1. Review and Protect Your Information –

The first line of defense in financial fraud is to periodically check your credit report to ensure all your information is accurate. Remember there are three credit agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) which all operate independently. Make sure you check your credit report from all three because they may each have different information.

2. Destroy Credit Card Mail Offers and Old Financial Documents –

If you receive direct or pre-approved solicitations in the mail for new credit cards and do not use them make sure you shred or tear them up before throwing them away. In addition, shred all financial papers including cancelled checks, old bank account statements, or any document with your identity.

3. Watch Out For E-mail or Telephone Fraudsters –

Never give your personal or financial information out on the internet or phone unless you initiated the contact. This is especially true with giving out your social security or credit card number. Watch out for e-mails from fraudsters that state they need your account information or credit card number to update your account with your bank or an online company like e-bay. Never give out personal information over e-mail! Many times these e-mails will have links for you to click on that take you to a website that looks authentic. However more times than not, it is a scam to get your personal and financial information.

4. Social Security Number –

Keep your social security number in a safe place with other financial documents. DO NOT carry your social security card in your wallet and remember to shred your old social security statements. It is also recommended to not store your social security number on your computer as hackers may have access to it. Never print your social security number on your checks, credit card or drivers licenses.

5. Incoming / Outgoing Mail –

Pick up incoming mail promptly and do not send outgoing mail in your residential mail box. Make every effort to keep your mail as securely as possible when it leaves your house.

6. Monthly Bills –

If your monthly bills stop arriving, take action quickly. Notify the company right away. Also, review your monthly statements promptly and if you see charges or items on your bills that you do not recognize get them resolved immediately.

7. Credit Cards / ATMs –

Report lost or stolen credit cards and ATM cards immediately. Be sure to carry the 1-800 numbers of your bank and credit card company in your wallet.

8. Age Matters –

If you are over the age of 50 you are more likely to be targeted for financial fraud. Therefore, keep this in the back of your mind as you handle your daily tasks and personal information.

Most analysts forecast financial fraud and identity thief to cause financial loss to hundreds of thousands people in the next five years and beyond. While fraudsters are very slick and you can never be 100% safe the steps above can assist in you significantly deterring yourself and family from being a victim.

Nevertheless, most beginners are generally totally ignorant on the exact time investment and devotion required in investing and trading. This makes a large number of them to be extremely susceptible of initiating failed investments. The kind of stock market investments which are based purely on instincts and hearsay, rather than investments that are based on actual research.

Most rookies usually comprehend the notion of buying low and then selling high. Still, they are very prone to letting their emotions guide their actions, the moment a trade or investment has been made. As a result, many of them can desperately cling to securities resulting in substantial losses. Mind you, even when the exact reasons that drove them to make the initial investment in a particular security become untenable. As such, most of them find themselves hoping or anticipating that a ‘losing’ stock will be able to recover for them to be in a good position of getting back even. In the event higher prices emerge, these beginners then opt to pull out way to soon. This normally prompts them to sell their stocks at break even or perhaps after they have only realized insignificant profits.

Generally speaking, it is always tough for rookies to discern a forest from just trees. Also, they find it hard to recognize if the future prospects of any particular security are auspicious, even if the short term trading trends are not volatile. Beginners are normally successful during strong ‘bull’ markets. But unfortunately find themselves clueless on tougher occasions, especially when market volatility is higher and ‘bears’ happen to rule. Well, if you deeply feel you fit this description to the T, here then are some stock market investment basics for beginners, which could be useful.

Make it a point to set realistic trading objectives

Before you decide to make your very first investment, try to ask yourself the following questions. “At what point will you require the money you have invested?” “Will it be after 6 months, a year, 5 years or perhaps much longer?”, “Are you trying to lay a nest egg for your sunset years?”, “Are seeking to obtain the necessary funds to finance your college education or perhaps seeking money to buy a home?” “On the other hand, do wish to establish an estate that you want to leave for your beneficiaries upon your demise?”

Whichever the case, prior to making any investment, you ought to fully determine your primary driving motivation. When you have ascertained this critical point, next consider the most likely time in the future you might stand in need of the funds you wish to invest. Should you require your investment back within just a couple of years, then it will be much better to consider another investment channel. It is very important for you to fully understand that the stock market with its volatility can offer no guarantee on just when your investment will be made available.

Accordingly, you should always make it a point to calculate beforehand how much cash you wish to invest and what kind of ROI you may deem suitable to realize your trading objectives. As a rule of thumb, always recall that the eventual growth of your stock market portfolio relies on 3 interdependent factors. These are the exact capital you decide to invest, the amount of yearly earnings on your investment. And lastly, the exact number of years you wish to invest your capital in the stock markets.

Take the necessary time to effectively determine your risk tolerance

Risk tolerance happens to be a psychological attribute, which is genetically oriented. Yet, it can still be significantly influenced by factors such as education, income or even wealth. The moment all these factors increase in value, risk tolerance also tends to rise. Basically, your exact level of risk tolerance can be accurately described as how you feel about any risk you make. As well as the exact level of anxiety you tend to experience whenever you decide to undertake risky ventures. Take your time to ask yourself, “Can I risk $100 to gain $1,000 or perhaps $1000 to gain $1,000?”

It is vital for you to fully understand that all people possess varying levels of risk tolerance. This certainly means that there is no such thing as ‘right balance’ in this given issue.

At the same time, risk tolerance can generally be influenced with the exact ‘perception’ of the risk an individual is contemplating to take. This given concept of risk tolerance is then the most accurate when it comes to stock market investmentt or trading. As you become well conversant with the basics of trading, you will find that the idea of the risks involved in such matters is generally lesser. This includes having an excellent understanding of how to buy and sell stocks, assessing market volatility (price changes). Along with the ease or difficulties of liquidating stock market investments.

This usually leads to a lessening of the overall anxiety you are bound to experience when you trade or invest in the stock market, due to your ‘perception’ of the risks involved. So, by taking the necessary time to fully understand your exact risk tolerance, you will be able to avoid trading in investments you dread. Ideally, you should not invest in an asset which has the potential to cause you sleepless nights. Anxiety triggers fear that in its turn prompts an emotional response to the stressor. By always retaining a cool head during stock market uncertainty, you will be able to adhere to an ‘unemotional’ decision-making process in your stock market activities.

Make it a habit to keep off your emotions from your investments

By far the largest obstacle quite a large number of beginners have to routinely face is their inability to regulate their emotions and proceed to make logical decisions. In the short term, the prices of company stocks correspond with the combined emotions of the whole investment community. When most stock market investors happen to be anxious about a particular firm, its stock prices will be bound to take a plunge. Alternatively, when most traders possess a positive perspective to a firm, its stock prices will naturally rise.

