Investment education articles & tips

Negative Gearing – Worth Keeping

It has been well documented that currently the federal government is conducting a full review of the taxation system, tagged as the ‘Henry Review’. As part of this review the government has called on public submissions to assist in this review. These submissions provide State Governments, Community Groups,  Business Interest groups etc the...

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Bank Loyalty, Does it pay off?

Over my journey in this profession, I have meet many great people and continue to work for most of them in helping them achieve their goals whether it be securing their first home, refinancing or planning out their pathway of financial independence through investment in Residential property.  As I do with every client I ask them the same question ...

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Property Prices on the Up – Investors coming back….

It appears in just a couple of months that sentiment and actual property prices have come full circle, from the gloom and doom being reported back in March / April of this year.  The logical reason for this is that the data that most analysts report, such as the Real Estate institutes in each state, is up to 2 to 3 months following the actual resu...

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What’s the Cheapest Loan?

If I had a dollar for every time……. so the saying goes, and in my case it relates to people asking me what is the best interest rate at the moment or who’s got the cheapest loan? I wish there was a simple answer to this question, and believe you me, when I first started out in the finance industry I was also naive to think that surely this...

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To Fix or Not to Fix – ‘The question on everyone’s mind…..’

Depending on long term funding costs and increased demand for fixed loans, fixed mortgages can actually go up when the cash rate / variable mortgages are going down, as we have seen just recently. Fixed interest rates don’t automatically move in the same fashion as variable mortgage rates do. So in my attempt to make an informed comment on this ...

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What’s happening in Easter this year?

A shortage of good property and increased interest from First Home Buyers leading up to the June 30 deadline for the Boost Package to lapse is making it hard going for both home buyers and investors in the ‘quality’ locations both in Melbourne and within all major Australian Cities. My comment is twofold this month: 1. Staying the course:...

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Where will the ‘Smart Investors Money’ go in 2009?

The Stock Market is shaky with both the ASX and NYSE pushing below 15 and 12 year lows respectively, as I write my comment piece this month. The low cash rate correlates to reduced bank interest returns for money invested in Term Deposits or Savings Accounts. The same goes for Government bonds. The media continues to talk up the doom & gloom...

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Positive Cash Flow Property

Given the well documented shortage of available residential property to house our growing population, rents have been on the increase for some years now.  In fact, rents across Australia grew by 9% last year and forecast figures quoted in 2007 were for rents to increase by as much as 50% over the next 5 years, whether that figure actually material...

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The Year Ahead…

February is the start of the mid-year reporting season for Publicly Listed Companies, so it promises to be an interesting month regarding stock price movements and overall market sentiment for 2009. It’s fair to say that given the market has retreated by around 40% from its highs of 2007, some analysts have been quoted that they believe the re...

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