Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

Variables to Consider when Modelling a Property Portfolio

In this advanced "How to..." session, I want to talk to you about all the sophisticated cash flow variables that any good cash flow management and property portfolio planning tool should have. So let's start from the top in terms of cash flow management. Naturally, we need to do our budget, and we need to assume that value of the money will increa...

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Tax Refund: Can You Request It Sooner?

Whenever you are buying an investment property, you should never buy it for tax reasons alone because it really has to be about the fundamentals underlying that particular property that you're buying. But let's be honest, once you've done that, the tax concessions or the tax refund that you get from holding a property is a very strong reason why yo...

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Smoke and Mirrors

Like any other sector, there are tricks of the real estate trade that a property investor needs to be aware of. In order to ensure that you aren’t paying any unnecessary costs when investing into a new property, this article provides tips and analogies of what to avoid and look out for when dealing with real estate agents. In order to help you st...

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Too High a Price for Property Advice?

When it comes to finding trustworthy property advice, it can be a daunting task to find someone that you know will give you the best advice suited to you. With so many spruikers out there claiming to be able to help property investors find worthy investments; it’s hard to tell who is genuinely trying to help investors or the ones who are only try...

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RBA Rate Decision – November 2016

On this Melbourne Cup Day, Governor Lowe and his Board met, and they've kept interest rates on hold. It is an interesting time in our economy at the moment because the RBA is wrestling with one big problem and that is the growing amount of household debt. We are starting to see the household debt to GDP ratio increasing, and that is concerning. Wha...

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Today Show – What Home Buyers Want?

If you are buying a home this weekend, do you already have a feature in mind? For example, does it need to have a tennis court or perhaps, a property near a park? This time on Today Show, Ben Kingsley joins Jane to discuss the highly sought after features that Australian home buyers look for when hunting for a property. A few property search websit...

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SKY News – Apartment purchases lower among investors

The 2016 Property Investor Sentiment Survey by PIPA was recently released and has shed light on what Australian property investors think about the market. One of the findings has indicated that property investors are less interested in investing in apartments with only 10% looking at this year compared to a 15% in previous year. Ben Kingsley joins...

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A day in the life of a Buyers Agent

So Buyers Agents are becoming more and more known in the marketplace for the role they play but what is it that they actually do when they are faced with a client who wants them to help them out? Generally, a property has been identified or in some cases being presented from the client. And the first thing we got to do when we get that property is...

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What is a Family Pledge or Guarantor Loan?

What is a family pledge or guarantor loan? Well in simple terms, what we are saying is that parents or a family member can put up security to help a child buy a property. Now, why is this needed? In Australia, we do know that in the bigger cities, property prices are increasing more and more. And as they increase, it is becoming harder for the chil...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2016

Today the new Governor, Dr. Phillip Lowe and the Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold. Now this was widely anticipated by most economists. There were, however, a couple of economists who were looking to see a rate cut. I think that had a lot to do with our stubbornly high Australian Dollar with the Fed Reserve in the US not moving on i...

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Defence: What is that?

What I want to have a quick chat about today is something a lot of property investors haven’t got time or the headspace to think about. And that is their position of defence. We talk about it in our business model: ABCD. The asset selection (A), the borrowing power (B), the cash flow management (C) and the defence (D). But let’s be honest: ...

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Pay off the mortgage or invest – How to do both?

Investors often face with one common question when their savings grow: Should I pay off the mortgage or invest? With interest rates at its all time low and an outperforming property market, some might think that it is an obvious choice but how sure are you? In this Money Magazine's August 2016 Edition, Bryce shares his point of view on how you can ...

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Sky Business News – Your Money Your Call (August 2016)

For the August 2016  segment of SKY Business News Channel, Your Money Your Call (YMYC), Ben Kingsley joins the Margaret Lomas and Tony Abboud to discuss what's making news in the property market and more. They answered some emails and calls from viewers and some of the topics are: Property Spruikers, some of the tactics they employ, recent case...

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