Those individuals who retain a negative perspective about the stock market are known as ‘bears’. While those that have positive outlooks to the same are known as ‘bulls.’ During market hours, the unceasing struggle between bulls and bears is usually reflected on the constantly fluctuating securities’ prices. These short term fluctuations generally arise from rumors, speculations and in some cases even hope. All of these factors can be rightly labeled as been emotions. Effective stock market investment necessitates a logical and systematic analysis of a company’s assets, management and future prospects.

At this juncture, it is important for you to remember that stock market prices can move in contrast to most expectations. For the inexperienced, this can fuel insecurity and tension. At such moments, you will find yourself faced with a dilemma – “Should you sell your position to prevent a loss?”, “Or should you continue maintaining your position in the hope that the prices will ultimately rebound?” Even in the occasions that prices perform as you expected, you will still find yourself facing troubling questions. “Should you take a profit now prior to the prices falling?”, “Or should you maintain your position as the prices could rise even higher?”

Dealing with all these perplexing thoughts can trigger a lot of worry, particularly if you constantly monitor the prices of the securities you trade in. This emotion can eventually prompt you take certain actions. As your emotions are the main motivation, it is mostly likely your action will be wrong. When you buy a stock, you should only do so for valid reasons. Also, you should have realistic expectations of exactly how the prices will perform if your guiding reasons prove to be accurate. Finally, before investing in any stock, always take time to determine the exact point you will liquidate your holdings, especially if your reasons are proven wrong. All in all, always have an appropriate ‘exit’ strategy prior to purchasing any stock, and make it a point to execute it unemotionally.

Make it your business to comprehensively learn about the basics of stock market investment

Prior to making your very first stock market investment or trade, make sure that you fully understand all the basics of stock market together with the individual securities which make them up. Below are some of the most pertinent areas you will be obliged to be well conversant with before commencing any stock market activities.

To begin with, take time to understand the exact financial metrics as well as definition that are utilized in stock market trading. Some of the most notable of which are P/E ratio, earnings / share, return on equity and compound annual growth rate. Take you time to fully grasp how these metrics are usually calculated. It is important to state that been in a position of effectively contrasting just how companies use these metrics is essential in any successful stock market investment operations.

Next you should learn all about the most popular techniques of stock selection and timing. To this end, you should make it a point to understand how fundamental and technical analysis can be executed. More importantly, just how they vary and when it is appropriate to use them in a stock market trading strategy. You should also be well conversant with the different types of stock market orders. Take all the time you require to fully comprehend just how market orders, limit orders, stop market orders, stop limit orders and trailing stop loss orders vary from each other.

Finally, you should make it a point to learn all you can on the different kinds of stock market investment accounts which are made available. You perhaps are well conversant with cash accounts that are arguably the most prevalently used by stock market investors. Nevertheless, what are known as margin accounts are by regulations, required when you wish to make some specific types of stock market trades. So, make sure you fully understand how margin accounts can be calculated. You should also find out about the exact differences between initial and maintenance margin accounts prerequisites.

Make it a point to diversify your stock market investments

The moment you have performed all the necessary research that helps you determine and even quantify risk, making the decision to diversify your stock market portfolio can be a very shrewd step. The same is also the case, when you are totally ‘comfortable’ that you will be able to pinpoint any potential danger which might jeopardize your position in a stress-free manner. In both scenarios, you will be able to liquidate your stock market investments prior to sustaining any dangerous loss.

Therefore, the most prudent means of been able to effectually manage stock market investment risks is to diversify your exposure. You should know that most shrewd stock market investors, make it their business to own stocks from different firms, different sectors and even different nations. The primary driving force which motivates them to do so is the firm guarantee that a single inauspicious event can never influence all their holdings. What all this really boils down to is the undeniable fact that stock diversification can allow to comfortably recover from the loss of a single and even several of your investments.

You are unlikely to find banks willing to sponsor you in this venture. What you can do is to initially put in your own money or you can advertise for investors assuring them high return if they invest through you.

A venture of this kind, once it is successful, will give high returns to not only the owner but everyone associated with it. You get incentives in this venture along with high returns, the usual salary and you learn the art of selling. Since you manage the portfolio, you can make it widely diversified so that risks are low and well balanced between several sectors. The secret is to make a diverse portfolio because it pays more. Once your clients earn more you also earn their trust and in the meanwhile, your income goes on increasing.

You have to understand that one person cannot handle the entire fund. It is best to hire professionals or an entire team who are experienced in dealings of this kind. The research and analysis has to be the strong point in a venture of this kind.

All things that help you build your business must be looked into. From websites to chats and forums, everything can help in the expansion of your business. Banks have been investing in stocks and bonds for ages and that is how they have grown.

Actually, this is so simple and easy to start out that you can do it without any hassles in a smaller scale and still have a good income. You can charge brokerage for investing on the behalf of your friends and family. Once you are successful, the word of mouth publicity will ensure that you get clients in the future.

You must however try to improve your knowledge with every opportunity. You can do so by attending seminars and workshops on these issues and reading up on the market and investments.

You have to know what you are in for, in this business. You have to be experienced and ideally, you should have gained a lot of returns on your own investment before you start handling the finances of others.

It is advisable that you focus on one aspect of the investment game at a time. So you should choose one area say stocks and bond and stick to it until you become an expert. The pointers mentioned in this article will hopefully launch you into the world of investment as a successful financier.

To the untrained listener, when you talk about investing, you are talking about stocks. Not only are stocks the main from of investment for millions of people, they are also the main ingredient in mutual funds and in many other forms of investing. To put it simply, when you own a share of a stock, you own a piece of a company; a company that you believe is going to grow, prosper and earn even higher profits then they earn now. It is a vote of confidence in that company. When you buy a share of a company, that company receives that cash and uses it to invest in the future. If things get better, your stock becomes more valuable and then you can choose to either sell it and turn a profit on your investment or you can hang on to it and hope that the value climbs higher so you can sell it at a later date and make even more money. Most stocks can be divided up into two major categories: high risk and low risk. It is important to note, however, that all stocks have risks, even “blue chip” stocks that are usually the safest to own. Over the years, some types of stocks have proven to carry a higher risk than others, such as airline stocks or technology company stocks, while energy stocks tend to be fairly stable. A “blue chip” stock is stock in a company that has been around for a very long time and is constantly turning a profit, such as Shell Oil or Microsoft. You could still theoretically lose money on a blue chip stock investment, but there is much less chance of Shell going out of business tomorrow compared to a new start up company that has recently gone public.

