***Don't Read Tea Leaves, Read Trends Instead and Grow Rich

Back in the sixties when I was a teenager, my Uncle George used to visit my family every Sunday night. He was a very smart guy, but very eccentric. And boy, could he talk. One night he told us an amazing story. It seems that while he was tinkering in his garage in the late 1940’s, he discovered a way to get his car’s heater to work better--a lot better. He went on to design an improved car heater. But because he didn’t want to spend any money to patent his design, he gave it to the Packard Motor Car Company in exchange for a lifetime discount on all his future cars. The last Packard he owned was a 1954 Caribbean convertible, salmon red. It was just a magnificent car, which could explain why he was not smiling when Packard went out of business a few years later. No more Packards for Uncle George. Plus, he never got a single penny for his idea.nnWhen it came to money, George’s brilliant-but-weird streak always got the best of him. But the Packard story isn’t the worst of it. The worst part is that Uncle George had organized his finances around his theory that because money depreciates, you have to spend it all as fast as you earn it.nnThat’s right. In his view, the more money he spent, the more he had. Like most loony theories, this one was based on a shred of truth. After all, it is true that in inflationary times, your money will buy more today than it will tomorrow. But George chose to overlook the fact that if you invest money wisely, you can outrun inflation and keep ahead of the game.nnHis story shows that identifying just one trend is not enough. If you want to get rich, you need to monitor a lot of trends and profit from them. You can see this principle very clearly in real estate investing. After all, it is called “real” estate because it deals with real assets you can touch and see, like houses, land, and apartment buildings.nnAs I was writing Catch the Wave: How Timing Can Make You a Fortune in Real Estate Today for Trump University, I interviewed a number of successful real estate investors and learned that they tend to monitor not just one trend, but lots of trends that take place in three principal areas. I think you would do well to keep your eye on these trends, too.nnRegional Trends. Are people moving into the area where you are buying properties or are they moving out? Are local employers thriving or are they laying people off? Are schools improving or going downhill fast? Are real estate prices rising? If so, have prices gotten so high that they are likely to stall? The best investors consider and reconsider such questions constantly because change happens every day.nnFinancing trends. Are there new kinds of mortgages available? If so, are they too risky to consider? Where is the prime lending rate headed? (Visit http://www.federalreserve.gov to find out.) Top investors monitor these factors closely and are rarly surprised by change.nnLife trends. If you are about to retire to Florida, is it really a good time for you to buy an apartment building in Minnesota, where you now reside? If you are about to send two kids to college, is it a good idea to sink your savings into a risky real estate venture? The wisest real estate investors select investments that make sense within the context of major events that are taking place in their lives. They don’t only look at potential profits.nnThe bottom line is, you can never take your eye off the trends or fail to understand their impact on your investments. And that holds true whether your wealth is in stocks, municipal bonds, or apartment buildings.nnAnd let’s not overcomplicate things. Is the value of what you own going up or going down? If it is going down, what can you do about it? Considering simple questions like those every day will help you amass a fortune you can enjoy. Then one day, you can pass it on to your heirs.