Cory Diary : Frasers Cpt 1H2021

FCT has solid properties mainly in key locations next to MRT. Their returns grow with the Singapore economy and the mass population reside near to their malls.  The remarkable ones are Northpoint north wing and Waterway point which have Condo residences above their malls in Integrated concept to transport hub and community services. See below. Basically community revolves around this malls. They are basic necessity and which benefits further from WFH. Both malls are huge and for new comers therefore getting lost in there is normal.

In last week half year report, 1st half DPU 5.996 cents. In which 0.132 cents already distributed last year. If we annualized the result, is about 4.9% at $2.45.

If we roll back to year 2019, FCT hits 5.7% annualized at today price. DPU 14 cents. This is pre-covid. Logically speaking 2nd half will also see better result unless macro factor or .... . So it looks like a given in next half yearly amid expectation will be smaller increase.

Interestingly, the stock price did not manage to held up and fall back to $2.45 last week. We are talking about 28.4% dpu increase compared to last year where retail was in deep covid. Now with Vaccine deploying to masses and we getting to new normal, is not unreasonable to see stable 5% yield returns. That's like 12.5 cents of DPU annual. So if the market further corrects to $2.33 roughly a support point, that's will almost be a full year dpu. This will certainly make it easier to meet pre-covid yield LOL.

Question will be what will you do as a dividend player on a well established businesses ? Uncle Cory will have his grenades ready. Bazooka will probably be next.

Cory

2021-0426

PS. Current Bank loan rate is roughly 1.5%. FCT giving out stable 5%. Make sense to max out your home loan ?  There is always risk so DYODD.

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : What keeps me worry at night

Beside money, yes besides money ... Is Not Investing Enough. If one has done their Maths, they will know that to meet specific lifestyle, how much is needed to grow our asset financially to achieve prudently and lasting our lifetime. Of course one could live like a "Beggar" but this is after we failed to achieve the goals we want and still shout out that we are still financially free because we can live within our means.

However do not need to be too perturbed about the use of word "Beggar" as in context is meant to not meeting the level of standard deep down in our heart we hope to have but likely much further from our dream. Now, to throw our weight or asset into investments, we need to look further ahead. How far depends on one attributes. I would say after investing for more than a decade, 6 months are pretty good estimate of where we going to be. Is still not 100%. Maybe 7 our of 10 will be a good number that we will be ok if we are to use number of stocks as measure. Which means ... we need to diversify.

A month ago I sold some of my DBS shares before Ex-dividend. A small bet that I am able to get it back cheaper. Do this a few rounds. The last one waited past Ex-dividends. And I manage to buy most of it back yesterday. Phew. This keeps me awake at night for kopi money.

Next, are you a dooms day person even when we are on recovery path ? I happen to read some articles while walking home. In year 1918 pandemic, the world recovered in about 2 years without vaccine. Basically stronger strain dies off and population immunity. Probably 100 Millions died. Will this be a good estimation for Lesser Devil Covid 19 ? 

With all the printing to support Covid Packages around the world, will there be a bubble ? I think we have not seen Euphoria yet despite US market reaching ATH due to K Recovery, and market steering to businesses that do well during this pandemic. Maybe Crypto will ignite it. Maybe SPAC will. Maybe WFH will. Maybe .... Blockchain will ... ... . By now you know all this doesn't keep me awake at night.

thank you for reading. Good night.

Cory

2021-0422

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Growing Kiddo Wealth

One of the famous concept today movement I heard past months is 1M65. And if we are to inject 65k into our baby account and let it compound for 65 years, the account will grow to 1M. 

From Mr Loo,

"To make baby millionaires, you first need quite a sum of money: S$64,350 to be exact for each baby at birth, to be contributed into their CPF SA."

For Cory that will be 130k. Ahem ! Even for a millionaire, to cough out this sum is not like a walk in the park. This sounds more like headline grabbing rather than practicality riches of wealth. After 65 years, $1M probably be good enough after inflation, if we still have the purchasing power to pay full for a 2 room BTO if such unit still exist.

I could also use that money to pay for the down payment for another investment property increasing my alternative income. However in this environment, the idea of ABSD, TDSR... etc will kill it.

Maybe it will be way faster if I spend the money now on 1 BTC which could grow to 1M in 2 years if BTC supporters expectations are met. Or it could go to zero if the governments start to ban them. Turkey ban moves shade few percentage off BTC value just this week. Imagine this is by EU or US.

On another perspective, 1M65 looks like modern way of saving for children. If 4% compounded is not sufficient to attract my money which is almost riskless, not many investment could anyway. One thing likely could happen is my vote will be biased against any political party that try to rock my Kiddo 1M65 boat for the next 65 years. LOL.