Bonds are a much lower risk type of investment that many people use as their very first investment. Perhaps you once owned municipal bonds or even war bonds. These types of bonds work the same way that commercial bonds do. A company needs to raise money so they sell bonds. You can buy these bonds and then, on a certain date in the future, you can cash them in and make a small profit. Even big time investors with huge portfolios invest in bonds because they are relatively safe compared to stocks, although there is always a risk when you invest. Some companies offer both stocks and bonds at the same time as a way to earn money for future investing.

There are a million questions that can be asked. There’s so much information out there and it’s hard to know which is the right way to go and who to trust. I’m going to cut through all of the confusion and show you how to get started in a step-by-step way. This is based on my experience and is my recommended path to getting the ball rolling.

Step 1: Know Where You Want To Go

We shouldn’t just jump in our car and speed away without knowing where we are going. That’s crazy and a complete waste of time and money. We’ve got to figure out our destination first.

In my opinion, this is the single most important step in this process. You have to know your destination. It needs to be very clear and definite in your mind. An end goal of ‘getting rich’ is too general and not definite enough to allow you to envision where you want to be. We need to figure out exactly what we want and how we want our lives to be so that we have a clear vision of what it is we are trying to achieve.

Would you like to be able to take your family on vacations whenever you want and for as long as you want? Do you want to be able to earn profits instead of wages so that you can do this full-time and be in control of what you are doing and when? Do you want to be able to achieve all that you feel you are meant to achieve without waiting for someone to give you the opportunity? In order to do these things, we have to lay them out as specific goals.

You can take ‘getting rich’ and ask the right questions to figure out what you really want and why you want to flip houses. We could ask WHY we want to be rich. What would being rich do for us? What kind of things would you do if you were rich? What would your average day be like if you were rich? Answer these questions and write down your answers. Something about writing things down helps you to fully realize and remember your answers. Better yet, start a vision board.

Figure out what your true dreams are and try to make them as specific and clear as possible. Try to have concrete goals that you can work towards. Narrow your focus.

Step 2: Get Educated (don’t overdo it)

Now that we know our destination, we still shouldn’t just jump in that car and peel out into the distance. That might be funny, but it would not be funny for very long. Especially when you find yourself lost and frustrated.

We need to get educated so that we know the best way to get to our destination. We need to study the roads and figure out not only the shortest path, but the path with the least amount of traffic jams. The traffic jams in house flipping are the things that slow us down and make it more difficult for us to get to where we want to be. This can be things like having a ton of over-leveraged rental properties with non-paying tenants that are trashing the place and causing you to bleed money at a staggering pace.

You’ve probably already started your house flipping education. Well, I know you have because you are here reading this. At least you are in the right place! That’s a great start. That shows me you already know what you are doing so far.

What do you need to learn and where can you learn it?

In order to figure out what you need to learn, we need to figure out which house flipping strategy to focus on.

Focus Your Energy On One Strategy

There are a lot of strategies out there. I’ve seen some really crazy and down right dangerous ones. Most typically just sound great and look good on paper but are super risky in reality. When you add the human factor to a lot of these strategies (tenants that don’t pay and completely trash your house, unscrupulous investors and sellers, unforeseen costs and repairs, lawsuits, and list goes on and on), they are just not a good way to go. You have to get back to the basics. To the tried and true things that have been working for a long time for a lot of investors.

My Recommended Starting Strategies (and I still use them myself)

Starting with birddogging and wholesaling is the easiest way to get into flipping houses without much risk and with little to no money. These are the strategies that I feel you should focus on. I call these the strategies with the lowest entry costs in terms of time, money and experience.

Give yourself a better chance of really making it by laser focusing on these two methods. Heck, just focus on one if you want. The great thing is that both of these can be learned quickly and interchanged for each deal as you see fit.

Birddogging

A birddog is someone that finds “leads” and gives these leads to an experienced investor to work.

Here’s how to do it:

1. You drive around and find vacant houses and send letters to the owners of the vacant houses. One of the owners calls you and tells you they are interested in selling the house.
2. You then tell another investor that has the ability to act quickly about the lead and he/she sets an appointment to see the house and makes an offer to the owner.
3. If they come to an agreement and the investor ends up buying the house, he/she will pay you a finder’s fee. This fee can be as much as $2,000 or more.

I typically ask for $1,000 to $2,000 depending on how much potential I feel the deal has. I think most investors probably pay closer to $500 each if the leads are screened as well as I screen mine.

What I mean by screening is just that I make sure the potential for a deal is really there. That the sellers have enough equity in the home and there are signs of motivation to sell.

Some investors will pay small fees just for the lead (just giving the lead, whether they buy the house or not). Don’t expect very much if this is the case (probably between $25-$50).

Wholesaling

Wholesaling is where you actually contract to buy a house and sell it ‘as-is’ to another investor.

There are several ways to wholesale, but in the spirit of having you narrow your focus, I’m going to be discussing the assignment of contract alone. This is the strategy that involves the least risk and very little money. This is where you never take ownership of the house.

Here’s how to do it:

So, if you find a deal where the house should sell for $100,000 and it needs $10,000 in repairs, you would want to buy it for $60,000 LESS THE AMOUNT YOU WANT TO CHARGE FOR THE ASSIGNMENT. If you want to be paid $5,000 for the assignment, simply buy it for $55,000 and offer it to an investor buyer for $60,000.

Estimating repairs can be difficult in the beginning. At first, I sure was clueless when it came to what repairs cost. The best thing you can do is find a contractor (preferably one that has worked for house flippers) that can help you with the basic costs of normal repairs. Just sit down and make a list of normal repairs and what they typically cost. Some of the items can be priced based on square foot or linear feet.

Market for leads (you’ll find out more about this further down in this article).

Start taking calls and analyzing the leads. Most investor buyers are looking to purchase investment property at 70% of market value minus the cost to repair the property.The key with estimating repairs is that you will never get it the cost correct to the dollar. You are just trying to get a good estimate. Be conservative in your estimate.

When you find what seems to be a deal that could work based on your analysis, you make the offer. If the seller accepts, you will sign a purchase and sale agreement (contract) with the seller that spells out the terms of the agreement. Most people use their own state approved contract for real estate transactions. I actually prefer a single page contract of my own that is straight and to the point. Most of the state contracts are full of CYA stuff for Realtors and tend to be 9 pages or longer. Talk about taking forever to get the contract signed! I don’t enjoy explaining TIDE WATERS and other gobbledy-gook to sellers for several hours.

