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IT is a telling endorsement of the entrepreneurial and welcoming nature of the Gold Coast that one of the most important people in our short history was an Indonesian of humble origins.

Robin Loh, who died at the weekend, rose to become one of Asia’s business giants, but one of the places he felt most at home was the Gold Coast.

It was here that his courage and foresight found fertile ground to take root and grow and it is fitting that his fortune was founded in land, specifically in land in and around the Gold Coast.

The story goes that while on holiday he was shown a parcel of land by then-owner Arthur Earle and was so taken by the potential of the swampy cattle run that he bought the 1800h on the spot for $14 million.

It is called vision and either you have it or you don’t, and Mr Loh had it.

He had a vision the cattle run would become the heart of the super city he envisioned the Coast would become.

He called the area Robina, an amalgam of his and Earle’s first names.

It has perhaps taken longer than he envisioned, but Robina is well on the way to becoming the geographical heart of the Gold Coast, if not the commercial heart just yet.

At age 18 Mr Loh travelled to Singapore and began making the first of several fortunes, salvaging discarded US military equipment in the Pacific before moving on to real estate, hotels, oil exploration, banking and insurance.

He earned a Masters and PhD and Malaysia granted him the title Datuk, member of a senior order of chivalry.

In recent years he battled Parkinson’s disease and 18 months ago his Robina Land Corporation moved to offload its remaining Gold Coast properties.

The Coast owes its success to men and women of vision like Robin Loh.

via City salutes Indon visitor with vision Editorial News | goldcoast.com.au | Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

THE Australian mortgage market has come off 10 per cent in the past 12 months.

First-home buyers have disappeared and the Reserve Bank has raised the cash rate six times since last October.

No wonder some in the housing finance space have long faces.

But is it as bad as the doomsayers are making out?

Let’s start with an examination of the underlying economy. Notwithstanding predictions of a double-dip recession, the IMF recently upgraded its forecast for global GDP growth to 4.6 per cent for this year and left next year’s forecast at 4.3 per cent.

A bi-annual survey of business economists last month found GDP growth of 3.5 per cent for this financial year (with a recent Treasury update at 3 per cent), only moderate further increases in official interest rates, inflation at the upper end of the RBA target rate but not worryingly so, unemployment continuing benign and rises in the equities markets to the end of the year.

Second, housing starts continue to lag population growth to a significant degree. A recent Macquarie Bank report cites 150,000 homes being built annually since 2005, but population growing at more than double this at 350,000. This equates to a 50 per cent increase in the rate of population growth but no change in new dwelling construction.

Macquarie’s conclusions are validated by ANZ Bank research, which shows that a cumulative 600,000 new homes are required to meet demand.

At the same time, rental vacancy rates across Australian capital cities continue to be less than 2 per cent with consequent upward pressure on rent levels.

The credit growth numbers produced monthly by the Reserve Bank show housing credit growing at an annual 8.6 per cent to May, and growing in May at 0.7 per cent compared with 0.6 per cent in April.

At this level, housing credit growth is well below the double- digit levels of the 2004-07 period, but not catastrophically low. The key observation from this data is the re-emergence of property investors, with significant growth over the year of 6.6 per cent, up from 3.6 per cent a year earlier.

This data is confirmed by the monthly ABS numbers on housing finance, which show finance for property investment growing at double the rate of owner-occupied finance. The ABS numbers also reveal an interesting phenomenon — while the number of finance approvals continues to decline, the rate of decline has slowed over recent months and the value of approvals actually increased in May by 0.7 per cent.

The ABS data also shines a light on first-home-buyer activity. The percentage of first-home buyers to total approvals increased in April to 16.3 per cent, although it dipped again to 16.1 per cent in May.

While this is still well below the mid to high 20 per cent levels experienced last year when the first-home-owners grant boost was in play, it is not materially below the long-term average of about 18 per cent.

Finally, it’s worth reviewing auction clearance rates. Recent data suggests a 60-70 per cent clearance rate in Sydney and Melbourne, although some weekly data may be weaker. While not stunning, it’s a lot better than the 20-30 per cent rates of 2008.

Rates at these levels are also likely to take steam out of house price increases that created concern for policymakers late last year and early this year.

