Strategy help

[Shaggygirl]

I posted recently about helping my parents to move into the IP market.

My mother is keen and my Dad is warming up (I keep reciting "Not all debt is bad debt" to him. I think he's getting sick of me).

Anyway I think the best approach is to develop a strategy (with contingencies). My Dad would like to at least semi-reitre within the next few years and we need a plan to help him do so.

I'm not knowledgeable enough yet to come up with a good strategy and I was wondering if any of you wise forumites would be willing to help? I have Dad reading Jan's book/s and will give him more after that. I have been highlighting posts for him but I think he will be keener once he can see the figures start to come together (his degree is in economy, he likes the numbers).

What we need is help to put this together, review, spot errors and provide things to think about etc. Obviously we need to do as much as we can ourselves but any assistance would be very gratefully received.

I'm happy to PM anyone some details as I'm not sure my parents would be happy with me providing their financial details to the world.

Thanks

Shaggygirl

 

[MarkB]

S/girl

I'm not a financial adviser (that is, I am completely unqualified).

Though I can think of any number of ways to progress your matter.

If your father has a degree in economics and likes the numbers (I can understand that), then he'll probably find Jan's Property Investment Analysis (PIA) software very much to his liking.

It costs about $250 and a demo can be downloaded from this site.

Perhaps some other people on this site who use it may be able to give you more details.

(I personally don't have PIA, yet, I have created my own MS Excel spreadsheets, though at some point I will get PIA as it can do things that I don't know how to).

That really is the first option - taking control of your own financial freedom.

Some would say, it is the only option. And they could well be right.

But it isn't something that can be done blindly.

I believe that an investors three greatest friends are:

1. Information
2. cash (or equity / a security of some value)
3. time

That is, to make the right decisions you need INFORMATION (like reading Jan's books, doing research on properties, etc), but you will also need either CASH (or the like) so you can enter the deal and over TIME your investments will work for you.

Some of the other options would be more passive - like for example, ramping up superannuation contributions (not that it is something that I would ever do myself).

I apologise that I can't be more specific, but I am simply not in a position to offer detailed advice.

MB