It’s important to make sure that your contract has ‘and/or Assigns’ after the buyer name so that you can assign the contract.

For the buyer name, you will use your name unless you’ve set up a DBA or company (read more about that below).

In the beginning, it’s best to have an escape clause. This is where you have a statement in the contract that allows you to back out if you are unable to find a buyer for it. The clause should be simple and could be something like, “This agreement is subject to further inspection of the property by the buyer.”

If the contract you are using has a section for a termination option, you can use that. This is typically used by buyers to pay a certain amount to be able to terminate the deal if they are not happy with the inspection or other aspect of the deal within an agreed upon amount of time.

Once you have the house contracted, you take it to a title company and have it receipted. This is where you pay the earnest money you agreed to with the seller (I typically only pay $10 or $25 for earnest money. It’s not a big deal unless you make it seem like a big deal (remember that).

Contact your buyers and let them know about the deal. You will end up finding out who the serious buyers are by doing this. You really only want to work with buyers that take action quickly and let you know whether they want the deal or not. Don’t waste your time with people that ask a million questions, like whether the bathroom toilet needs to be replaced. You are selling at a deep discount so those matters are irrelevant. Don’t waste your time with these people.After a while you will develop a short list of ‘go-to’ people that you can call and tell about the property. It’s best to try and give them 12-24 hours each to see if they want the deal (one at a time of course). If they know there will be a lot of competition, they may not want to waste their time. If they know they have first dibs, they will be more than willing to check it out.

Once you’ve found your ready, willing and able buyer (must be able to close by the date you specified in your contract with the seller), you will sign an assignment of contract form with them. This is just a single page contract (you can download a copy of mine here: Flipping Houses Resources Page.

This assignment contract will then be taken to the same title company where you receipted the purchase contract.

You could get a non-refundable deposit from the buyer to help ensure that they are serious. Good buyers will not hesitate to do this if it is a good deal. Non-refundable deposits can be as much as you want, but are typically $1,000-$2,000.

When the deal closes, the title company will cut you a check for your assignment fee. Congratulations! You’ve just made several thousand dollars without even owning the house.

There is an alternative way to do this. This involves finding investor buyers and figuring out what types of deals they want and marketing and directing your efforts to find those types of deals. This way you can find exactly what they want so that you already have a ready and willing buyer. These investors might also help you analyze each deal so that you are buying at a price that makes sense for them (and of course you get the house for a little cheaper so as to cover your assignment fee! You do want to make some money for your efforts, don’t you?)

There’s no wrong or right way to go about it. It’s really up to you as to which one fits better for you. You can try one method and then switch to the other or work at doing both at the same time. Your choice.

This doesn’t cover every possibility, but it’s a great introduction and good starting point for you to know what you need to learn about the process.

Stay focused my friend.

What if you stand to make a HUGE assignment fee?

Good for you. If your end buyer doesn’t like it, find another buyer. You are the one with the deal. If it’s a problem for them that you stand to make a lot of money for simply assigning the deal, tell them tough cookies. That’s the way it’s going to be. Simple as that.

Why I Don’t Recommend Rentals and Rehabbing – IN THE BEGINNING

Rentals

Some people want to start out by picking up rentals. The reason why I don’t recommend that is because you should really have a certain level of cash reserves in case your places get trashed and go vacant, or tenants just stop paying and you have to spend a lot of time and money just getting them out. Rentals don’t generate the kind of quick cash that wholesaling and birddogging can.

Rehabbing

Rehabbing is another one that I feel is better to start after gaining experience in wholesaling. This way you get a lot of experience in determining what the right prices are to buy the properties and in determining the repair costs, holding costs, selling costs and any other costs involved when rehabbing houses. There’s a lot more risk when rehabbing. If you start by wholesaling you might even end up developing a relationship with a local rehabber that can then help you to make the transition to rehabbing.

Stay Focused

Don’t keep buying course after course trying to find that new secret way to do this easily. It doesn’t exist and you are just putting off getting out of your comfort zone. Focus on one strategy, learn as much as you can about it and start taking action to gain experience and make a real go at it. Doing this will separate you from 95-99% of other people.

Where To Learn

Here, of course, is the best place. I’m only slightly biased. But, you should also spend some time on the incredible forums over at Bigger Pockets and REIClub. These are great places to really fill in a lot of the gaps. I wanted to talk about figuring out where to start first, because when you spend time on the forums you will tend to get pulled in a lot of directions. You have to go in with a specific question to get answered. Search for answers to your specific questions and TRY NOT TO GET

SIDE-TRACKED.

People tend to get side-tracked easily because it’s easier (MORE COMFORTABLE) to just keep learning other things than to actually TAKE ACTION. Don’t fall into that trap. Stay focused.

Incidentally, the NUMBER ONE place to learn is on the streets. You will learn more hands down by taking action and finding out what you need to know. You don’t have to know everything about a topic to get started. You should educate yourself on the basics and GET STARTED.

Taking action will put you out of your comfort zone. It will be uncomfortable, but only in the beginning.

Step 3: Start Marketing

You’ve got to find deals and you need to find buyers to buy those deals.

I’m a firm believer that it is much easier to find awesome deals by targeting motivated sellers. You aren’t looking for the right houses as much as you are really looking for the right sellers.

A lot of new people think the only way to start is to find a real estate agent and have them find listed deals for them. There’s simply too much competition and the deals tend to be too slim. It’s possible to work it this way, but why when it is much easier dealing directly with motivated homeowners.

Marketing For Buyers

It would benefit you to start immediately looking for cash investors. These are the people that you will try to sell your leads and/or deals to. Typically, rehabbers (people that fix up the houses and sell them) and landlords are going to be the people you want to find. These are the ones that are always looking for fixer upper houses, the kind you will be finding.

Other wholesalers can also be great people to network with. If you are having trouble moving one of your deals, you can see if they’ve got a buyer that would be interested. You would work out a split of the profits with the wholesaler if they do find a buyer for your deal.

Here are some excellent places and ways to find buyers:

• Local Real Estate Investor Association (REIA) meetings
• Calling ‘we buy houses’ advertisers (call numbers on bandit signs, yellow pages, online, etc)
• Marketing your deals – you do want to market your wholesale deals (bandit signs, newspaper ads, craigslist ads, etc)
• Have a Realtor look up investment properties that were sold recently and find who bought them
• Calling ‘For Rent’ signs
• Driving neighborhoods where you want to invest and looking for houses being rehabbed

Marketing For Sellers

To find deals, I recommend marketing directly to motivated sellers. This is the ‘We Buy Houses’ type of advertising. You are trying to find people that have a house they need to sell. This does not just mean people facing foreclosure, which is what most people immediately think of when talking about motivated sellers.