If we take this movement as an idea, 1M is just Mr Loo idea of compounded saving. We need not necessary have to narrow the concept and kill ourselves. We can start with any amount and build it up over their years and have it topped up as kiddo grows up. For a start on accountability, after talking to my wife, we have their Ang Pao money thrown inside matched 1 to 1 by their father. It takes some work to tear up their packets .... but topping up SA for the kids are a walk in the park through PayNow. They now have 1K each.

Cory : "Honey, there is some anypao money I forgot to top up into their SA accounts. Anyway I have done 1 on 1 matching. I should keep this balances."

Bee : " What you matched is theirs. The balances is still theirs."

Cory : " ... ... ... "

Cheers

Cory

2021-0418

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Where are we now on Reits ?

Many of our quality local Reits are now in the range of 4%-5% yield. This is still much better than keeping the money in the banks enjoying miserable returns. One could say that well the stock price can fluctuates therefore potential for capital loss. However this is true if we trying to time our capital returns through trading and not about investing in the business.

When we look into our investment holistically, is a businesses that provides us returns in addition to recovering markets from Covid Impacts. Therefore chances are we will also have capital gains in near to mid terms. However such gains are in the mercy of the market sentiments and macro conditions. If one is to own a business, does it really matter whether how the auditor value your NTA (Stock price) or the criteria should be how much cash flow it is generating into your "CEO" pocket.

On this perspective, a well established business, can provide constant positive returns way above bank saving, fixed deposits or even CPF interests rate. The key measure will be sustainability of the business, growth and income. What if we continue to wait it out. The risk is lowering rates and therefore lower yields. Every quarter or half yearly reit investors still receive the dpu in which the returns could be buffered up for further compounding against market direction.

For the more savvy reit investors, we could look into Reits dominant in oversea markets denominated in US, Euro or Pounds. This Reits are views more risky due to currency, foreign market condition,  regulations and signs. Why "Signs". EHT has taught investors a big lesson on how screwed up it can be and that just looking at yield is a recipe for disaster. Taking a rear mirror view, a young unknown mgmt team, major shareholder selling, a depleted ship, poor travel reviews on its hotels, ....

We can go further on with Sabana, Lippo or First Reit. That we need to monitor our investments on what Sponsor or Management do. Sometimes integrity go a long way than just initial years of good returns track record. It can be their long fishing line too. Don't be their fish ! Always be prepared to Cut loss.

Now I look at the few riskier reits using Elite Com as an example. Elite - Con - old builds, limited contracts. Pro - Has started paying dividends. Government tenants. Premium rights issue. Weighted the Pro and Con. Based on current information, I could put some. This will help push up the portfolio yield a bit. And that's the bit we need. However don't be a sleeping investor. We have quite a number of screwed cases. Do our Maths. Close scrutiny on the management and sponsor. Track records. Be less forgiving.

Final note, look at Reit as a Simple to understand Business you would like to own for long term, and chances are we will do well in the investing journey.

Cory

2021-0416

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Things I found out from Property Ownership

Not in any specific order, I am writing them down as notes as it comes off my mind for the past few days. No right or wrong but welcome to correct any errors.

1. Using CPF to pay for the housing

I think every couple should own their first property a HDB. Is the most affordable and one should only buy the right size that fits their income. If overstretch, relationship can be bad. And couple could be stressed.  Happy family, happy life, and good health. 

Question will be should we tap on CPF to purchase the property ? No right or wrong imo due to different circumstances. Just to be aware that there is accrued interests that we need to pay back to our own CPF account generally. Reason being I view CPF guaranteed returns are attractive and it makes sense for me to refund using idle money in the bank.

For my case, my SA account is not filled therefore VHR makes sense as I will do OA to SA transfer immediately after. So now hit FRS. After which I can do VC3AC to build up my SA further. There is annual limit of $37740 for MC+VC.

2. Condo Maintenance is sizeable

Let say $300 monthly. This is equal to $3600 annual ! And as I know this is generally paid by landlord if you rent out. So if one has no plan to use the condo for investment returns rather home stay, there is cost attached. In-addition there are gov benefits that ties to type of housing you live in. However life on earth is limited and each one has their own lifestyle. Make the full use of it.

3. Monthly Instalment there are 2 portions

Why I mention this is because the impact from interest rate is mitigated as time past due to large portion of our monthly installment is for paying down the principal loan. One reason why I refinance to a Fixed rate loan for 5 years. Lock lower rate on surface but also bought 5 years.

