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Phil Town-Speculation is a bad idea

November 15th, 2009 · Phil Town

phil_town12Phil Town is from Atlanta and is an RULE #1 Investor.

Phil Town wants you to imagine that you are a new to investing and you get this advice:  Buy businesses that you don’t understand, which don’t have a track record that you can make any kind of coherent prediction from, and which big institutions are buying but you don’t know why.  Oh, and don’t even consider what the business is worth or whether the numbers make any sense at all.  Just invest in it anyway.  It could go up fast and you don’t want to miss the boat on this investment.

This was the advice many people were hearing from brokers and investing gurus in 1999-2000.  This advice cost so many people so much money that it is truly amazing to see it in print so soon after the 2007-2008 market melt-down.  But there it is, in black and white, at IBD’s Investor’s Corner on Friday.

The investing article starts off with about as stupid a statement as a RULE #1 investor could ever make regarding your research into a business that you plan on buying: “Ignorance is bliss.”

Actually, the author may be right given that what he is proposing isn’t investing at all – it’s pure speculation.  Speculators, by definition, are working the greater fool theory of investing — buying with the hope that an even bigger and even more blissfully ignorant fool will come along to buy this thing from them for more than they paid.  For a born-to-lose speculator, ignorance is, indeed, bliss because knowing that they are about to get nailed for their money would be all too painful.  Better to just stay stupid and hope everything just goes up.

Don’t hold your breath while you’re waiting for this market to launch.  It could be another 15 years of nowhere.

The RULE #1 investing strategy that has compounded money at 20% plus for the last 80 years and will continue to do so for the next 80 years takes the view that the market might not just go up.  Therefore you must buy investments as a business, know the value of the business you are buying, wait for the inevitable market flucuation, and a buy it at a big discount to value.

Ignorance is bliss?  Not with RULE #1 investments it isn’t.

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King Family squabbles in Atlanta

October 12th, 2009 · Atlanta homes, Atlanta homes for sale, atlanta home

Looks like in Atlanta homes families do not always see eye-t0-eye, especially when it comes to money and settling the affairs of an an estate.

The children of Atlanta’s own Martin Luther King, Jr are entering into a court battle. Dexter King has asked a judge to force Bernice King to turn over their mother’s personal papers, including love letters central to a now-defunct $1.4 million book deal.

Martin Luther King, III and Bernice King complained that their brother Dexter King was derelict in not holding a shareholders meeting, which they said was another example of his lack of openness in handling their father’s Atlanta Homes estate.

There had been no shareholders’ meeting of the corporation since 2004, something that Dexter King blamed on the distraction caused by the deaths of his mother and sister. Judge Ural D. Glanville ordered a meeting, which was held sometime last week in the Atlanta homes of the siblings..

There was a September court hearing, Judge Glanville, who will preside over the trial in Fulton County Superior Court, also expressed some concern about Dexter’s management of Dr. King’s estate.

The Atlanta judge issued an order saying “the court is extremely troubled” in regards to what he was seeing in the initial filing by the siblings.

Dexter is the majority shareholder, and carries significant power in the corporation because he holds 80 percent of  all its shares. The judge warned all three of the siblings that any failure to comply with the Georgia Corporation Code could result in the dissolution of the corporation and that would cause some serious problems in Atlanta for the King siblings. More Atlanta homes news in each of the weekly blog posts.

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Visiting Charleston

October 7th, 2009 · Atlanta homes for sale, atlanta home

Voted the “best-mannered” city in the U.S and one of the fastest growing central cities in South Carolina is also one of the oldest cities in the entire USA. This city is called Charleston SC. An opportunity in the venerable Charleston SC real estate market has also made it one of the most desirable places to locate a business and to build a dream  home.

What makes Charleston SC real estate so desirable these days? It could be the hometown look as one of America’s cities with tree-lined streets of grand oaks or the pastel homes dotting the waterfront, or maybe the fact it has the 2nd most productive port in the world. It may also be the agreeable weather, with steady seasons and very mild winters that rarely witness snowfall. Of course, the answer could be in the people themselves, with their southern charm and polite manners.

Charleston is Rich in history, The city was originally founded in 1670 as Charles Towne. Early Charleston SC real estate was commissioned for military purposes. The old colonial city was instrumental in the American Revolutionary war as well as the Civil War. Nearby Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter are active tourist spots. The Old Exchange and Customs House in downtown Charleston, finished in 1771, still stands today as a historical reminder of the place where several signers of the Declaration of Independence were held in the basement dungeon. The building also hosted events for President George Washington in 1791, and was the signing of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

The city as a whole attracts a considerable amount of visitors every year and has become a tourist hotspot. In addition to the opportunities in Charleston SC real estate for tourist related businesses, there are quite a few of opportunities for homebuyers wishing to buy Charleston SC real estate and relocate their families. Some of these opportunities exist in the many prime employers that have made Charleston their corporate home and providing jobs to residents.

Recent corporate moves to the area include Blackbaud, Modulant, CSS, Benefitfocus, and Google in the technology field as well as aerospace industry companies ‘Vought’ and ‘Alenia Aeronautica’, an assembly and fabrication plant for the Boeing 787. These companies have invested heavily in the area and have helped the area economy with higher wages, further making Charleston homes affordable for the working class.

Charleston also is a city of fine art, annually hosting one of the largest art festivals, the Spoleto Festival USA, a 17-day festival featuring over 100 performances by individual artists in a variety of disciplines. Another art festival is the two week MOJA festival celebrating African-American and Caribbean arts, music, and culture.

