Empower Blog Consumer Sentiment

Merry Christmas & That’s a Wrap, 2018!

Hi Ben Kingsley here, Managing Director of Empower Wealth. And, yep, it's that time of the year again — I'm sure the hat gave it away — but it's my Christmas and calendar year wrap for Empower Wealth! It has been a massive year for Empower Wealth, and each year I like to check in with you to share some of the achievements and milestones that h...

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The Property Couch Chat with Paul Clitheroe

  We usually don't repost the episodes in our podcast, The Property Couch, but our 200th Episode is a milestone! And for our milestone, we got a legendary Money Guru that changed a lot of Australian households back in the 90s. Yes, we are talking about none other than Paul Clitheroe! As the host of the show Money on the Nine Networ...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – December 2018

On this first Tuesday of December the Reserve Governor and the Board met as we enter the festive season, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. I will come back to what's happening in the domestic economy, but first of all I want to talk more broadly about what's happening in the global economy. Most namely the biggest story of the last six...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – September 2018

Today, the Reserved Governor and the Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5% for the first month of spring. There's obviously been a lot happening over the course of the last month. We now have a new prime minister — ScoMo as we like to refer to him — so, Scott Morrison takes over from Malcolm Turnbull. Now, the economy, lik...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – August 2018

The Reserve Bank Board of Australia met, and they’ve kept the cash rate on hold for another month. We haven't seen a cash rate movement since August of 2016.   Now, on the positive side, we actually saw growth as good — growth is actually going alright. So, that's positive. Business confidence and business investments are actually...

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3 Handy Tips to Invest in a Changing Market

Today I want to talk about the change in the property market — more specifically, the sentiment around Sydney and Melbourne. Let's be honest, the last few years have been very generous to property owners and property investors in those two mainland cities on the East Coast. But what we're finding now is this real shift from, “When will I buy...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – July 2018

As we start the new financial year, the Reserve Board met today and, as wildly anticipated, they rinsed and repeated, keeping the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Now, even though the cash rate is on hold, I believe that what we’re going to see over the course of the next few months — subject to what happens in the Royal Commission — is banks li...

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Sky News Real Estate – Budget 2018 and its affect on Home Owners and Investors

Ben Kingsley joins the Sky News panel to discuss the latest Budget announcement, Budget 2018, and its implications to home owners, first home buyers and investors. So, what’s the overall take on the Budget, and what’s it saying about consumer confidence? Importantly, given that $24.5 billion dollars out of an overall $75 billion spending is ...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – June 2018

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and — no surprises here — cash rate is on hold at 1.5%. So, a bit of a “rinse and repeat” as I like to say. And that's definitely going to be the case —  I'm calling it here now —it’s definitely going to be the case right through until the end of 2018, and I can't see that changing anytim...

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When you should and should not consider Interest Only Lending?

There's a lot of media noise out there at the moment around interest-only lending, so I thought it's important in this How To Session we talk about why we would and why we wouldn't use interest only lending options.   So I want to start with why we wouldn't use interest only lending. Now, it's logical when you think about it — but w...

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Ignore Property Doomsters

Bryce appears in the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Money Magazine sharing what he's been thinking about recently. So, what's on his mind... the negative commentary from property doomsters about the Sydney Property market and how it's affecting the minds of investors! This is the full article that appeared in Money Magazine: Has the ...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2017

Same old, same old from the RBA today, the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So no real movement.   In terms of economic news, let's look globally first, and the US is probably the main story here. We did see the Trump administration release a Tax Reform package. Now, this tax reform package is all about that one flat tax rate of 20%. T...

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RBA Rate Decision – September 2017

Today, Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and, as widely anticipated — and it's going to be a bit of a broken record — the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So with a cash rate on hold, and basically all the levers doing their thing, I wanted to focus in on jobs —the unemployment story of the Nation — because this is going to be th...

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