Empower Blog

RBA Rates Decision – September 2012

The RBA today decided to keep the official cash rate at 3.5%, which was in line with economists and market expectations.  This decision was most likely made without the full impacts of several key data releases yesterday being fully assessed, but which point to a further slowing in the Australian economy. Here is a summary of some of the data, ...

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Who do you turn to for those big financial decisions in life?

The landscape is changing in the financial services space. Financial planners are moving away, due to government intervention, from commission based selling and accountants are now held more accountable for taxation returns they help produce and submit to the Australia Taxation Office and Mortgage Brokers have been licensed for a reasonable period ...

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Investment Loan Structure

Most Property Investors realise that debt plays a part in operating most investment properties.  Furthermore, those sophisticated investors who learn that ‘sensible’ leverage or borrowings can accelerate their potential investment returns, take an active approach in better understanding finance and finance structuring through working with prof...

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Why Does Generalised Commentary Help No-one?

It’s fair to say that the introduction of the internet in the real estate space has seen a vast transformation in the amount of information we have available to help us better understand the values of property, but in reality the average consumer is still being short changed with the data that really matters. I recently read an article about a 1...

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RBA Rates Decision – August 2012

The RBA board met today at their August Board Meeting and decided to leave the cash rate at the current level – 3.5%.  Even though the recent inflation data released indicates that inflation is no problem at all.  In fact, it is currently sitting under the target range of 2-3%, which could have given them justification for a further rate cut th...

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Income Level isn’t a Death Knell to a Prosperous Retirement

I love my job; I go to work every day in the knowledge that my team and I are making a positive difference to our client’s financial situation every day. For those new to my commentary, I talk about our business not being in the financial services and property industry, but rather I think we are in the ‘Lifestyle’ business. Let me expand o...

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Should you be looking at your Home Loan in Isolation?

Do you want someone to help you pick a home loan (Mortgage Broker) or do you want to seek financial advice when it comes to "crucial financial arrangements" by having the guidance of a Finance Advisor? So you have decided to either buy your first home, your next property or to refinance because you want a better deal or you have plans to do some...

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Sky Business Channel, Your Money Your Call (July 2012)

Founder and CEO of Empower Wealth, Ben Kingsley joins host Margaret Lomas and fellow panel expert Bradley Beer from BMT on Sky Business Channel - Your Money Your Call. The panel answers calls and emails from viewers about property and property investing. On this session, Ben and the panel will be having in-depth discussions about interest rate c...

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2011 Valuer General Data Released For Victoria

Most commentators say that property investing should be a long term investment, and you have no debate on this point from me, but when commentators are asked what is short, medium and long term, that is when you start getting mix responses. My view has always been consistent and I’ll again share with you. Short term in property investing for me i...

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Alternative to the Big Four Banks

Ben Kingsley, CEO and Founder of Empower Wealth on Melbourne Property TV (MPTV) Panel speaking about the alternative to Big Four Banks, getting the best home loan, ways to deal with mortgage brokers and more. More often than not, property buyers would automatically turn to the Big 4 Banks (CBA, Westpac, ANZ and NAB) when they are looking to borrow ...

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Melbourne vs. Sydney

Melbourne vs. Sydney! Which state is a better property investment spot? Which state has a higher growth rate? In the Australia's Property Investment world, this has always been one of the hot debate topic and very often, we don't get any conclusion at all! So this time in  this time in Melbourne Property TV (MPTV) Ben Kingsley, CEO and Founder ...

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RBA Rates Decision – July 2012

Welcoming in the new financial year and after two rate movements in recent times reflecting a total of 75 basis points the RBA is now at the point of sitting on its hands to see the impact of its monetary policy, especially following the recent ‘surprise’ GDP figure showing the economy growing at 4.3% p.a which caught most analysts out. We a...

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Finance Talk: Time to Fix?

What an interesting 6 – 12 months we have seen in the lending markets, if you can cast your minds back a lot of the talk about 12 months ago was around how much more rates were going to increase and should we fix our mortgages or keep them variable? Now with the rates on a downward cycle again we are faced with the challenge of choosing to fix or...

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