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I’ve been thinking for a while about the income phase of property investment. How can we convert equity from residential property investment into an income stream? Selling some properties to pay off the debt and live on rent provides a low net yield (around 3.5%). That requires $4m of...

Going through the junk in my garage, I find some rather thick contract of sale for properties I bought 10 years ago in Melbourne. Is it worth keeping such documents? Are there some sections that are worth keeping?

This recent ABC report raises the issue of peak oil again. What is new is that even the International Energy Agency admits that there is a problem looming. What does it mean for property prices, and especially for land values? I remember that not so long ago some banks doing modelling on...

Came across this recently: Khan Academy. Contains lots of educational videos, mostly school material (maths, science, ...) but alos includes a lot of stuff in finance or banking. I watched a few. These videos are surprisingly good, quite educational, and explaining the concepts quite well...

I have been looking for 2 br appt in the inner west over the last few months. What I have noticed is that there seems to be little stock on the market. Whatever comes up seems to be snapped up quickly (unless it is overpriced). I'm getting the feeling that the market is 'hotting up'...

We've two girls, aged 12 & 14. In terms of financial education, they have played cash flow. They liked it and they seem to have learned quite a bit from it. I didn't think of getting them to read investment books until recently. I gave our older one "The richest man in Babylon" to read...

Here is an interesting news video: a shrinking city: http://media.smh.com.au/national/world-news Have a look at the video called 'Saving detroit by shrinking it". For us who have been used to ever-growing cities, it is weird.

I was at a seminar last week-end, from Bill Zheng. One of things he is pushing at the moment is gold. The argument for gold being that, with all this money being issued after the GFC, high inflation is inevitable. So to protect yourself against inflation, you buy gold. You could also buy...

This is not new, but it reflects a long term trend that more and more people have started to notice. http://www.smh.com.au/business/australia-exits-americas-orbit-after-crisis-20091227-lg7x.html For decades, we have been looking to the US & Wall St as the centre of our economic universe...

Hi everybody, As you may be aware, cycling has became much more popular worldwide in the last few years. There are three main reasons. 1. The green factor: less pollution, less traffic jams, less carbons emissions, ... 2. Heath & fitness: The gentle type of exercise provided by...

Here is an article from Ross Gittins about the current account deficit. http://www.smh.com.au/business/no-worries-mate-living-with-a-deficit-20091023-hdb3.html He basically says that we're not in the same boat as the US because our savings rate is much higher than the US. So our foreign...

Many real estate books state the capital growth comes from the land value, meaning that if you want to have high capital growth, you must have a high land content. This means that investors looking for capital growth should preferably get a free-standing house on a large block of land than a...

I have recently found out that a self-managed super fund could be a good structure to hold an investment property. The main advantage being that, once you are passed age 60, there is no income tax or capital gains tax payable. I am considering putting our next investment property into a...

This is from Bill Zheng latest newsletter: http://www.ecm7.com/rp//417/Content.clsp?ContentId=710 I found this statement quite interesting: Usually I don't pay that much attention to people "forecasting" the property market with their crystal balls. However, this is coming from a...

We are at the stage where we are starting to think about estate planning. We have a fairly simple situation. Married with two kids. No previous partners, marriages, or other dependants. We don't believe anybody could have a legitimate claim against our estate, but we want our assets to be...

I have been thinking for a while that Sydney should be the next market to bounce back. I am considering purchasing another investment property in Sydney inner west. Considering the current market, I see the following pros and cons: Pros: Falling interest rates. The financial market...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/news/sacked-staffs-tears-force-airline-boss-to-rehire/2008/10/20/1224351111434.html Cheers,

With all the gloomy and sensational media reporting out there, it's hard to filter the accurate info from the exaggerated articles designed to get noticed. I found this one interesting because it matches what Bill Zheng is now saying in his seminars...

Here is a nice simple cartoon that explains in simple terms how this mess came about. http://www.businesspundit.com/sub-prime/ It is much easier to understand that much of the bla-bla you can find in newspapers articles. I believe it's pretty close to the truth too. Cheers,

I like Ross Gittins, he writes articles that make a lot of sense. He argues that we don't have worry about rising inflation from rising oil prices. I hope he's right, even though the peak-oil effect on the oil price may surprise a few economists...