Empower Blog First Home Buyer

7 Ways to Get your Kids on the Property Ladder Sooner

With the question on affordability always on the mind of those looking to get on the property ladder, Ben Kingsley will share with you seven potential ways to help accelerate your kids dream of property ownership. This presentation at the Melbourne Home Buyer and Property Investor Show will look at ways in which family members can help the Gen X...

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How can Parents help?

I had a fabulous Christmas party with my Mum's side of the family Christmas just gone. Three exciting things happened. Firstly - I'd pulled together a wonderful negotiation on a large floorplan 2BR apartment in St Kilda for a lovely client who was traveling in Vietnam with her friend. Her Dad had agreed to be her Power of Attorney in the event that...

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ASIC’s Barriers to Making Good Financial Decisions

It was pleasing to see, as brought to my attention by the editor of Property Observer, Jennifer Duke in her fine article last week – The five factors inhibiting every investor in today's advice-laden world, that ASIC did have a good understanding on consumer investment behaviour when it comes to financial decisions they make.  And the report car...

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RBA Rates Decision – March 2013

The RBA decided to keep interest rates on hold at their March board meeting, as they sit on the fence waiting to see further data flowing through from the significant easing on the cash rate they did last year. Critical figures released last week show there are certain signs of a slowing in the capital expenditure in the mining sector.  Althoug...

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When is the RIGHT Time to buy your First Home?

In the November issue of Money Magazine I contributed to an article written by Maria Bekiaris on the 10 Home Buyer Traps, which was all about the pitfalls waiting for home buyers to avoid costly mistakes. (It’s a great article by Maria, so get the November issue of Money). The article got me thinking about the first homer buyers and how I ofte...

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Stamp Duty; friend or foe?

There is a lot of news in the media right now about Stamp Duty on the Transfer of Land. For a buyer, the cost of stamp duty is a significant upfront cost when buying property. We often get asked by the media about stamp duty and how Australians (and in particular, Melburnians) feel about it. It was an interesting topic to discuss because many poi...

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What makes a Buyer’s Market become a Seller’s market?

Without doubt, the defining aspect of 2011 for us was the rapid swing of the Melbourne Seller's market to a Buyer's market. To explain this, cast your mind back to 2009 when, after the full impact of the GFC first hit Australia, our government and RBA instigated some immediate moves to aid buoyancy in our market. We had one-off stimulus cheques ...

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Higher LVR’s Back in Play = Good News for First Home Buyers

Over the past few weeks we have seen several lenders adjust their Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) to allow for more First Home Buyers and Investors take on higher levels of lending against the security of the property they are purchasing.  There are some lenders who are in the 100% lending space, meaning that the borrower only needs to find approx. 5% t...

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Rental Yield Outlook Positive

2009 saw many first home buyers take advantage of the additional government stimulus schemes on offer to buy their first home and get out of the rental market. This impacted in less demand for this sector of the market. However this decline was offset against the overall population growth in the major cities centre's around the country. BIS Shrapn...

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The Affordability Question

Most people will agree it has done its job of getting more home buyers into the market and the follow on effect will be a mini-construction boom, once the land titles are registered and the new homes are under construction. Couple this with record low interest rates and it’s only natural that a spike in sales and demand would lead to price val...

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Buy now or wait ‘til Post First Home Owners go?

The evidence is in, property prices are on the rise, as I predicted at the start of the year. Demand, due to low interest rates, improved affordability and the First Home Owners (FHO) Scheme’s has lead to a recovery in the price of residential property. Yet the big question is will they been sustainable or will demand drop off post FHO’s? Well ...

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State of the Property Market – Melbourne & Sydney

Congratulations to those holding property anywhere where the majority of sales are occurring via Auction, because your house or unit value is on the rise. Based on Property Market Activity its going to run pretty hard for the next 3 months, until interest rates increase from these record lows and market sentiment for property declines, but this is ...

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Housing Affordability Dramatically Improves

Housing affordability improved by 14.6% in the March quarter according to the HIA - CBA First Home Buyer Affordability Report The largest improvements were recorded in Hobart, Adelaide, and Sydney. According to the report, a combination of the boost to the First Home Owners Grant, record low interest rates and relatively stable house prices mean...

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