Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

Why should you do a Contract Review?

Look in my view, you should absolutely get the contract reviewed by a solicitor or a conveyancer prior to entering into a contract but definitely before you go unconditional on a property. Because let's be honest it's a big decision you're about to make and you going to spend a lot of money and there's a reason why lawyers and solicitors drive arou...

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Understanding Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI)

Post the Second World War, Australia transformed itself into ‘The Lucky Country’. We opened our doors to large levels of immigration and we had plenty of land, food, water and great weather that made us attractive for many who were fleeing war torn areas of Europe and alike. It was also through this era that we got our second great tag line of ...

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How Lenders look at your Property?

>> Play Audio Here   Wouldn’t it be nice to know that when you plan to approach a lender, you will have an idea about how they will look at your potential purchase. Do the lenders think its risky? How are they going to value it? Is it comparative to other similar properties around the area? Why are they charging Lenders Mortgage In...

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RBA Rate Decision – July 2014

Hello, Ben Kingsley here. Welcome to the new Financial Year. Today, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) met and we have well predicted, interest rates remain on hold. What was interesting over the last month is being the communication that is coming out from the Reserve Bank in regards to a sluggishness in the transition of our economy from the ...

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Sometimes bidding at auction can really pay off

Many buyers like to shy away from auctions altogether, eliminating even the potential for securing that particular asset. It’s fair to say that most buyers tremble at the thought of having to fight it out in a public place, where agent ‘spin’ and underquoting can confuse even the most organised of buyers. But the reality is that most VENDORS ...

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Generational Shift

>> Play Audio Here   In this interview with Kevin Turner from Real Estate Talk, Bryce Holdaway, Director of Empower Wealth and Co-Host of Location Location Location Australia says the great Australian dream has changed. There has been a generational shift. He explains what that means and how understanding what this generation is lookin...

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

In the 16th of June session of SKY Business News Channel, Your Money Your Call, Ben Kingsley joins Bradley Beer and Ian Rodriguez from Bishop Collins 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: The Consumer Market Index and Consumer Sen...

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The Great Australian Dream

A greater number of Australians are dreaming of building wealth through property, and it's not hard to see why. In this June 2014 Issue of Smart Property Investment Magazine (SPI), Ben writes about how the great Australian dream has changed over time and how it has affect the property investment industry.   "Thousands upon thousands of Australian ...

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Auction: A Love Hate Relationship

Understanding why there's such a love-hate relationship in why buyers and sellers don't really like the auction process but the real estate agents do is really understanding what's in it for the real estate agent and the first thing is basically, vendor paid advertising for them personally and their business's brand. They've got the big billboards ...

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What are the Costs associated with Buying a Property?

We're about to buy a property! It's an exciting time but we also need to understand the numbers behind acquiring that property. So what are there? Let's use a basically a back-of-the-envelope calculation to help us understand what it's going to cost to buy that property and what sort of loan that we might have to take on that. So let's get our pe...

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How much Money can you borrow?

So how much money can I borrow? It's a question we all ask ourselves from time to time and it's a good question to ask and from a Lender's point of view it's a question around serviceability. So when they're talking about serviceability they're actually saying that here's the household income coming in, here's the expenditure that we've got associa...

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The Impact of the Federal Budget on your retirement

In recent articles in this series, we have discussed the state of incomes of older Australians compared to other developed nations, and concluded that we fare very poorly in such a comparison. In this article, we take a look at the proposals contained in the May 2014 Federal Budget and how they may impact on the wealth and lifestyle of older Austra...

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Future Population Growth Has Meaning for Some Property Investment Locations

Population growth is not the ‘panacea’ for all things property investment certainly not in spotting the next property investment locations. In fact, it’s often used by many property investment spruikers as the way to get unsuspecting Mum and Dad investors excited enough to hook into a lemon location, and ultimately a lemon investment. However...

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