Property Investment Advice

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is your Property Portfolio Plan about?

  The short answer is, it’s a road map to what you want to achieve when you retire and how you can achieve it by investing in property. It’s so much more than that though, so find out more here: What does our Property Portfolio Plan include?

• What do you think about us making a holiday house our first investment property?

  We think it’s the worst idea ever – unless you are on track to make a surplus $200K income per year continuously after your holiday house repayments are subtracted! Come and have a chat with us to find out why we are so anti-holiday house purchase as a first investment.

• How will I be able to afford more than one property?

  Through a careful combination of capital growth prospect forecasting and cash flow planning – with a cautious buffer for provisioning. Each property is considered based on affordability, ongoing management and maintenance costs, gross rental income (now and future), and capital growth prospects. The property which we buy now is deliberately intended not to adversely impact your borrowing capacity for the next one, and so on.

• How do investors deal with tenant issues?

  They interview their property managers like any other employee whom they would entrust with the running of a business. It’s always a shame seeing an investor meticulously select and buy a property, only to hand it over to the first managing agent who comes along.

• Shouldn't we pay down our home first before going into more debt?

  What you should do first and foremost is talk to an experienced and accredited finance specialist. It’s true what they say about good debt and bad debt, and it’s vital to get the right information that fits your your specific situation. Talk to one of our investment mortgage specialists to find out more.

• I would love a new car. Should I do that first and then think about investing?

  NO! Talk to us first. Would you choose to upgrade an asset if you knew it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost opportunity?

• What do you think of buying off-the-plan for investment purposes?

  We consider all assets on their merits – taking into account your motivation for considering them and more importantly the impact on your cash flow and future wealth. As a general rule of thumb, we are very cautious about off-the-plan investments and our primary reasons for applying caution are as follows:

  • Many are sold directly by developers and advice around their performance is sometimes pitched as ‘free’. If anyone is giving you ‘free’ advice, you need to ask yourself if it is independent, unbiased advice, and whether the advisor or their company is getting a commission, kickback, rebate, or other interest from a potential sale.
  • Banks are often tough on ‘off-the-plan’ sales. We don’t like assets which banks don’t like. Full stop. If it’s hard for you to buy, it could be hard for you to sell. These all have a flow on effect on the growth potential of an asset so we do tread cautiously.
  • A sudden release of a large number of similar or identical units/apartments can compromise the values (both rental and sale values) of the asset. To compound this, if a vendor has to make a distress sale, the lower sale price will have a direct effect on the value of your asset.
  • We typically prefer assets with higher ‘land-to-asset ratios’. Come and chat to us about what types of assets fit this preference.

• How do you justify the Property Portfolio Plan’s price?

  Property is a high value transaction and making one mistake can mean tens of thousands of dollars lost, be it in terms of actual loss realised, capital growth missed out on, or even opportunity cost. Furthermore, this can often mean irreversible damage to one’s household. So often people build up their property portfolios only to find out later on that they are equity rich but cash poor, and therefore unable to realise their goals and dreams.

  At Empower Wealth, we have seen these portfolios and fixed them on behalf of our clients. Imagine how much better off they would be if they had gotten their portfolio strategy right in the first place! Our Property Portfolio Plan aims to do that. It involves hours of calculations and several meetings to ensure we understand your unique situation, cash flow position, assets and liabilities, and most importantly, your aspirations. We aim to make sure you start your investment journey on the right foot and remain on track in achieving a passive income for you and your loved ones.

  Considering everything mentioned, we believe our Property Portfolio Plan offers great value for money.

• Are your services only available in Melbourne and Sydney?

  Our Property Investment Advice and the rest of our services are available across Australia! We’ve got offices in Melbourne and Sydney if you would like to meet face-to-face, but appointments are typically conducted online. More than 30% of our clients are based outside capital cities.