A bit of background story. I was born in Jakarta, and I came to Singapore in 1998 to study Chemical Engineering in NUS. Just like everyone else, I managed to accumulate some small saving and since I have learnt to be "kiasu" during my stay in Singapore, I started looking into possible ways of growing my money.
Having zero knowledge in the stock market, I was hesitant to plunge into such investment where I can potentially lose quite a lot of my investment money. The fixed deposit rate at the bank is so low though that I saw no reason why I should leave my money locked with them.
And then one day I happened to stumble across this seminar on Land Investment. I got curious! My impression on land has always been stable and lucrative. One of my grandpas left behind a large parcel of land in the South Jakarta. He passed away really young, even before I was born. But I remembered my uncles and my mom talking that the Land (NOTthe house) was then valued at 200Million Rupiah (today equivalent of SGD30K). And when I was 10 years old, someone offered to buy that piece of land for more than 4 times it's old value! The family didn't have any need to sell so they decided to keep it. Guess what? Now in 2012 the whole family is trying to sell this land for .... *drum roll* .... 13.5 BILLION Rupiah!
Another case study was my own family home. Our house was in the suburban area of Jakarta called Cibubur. Land used to be dirt cheap there, but when my family decided to buy a lot in a housing complex designed to be a self-sufficient satellite town back in 2003, we had to pay 70Million Rupiah, for a 200-m2 lot ~ 350 thousand rupiah/m2. Today, our neighboring lot, same size, was sold for 300Million rupiah! That is more than 4times in less than 10 years!
So this is the power of buying land in the right location. Even though Indonesia suffered from the Asia crisis, dot.com bust, etc etc, in the long run, where there is demand, land value can only go up, especially when it is meant for future developments.
Subsequently I ventured to land in North America that is meant for future developments, and last year I sold two of them. Guess what, end of 2011, when quite a lot of my other investments were in the red, my lands gave me still positive returns, between 10-30% per annum. But I have to qualify though, you really have to be careful when choosing the land and the manager for your land, because land investment gone wrong can mean your money will be stuck for a long time, or even lost!
At the end of the day, it is still where I park most of my investment eggs, because I am confident these will be the safe nests, with so much uncertainty looming in the horizon.
What do you think of land as an investment? If you would like to share or exchange your experiences, do drop me a mail. I wouldn't mind sharing my own experience and I would love to hear other ideas and personal stories.