4. Property Tax

Yes, there is a cost. Period. In-addition I missed my 2nd payment because they switch to paperless without my explicit approval. They then allow me pay up without penalty for this time only. I feel like kenna kick and still have to bow to them. Life is Brutal next to Arrogant. 

5. Employment/Income Risk

You will be tied down. Risk of unemployment. Age risk. At age 51, if I am out of job, what is the chance that I can find another similar paying job within one year ? And if I could not, maybe is unlikely 5 years down the road. To mitigate this, do you think 1 year emergency fund enough ? So chances are is either get another job quickly at much lower pay of mismatch skillset or plan to be retired regardless I like it or not. Yes, is a waste of my skill but bo pian. 

6. Loan Year Restriction on Age

This is big for me because of my older age I can only borrow for 14 years max today. What this mean is my monthly amount will be much larger due to shorter loan period and need to meet the TDSR the same time. So if I plan to buy my next property,  I will need to pay much more in cash.

7.  Rental Income

For $3000 monthly rental, annual income is $36,000. This is good amount to offset loan payment for investment property at my age. Therefore I would only own more properties if regulation is more relaxed. There is risk if we do not have stable income or saving asset, we could panic. So we need to plan right as at current yield for my age, many properties are cash flow negative due to shorter loan period even though long run I will still be on top.

8. HDB or Private Property Loan

1% rate difference for $500k in simple term is $5k annually. Not cheap. So if I am to take HDB loan, make sure is worth it as it is much more expensive. I don't think it makes sense that people take HDB loan to minimize their chance of returning HDB flat if they failed to pay up. Either they overspend or cannot afford it in the first place.

9. Condo Space

Space is much smaller for New and Private. So if want to stay in one make sure we buy the size we want in number of rooms and total psf. If cannot afford, think twice. However if target rental, not sure 1 or 2 bed rooms are better. I do see quite a number of rent for 3 bedrooms just not as many. Due to gov curbs on number of properties,  getting the larger affordable unit will be a better choice.

10. Home Ownership

Shifted homes from HDB 1 room, 3 room, 4 room, 5 room and Condo. Can be due to family size, estate renewal, working distance, upgrade, etc. home is not forever because is not my experience. We move and change with times and needs. However each time we move, is for better.

11. Invest in Property or Reit ?

I do both. I think maybe good to have at least one rental property income for diversification. Do be prepared for cash flow negative periods due to increasing price. Currently I use a chunk of the Reit dividends to top up the differences.

12. Location Matters

for OCR, Integrated central location, the psf is much higher than 5 min or 10 min away apartment. Delta can be more than 300 psf. However once top, the psf increase for good location increased by 30% with good rental value. So rental investment wise, a key consideration ?

13. Renovation Cost

As condo is half furnished, there is some saving. I do the fan, lighting and curtains. However due to limited space, customized bedding needed for smaller room. In total less than 15k i think. 

14. Store room

Being used to store room in HDB, quite surprise the Condo unit I have do not have one. Many things are thrown before we move in. Minimalist by circumstances ?

15. Weather

Choose the NS direction. There are swimming pools below about 30m away to the side. So is not noisy.

As the unit is inward facing and unblocked, the temperature is quite cooling. However clothing takes longer to dry.

16. Leverage " Demon "

Property is high leverage considering for first property say we pay only 20%. So any gain or loss, magnifies. However there is cushioning from Rental income. Say over 5 year we make 250k for 1M apartment, the money put down including cost could be only 230k. So returns easily 15% annual for past 5 years excluding Rental Support. If we include say 30k annual rental income after cost, the returns  will be roughly = 34% annual ! The range can be between 30% to 40% due to actual sell price 5 years later cannot be confirm .(updated)

I put item 16 the last because I want people to think hard about it. 

Cory

2021-0413

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Portfolio Fund Tracker 2021Q1

New chart series for totaled Equity plus investment cash to form the investment portfolio. Since Mar 2020 crash, the market has recovered above the peak level of Pre-Covid. Again time in market is so important. It was early Jan 2019 that the fund crossed 1M mark and now we are already marching towards $1.4M.

Unrealised and Realised P/L since 2017: $355,491

Div since 2017 : $256,415

2021 P/L YTD : $52,784

2021 Div YTD : $9,561

Started testing out in HK market after US Market experiences. So now have exposure in 3 Markets. Next destination will be LSE.

Cory

2021-0409

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Retirement Income Sources

Has been squeezing my brain cells a little on how I can stay liquid if I am to retire despite my financial status and investment returns due to my expenses. I am really hard pressed on expanding the list of possible ways. Fact of the matter is I am in good financial health today is because I have a regular job to boost my annual income. Tax will be reduced so I would think my expense will come down if I am retired. So keep this in mind.

