Empower Blog Property & Financial Investment

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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The Tangible and the Intangible Measure of Money

This month marks the month that we first launched our Private Client Wealth Division to a pilot group of existing customers. Since that date over 80 clients have attended our private dinner function to showcase these new professional services.  So what is our Private Client Wealth Advisory Service? Well, it’s a complete cash flow and wealth crea...

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RBA Rates Decision – July 2010

Today the RBA announced to hold the cash rate for the month of July at 4.5 per cent.  It’s welcome news to all mortgage holders across the country, who have seen their mortgage interest costs on a variable home loan increase dramatically from the historic lows of 3 per cent in early 2009. Let’s take a look at a $300,000 variable, interest-o...

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Rents On the Up

The recent interest rate rises are doing what the RBA had hoped in terms of slowing down the demand in the property market in a general sense. By increasing the cash rate the flow on effect is felt across all facets of the residential market. The first impact is the reduction in borrowing power, as the banks move their lending assessment rates ...

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Control & Influence a Key to My Wealth Building Strategy

Once again the first half of this year appears to be providing my wife and I with some exceptional value increases in our property portfolio and the market for well located inner city properties show strong double digit growth for the first 5 months of the year. What’s even more pleasing for me is the hundreds of clients we have helped find prope...

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RBA Rates Decision – June 2010

Today the RBA announced to hold the cash rate for the month of June. That’s after several recent increases that have, in the view of the RBA moved the cost of money back to historically midpoint levels. The next move on rates will be an interesting debate given the recent events of the Euro zone and the ripple effects this is having on the glo...

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Market Softening a Good Thing

It’s with some relief that I report early signs of a softening in the Melbourne Housing market after a rapid run, where the median house prices grew by as much as 30% in the past 12 months. Increases of such magnitude are unsustainable over an extended period of time, which can lead to bubbles forming and we all know that eventually happens to bu...

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Which Unit is Best – High Density or Low Density?

I’ve been in conversation with a couple of buyers advocates over the past few weeks, and it’s surprising how many of their attitudes differ with regard to investment property, namely whether you should be buying apartments in high density areas (HD) such as CBD locations, or low density (LD) inner city locations. For the sake of a comparison, I...

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Finance Structuring for Investing

Choosing the correct Property is crucial to your future wealth when it comes to property investing. The focus of the investor is obviously on finding the best property and paying the right price. However, just as crucial in your property investing business is making sure that the structure of lending is correct for your portfolio now and for the fu...

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