As the shine on the property market dulls amid concerns for rising interest rates that have come close on the back of a new national credit act, many people are losing interest in property. Personally I think this is great news as it is giving sellers more of a hard time selling their property and placing over exposed investors under pressure to keep financing their increasing shortfalls on their bad buys.

It's great news for property investors who have paced themselves and not been sucked into the fever and hype of the South African property boom. Pressure on the market has been building for sometime and we have, for a few months now, started to see seller become more flexible at the bargaining table. In some areas we've noticed that average asking prices have actually decreased. Doing some back referencing, we've seen that these area's have been under pressure for near a year.

I can't help but wonder about the state of the South African Internet as a place for commerce. The South African Internet and its' marketers seem to face so many obstacles. Now speak to any person doing business on the Internet and the first and most foremost thing they will complain about is the poor DSL services and bandwidth limitation caps that limit what one can do. But this post is not another tick on the wall complaining about Telkom and their amazing lack of service or understanding that access services to the Internet should be considered as a basic public utility, like electricity or water.

No sir, that problem is just one of many and I think need no further discussion from me, there are enough other activists out there doing that.

Now I can see what what you're thinking, "OK, this guys going to talk about the prohibitive hosting costs." Well, no. It's not about that, although just so you know, I agree that is one of the challenges Internet Marketers in South Africa face. This post is also not about the total rip-off by our banks when it comes to charging on merchant accounts, nor the crazy monetary policy that restricts us on taking money off-shore and taxes us heavily if we need to repatriate funds back to our local banks.

No, this post is about something even bigger than these problems.

Since I've now included stock trading as part of my investment activities I thought it would be good if I also created a community-based website for traders. On research, I found that such websites do exist, but that they are international in context. While much of the concepts of trading can be applied globally, I could not help but think that there should be trader community websites that have a more local context.

So I started building the Stock Investor Network website and had loads of fun doing it. Got to try out some new stuff along the way and figured out what I think are some very kewl features that are lacking on similar international websites. On the face of it, the website includes forums, groups, events, blogs and aggregated news. All of these are open and free for reading. To participate users must be registered.

So what makes Stock Investor Network unique. We'll, first thing is that it is the first website in the African internet space that is focused solely on building  trader community that is predominantly African in nature or interest. Then there is functionality. Stock Investor Network is the first trader community website where trader groups, not just forums and blogs, is a key feature of the service offered.

I'm not a gambler and I've always viewed stock market trading as gambling. Hence, I've never really investigated the opportunity of investing this way. I've always preferred to place my money in real-estate. I've never lost money in real estate. However, I was recently chatting with a friend about stock market trading when he mentioned that he new somebody that was doing very well from it. In fact this person makes their living from trading CFDs or Contract For Difference on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Long story short, my friend arrange a meeting with this person. During our conversation he outlined a method of trading and showed how he makes his living from it. He agreed to help me get started and give guidance as to what I should and should not do. Naturally, nothing comes for free. There is the cost of purchasing the software toolbox and commission charges to brokers. What does this person get out of it? Well he gets a percentage of the brokers commission every time I trade.