Sydney Financial Planners

If you’ve owned your own home for several years, the chances are that your property has increased in value at the same time that your mortgage has reduced.  This equity in your home can be a potential gold mine because you can borrow against it to invest, allowing you to harness your home’s financial potential.  [...]

New Draft Ruling for SMSF Held Assets -When is a Repair not a Repair? There has always been a lot of debate about whether superannuation funds could make ‘repairs’ or ‘improvements’ to a property acquired under a borrowing arrangement.  Thankfully, the ATO recently released the Draft Self Managed Superannuation Funds Ruling (SMSFR 2011/D1) which seeks [...]

Most people in Australia believe the old saying “rent money is dead money”, but as you’ll see in this article on renting and property investing, this isn’t necessarily true.  If you’re smart about it, renting in your younger years can be a great financial planning strategy to help you own your own home sooner.  Don’t [...]

Most of us know that if you sell the property you’re living in, you don’t pay any Capital Gains Tax (CGT) if the value has increased since it was purchased.  If you purchased your home prior to 1985, you’ll never have to pay Capital Gains Tax on it, regardless of whether it’s your own home [...]

As financial planners we often asked what the difference is between Principal & Interest loans and Interest Only loans – otherwise known as P&I vs I/O loans.  There are a great deal of explanations online to explain this, however it’s quite often that we see only half an explanation at a time.  This article will [...]

You may have heard about the latest idea to help with the growing problem of housing affordability in Australia – half price housing. If you haven’t heard about this it is based on a house purchasing system which is currently available in the US. Basically it promises to halve the cost of buying a property [...]

Australia’s love affair with property makes it seem as though half of Australia is saving for a deposit on a house whilst the other half are trying to pay off their mortgage! If you have a mortgage though, there are some tax effective strategies that you might want to discuss with us that can help [...]

In some parts of the US, interest repayments for homeowners (not investors) are tax deductible.  This gives people who own their own homes some ammunition in the supply and demand housing battle against investors.  In Australia of course, our tax laws are the exact opposite.  Only investors are eligible to claim the interest on their [...]

With the dismal performance of many superannuation funds over the past 18 months, many Australians are looking at new ways to have greater control over their savings for retirement.  Combining this discontentment with super fund performance with the Australian love affair with property has created the new buzz in saving for retirement – buying property [...]