The Trump Blog

I’m always talking about how important it is to get a good education. I’m a big believer in going to a great college and getting a good degree because of all that it will do for your career.

Well here’s another reason to get a good education. Researchers at Harvard University found a stunning correlation between how long people live and how long they go to school.

Over the past decade, people with at least one year of college increased their lifespan by at least a year and a half. But those with a high school diploma or less gained only six months.

It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, white or black. The better educated you are, the longer you live.

The reason is because education changes the way we see the world and ourselves. The more educated you are, the less likely you are to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior...such as heavy drinking, smoking, doing drugs, even wearing a seatbelt or having a smoke detector in your house.

Obviously there are people with doctorate degrees who are overweight and drink and smoke too much and may end up dying way too young. Sometimes even a good education can’t stop people from doing stupid things. But hopefully, those people are the exception.

In general, if you want to live a long life, stay in school.

You make your money in real estate when you purchase it.  In other words, it’s extremely important that you shrewdly negotiate to win when you buy to give yourself the highest return on real estate when you sell. To do this, follow my 5 simple negotiating tips and you should succeed. 

1. Don’t fall in love - Treat your purchase as a business and check your emotions at the door. Use your head rather than your heart because this will keep you from buying at any cost. If the deal makes financial sense.
2. Don’t just low ball...validate - When submitting an offer which is below what the seller is asking, make sure you have data from comparable sales and a detailed spreadsheet of expenses you will incur (if any) to make the property fit your needs/wants. By doing this, you show the seller that you are not trying to insult him and that you have done your homework.
3. Leave room to move - I usually like to “ask for the moon” knowing that I most likely won’t get it. In doing so, you can show the seller that you are letting him win too by allowing him to negotiate your price UP from where you started. You may be surprised what a seller will do to keep you in negotiations. 
4. Negotiate closing costs - In addition to purchase price, you can ask for other concessions from the seller such as getting them to pay some or all of your closing costs. Some sellers feel better about paying these costs rather than accepting a lower price. Maybe it is so they can say they got a higher price to their friends/family. It all boils down to their “NET” anyway but this seems to play on their ego quite often. Also, another negotiating “chip” you can use as a sacrifice to show the seller that you are trying to work with him.
5. Motivation - Always try to find out why the seller is selling. Is it a distressed situation? Pre-foreclosure? Divorce? By learning this valuable piece of information, you can get inside the seller’s head and therefore better appeal to his wants/needs. Maybe it’s just a quick close date they need to get to your price so be sure to get your financing in order before starting to look so you can be ready to move quickly if the need arises.

Do you love your job, your boss, and all of your co-workers? If not, you are probably not among the ranks of the self-employed. 

Self-employed individuals are passionate about their business and work tirelessly to make it a success. When you work for yourself you are not concerned with the time clock and could care less about how many hours per week you are at the office. You do this because you are expending time to grow YOUR business. Make no mistake, you WILL be working more, not less, than you were before. When you aren’t working “in” the business, you will find yourself working “on” the business. It will likely keep you up at night and occupy your free time so you can figure out ways to grow and compete in your industry. 

How nice would it be to not have to tip-toe around a boss who doesn’t appreciate your efforts, take credit for your successes and pass blame for his/her mistakes? I will tell you...it’s completely liberating! Every morning you will wake up with only one to please...your customer! Your only focus will need to be on how to attract more and make the ones you have happy enough to come back to you. It sounds easy enough except for the fact that everyone else in your industry has the same game plan. That’s the beautiful challenge in it. You must use every ounce of your creative being to make your company prosper with only you to take credit for the wins or blame yourself for the losses. I would bet you don’t get to do that on your day job now.

Another important decision to make is with whom you decide to surround yourself to help make your company operate. In a small company, it is imperative to have superstars! The reason is because that person represents an enormous fraction of your company as a whole and you can’t afford to expose your customers to “average” or “below-average” support staff. If you can’t find a superstar, then hire a “temp” or do the work yourself till you do.   It’s hard to get customers and even harder to get them back! 

I encourage you to figure out what it is in your life you want to be when you grow up and then grow up. Do your research carefully and then create a job for yourself. It doesn’t have to necessarily replace your current job at first. You can start some businesses in your free time after work until you can support yourself enough to resign and start your career.

