Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

What was Ben and Bryce’s First Home Buy?

So, they’re both Qualified Property Investment Advisors and two of Australia’s top industry experts … but what was Ben Kingsley's and Bryce Holdaway’s first home buy? Money Magazine put the question to The Property Couch’s main men for their Special Edition issue and their responses were unexpected! Sneak Peek: “With very littl...

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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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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...

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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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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...

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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...

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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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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...

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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% �...

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Owner Occupier Appeal: Seven Overlooked Aspects

Hi, Ben here. In this how-to session I want to explore the concept of how we chase down capital growth. Now, if you've listened to Bryce's or my how-to videos before, or checked us out on our podcast The Property Couch, you would know we talk heavily about owner-occupier appeal. We believe owner-occupier appeal pushes the value of property higher s...

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How Do Mortgage Insiders Feel About The Market?

APRA’s approach to managing investor lending has raised some concerns and question marks for the property investment industry. But a new survey conducted by PIPA, as recently explained in Your Investment Property Magazine, proves that property professionals are rightfully optimistic. Ben, also Chair of PIPA, is excited about the level o...

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RBA Rate Decision – June 2017

The Reserve Board met today, and they kept the cash rate on hold for another month at 1.5%. Now we saw May 2017 being a very interesting month in regards to the Federal Budget. It came out, and we did see some surprises inside that Federal Budget. Firstly let's talk about the Bank Levy. This is all to do with what they call budget repair and it'...

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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...

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