Working from home is great for those who want some more freedom over how and when they work. It is not a perfect fit for just anyone, as it takes a certain kind person who can be a self starter and still get the job done in their own time without a boss present to keep them focused on the task at hand. If you have the qualities necessary to succeed in starting your own online home based business then it will offer you many benefits. For starters, you are your own boss and you will decide how things are done. Plus the work day starts when you want it to start, not when someone else tells you to show up for work.Now, before you go off and start searching around on the internet for online home based business opportunities, you need to have a clear vision of what you want your business to become. A positive mindset is critical to the success of your business. Success starts with a decision that you’re successful. You have to decide that quitting is not an option, no matter what happens. When you have made that decision, then you need to take specific action steps towards reaching your goals. Then it would only be a matter of time before you see your desired results.You will then need to search for an online home based business which ticks all the right boxes:

provides cutting-edge online marketing solutions,
teaches effective marketing strategies,
provides full training, resources and support,
provides personal mentoring and coaching,
has a lucrative compensation plan,
promotes products that are high in demand.

Without these features, it would be harder to build a successful online home based business. You will need an internet marketing education platform so that you can learn how to build your business the right way. And it’s important to implement what you learn until you become good at it.When you have a burning desire to succeed, you will need to take massive action in order to achieve the goals you have set. All successful entrepreneurs I know of, attribute their success to taking massive action. Even the smallest of actions carried out daily can contribute to your success. Don’t make excuses as they are for people who are content with their mediocre lives, slaving for someone else just to pay their bills. Engage in daily activities that will get you closer to reaching your goals. It’s so easy to be busy with the activities that are not producing income.Focus is the key if you want to achieve your goals and be successful. Without focus, you will find yourself all over the place trying different things and seeing no results. There are new systems and new opportunities coming up all the time. So once you have decided on a business, focus on it and avoid distractions. Jumping ships and becoming a serial entrepreneur, is not recommended until you are well-established and have realised the results you’re looking for.Also, you don’t need to master all the marketing methods available. Decide on a couple of marketing strategies that match your interests, skills, budget as well as time and focus on them until you master them. Then you can add other methods to your marketing arsenal.Have you ever wondered why many new online home based business entrepreneurs get frustrated and quit within their first three months or so? In most cases, they are drawn to the hype that it would be easy to make money and when that doesn’t happen, they give up. Patience and persistence are very important if you want to succeed in your business. It does take hard work, commitment, dedication, focus, a burning desire and time to create a successful and profitable business. So, you need to believe in yourself, find what’s working for you, continue doing more of it then you will eventually see the results you desire. DON’T quit – success should be your only option!

Like it or not to be successful with your home based business you need a warm market. A warm market is a group of people who know, like, and trust you. Network marketing is a people business and people want to work with people they like. People you see who come into your network marketing company and within weeks make it to top of your company is not by luck. Odds are that they have been in network marketing for quite awhile and have created a list of thousands of people that know and trust them. I just wanted to address how important having a warm market list is.Let’s say you have been in network marketing for a while and you have gone through your list to only sponsor a few people and have a limited amount of warm market left and have exhausted all of your contacts. How do you expand your warm list and add new people to your list? One way is to sponsor a cold market contact and turn their warm market into your warm market. Working with your new team members and helping them work their warm market is very important. If you help them sponsor some of their warm market contacts and you help their new members do the same this can really turn your home based business around. If you teach your team how to work the warm market and they teach their team to do the same you will never run out of warm contacts. Duplication is key to really be successful in network marketing.Another way to expand your warm list is to get out there and network! Quit hiding behind your computer screen and get out into the real world and start meeting new people. Please do not vomit all over people about your home based business opportunity when you first meet them. You want to establish a friendship and get to know them before you invite them to take a look at your opportunity. Remember building your home based business is a long term investment. The sponsor monsters do not make it long in the network marketing arena only the people who build relationships first do well. There are so many great networking events from meetup.com, Young active professionals, and other great social events. Attend these types of events to expand your network and add more people to your list. Having a home based business is all about meeting and finding people you want work with and get to know more about. I have met some really great friends being in network marketing and it’s become a family. So don’t worry if your warm market list is looking a bit weak. The best remedy is to add new life to it by helping your team work theirs and getting out and meeting new people to expand yours. Your list will be your key to success for your home based business. Network marketing is all about building a network!