The winter of our discontent in the housing finance market?

I don’t think so. The fundamentals still look sound and the medium- to longer-term perspective remains solid.

via Don’t believe it, there’s life in bricks and mortar | The Australian.

You want to increase the tenant’s rent by $10 per week. The tenant agrees only if he gets a $1,500 air conditioner. Can’t justify the cost? Just do this and get an extra $32 per month net income. Plus you’ll win a loyal tenant.

What would you do if your tenant asked for a $1,500 air conditioner… and in return all you wanted to do was increase the rent by $10?

Would you say yes?

Most people would take a look at the numbers and say no. After all, an extra $10 per week is only $520 per year. So, you’d get your money back on the air conditioner in the three years.

Right? WRONG!

Here’s another way to look at it…

Instead of buying that air conditioner with cash, you buy it with a line of credit… and that line of credit costs you $8.12 per month.

In return the tenant pays an extra $10 per week… which is approximately $40 per month.

So, you make an extra $32 per month and have a very happy tenant.

And this doesn’t take into account the depreciation… plus the tax deduction you’ll get on the $8.12 per month repayment for the air conditioner.

Once factoring the tax deduction and depreciation into the equation, you could well be enjoying a boost to your cash flow of up to $45 per month!

Webinar Reveals A Treasure Chest of Lucrative Landlord Ideas

Read more…

Some years ago I had a number of loans with a bank – “which bank” – exactly! It’s amazing what happens when you owe enough money. I was a customer in their “Premium Accounts Office” and had a personal banker assigned to me. Let me tell you about a phone call I received from my personal banker who told me that “My Bank Has More Confidence In My Property Than In Their Bank”.

A couple of weeks earlier I received an invitation in the post to a cocktail evening which I promptly forgot about. This was then followed up by a personal call from my personal banker (PB).

I politely declined his offer citing that I was very busy.

The conversation then continued something like this:

PB – Why aren’t you interested?

Me – Well it’s primarily about shares isn’t it?

PB – Yes, but why aren’t you interested in shares? Read more…

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Please find below a link to a copy of my “You Can Live WITHOUT Your Income” live recording.

Watch through it and you’ll discover literally dozens of profit provoking strategies.

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For example…

• Why you don’t have to live in the area you are investing – and how to buy real estate anywhere you want
• A simple 9-point checklist to assess if your real estate investments will prosper in the coming years
• How to NEVER pay too much for property. The “Magic Formula” revealed… and why it is the easiest way I have ever found to never overpay for real estate
• How to kick-start your first investment property deal. Just do this first.
• Why almost everything the media is reporting today about the property market is WRONG!
• The one little known downside of asking your bank manager for a real estate loan (if you’ve never purchased property you must know this).
• How I created $200,000 out of “thin air”… and why you can, too. Easy to do.
• Why owning an investment property should NOT negatively affect your lifestyle – and how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
• An easy FREE way to get a very good indication of how much rent you’ll get for your investment property
• The one key downside (few real estate spruikers admit) to commercial property

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Yes, this is only the beginning! That’s why you need to follow the link right now and discover the highly profitable information contained on this recording. You’ll understand what I mean when you watch the recording.

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Happy investing,

Nick Lockhart

P.S. After watching my live recording please download a complimentary copy of my Special Report titled “Straight Talk About Today’s Real Estate Prices… and What You Need To Know About The Future!” >>>here Read more…

He just bought a new boat and decided to take her for the maiden voyage.

This was his first boat and he wasn’t quite sure of the exact standard operating procedures for launching it off a ramp, but he figured it couldn’t be too hard.

He consulted his local boat dealer for advice, but they just said “don’t let the trailer get too deep when you are trying to launch the boat”.

Well, he didn’t know what Tony meant by that as he could barely get the trailer in the water at all!

Anyhow, here’s a picture below.

You’re gonna love this bloke! Read more…

The results of the RP Data-Rismark Home Value Index for June showed that the unit market has outperformed houses over the last 12 months and during the last five years.

Historically, houses have enjoyed a much more rapid appreciation in value than the growth recorded by units. There are a number of reasons for this more rapid level of growth: greater demand for houses, diminishing availability of development land, higher quality of stock and design available for houses rather than units and the greater Australian dream to own a house rather than a unit, amongst a number of other reasons.

