Empower Blog

What is a Family Pledge or Guarantor Loan?

What is a family pledge or guarantor loan? Well in simple terms, what we are saying is that parents or a family member can put up security to help a child buy a property. Now, why is this needed? In Australia, we do know that in the bigger cities, property prices are increasing more and more. And as they increase, it is becoming harder for the chil...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2016

Today the new Governor, Dr. Phillip Lowe and the Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold. Now this was widely anticipated by most economists. There were, however, a couple of economists who were looking to see a rate cut. I think that had a lot to do with our stubbornly high Australian Dollar with the Fed Reserve in the US not moving on i...

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Sky Business News – Your Money Your Call (August 2016)

For the August 2016  segment of SKY Business News Channel, Your Money Your Call (YMYC), Ben Kingsley joins the Margaret Lomas and Tony Abboud to discuss what's making news in the property market and more. They answered some emails and calls from viewers and some of the topics are: Property Spruikers, some of the tactics they employ, recent cas...

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Should You Invest In Property Overseas?

As a Qualified Property Investment Advisor, I often get approached by clients asking me about investing in property overseas. They've been on a recent vacation, and they bring back a brochure telling me about this amazing opportunity they've got in Bali, Spain, the UK or in America. Ultimately, I try to dig into the main motivation for them to inve...

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Is the Advice worth the Price?

Did you know that property is not a financial product as defined in the Corporations Act? And what does this means? This means, property advisors are not required by the Corporations Act and Future of Financial Advice to have a certain qualifications and a best interests duty. And how does this affect you? Well, technically if you are not carefu...

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RBA Rate Decision – September 2016

The Reserve Board met today, and they've kept interest rates on hold. That's after dropping the cash rate by 25 basis points last month. Now they are looking for a lead in terms of where they go next, and most people are predicting that it is going to go down. In fact, before this announcement, 38 economists were surveyed, and they all anticipated ...

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What is The Practicality Test?

Hi, Ben Kingsley here. In this Expert How to Video, I want to talk to you about or introduce another concept which flows on from The Buyers Decision Quadrant. Now you can check out the Buyers Decision Quadrant video in this area of the expert session under our How to Videos but I want to basically bring that further. I want to talk about the Practi...

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RBA Rate Decision – August 2016

As I anticipated last month, the Reserve Bank has moved on the cash rate by dropping the cash rate lower. We are now in a stage where we are effectively in an uncharted territory with the cash rate as low as what we've got. It's an interesting time. So on balance, what they've looked at is the inflation data. Now, usually what they like to see is i...

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Which Loan is Right for you?

For those who are not familiar with the finance side of things, this might be a tricky question. We've previously written about the different types of property loans out there but how do you know which loan is right for you? Especially when there are more discussions these days surrounding principal and interest and interest-only lending options an...

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What to know about property promoters’ investment returns claims

Hi Ben Kingsley here and in this How to Session I want to focus in on being careful about some property promoters and the way in which they exaggerate or potentially mislead you around the investment returns they've got for previous clients. Now, I'm talking about some of these claims where they are quoting in excess of 30% returns in a 12-month pe...

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The Rewards of Understanding Scarcity in Property

NOTE: If you like this How to Video, you might also want to check out The Property Couch's Episode 37 where Bryce and Ben talk about the Scarcity Scale and how Location and Property Type plays a part in a property's value.   Hi Ben Kingsley here and today in our How To Session we are going to talk about the rewards of understanding s...

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Question of Trust in Property Adviser

We've said it before, the property investing industry is an unregulated one. Property investment advisors don't need to be qualified or have any formal education to be giving out property investment advice so how would be able to place your trust in property adviser. So if you are just starting on your investment journey, how do you know if the pro...

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Property for $250 a week

Is it possible to own a property for $250 a week? In this Money Magazine's Special Edition 2016, Ben Kingsley said yes and will be briefly demonstrating how he come up with this figure, the loan structure to put in place and what investment formula you can use to ensure you purchase an investment grade asset that would work well with this strate...

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