Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

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There are many different opinions when it comes to successful investment strategies, so how do you know what's right? When it comes to successful property investing, there is a wide range of opinions as to what is the right or wrong way to go about creating wealth. Some says the best investment strategy is to go for regional properties while others...

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Four personal elements to Building a Property Portfolio

>> Play Audio Here   Building a property portfolio is not an easy task. As much as it requires a lot of cash flow and capital to start a portfolio, a lot of the time how the investor behaves with money, their reaction towards risks and returns plays an equally important role. In his role as a Qualified Property Investment Advisor, Be...

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5 Easy Ways to Add Value to an Investment Property

Let us for this exercise look at a typical investment type property being a 1960’s built 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment within a two storey block of 10 similar apartments with one car space on title located within a 10 kilometre radius of the Melbourne CBD. The value of purchase is between $300,000 & $400,000 which is very similar to the t...

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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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