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Associating with positive people will give a positive result. Associating with negative people will give a negative result. Decide for yourself which path you take.

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Your FREE home-loan health check. We all have such busy lives these days. Over time your financial circumstances will change leaving your home loan “less suitable” than it was originally. A home loan health check will reveal if the loan no longer meets the needs of your current circumstances. Questions you should ask yourself. Am I paying a higher interest rate or higher fees than I should? Am I happy with the service I receive from my current lender? Does my loan provide the features I need? Am I paying for features I don’t need? Are my financial circumstances different? Do I have any plans to invest in property? What is involved I can do a full home loan health check in person or on the phone. I will check if your loan is competitive and still meets your personal needs. My assistance will take the stress out of the process for you. Benefits. Your home-loan health check will cost you nothing and may save you thousands of dollars. I can source a loan that will provide a better interest rate and will suit your circumstances more favourably than your current loan. Your repayments could also be made more manageable. Assessing your current loan may provide greater financial opportunities, consolidate debts, or release equity to assist you to purchase an investment property. And remember, it’s FREE. call me on 0425 826 705 to arrange a time convenient to you.

Living costs are on the increase and work life flexibility is becoming an increasingly higher priority placing mortgage stress on many families. As far as household expenses are concerned, the average mortgage costs most families $2600 per month or more. Therefore, if we are looking to reduce the stress we face, lets attack the mortgage with some simple strategies that will offer both immediate and long-term benefits. I know many experts have said that if we pay fortnightly instead of monthly we will take years off the loan. What they don’t readily state is that instead of 12 x monthly payments if we pay fortnightly, we are paying 26 x fortnightly payments. This is not rocket science….we are making an extra 2 payments a year and if we are already under stress, this strategy, although good, will place us under slightly more stress. Let me provide 3 really good strategies for reducing stress and successfully attacking the mortgage. I encourage you to implement an efficient household financial structure at zero cost to you. TIP #1 Use a 100% Offset Account. This is where the amount of interest you pay on your Home Loan principle is reduced by balance in the offset account. Let me explain. If you have a $500,000 home loan and $35,000 in your offset, the interest you pay will be calculated on $465,000 and not the $500,000 loan. All salaries and income, bonuses, lump sums and tax refunds should be paid directly into the offset account. This is a great start. TIP #2 The effective use of a Redraw Facility. If you have a savings account and it earns 3% interest remember that this is the Gross Income and you will pay around 38% of this back in taxable earnings at tax time. As mentioned in TIP #1, an offset account will offset the interest rate of the loan and may be as much as 5% and remember, that’s net!!...that is an immediate saving. You will be way in front of the paltry 1.9% net interest rate you get in an interest bearing savings account. (3% -1.1% tax). The Redraw facility gives you the opportunity to reduce the principle by paying that little extra into the loan, reducing my loan and reducing my interest payments on a daily basis. It also provides a buffer in the case of family emergencies etc. The humble Redraw also offers opportunities for more sophisticated strategies for the future investor. TIP #3 Oftentimes the greatest savings are right in front of our very eyes. We become too comfortable knowing what our salary is and that we can afford the loan repayments. By reducing our interest rate we will have more money to put in the redraw. Win! Ask your bank to review and reduce your interest rates or ask me to review your loan. I will be more than happy to save you lots of money. My call to action!! Employ these simple tips and be motivated by the results. Let me know how you go "Like" my page for more great information. www.Facebook.com/OriginAssist

Origin Finance - Ralph Nicholson - Yarraville / Williamstown

When buying property always consider the land content....A house has more land content than an apartment....land increases in price and buildings depreciate. To quote Mark Twain "buy land, they're not making it anymore" Please check out my other posts on www.facebook.com/OriginAssist

Caveat Emptor Day 6 “Reading newspapers” We all love chilling on the weekends. Sitting down, reading the newspapers and having a cup of coffee on the weekends are one of life’s pleasures. We pull out the real estate lift out and staring into a headline that states “Boom time for Sydney auction market”. Can you believe it?…should you believe it? Who cares? I don’t The motivation is to sell papers and a secondary consideration is to provide detailed research. The headline should read “ Winter market holding up but lets see what happens when more properties hit the spring market” Long and unwieldy I know, but more accurate and it would likely not make me read the article. Reading the newspapers is not conducting research. Magazines offer really interesting articles but they are fluff. Never confuse the two. The author of the article usually doesn’t write the headline….the editor does, and it is to get you to read the article. Enjoy your coffee. After the working week, you have earned it !!

