The Property Couch | The Insider's Guide to Property Investing

Due to there being an excess of absolute gold in yet another special guest week episode, we’ve had to split this week’s episode into two! Today joining Bryce and Ben for this hour long episode is Nicole Faid, principal and founder of Accord Conveyancing.  With over 25 years of industry experience, and managing around 15,000 conveyancing transactions during her career so far, the insights and opinion she provides are not to be missed out on. In this part, Bryce, Ben and Nicole discuss some of the following areas: * Her story and how she got into Conveyancing * What Conveyancing actually means and what the process is * How is the settlement process like and what are the paperwork and due diligence involved * What are the common road blocks a conveyancer or solicitor faced at settlement * Will there be a unified conveyancing legislation across Australia * Questions a client should be asking a Conveyancer * Different clauses that property buyers should put into their contracts * Some tips to ensure a smooth settlement   And so much more! To learn more, make sure to tune in, and remember to listen to the next part as well!   If you like this podcast: “What Is Conveyancing and How Does It Help With The Settlement Process? – Chat with Nicole Faid, Principal of Accord Conveyancing”, don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

In this joint episode with The Smart Property Investment Show, Phil chats with Ben on the importance of a good money management system when investing in property, having a sound but flexible strategy in place and understanding what you want to achieve at the end of this game of property investing. We have mentioned it a few times on The Property Couch that it is important to have an end goal in mind when you are building your portfolio. What are we striving to achieve and where is the final destination we want ourselves to be at? These are the questions you need to ask yourself because otherwise, you would constantly be wondering if it’s ever going to be enough and ultimately, when would you stop to enjoy the fruits of your labour? They also chat about Ben’s personal portfolio, how he started investing in property and why he’s so passionate about this industry. Tune in now to find out more.   If you like this podcast: “Bonusisode | Chat between TPC and SPI Show – How does a property expert invest in property?”, don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/.

A few of our listeners have asked us about Fractional Property Investment; what is it and how does it actually works. It is a relatively new investing concept and often, people are confused if it’s investing in shares or property especially when it comes to ownership of the property. So we’ve invited Anthony Millet, CEO of BRICKX, to come on the show and share his expertise! Appointed as the CEO back in April 2016, Anthony comes from an investment banking background, had been the Chief Operating Officer of a leading global online sports retailer and is active investor himself. So for today’s podcast, the three of them will be chatting about: * What motivated Anthony into this industry and his investing story * What does fractional property investment means and how did it start in Australia * Who owns the property in the portfolio and what rights do the investors have * How does it work and how much returns would you get * What type of assets are included in the portfolio and the asset selection criteria that’s in place * The regulatory requirements surrounding this investment product * Are gearing or leverage a consideration in fractional property investment * Is it possible to trade the ownership of the product and what are the technological platform available for investors to trade in * The future of Fintech and property investing in Australia   ps: For the roles mentioned in the episode, please check out our Jobs page   If you like this podcast: “What Is Fractional Property Investment and How Does It Works? – Chat with Anthony Millet, CEO of BRICKX”, don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

Our second Live Podcast Recording at the Melbourne Property Buyer Expo last weekend was with Effie Zahos! With more than 20 years in the finance and journalism industry, Effie started as a graduate trainee for Westpac and then moved on to being the head researcher for Channel Nine’s successful Money program in 1997. She has been the editor of Money Magazine since 1999 as well as the magazine’s banking specialist, a regular finance commentator on TV and radio, and the author of The Great $20 Adventure and Getting Rich, Staying Rich!     So for today’s episode, the three of them will be talking about: * How did she start in the finance and journalism industry * Being the editor of Money Magazine, working with top economists and industry experts and investors’ success and horror stories she’s come across over the years * Having a mentor and how it helps in her career * The Top 4 Money Magazine Cover Story and the changes in readers’ interest when it comes to building wealth * Building wealth through superannuation and why you should take an interest in it at an earlier age * Salary sacrificing and if it’s a good idea * The housing affordability debate and what others ways to get onto the property ladder sooner * Continuous source of information and education for property investors   Here are the resources mentioned in today’s podcast: * Money Magazine Cover Story | Earn $2500 a Week at Retirement – Read here * Money Magazine Cover Story | Rent and Invest – Read here * ABS Website for Population Clock – Find out more   If you like this podcast: “Insights from the Money Queen – Chat with Effie Zahos, Editor of Money Magazine”, don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

