Hello everyone and welcome to our first post!
A Hypothetical situation:
Bill and Jan (BJ), a married couple in their mid 30's living in a small country town trying to get wealthy! Or at least drastically improve their financial future. Why is this suddenly an issue for them? They have just become parents! The bouncing baby girl is fun and all, but now financial ignorance is feeling a little dangerous.
Four or so years ago BJ signed on the dotted line at the bank and took on the reigns of their new partly finished house and a small but not hugely successful business. At least Bill gets to work from home and play with Pebbles (BJ’s girl). At the bank the nice manager was kind enough to give BJ 3 loans. 1 for $75,000 fixed 1 for $75,000 variable which BJ paid off at double rate until their wedding 2 years ago. And the third a $20,000 overdraft or portfolio account for the business. The portfolio loan was increased with the news of pebbles to $120,000, as taking the baby from a room with no walls and throwing her into the back of the work van is frowned upon in BJ’s neighborhood.
The portfolio was increased to $120,000 to receive the generous interest reduction from the bank which now stands at 7.47%, not all the money was used and BJ can still get their hands on about $30,000. They would like to keep $5,000 not for Jamie McIntyre, although BJ did watch his free DVD last week which pushed up their inspiration a notch or two. So now we’re..eh….i mean BJ have a super attitude, are inspired and are prepared for some hard work (if necessary). So now taking a leaf out of Jamie’s book BJ would like to ask the pro’s.1. Favorite (investment related) book?
2. Favorite (investment related) Website, besides this one
3. Should BJ refinance their loan?
4. Shares or property or if both then which order?
Thanks in advance for all those who take out the time to read this and reply.
Cheers
B
AKA Vibe.
Hi Vibe
1) I like the reno kings http://www.renos.com.au but better still is the australian property investor magazine, avaliable from http://www.apimagazine.com.au.
2) Can't really answer this but anything that would reduce your overall loan interest and allow you to put more funds back into repayments is really worth investigating.
3) I like properties as you can have greater leverage, less volitile, can improve them your self (add equity) and you can touch them.
Good luck reserching your options.
Hi Vibe,
Books – Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki
Websites and eNewsletters –
Jan Somers / Somersoft – http://www.somersoft.com/forums/
Michael Yardney / Metropole – http://www.propertyupdate.com.au/
Margaret Lomas / Destiny – https://www.destiny.net.au/vipregistration.aspx
Hans Jakobi / Real Estate Secrets – http://www.realestatesecrets.com.au
And of course the Steve McKnight PropertyInvesting.com newsletter as well !!!
Refinance ? Impossible to answer, given the only info is what you have written. Depends on heaps of things. Probably the answer is YES, but……. Things to think about would be – What would be the benefit of doing so ? What is your risk tolerance ? What is your servicability like, as far as The Bank is concerned ? Would you be tempted to spend any newly available funds on beer or huge TVs or holidays, rather than "investments" ? Can you afford the repayments if you did refinance and used these funds ?
Shares or Property – chicken or egg ? Many eggs in many baskets, or one basket with lots of carefully guarded eggs ? Personally, I think both is good, but my wife and my overall investment portfolio, while it contains both, is heavily biased towards property.
I read an amazing post recently that goes further into the "shares and property" question. Have a read of this :
http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34047To cut a long story short, the example in this url above is "buy properties, after some time use equity to diversify into high yielding shares / LPTs, then repeat".
I hope this helps,
Thanks,
BDM
I made the mistake of giving the Hans Jakobi people my email and postal address a few years back and for the next 6 months I was almost pestered and harrassed with reams of emails and literature inviting me to spend thousands of dollars on courses.
maybe the courses were ok, I do not know as i wasn't interested because i was being pestered and bothered by an annoying mosquito of an organisation.
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