May be worth it to see if that anticipated stamp duty relief creates more buying activity temporarily?

Don't worry man! I'm paying 8.8%

But I quite like my PM. She does a good job and the paperwork gets sent each month. Unfortunately this rate was comparitable to the general market, but I did choose her over a guy offering 8.6% (the cheapest!!) because I think if you have a good rapport with them, it's a good start to effective communication. I don't mind paying the fee, it isn't worth the hassle (or contact) for me and it is tax deductable. Unless you have more than one in Perth or have been on an agreement for ages, it is hard to negotiate the fee.

Best of luck with the tenant! No doubt the PM can help you get it back on track easier.

Let us know how you go

what is an LPT?

Property Wizards in Perth are a great bunch, nothing is too much trouble and they keep in touch.

Hi Kelly,

I know you are a secondary teacher, but when I was in year 5 our teacher introduced a great concept called “the class bank”.
We each got a fake bank book with a starting balance of $0. Good behaviour/participation/achievements was rewarded with $5 – $10 and bad behaviour resulted in $5 – $10 fines (a very effective strategy to curb bad behaviour when yelled out in front of the entire class)! The motivation for earning ‘money’ was “the class shop” which was open once a week and contained various trinkets of differing value. The most expensive item was a revolving porceline clown worth $800. I worked all year to get that clown and finally earned the $800 needed to purchase it. It is kind of like saving hard for a deposit to finally get a house. As a 10 year old, the clown appealed and the concept worked (although as previously mentioned, it took a while for the penny – pardon the pun – to finally drop). I would have loved the opportunity to build on this learning experience during high school.

I guess the point is to get kids thinking while they’re young. Perhaps there is a creative strategy out there for teenagers to get them thinking before they blow their cash on expensive cars and become walking billboards for designer labels?

Great topic!

I was chatting with my husband last night about our imaginary children. I told him that I am really looking forward to educating them about money when they are young so that they understand how to build wealth. He screwed up his nose and said “Nah, just make em get a job and they’ll soon learn the value of money”…not good enough as far as I’m concerned. We are 28 and have pretty much pissed away our early adulthood because it wasn’t until I started reading investment books that I began to understand the difference between good and bad debt.
Kids don’t learn this stuff at school! It is up to us to prepare them for life. I would rather give them the tools before adulthood and let them make up their own minds with a sound knowledge base.
I think it is great to want to give your kids a new house for their 21st, but I would only do it if they understood the value of money and showed me signs of being proactive with their financial future. I live in the posh western suburbs of Perth (courtesy of the defence force) and often hear of mummy & daddy buying ‘little presh’ a brand new place to live in once they graduate from high school. I can appreciate how parents want to give thier kids the things they never had, but I for one will need to see some evidence of financial smarts before I go down that road.
I think the biggest lesson I’ve learnt so far is that you don’t solve money problems with money. I want to teach my kids to have the correct mindset and attitude towards cultivating money. Otherwise it seems to make perfect sense that if all wealth was distributed evenly amongst the population, it would soon end up back in the hands of the savvy few who have the knowledge to invest wisely.
We have a great advantage on this forum to learn from each other and pass on our knowledge, surely we can do it in an age appropriate way with our kids too [exhappy]