After last week’s much-anticipated talk with Jan Somers who is an example of someone who has made many successful choices when building her 40 plus year old portfolio, today’s episode features Bryce and Ben discussing seven of the most common ways many of us lose money when investing in property. With key advice and some examples of how and why the choices we make as property investors can have a negative impact on our portfolios, the guys make sure to warn us and help us understand why these ways can cost you money rather than make you more. The first way to lose money in property is choosing the wrong location. As they have mentioned in countless episodes, location does 80% of the heavy lifting when purchasing property so making sure you have the right location is one of the key things to look for. It covers many areas such as amenities, human interest and practicality; so getting it right means a lot to your portfolio. To find out the rest of the points, make sure you tune in to this latest episode! And don’t forget, we will be at the Melbourne Property Buyer Expo this weekend so if you are around, do come and say hi!

As promised, here is the second part of the highly anticipated Episode featuring the incredibly humble housewife, author of 4 best selling property books, sophisticated property investor and a property educator extraordinaire, Jan Somers. In this part, Bryce, Ben and Jan discuss the following areas: * The mistakes she made along the way – holiday homes, overcapitalising and more * Types of properties she likes to invest in * Her thoughts on borderless investing and if it is for everyone * Australia’s housing affordability issue and are we in one? * Ideas on renovating and adding value to your investment property * Most common questions she gets asked when it comes to property investment * Will property forever be a sound investment class * How she utilises the money she earns for good causes We hope you would enjoy listening to her as much as we do. As mentioned in the first part, Jan is definitely a property educator that is worth listening to as her years of expertise and knowledge in property investing is absolute gold! Here’s the link to her books and the PIA Investor software: Click here.   And as always, if you like this episode (Chat with Jan Somers, Housewife And Property Multimillionaire – Part 2), don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. Any questions or ideas? Feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

We are extremely excited here on The Property Couch this week to announce the long-awaited meeting with our special guest today, JAN SOMERS (as we’re sure you would agree)! With a successful property portfolio spanning over 40 years with countless properties within the country, Jan is an inspirational, property-investing mogul who we all could learn a lot from. As we gained so much gold from the hour-long chat, we’ve had to split the episode into two! In this first part, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley discuss the following areas with Jan: * What got her into property investing back in 1972 and how did she build her portfolio since then * Her mentor in life and her outlook in education and continuous learning * Her point of view and experience on negative gearing * How did she structure her loans and what kind of loan strategy does she have for her portfolio * Tips on improving your borrowing power * What motivated her to write her books, Building Wealth * Having the right mindset as an investor And so much more! As Jan is someone who has a continuous passion and drive for property investing, this is definitely a 2-part episode you will not want to miss. Her journey through property investing is definitely a story worth listening to and reading up on so make sure you tune in. Here’s the link to her books and the PIA Investor software: Click here.   And as always, if you like this episode (Chat with Jan Somers, Housewife And Property Multimillionaire – Part 1), don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. Any questions or ideas? Feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

Finally, back in the studio again this week and as mentioned in Ben’s latest RBA’s cash rate announcement video, this episode of the podcast has Bryce and Ben talking about the all time hot debate topic: The Housing Affordability Issue. But before that, we just want to highlight that the podcast has reached another one of our milestone! 1,027,000 DOWNLOADS! A big thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in! We wouldn’t have been able to achieve this without your support, reviews, feedbacks and all the amazing questions that you’ve sent in! Our next milestone target is 5,000,000 downloads so if you think we are a good bunch of people and the contents are helpful, just let someone else know.

With a fresh start this week for The Property Couch after our much-anticipated 100th episode last week, the energy definitely hasn’t dwindled as Episode 101 has Bryce and Ben discussing the six critical foundations to building your wealth plan. From the comfort of Ben’s home instead of the studio this week, (as not even an operation can delay an episode of TPC), the guys discuss foundations such as strategy, getting a mentor and building your tribe to name a few. Similar to a skyscraper or a mega size bridge, the foundations in which you build your property portfolio or even, your financial wealth plan on is crucial. However, it’s not an exciting process and can be mundane for some but do not underestimate how much difference it can make to the long-term performance of your wealth plan. Time is a commodity that you can’t afford to lose and if you find out later in life that your wealth plan isn’t going to work, it can potentially be too late. Of course, the jokes and banter still continue on in this podcast, and with that in mind, we hope you enjoy this next instalment and the next step that The Property Couch is taking. To another 100 episodes! P.S If anything, don’t miss this latest episode for the brand new sign-off at the end!   Free Resources mentioned in this episode: * Is your portfolio build on sand or stone? : Watch Here * Free tickets to the Melbourne Property Buyer Expo 2017 (Discount code: TPC2017) : Click here to get the tickets   And as always, if you like this episode (Sand or Stone – 6 Critical Foundations Your Wealth Plan Should Be Built On), don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. Any questions or ideas? Feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