Artists from around the USA come to exhibit and sell their works at the annual Fine Art weekend held every November, attracting hundreds of art collectors and dealers to the city. Many of these artists have invested in the Charleston SC real estate market to be close to this city of culture.

History, culture, economic opportunity are all reasons to further examine the Charleston SC real estate market. If you are looking for fresh opportunities in a city as old as the nation itself, yet young and forward-looking, give the Charleston homes a serious look.

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Atlanta Homes and Clayton Homes soon?

October 4th, 2009 · Atlanta homes, Atlanta homes for sale, atlanta home

I’ve been researching the Clayton Homes concept which is one of those Berkshire Hathaway companies. These homes are green concept homes that are built around comfort and quality in a new home for less money. I’m hoping to see some Clayton homes in the Atlanta area soon.


They offer you the ability to customize your new home and choose a floor plan from hundreds of modular home specs and manufactured homes. These Clayton homes and manufactured homes that are precision built in state of the art facilities throughout the U.S. This allows for on time delivery of your Atlanta Home and eliminates weather delays and construction costs due to wastefulness. Clayton Homes has a highly engineered building system that is almost a science and certainly the future of home building. As the nation’s largest home builder, the modular home and manufactured home industry offer a very unique value for every pricepoint imaginable.

Seeking to domino the success of this trend Clayton homes just announced a partnership with a big homes contractor to create a new green, multi-family housing design. This concept will be tested and applied to the construction of six housing building at Raintree Apartments in Knoxville near the U.T. campus.  The construction estimate for completion is set for December 2009. I’m hoping to see this green concept take off and be apart of the Atlanta homes community.

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Atlanta Housewives

October 3rd, 2009 · Atlanta homes, Atlanta homes for sale

Atlanta is known for many things but sadly also for crime. Atlanta homicide detectives recently arrested a suspect in the from reality television show The Real Housewives of Atlanta. The suspect was the former fiancee.


Ashley “A.J.” Jewell, who was engaged to Kandi Burruss until last August, died of massive head injuries he suffered in a “one-on-one” fight in the parking lot of an Atlanta club.

Richardson was also hospitalized due to injuries sustained in the fight and is at Grady Memorial Hospital, but will be jailed once released by this Atlanta hospital.

Atlanta police spokesman James Polite said detectives were still “trying to figure out [what happened].But felt like they had a pretty good number of witnesses that are being cooperative.”


Detective Polite said Jewell worked at the club but he did not know in what capacity.It appears that Jewell had bought an interest in an Atlanta club but she did not identify the business.

Kandi Burruss thanked friends for their condolences and asked for prayers for Jewell’s six children.

She also asked to be left alone. “im just in one of those moods where i dont wanna talk, i dont wanna b held & told its gonna b ok. Burruss is an award-winning singer-songwriter and was a member of the now-disbanded R&B group Xscape.

According to an interview last month with the entertainment Web site Essence.com, Burruss and Jewell had taken a “hiatus” from their relationship but remained friends while they worked on their issues.


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Atlanta Homes does Vegas

October 3rd, 2009 · Atlanta homes, Atlanta homes for sale

Atlanta Homes takes a little retreat to Las Vegas.

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Atlanta Homes Market

October 2nd, 2009 · Atlanta homes, Atlanta homes for sale

Atlanta Homes Market Recovery

“A worldwide recovery is materializing, led by the developing economies of East Asia and India,” According to Lockhart The FED RESERVE BANK CEO from Atlanta. “Data released last week indicate that global trade increased at its fastest pace in five years. Foreign demand is expected to add about 1.3 percentage points to the U.S. gross domestic product once the final numbers are calculated.” Global trade is a “surprisingly positive factor” in the U.S. economy, Dennis Lockhart, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.



Mr. Lockhart did caution, however, that the uptick in global economies may not be a solid as U.S. trading partners cut back on government economic stimulus spending. He spoke  to a packed room big crowd, the Fed executive painted a mixed picture of the U.S. economy. “Unquestionably, the economy is improving,” Mr. Lockhart said. “But the vital signs – as captured in macroeconomic data – are mixed. There are pluses and minuses, positives and negatives. It’s not a uniform picture. Optimism is warranted but should be tempered by awareness that this an economy temporarily buttressed by a large number of temporary government support programs.”



The housing market is the key to an economic recovery in Atlanta and nationally. We’ve got to see this respond in order to have any sustained long term economic recover. He noted that housing has been helped by government programs, including a first-time homebuyer’s tax credit, which expires Dec. 1. Mr. Lockhart expressed concern about commercial real estate, saying the downturn in that sector could cause a setback in banking. “I see as uncertain the time required for the housing market to return to health, the potential commercial real estate drag on the financial system, the sustainability of recovery in the absence of government supports and the resurgence of private demand,” he said. “I see all those as uncertain.”  There are so many great opportunities to find your dream Atlanta home in this market.

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Great deals in Buckhead

September 27th, 2009 · Atlanta homes, Atlanta homes for sale

Buckhead Coalition has taken out ads in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming that the dipping economy has left the Buckhead area of Atlanta with a lot of real estate at “fire sale” prices.

“We decided to be pro-active in reminding the wider business community that there are now great deals to be had here in Buckhead,” said former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, who is the president of the Buckhead coalition.

The Buckhead community is among the country’s most affluent, but that hasn’t kept it from a decline in demand that has left over Two million square feet of available office space unleased.



Mr. Sprouse said his organization targets its promotions more narrowly to site-selection consultants in New York, New Jersey, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta. Plus, he and his team travel often to Dallas and Phoenix to meet prospects face to face.

There are so many properties and deals available in the whole Metro Atlanta area for those who know how to do value investing in Real Estate.

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