There are three very important elements that make up a top rated home based business. It should be internet based, have an automated marketing system and offer a quality high-end product. These elements can be key to your success.A top rated home based business will be internet based. This is important since one of the main reasons for working from home is so you don’t have to maintain a conventional storefront and deal directly with the customers. By using an attractive and professionally designed web site as your storefront, you can offer your product or products not only to local customers, but to customers worldwide. Sales are generated when you drive customer traffic to your web site through advertising and marketing, much the same way you would for a brick-n-mortar storefront. Using the internet, you can also build a permission based email list of your current customers as well a potential new ones making it easier to keep in touch with them and inform them of your future offers.The best businesses will include an automated marketing system. Since the internet never sleeps, it is important to be able to tap into that aspect of it. By using a top quality system you can automate your business to run 24 hours a day. Utilizing the latest in Internet marketing techniques like Search Engine Optimization, PPC and Social Media you can attract customers into your system, or sales funnel as it’s called, even while you are sleeping. A good system will not only track and sort the customers for you, it can even do the selling. It can help you completely manage your existing web site and even help you create new ones. System autoresponders will manage and implement your permission based email effortlessly. With a laptop computer, you can literally run your business from anywhere.Top home businesses will offer a quality high-end direct sell product capable of generating adequate revenues and even residual revenues. There are many people making excellent incomes online working from home selling all sorts of products. Many people work in MLM and some make great incomes selling relatively inexpensive products like juices and vitamins. But, all too often most people are struggling to even make a dime, since their success depends mostly on everyone else’s efforts in a down line more than it does their own. Many other people make money online as affiliate marketers. They make lots of small commissions from driving customer traffic to many different websites. A Top rated home based business will offer a product that is needed by most everyone and always delivers real value by giving solutions to everyday problems. These high-end direct sell products are usually priced at $1000.00 or above and pay out a substantially higher initial return.You can see that a business which is internet based has a distinct advantage over one that is not. Using the internet and a good automated marketing system will not only help you generate prospects, customers and sales, it will make the job a lot easier. Most importantly, by offering a high-end product which is in demand, you will attract more customers and make more income for your efforts.

As the Ugandan economy continues developing, the property market will grow. Many of the property sector investors however will probably not have time to manage the properties themselves on a day to day basis. They will increasingly rely on property management firms.

Before considering property management in Uganda as an investment option, the investor needs to however be aware of the following:

THE CONS

1. Legal hurdles.

You should be aware that in Uganda, owing to the poor land tenure system, combined with administrative inefficiencies and corruption, property purchase and construction is often fraught with legal difficulties. It is not uncommon for individuals to obtain illegal planning permits for construction of properties in say gazetted zones like wetlands and forest reserves. Subsequently rectifying this irregularity has often resulted in long drawn out legal processes and the owner and thus the property manager often lose revenues during the non occupancy of the disputed property.

2. Reputation.

Property management firms like any other businesses need to exhibit a high degree of integrity for potential clients to handover the properties. In Uganda there have been some high-profile court cases involving property managers, including one of a leading property management firm whose managing director conned a potential purchaser of advance monies paid. There was a significant reputation loss. If you are considering investing in this sector, you should therefore ensure you maintain the high standards of professional ethics such as separating client and office monies as well as maintaining good accounting records, otherwise your reputation can easily be dented.

3. The property market bubble.

Whilst the global credit crisis continues depressing property values in places such as the USA and the UK, In Uganda this is not particularly being felt for a myriad of reasons. In the commercial sector, malls and shopping centres continue to spring up in the capital city Kampala and its suburbs to cater for the growing middle class and increasing population as a result of rural- urban migration which is currently estimated at 3%-5% per annum.

In the residential sector owing to a general shortage of housing there is always demand for property and as such the property values continue to rise. The shortage of housing is primarily because just like many cities across sub Saharan Africa, rural-urban migration to Kampala has resulted in significant population growth not matched by construction and thus causing a shortage of housing, particularly for the low and middle level income earners.

The main risk of the property bubble in Uganda would arise from political instability which would lead to collapse of the sector.

4. Competition

The competition for property management in this sector is as follows:

At the top end of the market are international property management firm affiliates like Knight Frank. In addition there are ISO certified companies like Amalgamated Property Consultants (APS) as well as large and reputable property management companies such as Crane Management services which is under the Ruparelia Group of companies.

At the lower end of the market are property brokers who also double as property managers for their clients. These typically cater for low-income earners’ housing.