AND IT’S FINALLY HERE!! Happy Australia Day and thank you to all you who had supported us for the past 99 episodes! It has been an incredible journey, and we are very grateful and amazed at how far we’ve come. This is just the beginning, and we promise you that for the next 100 episodes, we are definitely going bigger and better! With new segments, more case studies, guests interviews and innovative data research platform (spoiler alerts!), all we can say for now is, sit tight and buckle up for the ride.

As Bryce puts it today, we’ve made it to “99, not out!” and with just 1 episode to go before the big 1-0-0, we’re back to provide you with another Q&A Session. In today’s episode, Bryce and Ben give advice on whether to sell your home, tips for investing later on in life, what to do when your property portfolio is falling into a downward spiral, and more. Today’s questions are from the following listeners:   * Fernando on whether or not to sell his home: My wife and I moved from SYD to MELB four years ago without not even knowing where its north was. We rented an apartment in the beautiful East Melbourne for a year as we wanted to enjoy this beautiful city life style but also knowing that we needed to buy a property after that time so we were not building someone else’s future. So we bought “with our hearts” a 3 beds, 2 bath, studio + man cave OLD house out in Donvale with the “vision” of slowly renovate it while starting a family, be surrounded by green, live the Australian dream and on top of that, generate a good growth on the property in a medium term. We love the area BUT… Now, after 2 kids, our cash flow is quite dry and we need to do something about it (classic isn’t it). Our first bet is to sell as Donvale is not a good suburb from a rent perspective (Yield), put whatever money we can make from the sell – We bought at 520K, the median is 650K and we’ve been slowly renovating a few things, but again, without enough cash to finish it, we are not expecting making a huge profit – into an investment property and then became “Rentvestors”, we wouldn’t mind to sacrifice moving out to a suburb where rent is half what our current mortgage is. In our raw calculations, in 3 – 5 years we could be saving enough to buy the second investment property. I believe the best things Australia has to offer are for free (parks, security, culture, etc.), so for now, not living in the suburb we’d prefer is not such a big deal when thinking on our medium-long term goals which are given to our kids the best that we possible can and start a passive income strategy for our future ASAP. On the other hand, if we keep the property, we’d need to put a considerable amount of cash on top of the rent in order to pay the mortgage, so our savings wouldn’t be enough to think in buying a good investment property any soon. We will regret not keeping this property… I can guarantee you that but we don’t see any other immediate solution. * Monique on whether or not to sell her home: Taken your advice, but what now? Given the projected apartment oversupply, should we sell our inner suburbs 1bdr flat to put towards our next home? Or is it still a good investment worth holding on to? * James on interest only loans:Part 1: 2 years ago my wife and I purchased a property 5km from the Brisbane CBD for $530,000. Unfortunately we only spoke to 1 bank, didn’t seek advice and fixed the whole loan for 3 years at 5.05% so have no offset and no way of paying more off the loan than prescribed fortnightly payment amount. After listening to your podcasts and just starting to read your book just this week, we have since found a decent mortgage broker and are considering refinancing and setting up the money smarts structure. We are considering an interest only loan, as discussed in your podcast, to give us the flexibility to purchase another property over the next 2-3 years, but currently we are getting conflicting advice from our financial planner who is against interest only and our mortgage broker who is telling us ‘cash is king’ in your offset account and we should consider it. The idea is to pay the same amount as we are paying now with our P&I loan...

It’s the second week into the new year, and we’ve got yet another exciting and information-packed episode for you today. Joining Bryce and Ben on another online interview podcast is Property Journalist and Review Editor of Domain, Jennifer Duke (@JennieDuke). Today the duo and their special guest who “lives and breathes property” discuss Jen’s professional background and how she got into property journalism, the breadth of topics there are to discuss around property, as well as how being a property journalism shows you a more personal aspect of property investing. Further to this, they also discuss the following areas: * What motivated her to join journalism and to specialise in finance and property * How does she decipher all the media headlines and form an opinion on the property market * The controversy she faces in her career as a reporter * What is it like to write for Domain * Her most interesting and shocking story that she has reported on * How important it is to find credible and trustworthy sources for her articles when reporting to her readers * What the best and the most ostentatious properties she has ever seen are * The future of the newspaper in an ever-growing digital world ps: Don’t forget to tag your friends for our  Episode 100 Giveaways! Only 2 more weeks to go! If you like this podcast: “Unpacking Property Media Headlines – Chat with Jennifer Duke, Property Journalist and Review Editor of Domain”, don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/.    