In this article I decide to list down all possible practical income sources I could think of excluding discretionary types such as Life Insurance and post retirement salary incomes. They will be more like buffer and back up plans.  Obviously personal loan is not income. Raiding parent home is not counted as it's on parent expenses to generate Rental income but maybe the delta. Inheritance no count as well though the sum could be really good to some.

How about profit from stock market ? I think no as is not guaranteed and I could lose in down years. The return is inconsistent for the past 20 years even though I have relatively sufficient track record as income source. But this can be the engine to build up my dividend base which I could count on.

After listing them in the table, I find it rather interesting. It shows how constraints I am  without regular source of salary income. There are basically 3 main types. Equity dividends, Rental and CPF. Of all of them Equity Dividend is rather important to me. It forms the basis of my retirement funding. Without it in which most locals are adverse to stock market, I wonder how they can do without it.

The 2nd major source of income is Rental. So ability to get more apartment helps except that property curbs have put a stop to this charade. With Covid and constraint on immigrants, this has put a lid on a practical source of retirement income for Singaporeans. No wonder many locals want to try oversea. Maybe I should when I can ! Nevertheless this is a playground to middle income and above generally.

The final major source of income will be CPF. Yes good old CPF except that I won't be able to touch the RA till 65. We could get some interest out from the leftover of FRS to supplement from age 55 though. Keeping in mind BHS will increase till Age 65 so this portion of interests will unlikely be touch for now.

And then lightning strike me that Reverse Mortgage could be a potential source as well. Wonder why this is not popular locally or maybe I am out of touch which is likely. Nevertheless I have no plan currently so is 0 for now. ( Option available )

SSB listed and which provides a baseline stability. It has a cost attached to it though as I could get 5% yield in market today. So the cost probably 5k annually today. If I can plan something, maybe this can be de-commissioned such as additional rental income. 

Others miscellaneous. Anything else ?  Is good to have things listed. 

Thinking.

Cory

2021-0403

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Equity Allocation April Review

DBS

Did a couple of key trades recently. One of them is partial sell off of DBS which enjoyed sizeable runs up that also push up STI Index. This is after I have cleared my OCBC after a period. DBS now is less than 10% of my allocated pie in which I still have quite significant exposure. I wouldn't want to sell all because there is good possibilities that it could hit 30 with recovering market in which I am generally positive on the banks. While some other fallen counters recovered in reasonable tandem as well I view them as fundamentally much weaker. So far sale of Bank stocks are more of mitigation moves. If there is fire sales, I would be back at reasonable level. Digital Banking and Blockchain do pose a torn that we have to live with in this investment. This is traded off with potential dividend cap release which might provide a boost to dividend.

ASCENDAS REIT

Ascendas recently weakness provided some opportunity for me to push it slightly above 10%. I am happy with the current yield primarily and of course the recent DCs acquisition. This provide a new dimension or growth opportunities after KDC and then MINT. And only with the backing of strong sponsor do we get to see such opportunity. The only misgiving I have is the merger into CPL as we need to absorb the culture or management which may not be align to Ascendas past glory. So we have to see before any plan to move the allocation further up.

MINT

Continue to pile on this counter on recent weakness as well and together with Ascendas has seen some recovery in prices. Current allocation still has room for more but I won't be increasing much with recent run-up. Is in a sizeable sweet spot in my portfolio allocation above Elite, Cromwell and Aims Apac Reit which are higher yield riskier asset class.

IREIT Global

There is an update few days ago with Deutsche Telekom subsidiary.  At Münster Campus, key tenant will consolidate its operations at Münster North building from 2022 onwards with additional one year lease. Münster South building 4 floors released. The "Pain of Expansion" of footprint into Spain has reduced reliance on key tenants in Germany. Glad that this is done early and not procrastinated. That's what manager is for. We will see how the rest of properties pan out. So far has been positive and I have further increased my allocation into this Reit as their sponsors are more stable. And for the matter, this is also in AK portfolio and my ride with him on AGT feels good. 

Frasers CPT

Have been adding monthly on FCT. Quite positive on suburban mall relevancy to town design. So far their operation is nothing but impressive. Any weakness is good for collection especially in recovering Covid period. If we are to look back at this period in good economic times, the current price will be cheap.

In addition I am also looking into expanding below counters with increasing cash level to increase my current dividend theoretical max of 56k.