Caveat Emptor Day 5. "Procrastination." Once you understand the research required to invest in the property market it is time to act. You start, as you should, with a map of Australia and narrow it down fairly quickly to a state or area that, based on your research, stacks up as an "good investment area". Drill down further to find a suburb and hit the sales websites like homesales.com.au and realestate.com.au. Check out flood maps, council websites and talk with property managers to find the best streets within an area. Print out the shortlist, drill down further to bullet point the features of each individual property and you have a shortlist of properties to start negotiating on. This places you in the advantageous position of negotiating dispassionately on each property at the same time.....then, when you have the deal ready to go, THUD, you stop. You hit the invisible wall called procrastination. Why....because what many potential investors do is learn all the ways to buy a property and then won't pull the trigger. I get it, It is a huge decision and a lot of money but I would have thought that if you had already engaged in the process of learning how to research you have already crossed that hurdle. The true investor trusts the research and then does what places him/her at the front of the queue. Decisiveness!! It is confronting because you want to be leading the pack and not following and the act of purchasing is the true belief you have in the process. If you wait until everyone is buying you are paying too much. Don't over research Certainly don't under research. Be decisive....you know it's a good deal.

Caveat Emptor day 4. "Buying the right or wrong property." Sorry...this is a long one but persevere, it could be worth it. When you are standing at the BBQ and Uncle Bob says..."I think you should buy a property in such and such a place because the market is roaring and you will miss out if you don't get in quick" please be very wary. The well meaning but ill informed advice can derail your future plans. Over 25% of people buy investment properties in their own postcode. Fact. Many people like the idea of a property close by so they can drive past it and check it out...but isn't that what the property manager does for you? 35% buy units with no or little land content. Fact Remember, land appreciates, buildings depreciate. When buying a great rental property think about the key drivers. Employment.....can the potential renter get a job. Vacancy rates...are they very low and will there be a plentiful supply of tenants. Suitability of the property to the potential tenant demographic Cashflow....Is the rent paying the mortgage or very close to it. Infrastructure, both existing infrastructure and funded plans for the future in areas like transport, education, hospital And finally....what competition is there that will affect my rent return now and capital growth into the future. Am I buying in an estate where I am in stage 2 of a 17 stage development....how can I expect capital growth when over the next 3 years there will be a steady stream of identical properties coming onto the market but they are new and mine is 3 years older So, when setting out to buy a rental property, do it to the best of your ability and learn what will really make a great long term investment. Research is the key to successful investing. Please share if you think it can assist someone Tony Robbins says "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."

When it comes to investing and day to day life in general Start small, think big and make success a habit. remembering...nothing great rises out of a poor foundation.

Caveat Emptor Day 3 "Two for the price of one" C'mon, nobody gives two properties for the price of one. Its not night time TV. Sorry...today I offer two timely warnings.... 1....Rent Guarantees. Why would you ever need a rental guarantee. A healthy rental market will be my guarantee of finding an income paying tenant. The areas cashflow and the low vacancy rates are my true guarantee!! Contrast that with a rent guarantee....as a research based investor, a rent guarantee shouts "The market is crap and I need the guarantee to sustain my investment". Hardly awe inspiring investing. 2..."Property Spruikers" They are everywhere. They are polished and have market and property analysis spreadsheets showing how little the property will cost, usually just a few dollars a day......Typically, they won't want you discussing and thinking over your options with your confidants. When you bump into a spruiker they will endeavour to get you to sign a commitment quickly and most likely on the day. Applying just the right amount of pressure will create FOMO (fear of missing out) and will trap the unaware buyer. And don't forget You can't save your way to wealth. Compound Growth is the key

Caveat Emptor Day 2. The "One Stop Shop" When a developer sells you the apartment / townhouse and they do all the work for you....spreadsheets showing predictable outcomes, Tax depreciation reports, Rental appraisals, Building inspections, Insurance and Finance too...I say stop this nonsense. Is it a Conflict of interest or Symphony of interest? The intentions of the developer may very well be honourable but remember, it is your financial welfare they are being overly confident with. Wouldn't it be better if you appointed the appropriate professionals? There is no 100% predictable outcome in investing....we, as investors, research the heck out of the demographics to ensure a likely favourable outcome. Due diligence is not asking the selling agent. They want to sell. Reading the glossy brochure is not research. I am not attaching blame to agents or developers....they are doing the best they can to perform their roles....that's why you are looking at the development in the first place. Do the best job for yourself and remember....Research Research, Research And when you have completed this research there is an excellent chance that you will be purchasing a gem.

Everyone recognises the term "Caveat Emptor" but what it really means is the buyer alone must be aware of the suitability and quality of the goods they are buying. When a developer is selling apartments and the sales message is "don't miss out on massive stamp duty savings" it is not a great endorsement of the apartment!! That is a definite deal breaker to me. I am going to do 7 days of Caveat Emptors in real estate to highlight very suspicious practices. Please share it with your friends and help them avoid the pitfalls in real estate

The Melbourne property market is holding up really well through the winter market. According to CoreLogic RP Data stats, of the 749 Auctions reported, the clearance rate was a very healthy 76%. Now for the good news.... I know I keep banging on about the benefits of buying property in the Western Suburbs but note the following. Across the west, including Williamstown, Newport, Spotswood,Yarraville Footscray, Laverton, Altona, Sunshine and other surrounding suburbs, there were 38 properties auctioned and 3 passed in. Thats a very respectable 92% clearance rate. Small sample but it has been consistently stronger, week in week out, than the Melbourne wide average. AND REMEMBER People always need houses. They don't always need expensive ones.