Destiny

Hi

Welcome to the forum.

There’s been a few posts about Destiny and Margaret Lomas of late. If you do a search you’ll find a fair bit of info.

Cheers

Jamie

HI

Please bare with my first time to a forum.
 
Have any of you used a company called WPS financial group. I am currently with them and I see some benefits however, feel that their idea of property investment is only within their company and what they are involved in.

I know that I need to ask all the right question before under taking any investment ( doalready  have 1/2 share in a property) but not sure if I shoudl look else where such as Destiny as they are not going to recommend properties from there own company.

Any thoughts or experiences?

Couldnt agree more with Andrew.

Although it sounds convenient to have a one stop shop you have to ask yourself how much are they earning for the convenience.

Buying a property and paying over the odds because someone held your hand along the process is not the way to start your investing career.

Cheers

Yours in Finance

I've completed the Destiny Essential Property Education course and found it very useful. It's a practical course and helps build confidence.  I had two properties prior to commencing the course and found it still very useful.  Unfortunately it isn't cheap at about $2500. If you have a friend or work colleague who has completed it I'd highly recommend that you borrow/purchase the notes at a fraction of the cost from them.

Nutzcraw,

Having worked with Destiny closely in the past, I must say that they are pretty good. They have thousands of investors on their books and many of them are repeat clients (also due to the high cost outlaid).

However, like Andrew_A said, there are lots of choice out there and you have to make sure that the investment advice is right for your situation and achieves the outcomes you want (goals). Some of the unhappy Destiny clients that I have come across are those that take property investment as a short term view and hence when their property value is not what they thought it would be from the estimates given.

Do your own research and locate your own hotspot. If advice is needed, I believe this forum has plenty of avid and wise investors that may have done some due diligence in the area.

Good general advice but doesn't show an understanding of what Destiny offer, so really should be ignored when considering them.
They don't sell properties. Have necommendations on who to buy from. Certainly don't advocate buying above true value. To the contrary, they help you work out exactly what good value is to your for a specific property as it aligns to your acquisition portfolio.
They are not buyers agents.
Yes they are brokers and do align more with St. George than other brokers. But there is no requirement for you to use their structure or their mortgage broking services. I will post some more personal experience in another post.

From a previous post from someone asking a similar opinion about Destiny Financial; https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forums/property-investing/creative-investing/4333270

Yes, my wife and I are "Platinum" lifetime customers. I think we paid around $5k all up. Besides initial training, we have a property acquisition plan and timelines. I can attend the course again any time I want, special investor forums as well as some discounts on a few other bits and pieces of varying value. They are my mortgage broker, but this doesn't have to be the case if you don't want. They aren't the greatest broker in the world, but they do have a very strong relationship with St George who are comfortable with the style of investor that Destiny bring to them. They do certainly offer other banks, but the Dragon is their main gig due to the loan structure matching the investment plan perfectly. Be warned, it is X-coll, so if you don't like that religion, just choose a different structure. That's your business. X-coll is working fine for me and I have read many stories of very successful investors using X-coll either to start or stayed that way. Many people that have been with Destiny for a while have 10-20 properties or more wrapped up in X-coll under the St.George portfolio loan. And they keep growing just fine. It is the perfect tool for the Destiny cashflow positive strategy.

Why did I pay so much money? I had read alot of books, attended a few free seminars, spoke to some other investors but really needed a "jumpstart" to get me moving. Also someone, an expert, to hold my hand during the intially stages while I build the confidence I needed at the time to take the leap. Of all the strategies I came across, Margaret Lomas's suited my style and risk profile at the time. IT made alot of sense, wasn't too conservative, wasn't too risky. "Goldilocks". I considered and spoke to others like Metropole (Yardney) etc, but these all seemed too aggressive and just didn't suit my style.

Have I got value for money? Hard to say. Not yet, but I have another 12 years to run on my current plan with them, so plenty of time to extract the value. (I reckon I will get there much faster than 12 more years, but that is my worst case right now and I am ok with it.)

Could I have done it without Destiny? Eventually. I deifnately got the jumpstart and confidence I was looking for. So saved time and avoided dumb mistakes that probably would have cost me far more than $5k in my first couple of purchases.

Would I do it again? Yes. But I would be more demanding on Destiny from the start about my expectations. A couple of times I was let down, but they have made up for it. We have formed a decent partnership and they are a key part of my property success team.

Would I recommend it to others? Yes if you are like me or more conservative. Also, you want to follow a "boring", tried and true template for wealth that will make you financially free in about 15 years. They do have smaller "bite size" chunks of services now, more of a menu. I think this is a good idea and worth discussing with them in detail to understand what you get.

Make up your own mind, but I like the Margaret Lomas strategy and the way that Destiny Financial provide it to their customers.

An old post now I know, but I was searching for something else and came across it. I would have to say that I would use Destiny Services (Margaret Lomas) long before I would use many other of these property marketing / spruiking companies. The thing that sets them apart for me is that they are not taking a commissions from the developers like many of the others do. I spoke to Margaret once about this subject  and she indicated that she thought it was too much of a conflict of interest. While she has had plenty of opportunity to do this, and make a whole lot more easy money, she rightfully refuses to allow her reputation to be tarnished by doing so. I think she should be commended for taking a stand like that, when so many are prepared to justify these unethical practices.

My advice is to always consider how the company you do business with gets paid. If they are offering free services to you the buyer, while at the same time being paid on sales commissions, they are no different than any other selling agent so don't listen to their B/S.  Marketing fees are always hidden into the purchase price when buying off the plan or from a developer. It is a cost to the developer that you can be sure they are not going to wear! Whole suburbs can quickly become artificially inflated in price as these marketing companies flog overpriced stock to interstate buyers, and then use those inflated sales to justify future valuations.

The whole industry has become so murky is it any wonder so many mum and dad investors have discovered the hard way that they have bought an overpriced lemon property in a poor performing area despite being promised they would get a top performing and carefully researched investment property that would outperform market averages. Now the marketing company just blames the GFC for the fact that the property has dropped in value 60 – 80K (sometimes a lot more)  in the last 5 years.

Heeeelloooo…………… The Investors Club –  Park Trent Property Group – and of course many others using the same 'one stop shop'  business models …………

We certainly have not seen any slow down in the number of forum clients wanting to us to buy a property for them thru our Buyers Agency arm.

Most investors like to know they are dealing with someone who has been there and done it and doesn't need to charge an arm and a leg for such a service.

Like anything just ask the person you are dealing with how many properties they have acquired and what is there overall investment experience.

Cheers

Yours in Finance