more logically conclude what will happen next. You simply learn the pattern and follow it to the end, reaping the financial rewards.

With a lot of traders gradually becoming aware of these forex bots, many of them have attested to the marketing advantage of these forex indicators. One of the trademarks of these forex autopilots is that it facilitates the monitoring of forex market even if a trader is inactive. This calls for an incessant 24/7 monitoring with forex signals coming in real time as a means of updating a trader of the next best thing to employ.

The best part of this is that you have access to the same information as these VIP clients. Chartists, who are essentially market analysts that publish their findings in easy to read charts, produce what is referred to as a candlestick charts. These charts are basically a combination of a line graph and a bar graph that show the trend of various stocks, indexes, or other interests over a specified period of time. Therefore, you can easily determine if the currency is on an uptrend or if it is taking a downturn, when the last major change occurred, and how long it is predicted that the currency pair will continue on the current path.

Lastly, if you have acquaintances that are actively trading at the Forex market, it is best to seek their opinions and advices. You can ask them about the jargons used in Forex trading. If you are lucky enough, they can also teach you the finer points of developing an effective Forex strategy. Their experience in trading could help you a lot especially in finding opportunities to gain significantly from Forex. Be sure however to get advice from those who are successful at the Forex market.

As a final point, you can learn forex and be rich only if you know how to appositely handle and maintain your status in the forex market. As the rule implies, know when the best time to trade to create streams of income and the time not to trade to avoid profit losses. It is as simple as that. - 23223

About the Author:

Learning how to trade forex successfully is not the easiest thing around. That's why I had to write a post about it and my forex blog.

Option Trading, Risk Management, and The Global Macro Trader

By George Thiel

One of the best things about being a global macro trader is that of being able to profit when things go crazy. Put another way global macro traders live for events that are covered in risk. If there is no risk then there is likely no reward. Of course blindly taking risks is a road to guaranteed ruin.

Position sizing is one of the first tools that a global macro trader, or any trader for that matter should be concerned with. Position sizing allows you to know how much you are risking at the position and portfolio level. There is or at least can be a lot that goes into your position sizing algorithm. Some of the important factors are the amount of your portfolio you are willing to risk. The distance from your entry to your stop. And the probability of the trade working out. You can put in hundreds of other factors but these are a good starting point.

Once you have determined the right position size, or amount to risk on a given trade it is now time to look at how you can structure the trade to maximize your risk to reward and to cut off tail risk. What is tail risk? Tail risk is a term used to describe risks that fall outside of a normal distributed curve. Essentially a tail risk is something like a bomb going off in a major city or the CEO of a company getting arrested for fraud. Anything that can absolutely destroy a position is considered a tail risk.

One of the easiest ways to cut off tail risk is by building your position using options. When you are a net buyer of volatility, which is to say that you are long options whether they be calls or puts, you are only risking the amount that you have put into the trade. For instance if the option position costs you one thousand dollars then you can not lose more then that.

Options are very useful to cut off tail risk because they totally limit your risk while allowing for plenty of upside. In fact sometimes they provide a lot more bang for the buck then an outright stock position as they can have a lot of inherent leverage.

As with any trading strategy however there is still some risks that you must be aware of. Two of the most common are one that you may be overpaying for the options. Just like when you buy a stock you don't want to pay too much.

The other major risk is that your time horizon does not fit the trade. If you want to hold the position for years then move on and probably pass on using options. However if you want to hold it for weeks to months then go in and check them out as you can do a lot of risk reduction using options.

Ensure that in your trading you are doing everything possible to maximize your risk to reward ratio by paying the majority of the attention the risk management segment of trading. Are you trading for fun or praise, or are you trying to make money? - 23223

About the Author:

If you need actionable trading ideas then check out The Macro Trader Itis a weekly global macro trading advisory publication with frequent intra-week updates for time-critical analysis and actionable trading ideas.