First thing’s first, Happy New Year everyone! And what an exciting new year we have for you all here on The Property Couch. We’ll let Bryce and Ben fill you in on what’s to come, but for now we thought we’d kick the new year off with a fresh Q&A session. In today’s episode, Bryce and Ben answer the following 7 questions which are:   * Volks on Mechanics of Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI): I have a quick question, how would you tackle this situation. I’m 33 yo and married with 2 young kids with plans for #3 in the future. I’m currently rent vesting (I have subsidised housing thanks to my career) with one investment property in Warner north of Brisbane. (I bought this before I started to listed to your podcast) I have bought off the plan and in hindsight now, armed with the information provided by your podcast and other books on investment property, I would have steered away from that investment and bought based on location. Hopefully this property will do some heavy lifting in the future. My question is in reference to LMI and loan to value ratio (LVR). Is the LMI attached to a loan dissipate over time as our LVR approaches the 80% sweet spot or does it remain until the whole loan is paid off? And, given I’ve saved up a good cash reserve, would it make sense to pay just enough to make my LVR 80%? * Jamie on Purchasing foreclosed property direct from banks: Hi Guys, I’m a long time listener of the podcast and have currently just completed your book. I have a question regarding whether you have previously ever purchased foreclosed property direct from the banks. I have located numerous websites regarding this with some requesting membership’s fees to access the information. Are there ways to retrieve this information yourself and can you expect to purchase this property for under market value and if so how much can this process differ from a typical purchase. * Bohdi on whether to buy comfortably within budget or stretching to the end of your limit: Hey Guys, Came across the podcast a few weeks ago and have binged a year and a half worth of episodes in 3 weeks. Addictive stuff! My now wife and I recently got married and are now looking to get ourselves into property. We live in Manly in Sydney, have a good double income and a considerable deposit saved and are now trying to decide the best property approach for us. The maternity leave at my wife’s work is fantastic so we are not expecting any dip in salary income as begin to have children. In the long term our goal is to have a few investment properties wherever it makes sense to buy in Australia and then a PPOR in or around Manly. My question to you: With our income we could probably get a loan of up to $1.5M and still be able to comfortably live. But in your experience, should we start by purchasing an investment property that’s well within our means – e.g. something for around the $700,000 – $900,000 mark and continue to rent in Manly OR should we try to stretch ourselves and buy a property at out upper limit that we live in for now and then think about additional investment properties later on? If we were to buy something a bit cheaper in an area that made sense, I’d imagine we’d be able to continue renting and then buy a second more affordable investment property as equity grows in the property and we continue to save. In other words, are we better to aim for a number of cheaper properties that we gain a small amount of capital growth or one more expensive property that might achieve large capital growth as it’s off a larger base?

All right folks! Here’s a special podcast to look for a few people to join us at our business. If you are passionate about property, genuinely committed to help others build wealth, a strong believer in tailored solution and you appreciate a good challenge (and love the podcast!), we want to hear from you. We are looking for a Property Investment Advisor, Associate Property Investment Advisor, Financial Planner and Buyers Agent to join our team at Empower Wealth. For more information on the roles and how to apply, please visit www.ThePropertyCouch.com.au/jobs.    

Joining us on our first online recording today is Prue Muirhead! Prue is the co-founder of Muirhead Property Management, the 2010 Property Investor of the Year, teaches property investment and property management at TAFE Adelaide and an active investor with 18 positively geared properties under her belt. So in today’s episode, Bryce and Ben will be chatting with her about how she build her positively geared property portfolio and: * Her journey as a sophisticated property investor, the hurdles she faced along the way and how she overcame that * Understanding different risk profiles and property investing risks when building a portfolio * The lending challenges faced by a self-employed and how she used the equity in her current home to build up her portfolio * What’s her investment strategy and her definition of manufactured property growth * The importance of continuous learning, research and taking initiatives to an active investor * Self-management versus using a property manager * Potential for upgrades and renovations from a property manager perspective * The mindset and preparations required for property developments * Mistakes made along the way and her top tips for other property investors   If you like this podcast: “Building a Positively Geared Property Portfolio – Chat with Prue Muirhead, Property Investor of The Year (2010)”, don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop us your thoughts here: http://www.thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/.