Despite the fact that we are living in a time of record low interest rates, it may not come as much of a surprise that many Australians are struggling to meet the repayments on their mortgage. While the situation may not be as serious as having to dip into emergency funds to pay the month’s [...]
Finally! Someone else has come and said what we have been saying for years: Australia's housing markets are not operating on a level playing field. On Tuesday, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia found that Australia’s worsening housing affordability is unlikely to improve for 40 years under current policies. Driven largely by population growth [...]
Talking about change - the investment lending space continues to evolve and adapt to the new norm of Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) intervention. Oh, and by the way, APRA won’t be going away anytime soon. There have been the obvious shifts like increased interest rates, larger mandatory deposits and interest only caps. This is [...]
There is a particular type of identity that comes along with being an ‘investor’, an identity that many would aspire to for both expansive and obvious reasons. Investors are often perceived to be the type of people that understand what it means to be patient, that appreciate the value of wealth and are able to [...]
The secret weapon of any successful property investor is their ability to leverage. What’s crucial though is establishing a loan structure the provides flexibility, tax efficiency, easy administration and collateral in stand-alone positions. Inefficient structures are usually only beneficial to the lender. And when it comes time to try and untangle a series of cross-collateralised [...]
Self-employed and home[loan]less Over two million Australians enjoy the personal and professional freedom of self-employment, but one frustrating downside emerges when it’s time to get a home loan. Lenders like the security of a regular pay slip when assessing a home loan application. If you have just started out on your own and haven’t established a history of [...]
First Steps for First-Time Homebuyers to Get Easier from 1 July Victoria’s Labour Premier Daniel Andrews has recently announced 7 new policies in a little under a week to attempt to address the issue of housing affordability (or rather lack thereof). This included announcing that from 1 July 2017, Stamp Duty will be abolished for [...]
Let’s take a look at a controversial topic: how do men and women differ as investors, and what can each sex learn from the other? To start with, a bit of economic background. In March 2017, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its landmark employment study, which singled out stay-at-home mums as [...]
We thought we would give you our quick synopsis of Tuesday night's Federal Budget, inasmuch as it relates to us as Property Investors. Starting generally, the budget appears to have kept the ratings agencies happy and our AAA Credit Rating intact (for now), with measures forecast to move the budget back to [...]
It should come as no surprise that the RBA has again decided at today’s board meeting to leave the cash rate unchanged at 1.5%. I feel a bit like a broken record, as for the last few months we have been saying that the economic environment we find ourselves in is more heavily weighted to the downside, not the [...]
