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Huge property investment success can put you at risk

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So you have invested in a home in one of our east coast capitals over the last two or three years and you don’t realise that your huge property investment success can put you at risk! The warning comes from some financial experts in today’s media.
(Please contact us at info@limepropertysolutions.com.au for further information or the chance to discuss this and other issues in the comfort of your own home.)
Most of us are protected from very risky investment by The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). ASIC offers client consumer protection to retail investors where financial advisors deliberately miscategorise their clients or when companies fail to properly disclose their businesses. However these protections are not available to sophisticated investors and this is where the problem now lies! Unknown to many successful mum and dad property owners, and in particular successful property investors, the growing assets you have acquired over the last couple of years re-defines you as a ‘sophisticated investor’.

What is a ‘Sophisticated Investor?’
A sophisticated investor is a type of investor who is deemed to have sufficient investing experience and knowledge to weigh the risks and merits of an investment opportunity.
For certain purposes, net worth and income restrictions must be met before a person can be classified a sophisticated investor. The distinction makes an investor eligible to buy into certain investment opportunities, such as pre-IPO securities, that are considered “non-disclosure” or “non-prospectus” issues. Typically, a sophisticated investor must have either a net worth of $2.5 million or have earned more than $250,000 in the past two years to qualify.
Sophisticated investors may have to prove their net worth prior to being eligible to purchase certain security types. Investors will often have their personal accountants send this proof to the brokerage firm. Sophisticated investors are the dream clients of most financial services firms, as they generate much higher fees than retail investors. Read more here.
Certain assumptions are made about sophisticated investors: that they can hold their investments indefinitely (the funds do not need to be liquidated for cash needs), and they can assume a total loss of investment principal without causing severe damage to their overall net worth. You may have made this $2.5 million simply on the value of your own home and one or two investment properties, do you really want to be classified as a sophisticated investor and lose your ASIC protection?
(If you want to know more about property investment and asset growth, contact us now at info@limepropertysolutions.com.au.)

Is Property investment a better investment than shares?

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The beginning of a new year and another perennial article is published in today’s paper asking the age old question “Is property Investment a better investment than shares?”

The answer, of course, is ‘yes’, even when the study methodology makes it as difficult as it possibly can for property to exceed shares!
(Please contact us at info@limepropertysolutions.com.au. for further information or the chance to discuss this and other issues in the comfort of your own home.)
The largest problem in trying to compare growth and return in investment property to the share market is always the methodology used in the study. The article printed in today’s news “Rent or Buy. The evidence is in” (read article here) is at best confusing although the result is perfectly clear – property is the better investment!

The article is not really about investment at all. As the title suggests, it is asking the question “Are you better off renting or better off buying your own home?” Most people would have enough common sense to know that you are actually better off owning your own home (as the study also finds!) but the confusion arises when the comparison is made between investing all the funds you don’t spend on buying your home into the share market thus, in my mind, making the comparison one of investing in property to investing in the share market. This is NOT the case in the methodology scenario described. Why you ask? Because a well set up investment property for someone earning around $100,000 per year would possibly deliver an additional few thousand dollars per year in positive cash flow – it would not be a cost and certainly not a significant cost.

When we examine the idea of ‘rentinvest’ (see earlier blogs for more details) where we continue to rent but also buy a property investment, then the article really makes no sense at all in the real world. We do not think your own owner-occupier home is a real investment – it is just something we must have to live in. The only way to measure share investment against property investment is to compare apples to apples; that is make sure we are comparing an investment property return against a share market return.
However, whichever way we look at it, property investment makes a great deal of sense!

(If you want to know more about property investment that can be cash positive after tax from day one, contact us now at info@limepropertysolutions.com.au.)

A healthy and prosperous 2017 to all our property investors – Happy New Year!

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So it’s another year and time to wish a healthy and prosperous 2017 to all our property investors – Happy New Year!
New Year resolutions often include goals for becoming wealthier and doing something about looking after our financial future. They are great resolutions to make and, unlike many other resolutions, if we don’t do anything about it, we don’t feel bad as we don’t really notice our inaction until nearer the end of the year!

The big thing about keeping a resolution is Taking Action! Changing what you do is essential if you wish to change your current outcomes ….. and as far as wealth creation is concerned, there is no easier way than property investment.
(Please contact us at info@limepropertysolutions.com.au for further information or the chance to discuss this and other issues in the comfort of your own home.

New Yorkers have just celebrated their 10th Good Riddance Day; maybe some of us need to do something like this in the privacy of our back yard or at a local park!

Basically a huge shredder was set up in Time Square where people could publically destroy their physical and emotional ‘baggage’. People threw in notes and placards, pills and bills, and piles of clothes; anything representing their baggage of 2015. A line as far as the eye could see stretched all down Broadway.
The simple rule was that any member of the public could come to destroy, “any unpleasant, embarrassing and downright forgettable memories from 2016”. This was done with passion shredding papers with the words ‘NEGATIVITY” and “PROCRASTINATION” written on them, smashing up IT equipment with hammers, destroying credit cards and throwing out mementos from old relationships.

Good Riddance Day has its roots in an old Latin American tradition where people sew objects on dolls and set them on fire letting their pain and frustrations dissipate in the smoke! Read about last year’s event here

And what became of all the shredded rubbish? It is recycled and used as confetti as the famous Time Square Ball dropped at midnight.
Get yourself moving forward again in 2017 here in Sydney and look at doing something different – A Happy and prosperous New Year to you all!

If you want to know more about safe capital growth investment over the next few years contact: info@limepropertysolutions.com.au.

Will we see Apartment prices drop in Sydney and Melbourne?

By | best investment, Building, chinese investment, foreign investment, Uncategorized | No Comments

The Sydney and Melbourne unit markets in particular have been buoyed by Chinese investors, but six months on from a bank clampdown on foreign lending, will we see apartment prices drop in Sydney and Melbourne?

The word has been that apartment prices in Sydney and Melbourne may drop because of over-supply but the real danger may be the thousands of Chinese property investors who bought apartments in Australia are now scrambling to save their investments. Already, a number of apartments bought off-the-plan by Chinese investors have failed to settle due to the buyers being unable to secure finance for settlement.

(Please contact us at info@limepropertysolutions.com.au for further information or the chance to discuss this and other issues in the comfort of your own home.

In these cases, the developer is entitles to keep the 10% deposit paid at exchange of contract and on-sell the apartment. In many cases it makes sense to reduce the price of the apartment for a quick sale. With possibly hundreds of new apartments being on-sold ‘below original cost’, this would soon affect the whole city-wide apartment market. Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-28/chinese-property-investors-worried-after-big-banks-change-rules/8062530  Related Story: Tough new loan laws see Chinese investors opting for private lenders

In mid-year year, the major lenders stopped lending to offshore investors in a bid to reduce  risk. Lenders were worried by some applications with fraudulent proof of income, and wanted to rein in lending to avoid being too reliant on Chinese borrowers. These changes are now having a major impact on the property market, particularly in the foreign investor’s favourite locations in Sydney and Melbourne property investment hotspots. For the estimated 50,000 Chinese buyers involved there has been crushing disappointment. It is estimated that up to 30,000 investors are affected.

As well as our Australian lenders, China’s banks have cracked down on money heading abroad, so investors have been left trying to borrow from other Asian banks. With up to 30,000 units unable to settle, it is difficult to see why this will not affect the major city apartment markets. We are more than likely see Apartment prices drop in Sydney and Melbourne over the next couple of years.

If you want to know more about safe growth investment over the next few years contact: info@limepropertysolutions.com.au.