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I often have clients who come to my office and tell me that they want a home loan with an offset account? When I ask why, most can’t really answer the question. For those that can, the answer usually has something to do with advice received at a BBQ. Banks, credit unions and building societies…

Are you an investor with a property portfolio which looks simple yet everytime you want to do change something the task just seems enormous? Too often I see property portfolio‘s with finance structures, which on the surface look fantastic, but when you dig down a little, are a complicated mess. The mess usually originates from…

Last night the ABC program Four Corners did a story on housing affordability which predominately looked at the afforability of housing in Sydney and Melbourne, and the battle of young people to buy a house in either of these capitals. Watching the story you may have believed that Sydney and Melbourne are the only two…

This month the buyers of apartments in the Arena Apartment complex at 77 Shortland Esplanade Newcastle are taking ownership of their off the plan purchases. For many its been 2 years since they first signed up to buy the apartments and in that intervening period most have made themselves a nice capital gain. But undoubtedly…

Maybe it is just my imagination but it seems that Australia’s media has become more sensationalist over the last decade. Take for example the Australian residential property market. Had you listened to many of the media’s “talking heads”, you would have jumped out of the market 10 years ago. That may not have been good…

Last night I heard something on the news about Hunter City. I thought, Hunter City, what’s that? Having missed what NBN was saying, this morning I went looking to find out just what Hunter City is/was/going to be and I found my answer on the NSW Department of Planning Website in the form of a…

I was recently asked to provide some perspective on whether to use the Big 4 for your home loan, or a smaller lender, by online news outlet The New Daily. Like most things there is no clear-cut answer as it all depends on your circumstances! You always need to consider your own requirements and what…

  Thanks to Yvonne Campbell from Newcastle Herald for my inclusion in her article Illegal buyers get brief amnesty 22 September 2015. Below is a bit more detail about FIRB. There has been a lot in the media about foreign investment in property, but until recently this seemed like something that was only happening in Sydney or the…

Over the past month there has been significant changes made to investment lending policy as lenders scramble to comply with the guidelines of APRA to get investment lending growth back to 10%. The biggest beneficiaries of these changes are home owners as lenders are not going all out for your business. Across the largest 15…