While most of our readers already own at least one property, we’re also mindful that some of you are yet to buy your own home.
Archive for the ‘miscellaneous musings’ Category
First home saver accounts
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010Free tickets!
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Hiya Guys,
One of our most favourite depreciation people, BMT Quantity Surveyors, are generously offering free tickets to the upcoming Home Buyer & Property Investor Show for our clients and readers. Nice!
Tax Planning 101 – Start Now!
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
New Years’ Eve already, hey? I don’t know about you but I can’t believe just how quickly it’s gone. And, with just a few hours left until the end of this financial year, now is the perfect time to start your tax planning.
For 2010/11, of course.
Looking for tradies
Monday, March 15th, 2010We’ve noticed a sharp increase in renovation activity recently, as clients have looked to manufacture capital growth instead of simply waiting for the market to deliver it to them. Brilliant.
Some prefer the DIY approach, getting in there and doing it all themselves. Others still have paid what appears to be over the odds, to employ someone else to organise the whole thing from start to finish.
Most, though, seem to prefer taking more of a ‘project manager’ role, organising the various tradies and coordinating the reno without getting directly involved.
Often, this leads to clients asking us for recommended tradies and the like. We have the odd contact from our own experience but we’re always keen to hear about your good experiences, as well.
So, do you have anyone who you can recommend to us…?
New property investment forum
Monday, March 8th, 2010Hey! Another quick one from me this week.
We recently stumbled upon a new property investment forum. This place is actually brand new (opened this week!) and is still just finding its feet. So, we’ve jumped on board to offer our time, and our investment and accounting expertise for those who might be interested.
As a little background, the “B Invested” forum is run by Nathan Birch, an individual who recently retired from full-time work to become a full-time investor.
In his 20’s.
Needless to say, we’re big fans of both his style and his skill with making money from buying real estate. And, we’re looking forward to seeing the forum grow and thrive and would love to see you there, too.
You can find the forum by clicking here. Get on board – we have.
e-Record is finally going!
Friday, February 5th, 2010The Tax Office’s record-keeping product, e-Record, has been reviewed… and trashed. So it will no longer be available from the 2010-11 income year. The tax office decided that it no longer was well-suited with the current commercial record-keeping systems (no surprise) and would also have needed to be redeveloped so it can keep up with technology and new business directions. The cost was too much to bear, so the tax office will remove it for download as of 30th June.
In other news. We’ve recently teamed up with the group at the Educated Investor book store, which we believe is the best of its kind in Australia. You might have already seen the little link on the sidebar to your right there. Joining their mailing list also gives you regular discounts on their products, so it might be worth looking at, too. Soon, we’re hoping to have this site branded similar to our own and to be able to offer you exclusive promotional codes – so check it out and stay tuned.
Time to get a move on!
Friday, January 15th, 2010Hiya Guys!
Holidays weren’t long enough but it’s good to be back working with you all again. If you still haven’t organised your 2009 returns, you better get a move on! Just contact us if you’d like to book a time to come in or just shoot your information across whenever you’re ready
On a different note, James has gone and done the unthinkable, signed up for this year’s “Shave For A Cure” with the Leukaemia Foundation. All of James’ hair will be gone soon, so come on guys lets all support this fantastic fundraiser and give a small donation. Everyone here has Funds go directly to the charity and are used to help research bone marrow cancer and provide support for those suffering. It is an excellent cause, and you know it’s tax deductible.
So to get on board, please follow this link to make a donation or ask us how to donate in person next time you’re in the office.
By the way, the blog now has a search button that you can use to look for information across all of the posts that we’ve made so far. We’ve also tagged what we think were the Top 5 Posts For 2009 – these are really interesting and informative and you should definitely check them out.
Ciao guys!
Shave for a cure
Monday, January 11th, 2010Ok, something a little different today. And I still can’t believe that I’m doing this.
No doubt, by now, you’ve heard something about the World’s Greatest Shave, run each year to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. These funds are then used for research into treatment and cures for bone marrow cancer, and to care for those suffering. It’s a great cause.
Clearly, the heat has gotten to me over the last few days, and I went and signed up for it this year. By March 13th, I’ll be completely bald.
If you’d like to make a donation – and you know that it’s tax deductible! – please click through and do so here. The funds go directly to the Foundation and they’ll email you a receipt immediately.
Thankyou!
Happy new year!
Friday, January 1st, 2010What a great way to start the New Year, with some goal setting. New Year’s Resolutions, or anything else you’d like to call them, are great value.
Everyone at House of Wealth decided on some goals that we would like to achieve and we set dates for when we would like to achieve them, if you’d like to check out the goals we would like to achieve, check out our profiles. This year, I’m going to Thailand to ride an elephant, James will be confusing us all with his French, while David and Danny both plan to go sky-diving.
I am not getting on that plane.
On an investment front, we’re currently setting up a joint venture for us to pool some funds and invest as a team. There’s some great opportunities in the market coming through in the new year which we’re all looking forward to taking advantage of.
So by setting goals and actually achieving them is awesome and worthwhile, you get to do things that you’ve always wanted to do or achieve. So come on start writing those dreams and things you’ve always wanted to achieve and get out there and do it! Never say I can’t do it, because you can, you can do almost anything if you put your mind to it!
Today’s as good a day as any, to start. Go!
Discount to SVR
Monday, December 21st, 2009Just a quick tip this week, in the lead-up to Christmas.
The media gave Westpac a good hammering over their interest rate rise a couple of weeks ago; 0.45 points higher instead of the 0.25 points dictated by the RBA. Whilst many of the other lenders also lifted rates by higher than the minimum, none of the other majors were quite as ambitious.
Now, the good news!
We’ve found that since then, Westpac have been a little more open to negotiation than they might usually be. So, it may be worth your while to give them a call (132 558, I think) if you are an existing customer. Almost every investor that we’ve spoken to in the last two weeks with a loan at Westpac has been able to get at least 0.2 points knocked off their variable rate – on top of any existing discounts. Some are now as much as 1.15% under the standard variable rate. Gotta love that!
And hey, it’s probably worth asking every bank that you’ve got loans with, just in case. What’ve you got to lose?