Empower Blog

Be a Farmer, Not a Hunter

Bryce appears again in Money Magazine ... this time in their Special Edition issue! In this article, Bryce talks about the importance of being a farmer, not a hunter when it comes to a property investing. The theory behind it is that you need to play the investment game for the long term, planting tree seedlings now so that you will sit, c...

Read More

What Is The Biggest Expense A Property Investor Will Face?

As a property investor building a portfolio, the question often asked is, what is the biggest expense I will face when I build out the costs for the portfolio? For me, it's really clear that the biggest expense, bar none, is a vacancy. If you think about it, you're renting a property for $500 a week and it's vacant for four weeks; there's $2,000...

Watch Video

The Three Hidden Mistakes That Property Investors Often Make

Today I want to talk about three hidden mistakes that property investors often make. The first one is wanting to settle on a Friday. This comes from the fact that when we're buying our own home if we settle on a Friday, we get the keys and we move in over the weekend. But the challenge is that 20% of settlements don't settle on the due date becau...

Watch Video

How to Protect your Portfolio from the Inevitable Storms?

Today what I want to talk about is How do you protect your portfolio from the inevitable storms that you will face if you want to play this game for the long term? We've just had a world record here in Australia—we've had over 25 years without a “technical” recession, which means that no other developed economy in the world has actually do...

Watch Video

Growing number of one person households | What does it mean for asset selection?

I wonder if any investors ever thought about the fact that the number of people living alone in Australia is actually one in four people. So 25% of us actually live in a dwelling on our own. If you think about that internationally, though, it's actually pretty average. Because if you think about Scandinavia, which is 34%, and Sweden, which is 49% �...

Watch Video

Three Forces That Shape An Investor’s Character

If anyone’s interested in building a property portfolio, they usually focus on the mechanics and the doing. The asset selection, the finance and those sorts of critical things. But we need to have a think about the psychological side of it as well—because, quite often, not a lot of people who want to successfully build their portfolio, do it. S...

Watch Video

Four Essential Levers to Building Wealth

So, I previously spoke about the fact that it's really important you know the number that you need to retire on. The actual income figure for you to live a comfortable retirement lifestyle and, therefore, the worth of an income-producing asset you will need outside of family home. Today, I want to have an extension of this because once I know th...

Watch Video

Should deposits be waived for first-timers with good rental history?

Did you know, according to most recent First Time Buyers Deposit Report published by Bankwest, Australian couples need to save for an average of 4.4 years for a 20% deposit on a median-priced house. Now, would this changed if deposits are waived for first home owners and how will this affect the property market in general? Bryce Holdaway debated...

Read More

Four Ways to Make A Real Estate Agent’s Day

When you're engaging with a real estate agent, their job is to negotiate with you and try to extract as much information out of you as they can. So that they can ultimately get a good outcome for their client who is the seller, generally at the buyer's expense by trying to get that extra money out of you. So for today's How to Session, I thought we...

Watch Video

Why I Love Property

I was recently asked by a journalist when they were interviewing me, “Why is it that out of all the asset classes out there, why do you actually love property as a form of investment?” And it's pretty simple. It’s actually leverage. The fact that I can use the cash that I've got and leveraged it to buy a much larger asset, and then I can g...

Watch Video

Seven Ways To Jeopardise A Deal

So one of the things that you should always consider when you are buying a property is that it really comes down to four parts when you are doing a deal. You got to Clarify what you are after; you got to go and Find the properties whether they are off-market or on-market; you got to Assess the property that you found against the criteria that you c...

Watch Video

Seven Tactics of a Property Spruiker

As a property investment Advisor I'm often asked by people: “How do you actually avoid property Spruikers?” “What is it that you're actually looking out for?” And I think it's important to revisit what the definition of a property spruiker is. There are three groups of people in my mind that you can take your advice from when you'r...

Watch Video

Should You Buy A Property With Someone Else?

The question I'm often asked, “Should I buy a property with someone else?” Because I mean, it sounds like a good idea. It is a high-value transaction, and it can seem a little bit daunting to do it on your own. So we've got to have a look at our options. The first one is, if I buy it with someone else I can buy it as Joint Tenants. The most ...

Watch Video