Here’s a flashback from February 2007, just four months before prices peaked around Seattle, then tumbled 25% in two and a half years (so far). The Everett Herald brought us “Mr. Nest Egg,” who declared that “the traditional advice is outdated” and the best way to save for retirement is… You guessed it, buy real estate.
Many dream of being millionaires, while others work hard toward that goal.
Howard Bono [owner of Old West Mortgage in Everett], on the other hand, wants to help others – 1,000 other people, to be exact – amass that kind of wealth.
“The truth is, I started with the goal of creating 100 millionaires, but I thought ‘that’s just not big enough,'” said Bono, who has spent the past 15 years in the mortgage industry. “I needed something that was big enough that I might never accomplish it.”
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When it comes to the long-term goal of retirement, Bono doesn’t offer the traditional advice, however. That’s because the traditional advice is outdated, he said.
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…Bono suggests, in addition to preaching everyday financial fitness, that people use property as a tangible investment for retirement.His rationale? Real estate values in the Puget Sound region grow, on average, by 7 percent a year. Which means if you buy a second property and hold onto it for a couple of decades, its value is bound to grow to three or four times what you paid. In the meantime, the second home can be rented out for additional income to cover its mortgage.
The key is to hold onto property long enough for it to dramatically rise in value.
It looks like Mr. Bono was successful in choosing a goal that he might never accomplish, but mainly because he left out one crucial piece of advice.
There’s no mention in the article at all about being cautious to properly choose when you buy. Just buy-and-hold, that’s all Mr. Bono says it takes to become a millionaire. Historically, that has been a good plan in general, but if you buy right at the top and lose a third of your leveraged investment in the first few years, your dream of retirement savings can quickly turn into a nightmare of multiple foreclosures.
So what is Mr. Bono up to these days? Is he still hawking his free “life-changing” workshops?
Judging by the speaking page on his “Everyday Millionaire” website, it would appear that Mr. Bono disappeared sometime in late 2007, as the local housing market began to tumble. What a shock.
It will be interesting to see how quickly Howard Bono and those like him reappear with their tales of easily accumulated wealth through real estate once home prices eventually begin to creep back up.