Whether or not you believe we’re in a recession, a lot of people are taking a hit to their wallets and bank accounts and have to deal with it in some relatively old-fashioned ways.

For one, moonlighting seems to be back in style. But it certainly isn’t because people are testing the waters of new careers or trying to expand their horizons beyond their boring day jobs. Now, when people work two jobs, it’s almost always motivated solely by financial need - either they really need the funds now or they’re afraid they’ll lose their primary source of income.

According to the Department of Labor, the number of Americans who work a full-time job and have a part-time job on the side has risen to more than 4 million. It’s being called “moonlighting by fear” and is most prevalent among workers in industries that are struggling.

Some people are getting second jobs not just to stay afloat but to keep up the supersize lifestyle so many Americans have grown accustomed to. If they want to keep the big house, the fancy cars and all the trappings, in today’s economy that often requires a second job.

If you’re going to moonlight - for whatever reason - be smart how you go about choosing that second job. Either find something that can help with your real career or take a job that you’d enjoy. And by all means, get a job that pays enough for all your trouble.

In any case, be careful that your second job doesn’t jeopardize your main job or you’ll be defeating the purpose of moonlighting in the first place. I know it’s not easy. The country’s in a major recession and everybody has to do what they can.

Of course no one likes to think about it, but if you were laid-off from your job tomorrow how would you fare financially? With today’s volatile economy and job market, unfortunately it’s something you have to consider.

I saw a recent online poll on CNN.com and was shocked at the results. Nearly 100,000 people had logged in their comments and about half said that if they were laid-off now, their savings wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks.

That’s unbelievable to me. It’s hard for me to imagine that people are that unprepared for financial hardship today, especially knowing how unstable everything is right now.

I know it can be hard to save money when you have a mortgage and car payments and credit card bills but take my advice and try to save just a little bit from every paycheck. Put it in the bank - somewhere you can get it if you need it but where you won’t be tempted to touch it. The same principle applies to me. I don’t care how much you make or how rich you are. You have to save money.

That way if the unfortunate happens and you lose your job, it’s there when you need it until you’re back on your feet. In today’s unsteady economy, it’s the smart thing to do.

Today I want to make investors aware of a well known tax break offered up by the IRS that allows them to depreciate their properties as they would any other fixed asset as a business owner. While it’s not a new concept, not all investors are aware of this and with the influx of new investors into the market, it’s important to bring this into light.

The government, in its attempt at fair taxation, realizes that just like any other piece of capital equipment used in a business, a piece of investment property will wear out over time. They currently allow you to depreciate on an equal or “straight-line” basis over 27.5 years. What this means to you is that you can expense a portion of your realty holding each year against the income it earned. It’s important to know that since the land on which it sits generally does not suffer wear and tear, you cannot depreciate it. Other than that, it is pretty simple to calculate and here’s how it works...

Purchase price - Land Value = Building Value.

Building Value / 27.5 = Annual allowable depreciation deduction

It may not sound like much but on a simple $500k four-plex where the land is worth $100k and the structure is $400k, you could expense or “depreciate” $14,545 against the income generated from this unit. Even at a 30% tax rate this could save you $4,363 in income taxes for your business. This is nearly enough to pay for a month’s worth of the gasoline you will use to locate your next investment property!

Not that long ago, the leaders of AT&T announced that they were going to return 5,000 customer service jobs to the United States that they had outsourced to India.

But now, two years later, the head of that top U.S. phone company says it’s having trouble finding enough skilled American workers to fill those positions.

So far, not even one-third of the jobs have been returned to the United States out of the 5,000. The company still hopes to fill all those jobs here but it hasn’t been easy.

In some U.S. communities, for example, the high school dropout rates is as high as 50 percent, so it makes it really hard to find skilled workers to fill positions.

That’s why, they say, it’s so much easier to outsource the jobs to India where often workers are more educated and more plentiful.

I commend AT&T for continuing to stick with their resolution to bring those jobs back to the United States when it seems like it would be so much easier - and cheaper - to keep those jobs in India. It shows a strong commitment to the American economy and the American workforce.