There are a lot of other reasons that people will sell their house at deep discounts. These reasons could include (and are certainly not limited to):

• House needs a lot of repairs the owner cannot afford to make
• Person inherits a house and would rather have cash
• Landlord is sick and tired of dealing with their rental property
• Owner needs to relocate and sell their house fast
• Divorce situation where the single owner cannot afford the house
• Owner just doesn’t want the hassle of selling their house the conventional way

I could list the techniques on how to do this marketing, but a much better way would be to show you what I do and how I do it. And, in case you didn’t already know, I’ve blogged about 34 weeks of all the marketing I did and the leads that came in. Be sure to check out the first and second weeks on my blog where I show my marketing.

Step 4: Start Building Your Team

As you start to find and work deals, you will find it necessary to have good people on your team. These are not employees. Rather, they are people like a great closer (title company), real estate attorney, contractor (to help determine repair costs), accountant (hopefully you will need this as it means you are making money!), and a real estate agent (some are worth their weight in gold).

Step 5: Set Up Your Company

Here’s a question that comes up a lot. People tend to get themselves stuck on these kinds of questions (including myself, in the beginning) and I think it is because it really is just another excuse to not get started.

NOTE: I am not an attorney, nor am I an accountant, and I don’t play one on the internet. I’m not giving legal or financial advice so take these suggestions for what they’re worth.

When you are starting out, there is no problem with just using your name. As long as you are conducting business in an ethical manner, there really is nothing to worry about.

DBA or LLC?

My suggestion is to wait until you’ve done a deal or two and then set up an LLC. If you want to check into which entity would be best for tax purposes, contact a competent accountant/tax person (try to get a referral from a successful investor if you can). For asset protection, contact a good real estate attorney.

In the beginning, I did business with an assumed name (DBA – Doing Business As) because we were actually closing on the houses and I didn’t want my name on record. When birddogging and assigning contracts, you don’t take ownership at all, so this isn’t an issue.

Step 6: Get A Business Bank Account

If you do set up a company or DBA, you should set up a business bank account. Remember, this is a business bank account and should never be used for anything other than your business. You don’t want to end up with problems because you weren’t running your business like a business. The protections that a business provides can be eliminated if you do not run it like a business. So don’t be spending money from your business account on something that is for personal use.

You should consider whether you want to start one with a large national bank or a small local bank. They’re definitely not the same. I’ll discuss some of the benefits and negatives of each.

Large National Bank

Large national banks can be more convenient. They tend to have more options in the way of online banking and apps. The negatives that really, really grind my gears is that everything is done by their rules. What I mean is that when you try to call to find out one simple thing, you end up in a crazy labyrinth of a menu system… only to end up being hung up on just when you think you reached the right person. Another issue is that you can’t typically go in and talk directly with a decision maker when it comes to a loan.

Small Local Bank

Small local banks are not as convenient when it comes to having branches all over the country (obviously) and online banking and apps that do as much as the large ones (though this seems to be changing quickly).

The biggest benefit to the small banks is the ability to build relationships and the ease with which customer service is handled. Those are enough for me.

We still bank with a large, national bank, but that will probably be changing soon. I can’t even deal with them anymore. Anytime there is a problem, Melissa (my wife) has to handle it. And I thank her very much for that.

Step 7: Grow Your Business

When you start making money, be sure to reinvest it back into your business. OK, you should use a small part of it to celebrate your success. But the rest needs to go back into marketing and building your company. The first years are the most difficult and you have to do your best to build a strong company.

Spending money on marketing can be hard at first. It sure becomes easier after you’ve made a couple grand with a simple birddog deal or several grand wholesaling a house. Don’t be afraid to spend money on marketing.

Make sure you are always planning your strategy and keeping an eye on your goals. Please be sure to figure out why you really want to do this. Step 1 above is the most important of all of these steps. Believe me.

Rehabbing

Rehabbing is where you close on a property, fix it up and sell it to an end buyer that is either going to live in it or rent it out.

The logical progression for most people is to go from birddogging, to wholesaling, to rehabbing. With rehabbing you will need a source of money, insurance, contractors, patience, design sense, creativity, a desire to turn a dump into a beautiful home. Did I mention patience? Good.

The definition of totality of the economical relations formed in the process of formation, distribution and usage of finances, as money sources is widely spread. For example, in “the general theory of finances” there are two definitions of finances:

1) “…Finances reflect economical relations, formation of the funds of money sources, in the process of distribution and redistribution of national receipts according to the distribution and usage”. This definition is given relatively to the conditions of Capitalism, when cash-commodity relations gain universal character;

2) “Finances represent the formation of centralized ad decentralized money sources, economical relations relatively with the distribution and usage, which serve for fulfillment of the state functions and obligations and also provision of the conditions of the widened further production”. This definition is brought without showing the environment of its action. We share partly such explanation of finances and think expedient to make some specification.

First, finances overcome the bounds of distribution and redistribution service of the national income, though it is a basic foundation of finances. Also, formation and usage of the depreciation fund which is the part of financial domain, belongs not to the distribution and redistribution of the national income (of newly formed value during a year), but to the distribution of already developed value.

This latest first appears to be a part of value of main industrial funds, later it is moved to the cost price of a ready product (that is to the value too) and after its realization, and it is set the depression fund. Its source is taken into account before hand as a depression kind in the consistence of the ready products cost price.

Second, main goal of finances is much wider then “fulfillment of the state functions and obligations and provision of conditions for the widened further production”. Finances exist on the state level and also on the manufactures and branches’ level too, and in such conditions, when the most part of the manufactures are not state.

V. M. Rodionova has a different position about this subject: “real formation of the financial resources begins on the stage of distribution, when the value is realized and concrete economical forms of the realized value are separated from the consistence of the profit”. V. M. Rodionova makes an accent of finances, as distributing relations, when D. S. Moliakov underlines industrial foundation of finances. Though both of them give quite substantiate discussion of finances, as a system of formation, distribution and usage of the funds of money sources, that comes out of the following definition of the finances: “financial cash relations, which forms in the process of distribution and redistribution of the partial value of the national wealth and total social product, is related with the subjects of the economy and formation and usage of the state cash incomes and savings in the widened further production, in the material stimulation of the workers for satisfaction of the society social and other requests”.

