Light on spending, heavy on investment

A budding female property developer in a man's world, my salute to this good lady!   Straits Times: Sun, Feb 12

Ms Tan Yang Po, 49, is busy building a portfolio of properties that will generate a stream of passive income through her property investment firm. She has been conducting property seminars since starting her own property investment company about three years ago and has now ventured into property development. She will soon launch her maiden project Azea Residences in Danga Bay, Johor Baru. 'I just like a good challenge, creating things from scratch. That gives me a lot of satisfaction. It keeps me going. I get scared if I were to do nothing for a while.' Previously, she ran e-learning systems provider SkyQuestCom with local entrepreneur Richard Tan of seminar organiser Success Resources. Prior to that, she worked with retail brands and was once director of Yves Saint Laurent Beaute, Asia-Pacific. 'I always knew that to be successful, you have to do what you like,' says Ms Tan. She has a degree from the National University of Singapore and her family consists of husband Bruce, 56, an operations manager, and three adult children aged 25, 29 and 30. Q: Are you a spender or saver? I am a saver. I spend only 10 per cent of my monthly income. The rest is invested or saved. I am a very simple person with very simple needs. I spend the most on food and transport. I have no time to shop and I don't buy for therapy's sake. Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month? I use my cards mostly for business purposes. My personal expenses amount to barely $200 a month. Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself? I believe that the fastest way to make money is by starting your own business (if you have a passion). Once you have done so, invest the money so you can let your money work for you and when you retire, you can do nothing and there will be passive income coming in. This way, even if your business loses money in a worst-case scenario, you can still retire with an income stream. I invest largely in property as I believe in focusing on what I know. Within the property sector, you can diversify in terms of the property type and the country where it is located. I have less than $100,000 invested in stocks. Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like? We were so poor we had to give our hongbao money to our parents. My late parents had six children, and I am the youngest. My dad ran our family business which dealt in cane products and mum was a housewife. His business did not do well and yet he dabbled in the stock market and lost money. But, as he was running a business and trading shares, the talk at home came to centre on these two topics. There was, however, no conscious effort on his part to teach us about money. I learnt about money management from books by gurus like Robert Kiyosaki, who taught me that you can retire without having to worry about money only by building a passive income stream. Q: How did you get interested in investing? Because I grew up in a family that did business and invested, I started to dabble in shares and property on my own. But it wasn't until I read Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad that I gained some property investment knowledge. I started investing in property here and overseas 20 years ago. I attended seminars and I learnt from the gurus. I did very well in my first few jobs and used the money I had to invest in properties. My first investment was in a prime private condominium about 20 years ago. I made $60,000 in less than three months and it got me excited about property investment. I then invested in an apartment in China, as my job took me to the country often. Q: What property do you own? I own more than 100 properties, most of which are residential ones and they are mostly in places like Britain, the US and Malaysia. For most of them, the rent is more than enough to cover the monthly mortgage payments. In Singapore, I own three properties. I bought a one-bedroom unit at The Sail three to four years ago for about $1.2 million. I also have a five-room HDB flat in Bedok and a two-bedder at The Bayshore that I bought about a decade ago. All three are tenanted out at rental yields of 4 per cent to 7 per cent. Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought? It is my car, which cost me $120,000. I have no regrets. It's the only thing I really pamper myself with. Q: What's your retirement plan? I don't plan to retire because I will be bored. I do, however, hope to gradually spend more time doing charitable work. I have helped deliver food to the needy and donated money to Kidney Dialysis Foundation. I like to be on the go. I like to feel that I am learning. If I hang around doing the same things over and over again, I will be bored. Q: Home is now... My husband's 1,300 sq ft executive condo unit in Simei. Q: I drive... A silver Lexus 320. [e-mail] WORST AND BEST BETS Q: What is your worst investment to date? About five to six years ago, I lost about $200,000 in shares. I attended a course on investing, applied what they taught and made money trading shares in quite a lot of companies, based on technicals. I started with $20,000 and I made $60,000 in one week. Then I got greedy and put in more money - about $200,000 - and over three months, I lost almost everything. So, now I 'collect' shares instead of trade them. I have shares in a few companies such as Keppel Corp, CapitaLand and Top Global. Q: What is your best investment to date? This was the first property I bought 20 years ago, a small condominium unit of about 1,000 sq ft in River Valley. I sold it in less than three months, reaping a more than 50 per cent profit. Source: The Straits Times