Namely,

Elite Commercial Reit - Waiting for opportunity to increase allocation slightly

Vicom - Review next Q report on next more. Potentially increase in allocation

Cory

2021-0402

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Saving and Frugality

To start in proper - Saving is the act of spending less than you earn in income, and placing the remainder into a reserve account for later use. How much ability to save ties somewhat to frugality.

Being Frugal

To me it could means minimize wastage. It can be avoiding large wastage of uneaten food. Imagine the amount of saving from uneaten food of each meal as it forms a large part of our basic cost. However, we cannot trade it over balance diet else illness may visit us which will cost a lot more. Fortunately I do not have crave for titbits and soft drinks. So on both health and saving wise, stars are aligned for me.

If we do often enough, drinking Starbuck instead of KopiTiam where the marginal utility may not be very wide for me, saving could be quite significant. Probably 3 times.  So frequency matters in this case. If it provides high satisfaction for your life, do go ahead for your daily Starbuck, while I enjoy my kopi siew tie !

There are items in home we should never brought home. Unused bulky exercise equipment. Souvenirs or tons of  fur toys that we never really appreciate when brought home. I would go as far to include massage chair. That's doesn't mean you should if it does bring you big comfort. Being frugal also means able to focus on big ticket items. If Tesla car design is what you need, while it could be luxury for some, may not be for others. Maybe we can go for Model 3 instead of X. 

To some others could be stringent control of expenses. I find this unnecessary "suffering" for myself. What we need to take is a balance approach in life before our mind get conditioned to think is ok. Some could think that's the way however I beg to differ. People who track down to tiny expenses daily, for years. Take a step back and think, are you the character type that will  spurt or time is better spend else where to grow your income unless you telling me your life is to keep track of such. I close my case.

We should still go for occasional social, cab when is not convenience to use the rail and short holidays. And no way I want to be late for work or appointment just to save on taxi fares. Being early for a meeting may put me in a better shape to kickstart my working day and further my career and therefore income. Once in a long while maybe a delayed major trip. Delay gratification helps but don't push it out too far out. What this mean is we should try to expand our life to some extend to appreciate and enjoy within reasonable budget constraints while we compound our money but not to stop us on to get better on appreciating humanity and cultures.

Things I valued is like walking out in the morning through the garden to freshen up my mind on the way to nearby kopi shop to take my breakfast. I could spend like $5 and enjoy slightly finer things in life. I know some would try to cut down to $2 or have it at home eating bread from QAF. If that's is what one preferred is ok too if that's what you enjoy to do but make sure you do ! A short chat with the stall employees and cleaner brighten up the day.

As one may remember I got a notebook recently after many years till if I find the efficiency beginning to be a drag. Is not like I am stingy to get a new one in a shorter time period but the old unit I had was a power itself for my needs till auxiliary parts start to weaken. And I decided to look for medium range value or better. 

Being excessive in saving habits or subconsciously could have unintended consequences when ones life in earth is limited. And yes we live only once ! So don't waste our life time just to skim in everything or for argument sake in most. Often we are so busy we miss out other aspect of life which form our existence in this world instead of enjoying the process of it. I was single for a long time. While people admired the freedom I had which I do have, deep down in my heart, if I could married and have kids, making like full circle, I would. But I am not going to trade it without getting the right partner. Luckily, I did but is ok if we are not as we will find different option paths of different life and my expenses rocketed. Yup, it REALLY does but I am happy. That's what matter.

Personally, the best way is to find ways to improve our earning and this could be spending more to improve ourselves, skillset and broadening our perspective in life. Looking for way to improve our value in the company and leading project to improve efficiency. Time is money too so we need to watch the fine balance between them.

I come up 2 scenarios of different people just to give us a thought in perspectives. Is not trying to convey spending beyond our means definitely or trying to achieve FI by ensuring lifestyle remains the same after salary tripled. I do not think is ok for one to do that. There is no prize saving the extra Million to beat the others when our life is limited. I am more like Scenario 1 Person 3 in the past. Now working towards Scenario 2 Person 3. Not the exact amount of salary though but you know what I mean. 

To sum up my idea using above table. Using Scenario 1 assuming varied income with same expenses. Person 3 saving is 13 times ! of person 1. This is a little extreme of higher earning but continue to maintain low expenses of one who only draw 3k years ago.

Scenario 2 is where as one income grow, we adjust our spending. Person 1 in this scenario tried many means to squeeze saving.

Scenario 1 of person 1 and Scenario 2 of Person 2 and 3 are options we could possibly choose. Lesser saving when one is earning less, by proportion. And adjusting for better lifestyle when people earns more. We still ride on larger absolute savings. That's what earning more is about, winning both ways. The Way of life.

Cory

2021-0104