In the manuals of the political economy we meet with the following definitions of finances:
“Finances of the socialistic state represent economical (cash) relations, with the help of which, in the way of planned distribution of the incomes and savings the funds of money sources of the state and socialistic manufactures are formed for guaranteeing the growth of the production, rising the material and cultural level of the people and for satisfying other general society requests”.
“The system of creation and usage of necessary funds of cash resources for guarantying socialistic widened further production represent exactly the finances of the socialistic society. And the totality of economical relations arisen between state, manufactures and organizations, branches, regions and separate citizen according to the movement of cash funds make financial relations”.
As we’ve seen, definitions of finances made by financiers and political economists do not differ greatly.
In every discussed position there are:

1) expression of essence and phenomenon in the definition of finances;

2) the definition of finances, as the system of the creation and usage of funds of cash sources on the level of phenomenon.

3) Distribution of finances as social product and the value of national income, definition of the distributions planned character, main goals of the economy and economical relations, for servicing of which it is used.

If refuse the preposition “socialistic” in the definition of finances, we may say, that it still keeps actuality. We meet with such traditional definitions of finances, without an adjective “socialistic”, in the modern economical literature. We may give such an elucidation: “finances represent cash resources of production and usage, also cash relations appeared in the process of distributing values of formed economical product and national wealth for formation and further production of the cash incomes and savings of the economical subjects and state, rewarding of the workers and satisfaction of the social requests”. in this elucidation of finances like D. S. Moliakov and V. M. Rodionov’s definitions, following the traditional inheritance, we meet with the widening of the financial foundation. They concern “distribution and redistribution of the value of created economical product, also the partial distribution of the value of national wealth”. This latest is very actual, relatively to the process of privatization and the transition to privacy and is periodically used in practice in different countries, for example, Great Britain and France.

“Finances – are cash sources, financial resources, their creation and movement, distribution and redistribution, usage, also economical relations, which are conditioned by intercalculations between the economical subjects, movement of cash sources, money circulation and usage”.
“Finances are the system of economical relations, which are connected with firm creation, distribution and usage of financial resources”.

We meet with absolutely innovational definitions of finances in Z. Body and R. Merton’s basis manuals. “Finance – it is the science about how the people lead spending `the deficit cash resources and incomes in the definite period of time. The financial decisions are characterized by the expenses and incomes which are 1) separated in time, and 2) as a rule, it is impossible to take them into account beforehand neither by those who get decisions nor any other person” . “Financial theory consists of numbers of the conceptions… which learns systematically the subjects of distribution of the cash resources relatively to the time factor; it also considers quantitative models, with the help of which the estimation, putting into practice and realization of the alternative variants of every financial decisions take place” .

These basic conceptions and quantitative models are used at every level of getting financial decisions, but in the latest definition of finances, we meet with the following doctrine of the financial foundation: main function of the finances is in the satisfaction of the people’s requests; the subjects of economical activities of any kind (firms, also state organs of every level) are directed towards fulfilling this basic function.

For the goals of our monograph, it is important to compare well-known definitions about finances, credit and investment, to decide how and how much it is possible to integrate the finances, investments and credit into the one total part.

Some researcher thing that credit is the consisting part of finances, if it is discussed from the position of essence and category. The other, more numerous group proves, that an economical category of credit exists parallel to the economical category of finances, by which it underlines impossibility of the credit’s existence in the consistence of finances.

N. K. Kuchukova underlined the independence of the category of credit and notes that it is only its “characteristic feature the turned movement of the value, which is not related with transmission of the loan opportunities together with the owners’ rights”.

N. D. Barkovski replies that functioning of money created an economical basis for apportioning finances and credit as an independent category and gave rise to the credit and financial relations. He noticed the Gnoseological roots of science in money and credit, as the science about finances has business with the research of such economical relations, which lean upon cash flow and credit.
Let’s discuss the most spread definitions of credit. in the modern publications credit appeared to be “luckier”, then finances. For example, we meet with the following definition of credit in the finance-economical dictionary: “credit is the loan in the form of cash and commodity with the conditions of returning, usually, by paying percent. Credit represents a form of movement of the loan capital and expresses economical relations between the creditor and borrower”.

This is the traditional definition of credit. In the earlier dictionary of the economy we read: “credit is the system of economical relations, which is formed while the transmission of cash and material means into the temporal usage, as a rule under the conditions of returning and paying percent”.
In the manual of the political economy published under reduction of V. A. Medvedev the following definition is given: “credit, as an economical category, expresses the created relations between the society, labour collective and workers during formation and usage of the loan funds, under the terms of paying present and returning, during transmission of sources for the temporal usage and accumulation”.

Credit is discussed in the following way in the earlier education-methodological manuals of political economy: “credit is the system of money relations, which is created in the process of using and mobilization of temporarily free cash means of the state budget, unions, manufactures, organizations and population. Credit has an objective character. It is used for providing widened further production of the state and other needs. Credit differs from finances by the returning character, while financing of manufactures and organizations by the state is fulfilled without this condition”.

We meet with the following definition if “the course of economy”: “credit is an economical category, which represents relations, while the separate industrial organizations or persons transmit money means to each-other for temporal usage under the conditions of returning. Creation of credit is conditioned by a historical process of fulfilling the economical and money relations, the form of which is the money relation”.

Following scientists give slightly different definitions of credit:
“Credit – is a loan in the form of money or commodity, which is given to the borrower by a creditor under the conditions of returning and paying the percentage rate by the borrower”.
Credit is giving the temporally free money sources or commodity as a debt for the defined terms by the price of fixed percentage. Thus, a credit is the loan in the form of money or commodity. In the process of this loan’s movement, a definite relations are formed between a creditor (the loan is given by a juridical of physical person, who gives certain cash as a debt) and the debtor.
Combining every definition named above, we come to an idea, that credit is giving money capital of commodity as a debt, for certain terms and material provision under the price of firm percentage rate. It expresses definite economical relations between the participants of the process of capital formation. Necessity of the credit relations is conditioned, from one side, by gathering solid quantity of temporarily free money sources, and from the second side, existence of requests of them.

