Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

Rates on the Rise….?

I can understand why we are referred to as the ‘Lucky Country’.  Great climate, enough fertile land to produce food to support our population & provide a great quality of life and standard of living, stable government (well sort of) and the most important thing from an investors view point - an economy that has grown over the last 20 years...

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Negative Gearing to Continue..

With Labor now running the country for the next few years it’s nice to know that they stated at the National Press Club debate, that they will not be touching negative gearing. Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) president David Airey was pleased with this announcement.  "This is fantastic news for renters, affordable housing and real e...

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Spring Season – Real Test For Prices

It’s well commented on that Spring is the time that the Real Estate market becomes the most active in terms of new listings and buying activity across pretty much every state. It’s the time of the year when the garden presents the best and the weather sees buyers coming out of winter hibernation, so sellers think they are going to get the be...

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You have to Spend Money to Make Money

Let start with a simple question – Can you give me an example of how you have made money without spending any of your own money? Let’s get the obvious answers out of the way first: Inheritance. Good luck to those waiting around lazily to collect someone else’s initial spend to originally make it, not to mention the risk they took. St...

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RBA Rates Decision – September 2010

The cash rate remains on hold for another month as the RBA sits on its hands awaiting the latest inflation data for the September quarter due out 27th October. There are growing concerns that the global recovery is stalling and we are heading for a ‘W’ shaped recovery rather than the ‘V’ shaped one the global economic stimulus tried to a...

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Sky Business Channel, Your Money Your Call (September 2010)

In this session of SKY Business Channel, Your Money Your Call, Ben Kingsley discussed with host, Margaret Lomas and Michael Teys from Tey's Lawter on a variety of topics concerning property investment and shares various home and property investment advice. Ben's discussions are focused around the need for some regulations and governing in the Pr...

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Property Millions

Having a multi-million dollar property portfolio is everyone's dream but to find the time, skills and understanding to start building it may be harder than we thought. In the July 2010 issue of Money Magazine, Bryce Holdaway writes about eight steps that you can apply to start building your very own property portfolio! Here's a snippet of the ar...

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Your Call to Choose a Wealth Road less Travelled

Our minds are an amazing tool and mysterious in the way in which they operate.  They allow us to understand and size up risks pretty much every moment in our lives, from driving motorcars to jumping out of perfectly good aircrafts.  With each of us having our own individual mindset to determine what risks we plan to take in life every day. Rem...

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RBA Rates Decision – August 2010

The cash rate remains on hold this month after good news on lower than expected 2nd quarter CPI (Inflation) data last week.  The RBA believe the current cash rate setting is adequate for the time being. There is still upward pressure on rates as our economy is in very good shape compared to the rest of the world.  The upward pressure remains d...

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Timing Your Purchase?

A lot of commentary, opinion and theories go into the ‘melting pot’ when it comes to the ‘TIMING’ of purchasing any investment asset and this is no different when it comes timing the purchase of a Residential Property, whether for owner occupier or investment.  There are those that will put a call out there ‘Now’s the time’ and those...

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Property Supply Adding to Cooling Melbourne Market

Supply and demand are the primary forces in an ’open’ marketplace that determine the value of a good/service. This is fundamental economics. The property market is no different. Earlier this year we saw property values move higher on increased demand. Demand that has since softened as interest rate increases have pushed out some buyers due t...

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Consumer Credit Report & Risk Scoring

Credit Scoring is a complicated and weighted measure of a credit report profile which lenders use to assess credit-worthiness based upon modelled statistical analysis.  In other words, how others with the same credit characteristics tend to repay their bills and the likelihood of the creditor getting repaid. With the tightening of lending over th...

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PAYG Withholding Variation Option

In simplistic terms this means the ATO is happy to help you from a cash flow point of view in meeting your money needs throughout the course of the new financial year. Michael Pope—Empower Wealth’s Money & Wealth Planner thinks it’s a real positive for investors. “Most people opt to get a nice little bonus come tax return time, bu...

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