Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

Uniformity for Buyers Advocate License

>> Play Audio here   In this podcast, Kevin Turner from Real Estate Talk interviews Ben and asked him about the issue that we have in our property industry across Australia: The lack of a uniform Buyers Advocate license. Here's a snippet of the interview: "Kevin: I want to take this subject one step further. I’m talking now to t...

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Sky Business Channel, Your Money Your Call (Aug 2014)

In the 25th of August session of SKY Business News Channel, Your Money Your Call, Ben Kingsley joins Margaret Lomas and Brad Matthews from RESCOM to discuss different aspects of property across Australia. This time, they answered a number of emails and calls from viewers and some of the topics are: During the GFC times when Australia Property M...

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7 Ways to Get your Kids on the Property Ladder Sooner

With the question on affordability always on the mind of those looking to get on the property ladder, Ben Kingsley will share with you seven potential ways to help accelerate your kids dream of property ownership. This presentation at the Melbourne Home Buyer and Property Investor Show will look at ways in which family members can help the Gen X...

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RBA Rate Decision – September 2014

As widely anticipated, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) kept interest rates on hold for another month at 2.5% and this is following Glenn Stevens's commentary to the government last month, around where he saw the cash rate and where he saw the general economy. From a cash rate point of view the take out of that meeting and from his commentary wa...

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A Tailored Approach to Property Investment

In this episode of Look At Property, The Hotspot session, Des Dowling asked Ben Kingsley about starting a Property Portfolio and if there is a one size fit all or an off-the-shelf solution. Ben explains that there are both option but to get a tailored approach to Property Investment, it is important to have a clear understanding of our current c...

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Powerful Strategies to Finding Properties

It's easy to think that once you have decided on an investment strategy and got your finances sorted, you have moved into the home strait. After all, the remaining step is simply to go out and buy a property, right? Wrong! While the buying stage is one that many investors look forward to with great excitement, it is in fact full of minefields that ...

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Finance Talk with Look At Property

In this episode of Finance Talk, Look At Property, Ben Kingsley joins host, Des Dowling and Walter Dobrowolski from Walter Financial Solutions to talk about property finance. After 12 months, the RBA interest rate is still on hold at 2.5% but the common question remained: how long is this going to last? Many media commentary is now saying that t...

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When should you do a Building and Pest inspection?

So the question is when should you get a building and pest inspection done on a property that you looking to purchase and in my view, you should always get it done prior to entering into a contract when you're actually in a position when you can do that. But I'm also aware that in some cases you just can't, so for example if it's a really fast movi...

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Top 5 Aspects to Look at during a Property Inspection

If you are in the process of finding a property and if you are attending inspections quite regularly, you need to know what to look for. A good inspection will lead to a better understanding on the property and hence, can save you a lot of time, energy and even money. But the question remains: what should you pay attention to? Here are the top 5 as...

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Improving Financial Literacy

In previous newsletter articles, we looked at the results of an international study which highlighted the high poverty rate amongst older Australians compared to other countries. In this newsletter, we look at a recent international study which casts Australia in a more favourable light. The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (P...

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A Piece of Cake

Creating a successful property investment portfolio is much like following a recipe - but get your ingredients wrong and your investment cake might sink, burn or crumble. In the August 2014 Issue of Smart Property Investment (SPI) Magazine, Ben Kingsley writes about the various experience he had with property investors and how they build their p...

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Key Changes you need to know about your Retirement and Pension

So with the recent budget in May this year, the Federal Government announced a few changes in relation to Centrelink. In particular, the one that got a lot of media attention was increase in the age entitlement. It was recommended or suggested to increase the age pension entitlement from age 67 to 70. This would be phased out over the next few year...

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Finding the Right Investment Property

In this episode of Look At Property, Ben Kingsley joins host, Des Dowling and Elizabeth Jackson from Public Property to discuss about finding the right investment property. When you are buying your own home, you have a lot of aspects to look at but will it be different when you are buying your own investment property? The panel discussed about h...

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