Though, at the same time we must distinguish two resembling concepts: loan and credit. Loan is characterized by:

o Here, the discussion may touch upon transmission of money and also things form one side (loaner) to another (borrower): a)under the owning of the borrower and, at the same time, b) under the conditions of returning same amount or same quantity and quality of the things;

o The loaning of money may bear no interest;

o Any person may take part in it.
With the difference with loan, credit, which is somehow a private occasion of the loan, represents:

o One side (loaner) gives to the second one (borrower) only money, and _ for temporal usage;

o It may not bear no interest (if the assignment doesn’t foresee something);

o In it creditor is not any person, but a credit organization (at the first place, banks).
So, a credit is the bank credit. To our mind, it is not correct to use “credit” and “loan” as the synonyms.
Banking crediting is the union of relations between bank (as a creditor) and its borrower. These relations touch upon:

a) Giving a certain amount of money to the borrower for definite purpose (though, we meet with the so-called free credits, aims and objects of crediting are not appointed in the assignment);

b) Its opportune returning;

c) Getting percentage rate from the borrower for using the sources under his/her disposal.
The essential foundation of the credit essence and its important element is existence of trust between the two sides (in Latin “credo”, from which comes the word “credit”, means “trust”).
From the position of circulation of money forms (in the abstraction, historical process of formation economical relations and social budget and banking systems expressed by them) comparing different definitions of finances and credit, the paradox conclusion appears: credit is the private occasion of finances. And truly, from the position of movement of the money forms, finances represent the process of formation and usage of the funds of cash means. Very often such movements are fulfilled without returning, but sometimes, it is possible to give loans from the budget for the investment projects of other needs. Also, when a manufacture or corporations use their cash funds and we mean the finances of industrial subject, such usage may be realized as inside the manufacture or corporation (there is no subject about returning or not returning of the usage), so gratis under conditions of returning. This latest is called commercial form because of transmitting the sources to others, but even in this occasion, it is the element of financial system of the manufacture and corporation.

From the point of cash means movement, main character of credit is the process of formation and usage of the funds of cash means under the conditions of returning and, as a rule, taking the value-percentage. If gating the credit value doesn’t take place (even in the exceptional occasions), according to the movement form, credit becomes a private occasion of finances, as from the net financial funds (consequently from the state budget) the loans which bear no interests may be used. If gating credit value takes place, by the appearance form, credit is discussed to be financial modification.

From the historical point of view, finances (especially in the sort of the state budget) and credit (beginning with usury, later commercial and banking) were developing differently for considering credit to be the part of finances. Though, from the genetic-historical point of view, previous loaners, before giving loan, needed gathering the permanent capital not returning, that is the net financial foundation. The banks analogously needed concentration of the important own capital for influxing the consumers’ means and for getting higher percentage rate under the conditions of returning. Herewith, exactly on the financial basis, in the sort of financial fund (which later partially becomes loan fund) part of the bank capital appears to be the reservation (insurance) part of the fund, which by nature is financial and not loan. So notwithstanding the essential distinctions between finances and credit form the genetic-historical point of view, credit appears to be formed from finances and represent their modification.

From the essential position of expressing economical relations of finances and credit, we meet with cardinal distinctions between these two categories. Which mostly expressed by the distinction of the movement forms notwithstanding they are returnable or not. Finances express relations in the aspects of distribution and redistribution of social product and part of the national wealth. Credit expresses distribution of the appropriate value only in the section of percentage given for loan, while according to the loan itself, a only a temporal distribution of money sources takes place.
Herewith, there is a lot of common between the finances and credit as from the essential point of view, so according to the form of movement. At the same time, there is a significant distinction between finances and credit as in the essence, so in the form too. According to this, there must be a kind of generally economical category, which will consider finances and credit as a total unity, and in the bounds of this category itself, the separation of the specific essence of the finances and credit would take place.

Funding of the cash means is common to the researched economical categories. It takes place in any separate system of finances and credit, which have been touched upon during the analyses of defining finances and credit. Word combination “funding of the cash sources (fund formation)” reflects and defines exactly essence and form of economical category of more general character, those of finances and credit categories. Though in the in economical texts and practice, it is very uncomfortable to use a termini, which consists of three words. Also, “unloading” with an information hardens greatly its influxing into the circulation even in the conditions of its strict substantiation and thoroughness.
In the discussing context we consider:

1) wide and narrow understanding of economical category of the finances;

2) discussing finances in narrow understanding under general traditional meaning;

3) discussing finances, as funding of the cash means, in wide understanding, which concerns finances – in narrow meaning and credit – in complete meaning.
Termini “funding” and its equivalent “fund formation” are used by us as the purposeful structuring of cash means, which is based on two poles – accumulation of money sources (gathering) and its usage for definite purpose in the way of financing and crediting.
We have established a new termini – “finance-investment sphere” (FIS). Analyses about interrelation of finances and credit made by us give us an opportunity of proving, that in the given termini, the word “financial” is used with the meaning of funding cash sources, its purposeful structuring. In this process we consider at the same time financial, credit and investments’ economical categories.

Let’s sum up middle results of discussing new concept – “finance-investment sphere” and discuss its investment consisting parts.

The concept “investments” was brought into the native economical science from the West. In the Soviet economical science they for a long time used in the place “investments” the termini “capital placement”, which expressed the usage of the industrial factors in the sphere of real industrial activities during realization of capital projects. From one glance, this termini in its concept is identical to the “investments”, consequently it is possible to use them as synonyms. Though the termini “investments” and “investing” have the advantage towards the termini “capital placement” from linguistic and philological points of view, because they are expressed with one word. This is not only economical and comfortable in the process of working with the termini “investment” itself, but also it gives an opportunity of termini formation. More concretely: “investment process”, “investment domain”, “finance-investment sphere” – all these termini are much more acceptable.
Changing native economical termini with foreign ones is purposeful, if it really matters (by keeping parallel usage of the native termini for the inheritance). Though we must not change native economical termini into foreign ones all together, when by ordinal traditional language easy to explain private and narrow concrete processes and elements get their own termini. The “movement” of these termini is approved in the narrow professional bounds, but their “spitting out” into the economical science may turn economical language into the tangled slang.

Let’s discuss termini – “investment” and “capital placement’s” usage in the economical literature.
Investments are placement of funds into the main and circulation capital for the purpose of getting profit. “Investments in material assets – are the placements of funds into the mobile and real estate (land, buildings, furniture and so on). Investments in financial assets are the placements of funds into the securities bank accounts and other financial instruments”.

We don’t meet with the termini “investments” in the earlier economical dictionary, but we meet the combined termini “investment policy” – the union of the industrial decisions, which guarantee main directions of the capital investments, the activities of their concentration in the determinant suburbs, on which the reaching of planned rates of development of the society production is depended, balancing and effectiveness, getting more and more production and profit of the national income for every lost Ruble”. For today, in the most actual definitions, the capital investments are bounded only by financial means, when not only financial, but also the investment of natural, material-technical and informational resources takes place. Labour resources take an actual place in the investment process. They themselves fulfill this or that investment process.

A positive side of the discussed definitions is that they connect investment policy and capital placements (investments):

– economical development according to the key directions to the concentration;

– providing high rates of economical growth;

– raising an economical effectiveness, which is expressed:

a) by growing the throw off of the production and national income for every lost Ruble;

b) by fulfilling the branch structure of the investments;

c) by improving their technological structure;

d) by optimization of their further production structure.