Despite these factors, over the last five years units have recorded average annual value growth of 7.4% compared to 7.1% for houses. However, the results suggest that the superior performance of units compared to houses is quite a new phenomenon as over the last 10 years the average annual value growth of houses (9.9%) has well and truly outperformed units (8.0%).

The improvement in the capital growth performance of units in recent times is most likely due to affordability issues. Based on current capital city median prices, unit prices are recorded at $420,000 compared to houses at $495,000. Accordingly, units offer a much more affordable alternative housing option than houses.

Many unit developments, particularly newer units, are also in strategic locations and are where a large proportion of the market aspires to live but cannot afford to buy a detached home. In many cases, apartments provide a viable and relatively affordable option to buy into these markets. A good example of this is Bellevue Hill in Sydney. Bellevue Hill is one of the country’s most expensive housing markets with a median house price of $3.85 million, unit prices in the suburb are recorded at $620,000, -84% more affordable than a house.

The inner city and well established residential areas enjoy high demand for units because in most instances they are: well catered to by local amenity including shops and restaurants, well located close to working nodes and are serviced by existing public transport amenity which is often not available in outer suburbs of the capital cities.

Over the 12 months to June 2010, unit values have increased by 11.4% compared to growth of 10.2% for houses. On a month-to-month basis, annual value growth for units has been outstripping that of houses fairly consistently since April 2008.

via House market outpaced by units.

* Australians switch super to pension mode

* Savings drying up will be “major issue”

* Some will face less than $15,000 a year

SUPERANNUATION pensions are becoming the new “investment frontier” as more Australians switch their super fund over to pension mode.

While all the focus during the past two decades has been on building up super balances and making contributions, attention is now turning to the performance of super pensions.

Often called account-based pensions or allocated pensions, these income-paying funds are what the whole retirement system is about. The investment choices and performance of pension funds have a big impact on retirement lifestyles.

However, there is a growing risk of people outliving their super and of people withdrawing all their money at retirement, leaving them without any ongoing income.

Jeremy Cooper’s recent super system review recommended the Federal Government put in place a compulsory pension fund to follow on from its low-cost MySuper fund, but this was not adopted.

“The average retirement balance is still low. It doesn’t make sense to force these funds to offer a post-retirement product right now,” Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees chief executive Fiona Reynolds says, “but this will certainly change in years to come.

“Managing longevity risk (people’s retirement savings drying up before they die) will become a major issue as our population ages and our compulsory super system matures.

“Years ago the average person lived for less than a decade in retirement.

“But with the average retirement now stretching more than 20 years, there is a real risk people’s money will run out.

“Managing this longevity risk is the missing link in our retirement system.

“We need to start thinking harder and more creatively about how to ensure people’s super will last the distance.”

The average super balance at retirement is still about $75,000 for women and $150,000 for men, so many people will have super pensions paying less than $15,000 a year in retirement.

Independent research company SuperRatings managing director Jeff Bresnahan says pension fund returns during the past year performed almost on a par with their more higher profile super fund stablemates.

The median return from a balanced pension was 9.25 per cent in the past financial year, compared with 9.79 per cent for the average super fund.

via Aussies in danger of outliving super funds | Courier Mail.

THE recovery in sales volumes in the Gold Coast and Tweed apartment market is starting to slow on the back of interest rate rises and the full effect of the removal of the first home stimulus package, after an 18-month period of growth.

A Colliers International Gold Coast Apartment Report for the June 2010 quarter revealed a total of 232 sales across all sectors, a similar result to the previous quarter which had 230 deals.

Colliers’ Gold Coast research manager Lynda Campbell said the levelling out of the volumes this quarter was expected due to the external changes in the market.

However, Ms Campbell said stock levels were the lowest they had been in five years, with 1666 units available compared with 2399 a year ago.

“This is clearly going to lead to price pressures and undersupply in certain sub-markets in the coming year,” she said.

“Developers are already realising this fact and are beginning to move on due diligence in certain areas.”

Ms Campbell said stock shortages continued to be in the sub-$600,000 market, while the prestige end, $1 million-plus, was still oversupplied. Read more…