Empower Blog

RBA Rate Decision – December 2017

At the December board meeting today, the Governor and the Board has kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. This is the sixteenth consecutive month we've seen the cash rate remain on hold at 1.5%. Now, the big news has been around the announcement of a Royal Commission into the banking sector to try and bring a bit more transparency into what's happ...

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When Should You Renovate Your Investment Property?

In a previous How To Session, Three Cheap Cosmetic Renovations You Can consider, I talked about getting the best bang for your buck when it comes to a cheap cosmetic renovation. In this How To Session I'm going to focus on, “When should I do a renovation on my investment property?” Quite often, from people transitioning their renters, I get as...

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RBA Rate Decision – November 2017

On the first Tuesday of the month where the nation stops for a horse race called the Melbourne Cup, the RBA have met and they've kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Now, the cash rate hasn't moved since August 2016, so obviously the RBA are feeling quite comfortable where they have the cash rate. The reason for this is the lenders and the regul...

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Three Cheap Cosmetic Renovations You Can Consider

In this How-To Session, we're focusing on getting the best bang for buck from the cheapest cosmetic renovation you can do on property! The reason we're going to do those renovations could be because we want to get a better valuation; it could be that we want to get a better rental yield from new tenants coming in; or it could be that we may be s...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2017

Same old, same old from the RBA today, the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So no real movement.   In terms of economic news, let's look globally first, and the US is probably the main story here. We did see the Trump administration release a Tax Reform package. Now, this tax reform package is all about that one flat tax rate of 20%. T...

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Where to Invest $10k – A Guide to Rentvesting

Ben is a front cover star on this month's Money Magazine issue!!!  So where does he think you should invest $10,000? Well, you can't buy an investment property with $10k, but you can definitely invest in your potential!! This is a golden insight, particularly after his article, A Guide to Rentvesting, the new way to invest, especial...

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RBA Rate Decision – September 2017

Today, Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and, as widely anticipated — and it's going to be a bit of a broken record — the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So with a cash rate on hold, and basically all the levers doing their thing, I wanted to focus in on jobs —the unemployment story of the Nation — because this is going to be th...

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Are you investing for the long term?

Hi, Ben Kingsley here, Founder of Empower Wealth. Thanks for taking a moment of your time to watch this video. It's important to understand that as property investors we need to look at the market over the longer term. We've definitely enjoyed fantastic capital growth over this short term period — low interest rates and a reasonably buoyant ec...

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Principal and Interest Vs Interest Only Loans: Why and when should you pay more interest?

In this How To Session, we're going to get technical and start to talk about the pros and cons of interest-only lending when it comes to investment properties. Now, it's really important to understand why you would go interest-only. Because we have seen recently that there is an extra margin the banks are now charging us for the luxury of being ...

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Bad Time for Property Investment?

Ben appears again in Money Magazine’s Special Edition issue, this time in a Q&A surrounding some hard questions about the current market climate for property investors. With the spotlight on changes to borrowing, Federal Budget restrictions and depreciation claims, a light shadow looms on certain investors. Is it a bad time for property inves...

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RENTVESTING: The Best of Both Worlds

Want to live in an inner city suburb, but simply can’t afford to buy in it? Hello, rentvesting! In this Money Magazine article, Ben explores the alternative strategy to tackle housing affordability: Rent in the location you want to live; but still invest property. Rentvesting is a shift from the baby boomer view of home ownership; but it is ...

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RBA Rate Decision – August 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and—no surprises here — cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. We did see some interesting commentary come out of the RBA over the July period, and some of that commentary was around what they thought was an ideal cash rate — around 3.25%. Now, with the current cash rate sitting at 1.5%, the market...

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RBA Rate Decision – July 2017

FACT SHEET: Changes on Government Fees and First Home Initiatives (Effective since 1 July 2017) [gravityform id="23" title="false" description="false"]   Today the Reserved Governor and the Board met and they've kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5% for the start of the new financial year. Let's have a look at some of the economic data tha...

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