Compared with such definition of the investments (capital placement) the definition of investments in the dictionary attaching the “Economics” seems to be unimproved: “investments – the expenses of gathering production and industrial means and increasing material reserve”. In this definition current expenses (production expenses) are mixed with the investment (capital) expense. Also, not the investment expenses but (though the investments are followed by the appropriate expenses) exactly advancing. It differs from the expenses by that the means (means) are put by returning the advanced values, also, under the conditions of growth, to which the concept-advanced capital is corresponding. the advancing may be realized in the money, natural-material and informational forms.

Except the termini “investments”, there are two more termini related with the investment. They are shown below.

“Human capital investment” – any activity provided for rising the workers labour productivity (in the way of growing their qualification and developing their abilities); at the expenses of improving the workers’ education, health and raising the mobility of the working forces”. It is very useful to use the mentioned termini, though it needs one correction: the human capital investments do not concern only workers, but also the servants, representatives of every kind of labour.
“Investment commodity, capital goods – a capital.”

In the official manuals of political economy of the reformation time the capital investments are discussed as “expenses for creating new main funds and widening, reconstruction and renewing the active ones”. In this definition the investments (capital placements) during separation of the forms (types) of further production of the main funds are bounded only by main funds (without increases of the circulation funds and insurance reserves):

a) creating new ones;

b) widening;

c) reconstruction;

d) renewing.

Also, the concept of the industrial gathering appears, at the expenses of widening of basic, circulation funds and also insurance reserves takes place”.

You’ll meet below the definitions of investments from “the course of economy”: the investments are called “placements of fund into the basic capital (basic means of production), reserves, also other economical objects and processes, which request long-termed influxing of material and cash means. “According to the division of capital into physical and money forms, the investments too must be divided into material and cash investments”.

They apportion investment commodity, to which belong industrial and nonindustrial building objects, vehicles purposed for changing or widened technical park and the furniture, increasing reserves and others.

“They call the total investments of production an investment product, which is directed towards keeping and increasing the basic capital (basic means) and reserve. Total investments consist of two parts. One of them is called the depreciation; it represents important investment resources for compensation of renewal till the level of before industrial usage, wearing out and repairing of the basic means. Second consisting part of the total investments is represented by net investments – capital investments for the purpose of increasing basic means”. Depreciation is not a compensation resource of wearing the basic funds out, but it is the purposeful financial source of such resources.
Human capital investment is “a specific kind of investments, mostly in education and health protection”.

“Real investments are the investments in the economical branches and also, they are kinds of economical activities, which provide influxing the increases of real capital, that is increasing material values of the industrial means”. We can agree with such definition with one specification that material and nonmaterial values too belong to the real capital (wealth), consequently science-researching experimental-construction results, various information, education of he workers and others. Such service as organization of the excitable games, also the service of redistribution social wealth from one private person to another (except charity).

“Financial investments represent placement of funds into the shares, obligations, promissory notes, other securities and instruments. Such investments, of course, do not give increases of the real material capital, but they help getting profit, consequently at the expenses of changing the course of the securities in the time of speculation, or distinguishing the course in different places of sell and purchasing”. We share wholly such definition, hence it follows that financial investments (if it is not followed by real investments as a result) do not increase real material wealth and real nonmaterial wealth. According to this context, the expression below is very important: “we must distinguish financial investments, which represent placement of the funds in the ways of selling and purchasing the securities for the purpose of getting profit and financial investments, which become cash and real, moved to real physical capital.”

In the “economical course” quoted before long and short-termed investments are separated. Recognizing the existence of the bounds between them, the authors ascribe short-termed investments to “one month or more” investments. If we get such conditioned criteria, that we can call the investments which overcome the terms of some months, long-termed ones, which is very doubtful and we don’t agree with it. A long-termed character of the fund placement is a significant feature of the investments (short-term doesn’t combine with the concept of investments). Principally, it would be better to point out quick compensative, middle termed compensative and long-termed compensative investments:

– less then 6 months – quick compensative;

– from 6 months up to the year and a half – middle termed compensative;

– more then the year and a half – long termed compensative.

We stopped at the definition of the investments in the capital work “economical course” for the special purpose, as, in it the author tried to discuss the concept of investments systemically and quite completely, herewith the book is published just now.

We’ll return to the discussion the definition economical category of “investments” in different publications in the following chapter. The definitions given here are quite enough for having a notion of the level of lighting up the given category in the economical literature.
What conclusions may be made according the definition of the mentioned economical category in the published works, except the made notions and specifications?

There is quite deeply, concretely and thoroughly defined the concept of “investments”, different definitions in the economical literature; but mostly in every works about the investments discussed by us until now, there is not opened the essence of investments as an economical category. In every monograph , even if it has a title investment, as an economical category , there is given only the definition, concept of investments. But, as the Academician Vasil Chantladze explains, “a concept is a discussion, which proves something about the distinguishing feature of the researched object. A concept out of much essential characteristic features represents only one, and essential in it is only – definition”.

But the categories are much wider; it is “a key, the most fundamental concept of every science”. Economical categories theoretically represent real, objectively existed productive relations. A category is the defining of occasions of existed characters, connections, relations of the objective world. Generally, any educational process is fulfilled by the categories, which give opportunities for dividing the processes and occasions semantically, for expressing the definitions of a subject and realize their specific peculiarities and economical relations of a material world.
Our goal is exactly to substantiate investments – as an economical category and also, as a financial category in the narrow understanding.

Here we apply for another manual thesis made by the academician Vasil Chantladze: “every financial relation is an economical one and every financial category is and economical one, but not every economical relation and economical category is financial relation and financial category”.
In the process of defining the investments, it is important to take in mind the sides of resources, expenses and incomes, because investment, from one side, is the result of the manufacture’s activity, and, from another one, – a part of income, which, in this case, is not used for usage.
Another occasion: it is advisable to discuss investments in two aspects: as a category of reserve and flow, which will reflect exactly the connection between “placement of funds” and “investments”.

As we’ve mentioned above, not long ago, in the well-known Soviet literature the concepts of “the placement of funds” and “investments” were accepted to be the synonyms and concerned to be investment of sources for further production of the main funds and formation of the turnover funds. We meet with such understanding of the concept of “investment” (here, they separate three types of the investment expenses: investments in the basic capital of investments, investments in the house building and investments in the reserves) in the modern economical publications and it is mostly used on the macro level during a statistical analyze of economical processes. In this concrete occasion investment is the category of reserve.