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There are many different options in the Alternative Investments realm so here we will review one of those many ways. One form of an Alternative Investment is the Real Estate IRA. IRA being of course Individual Retirement Account. I choose this one to discuss simply because of recent losses many investors and retirement account holders have experienced.

An Alternative Investment Real Estate IRA is basically a plan where you connect with an investment company and they will have a project to invest in. For example lets say a housing development or shopping center. These development projects may cost in the millions of dollars. Your money will go in the investment along with other investors money.

As time passes, you will receive your share of the profits paid normally in monthly installment dividend payouts. These dividends can be anywhere from 12% up to 18%. The money can be set up to be direct-deposited into your bank account on a monthly basis. So you have no day to day monitoring to go through such as you would with for example, a stock market stock purchase.

That’’s basically all there is to it. Simple and secure and much more stable than risking your money in diversified portfolios which are at the mercy of the ever changing marketplace.

Todays investor wants a peace of mind, a good investment and a long term relationship that shows profit and return on their investment with very little worry and low risk. Alternative Investments are a great idea and a Real Estate IRA plan is a good retirement path you can live with.

Searching online I came up with a link for Real Estate IRA and Alternative Investments at http://www.eqlibrium.com/products/real-estate-ira-401k.asp and http://www.eqlibrium.com/products/alternative-investments.asp at EQlibrium Investments  http://www.eqlibrium.com/ .

Now, this may not ring too well initially with your hedge fund manager neighbors in Connecticut or your oil and gas investor friends in Bahrain or Dubai, but aren’t these the same guys who are financing Hollywood blockbusters? And the only question for you, how do you get in the game without feeling like the Uncle of the film school student who wrote his nephew a $1,000,000 check for a film that starred his theater department classmates and ended up as a free download on youtube.com?

So after doing your share of homework, here’s what you discover may be the opportunity to spice up your wealthy but boring life:

*Sergey Brin And Larry Page Of Google, Fred Smith, the CEO of Federal Express, Norman Waitt, the Co-Founder of Gateway Computers, Jeff Skoll Of Ebay, Todd Wagner and Marc Cuban (formerly of broadcast.com), Max Levchin and David Grodnick Of PAYPAL, Marc Turtletaub of The Money Store, Roger Marino Of EMC Corp, former Chicago bulls co-owner Jim Stern, Sidney Kimmel Of Jones Apparel Group, Minnesota Twins owner Bill Pohlad; Real Estate Developers Tom Rosenberg, Bob Yari; and, financiers Robert Sturm, Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim, Zeid Masri of SilverHaze Partners, Michael Singer, Mark Esses, David Larcher, Michael Goguen, Richard Landry, Michael Reilly, Rafael Fogel, and Philip Anschutz are just a handful of high net worth entrepreneurs who entered the motion picture finance and production business with successful results.

*There are various tradable state, federal, and international tax credit incentives that would offer a premium based on an equity position. Assuming there is a 10 million dollar budget film, where 50% of it is in equity, and 50% is through international distribution guarantees prior to release. Now assume there is a 20-25% tax credit on the entire amount of $10 million dollars, which will immediately translate into $2-2.5 million tax credit to an investor.

*Numerous hedge funds such as Reed, Conner & Birdwell (DISNEY), Legendary Fund (Warner Brothers), Melrose Fund (Paramount Pictures), Ingenious Media’s 700 Million dollar Float on London’s AIM, Benjamin Waisbren Investments, and a host of other funds and fund managers are entering the film finance arena.

*The explosion of international DVD, pay-per-view, home video, cable, megaplex theaters, the future of multi-lingual Internet video on demand downloads, and cross-market digital distribution including low-cost theatrical digital projection, the movie industry is accelerating at an unprecedented growth rate.

*The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, which amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, was signed into law . The Act creates three tax incentives expressly applicable to motion pictures, one of which – § 181 of the Internal Revenue Code – is especially significant to independent film producers and their passive investors on qualifying films with budgets under $20 million dollars.

*The filmed and other entertainment sectors are constantly outperforming and beating analyst expectations with regards to growth, and are the only industries resistant to untimely global events and adverse economic conditions.

*Movie Investor returns may be more favorable and more liquid than holding direct equity positions in most public entertainment and other public companies, real estate investments, and other alternative investments.

*There is a huge demand, audience, and growing distribution structure for specialty independent, ,crime, horror, and other low budget films as exemplified by the success of such films as “Brokeback Mountain”, “Sideways”, “Capote”, “Garden State”, “Napolean Dynamite”, “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, “Memento”, “Crash” , “Saw 1 &2″, Friday The 13th”, “Halloween”, “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “Hostel” and “WOLF CREEK”, which was made for $800,000, bought for nearly 4 million dollars prior to its release by Dimension, as well as “Hustle and Flow” which was made for $2 million dollars and bought for $16 million by Paramount Pictures.