Forex Made Easy Secrets

By Chan Boldene

If you've been following Forex at all over the last few years, you've probably heard the statistic that 95% of all traders lose money at this profession (before applying Forex Made Easy principles). Let's think about that for a sec. 95% of all traders lose their money. So, how can you become part of the five percent who actually "win" in this profession? Simple, education and experience.

Forex Made Easy Secret: Education.

Ignorance about the hobby/profession can be costly and dangerous (in any field actually). Hand over your hard-earned money to a clerk in the local 7/11, it would be no different. But, there are many online programs and courses available, so which should you choose? Again, the answer is easy, too easy in fact: the course that's free! And everyone likes free. But but but... No buts. There are hundreds of courses available for free, you just need to search for them. Remember, not being educated could land you broke and frustrated. Part of the 95% losers. Another statistic.

The Second Forex Made Easy Secret is Experience.

The next best teacher is experience. When your money is on the line, you need to have experience making the trades, clicking the buttons, watching your money rise and fall with each tick. The only way you can do this is through experience (actually making the trades). Seems obvious, doesn't it?

But most Forex Made Easy readers will jump right in and watch their hard earned dollars or euros fly out the window. Sure they had a plan but they didn't follow it. Sure they had goals but they weren't realistic. Sure they had an account but they were undercapitalized. Sure they had a hunch which way the market was going to go, but that's all it was, a hunch.

Greed is a large factor in the Forex market (and other markets in general). People want to make a boatload of money quickly. It just doesn't happen that way. Very few things in life do.

Having said all that, learning a profitable trading program is do-able and easy. The difficult part for most traders is getting the right psychology, wrapping their heads around a few basic concepts. Here are some facts that you must accept:

- You will win; you will lose. Everybody does, even the best of the best.

- You need discipline to trade. Without discipline you will fail. Period.

Trading the Forex Made Easy way can be profitable. It's not just about watching the ticks go up and down. It takes a combination of managing risk, accepting losses, and keeping great discipline in order to succeed. - 23223

About the Author:

Mr. Boldene is a Freelance Writer and writes about many subjects. To view more about the Forex Made Easy way, select the Forex Made Easy Info Blog button or the Forex Made Easy Intro.

Seasonal Patterns in Forex Markets

By Hass67

Many forex traders depend on either fundamental analysis or technical analysis in their trading. The savvier among them try to combine both in making predictions about the direction a particular currency is going to follow in the future.

Fundamental analysis depends on the study of underlying economic factors that affect currency markets. Technical analysis is based on the premise that past price action can be used to make predictions about the future price action in forex markets.

If you have been trading stocks, you must be familiar with the term: The January Effect. It has been observed over a long period of time that stocks tend to perform very well between the last week of December and the first week of January.

The explanation why this effect takes place is quite simple. At the end of the year, many investors try to realize capital gains or losses to file their tax returns. Many corporations also try to adjust their balance sheets favorably at the end of the year.

The interesting fact is that seasonality is not peculiar to the stock markets. Forex markets also tend to show seasonal effects. Seasonality is defined as a pattern that occurs at a particular time of the year.

The January Effect also affects forex markets due to the fact that many investors who are adjusting their stock positions try to convert their local currencies into dollars at that time.

However, dollar may show stronger January Effect with some currencies as compared to others. It has also been studied that dollar shows a summer seasonality when it tends to rise in USD/JPY and USD/CAD in the month of July and give back its gains in the month of August.

There are many seasonal patterns in currency pairs that have been studied in other parts of the year. Now, it does not mean that you should take these effects blindly and trade based on them.

Seasonality in currency pairs only means that there is a strong probability that during a particular time of the year, the chances of a particular currency pair going up or down are high.

In certain years, the effect may be pronounced. Just remember that many economic forces play a role in effecting the currencies so in other years, the seasonal effects may not be so pronounced. As a forex trader, you only need to understand these seasonal effects while trading during that time of the year. - 23223

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading; stocks and forex. Read about Trend Forex System. Best Forex Signal Service.