Investment education articles & tips

Predicting the Future

In previous articles, we have been looking at the inputs to and outcomes from an investment strategy, and have identified the return on an investment asset, generally made up of some combination of growth and yield, as a key measure of the performance of that asset. We are able to obtain information on the recent growth and current yield of diff...

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Another Look at Risk

In previous articles, we have been looking at the inputs to and outcomes from an investment strategy.  We have looked at the way the amount of money, the amount of time and the amount of knowledge that you put into an investment can influence the outcome, and how the use of other people’s time, money and knowledge ( which we referred to as lever...

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The 7 Biggest Property Investment Mistakes

If I were to ask you what do you feel more comfortable with, investing in shares or property? The majority of people would say property.  The reason for this is because property is something that we all have experienced in our lives, so naturally we automatically assume we understand it better than shares or managed funds.  Shares on the other h...

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Your State of Wallet Plays with your State of Mind

Have you ever heard the saying ‘Your state of wallet plays with your state of mind’?  Speaking from personal experience and having conducted over 1000 client interviews about managing money, building wealth and buying property, I know it's not just a saying, it's fact! I’m the first to agree that money doesn’t buy you happiness, as your...

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Another look at Leverage

In earlier articles in this series, we have been discussing the “inputs” that will be required for an Investment Strategy, talking about the different ways that money, time and knowledge will be required to plan, implement and manage an Investment Strategy and how these factors may impact on the outcome of that strategy. In the previous arti...

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Return on Investment

What defines Return on Investment and how it differs for Property and other Financial Assets? And how do you align your expectation and the reality of the returns? In previous articles we've been discussing the “outputs” that we are seeking from an Investment Strategy.  Most importantly, we will be looking for ongoing capital growth o...

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Myth Buster on What drives Property Values

The "Great Aussie Dream" of owning property is part of our DNA and it's fair to say that most people have an opinion about what makes property values grow. For the Average Joe, these opinions are mostly educated guesses; for many people in the property industry they are often completely off the mark. In this article from Money Magazine (in conjunc...

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Time Poor to Time Rich – How?

Some days I wish it was more, but we only have 24hrs in a day less the 8 hours for sleep/rest and that leave us with about 16 hours. Then there’s the 8 hour work day, which is more like 10 hrs when you factor in travel etc, so that brings us to 6 hrs of leisure time to scram in socialising, running the house, feeding ourselves, exercise, hobbies,...

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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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The Impact of Knowledge

Previously, we've discussed the “inputs” that will be required for an Investment Strategy starting off by talking about the different ways that money and time will be required to implement an investment strategy and their impacts on the outcome of that strategy. Another key input that will be required of any prospective investor is knowledge...

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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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The Impact of Time

In a previous article, we began discussing the “inputs” that will be required for an Investment Strategy by talking about the role of money. Another key factor in any investment will be time, and time influences the outcome of an investment strategy in a number of different ways. The Investor's Time The first aspect of time that we need to c...

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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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