*Apart from large blockbusters such as “King Kong”, “Harry Potter”, and other large scale studio films, the majority of studio-produced films have been under performing at the box office. The films that have been successful for studios were all externally financed and or co-financed with studios, sold for 2-3 x their costs, and a majority of them retained foreign sales rights to maximize revenues.

So after looking at all the great benefits, how do you actually go about finding a deal or movie project where you are certain that half your money isn’t going to be used by a Hollywood producer as a down payment on a new mansion in Pacific Palisades?

The key that separates the successful film financiers vs. the newbie Oil magnates who come to Los Angeles with a pocketful of money and end up leaving with half a pocketful of money is called several things: structured finance, leverage, risk minimization, multiple exit strategies, tax credits, and the ethical consciousness of the filmmaker/producer.

What does that translate to you in a real world scenario. Lets say you want to finance 100% of a $1.5 million dollar low budget genre film whose worst case scenario is a DVD release and profits from international sales and perhaps some other equity sweeteners in the conversion of the securities that you subscribe for as part of the deal. Well, if you write a check for $1.5 million, and the film is shot in a state that has 30% in tax credits, you get back $450,000 in tax credits + under Section 181, you are able to write off that amount under Federal. So you are already making a nice return before the profits kick in. Then you figure you sell the film to 50 countries, and if you are really lucky, you sell the film for 3-4 times it cost to a studio at a swanky festival like Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, etc. Do this over 5-10 films and you can make a very profitable name for yourself among the Hollywood elite.

But lets really take this a step further and see how the bigger boys leverage film investing because they can get a bigger star which can translate in larger overseas sales. Lets say a filmmaker/producer has a $10 million film and you want in on the action. You would park $5 million in equity, receive an 20-30% tax credit on $10 million which will be $2-$3 million, the producer will get the biggest star he can, get a studio to kick in the other $5 million dollars, you wont worry about ever seeing a penny from the theatrical release because you know your DVD profits and international sales will cover your equity position. Make sense?

Now leverage this with different budgets, genres, stars, distribution, places where you can get high tax credits (Ie Puerto Rico is 40%), other exit strategies where you can find your shares on the London AIM, and you are on your new career path as a sophisticated and educated film financier. Off course, if you want to go even further and guarantee 100% of your capital, there are tricks to that as well.

Alternative investments can not only reduce the risk of your portfolio they can also enhance its overall reward.

With stock markets looking vulnerable as high oil prices and stuttering global growth, investors are turning to alternative investments.

Here we will look at high reward one that can produce triple digit gains and can reduce the overall risk of your portfolio, so lets get started.

Definition

The term alternative investments typically refers to hedge funds, private equity investing, high return mutual funds and a selection of non-traditional investments such as land, wine, timber, art, precious metals gems and a variety of collectables.

Portfolio diversification

The concept of spreading risk among a variety of assets but was reduced to a mathematical formula in 1952 by Harry Markowtiz.

Markowitz considered how ALL the different investments in a portfolio can be expected to move relative to each other and how this affects the overall risk/return of the portfolio.

The definition of this is “correlation,” and measures how much an investor can expect different investments or asset classes to change in price relative to each other.

For example, US equity markets and real estate will move in tandem, whereas interest rate investments will move in the opposite direction to each other.

Rates Of Return

If you choose the right alternative investment, then it will not only help reduce the risk of your portfolio, but will help you get better growth.

An investor should therefore combine a number of non correlated investments to balance the risk and reward of the portfolio.

Getting lower risk and triple digit gains!

One that has high growth and low downside and has upside regardless of whether stock markets fall.

We feel land is a great investment and should be considered by any investor.

It’s a simple investment and most of the world’s wealthiest investors have made money.

Land in the right location has provided stunning returns for many investors and for the purposes of illustration we will look at Costa Rica land.

Its historical performance, not only has shown massive growth, but downside has been low. triple digit gains have been achieved in just a few years has with investments in prime locations.

Costa Rican land has also produced solid long term gains regardless of whether stocks, equities and mutual have been rising or falling.

Costa Rica land is being bought to build properties to house the growing numbers of Americans that will flock to this country.

In fact many of the problems afflicting the US and other industrialized nations is the reason that more and more people are flocking to Costa Rica

They get a better standard of living at lower cost in a peaceful country that is a paradise on earth with stunning beaches, volcanoes, rainforests and much more.

There are 70 billion baby boomers about to retire in the next 10 years and they are looking at Central America and Costa Rica in particular to live in and maintain and enhance their lifestyle.

Expect the bull run here that started 7 years ago to gain momentum and whatever the stockmakret does in the US Wont affect demand.

Alternative Investments You Don’t need to be Rich

You don’t need to be rich to consider land as one of your alternative investments and every investor can take advantage of this opportunit.

A Simple Easy and Safe investment

Land is an easy safe alternative investment you get the same rights as residents, buying is easy and you pay minimal tax!

There are many specialist companies who will help you select land that has a high potential to rise in value.

They will do the research and give you all the facts you need and you can then decide in your own time and believe us this time will be time well spent.

Discover alternative investments such as Costa Rican land and see how you can increase your wealth.