In my model, I advocate that the property management investor will need to develop their niche as follows:

1) A firm that is an affiliate or franchise holder of an international property management firm. In Uganda, as far as I know, international property management firms like CBRE and Colliers have no local representation except for Knight Frank. There is therefore an opportunity for the investor to ensure that their firm gets affiliation to these international firms. This will give them instant brand recognition and the perceived quality and reputation already associated with the international firms. In addition they will benefit from the referrals if clients of the international firm seek a local representative in Uganda. I can expect that this affiliation has contributed to the success of Knight Frank Uganda.

2) A firm that has some brokers on its payroll. Brokers in Uganda tend to act independent of any firm, are semi illiterate and lack sufficient working capital to deal with potential clients.If the firm therefore guarantees them a daily allowance say of shs. 10,000 to cater for meals, transport and communication for their activities, they are likely to refer future business to the firm, particularly if they are unable to handle it themselves.

THE PROS

Excellent return on capital

In my model I expect that the investment will be returned in about 6 months. The reason for this is manifold:

a) The property manager’s advertising will emphasise property management as their core business. This is such that the firm can develop inside knowledge of the sector as well as establish itself as a reputable leader in the sector. When they have developed a good reputation, clients can then entrust them with property sales, which tend to be more lucrative than property management.The property management side is therefore in business terms called the “loss leader”.

b) A significant part of the marketing budget will go to the brokers rather than traditional avenues of marketing like TV and newspaper advertisements. This is because the Ugandan real estate sector is highly informal and as such a significant portion of the illiterate/semi illiterate but wealthy persons will usually revert to the brokers who just like them are often illiterate/semi illiterate. It therefore becomes critical to have these brokers as a linkage to such clientele.

In my model, I expect returns will be as below:

Capital Investment(A): Shs 35, 149, 155

Profit per year (B): Shs. 58,803,380

Return on Investment/Capital (years to get capital back) (A/B): 0.6 years

FINAL WORD

The basics you must get right before investing:

1. Property management software. You must invest in good software to provide you with real-time client accounts and reporting. This will give the client the assurance as to your integrity. I cannot recommend a particular software but a Google search should yield one.

2. Maintain a good contact data base. Property management requires liaison with several bodies including city council authorities, land authorities, utility suppliers, repairs and maintenance personnel, lawyers and brokers. I expect that a good property management software system will have a robust Database Management System at its heart. I will reiterate, include a good lawyer and accountant on this contact database.

3. Become an affiliate of an international property management firm. If you cannot afford one with an international firm such as CBRE or Colliers then go for a locally reputable firm like APS.

For over 8 years I have worked with several clients providing audit, accounts, tax and advisory in sectors ranging from agriculture, mining, entertainment, financial services and technology. My client portfolio in Uganda, The Bahamas and The Channel Islands, United Kingdom has equally been diverse and this experience has given me a “well rounded” view of business including several clients in the Real Estate/Property market.

Real Estate is anything related to the construction and development of land and buildings either commercial or residential. This seems to be a very simple concept, but there are many legal disciplines included. Real Estate Law governs who may use an own the land or buildings.

Some terms to note in the Real Estate Law:

• The title is the official legal term which describes the owner of the property

• The mortgage is lending money at interest in exchange of title on the debtor’s property. After the successful completion of the debt payment, the conveyance of the title becomes void.

• Foreclosure is the term used if the lender takes control of the house or any property used for mortgage if the debtor fails to pay back the amount

• The official meeting for transferring the ownership of the land or property is termed as closing

• Escrow is the term used for money or property withheld with the third party for safekeeping

• Real Estate Agent is the person licensed for negotiating and conducting real estate transactions

The much awaited regulation in the realty sector has been announced by the Government of India last year, which is the introduction of the RERA Act (Real Estate Regulatory Act). Under the act the home builders have to deposit about 70% of the amount in the Escrow account. This will ensure the buyers that the amount is not diverted to some other projects.

Benefits of the RERA Act:

• As mentioned earlier, the builder will divert 70% of the amount taken from the buyers to Escrow account and this will ensure the buyers that their amount is only being used for this project and safe as well without being transferred to other projects.

• With the introduction of this new act the buyers doesn’t have to pay for the area over the carpet area. It is one of the important things to remember.

• All the clearances both from the buyer and the builder should need to be made before selling. The builder needs to disclose the information regarding the apartment.

The builders are allowed to sell the property only after getting proper clearances
RERA, is the central law, but as Real Estate is subjected to state, the state governments have a major role in implementing this act. However the various other related practice area to the Real Estate law include Tax Law, Landlord Tenant Law, Accidents and Injuries, Estate Planning, Insurance Law.