mrd

“THE majority of Australians end up retiring and trying to survive on less than the average wage,” booms the self-described longest-running wealth education advertisement on television.

“Imagine that. Life without the money to do even the little things you love wouldn’t be good.”

John Fitzgerald’s Untold Wealth infomercials which offer buyers of an investment education package the prospect of making millions “from scratch” have been running on Australian television for over five years.

But what infomercial viewers are not told is that Fitzgerald, a Queensland property developer, uses that education package to attract investors to his associated “investment seminars”.

Seminar attendees are encouraged to buy Fitzgerald’s own often poorly located — and often lower-quality — property developments. Independent property valuers have warned that those investors who have bought poorly located properties through Untold Wealth — rather than investing in better locations — could have cost themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential gains. Here’s the rub. Viewers are spruiked the $299 education package with “all profits” going to the Toogoolawah school for disadvantaged children.

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SYDNEY is in the grip of a second property crisis with the supply of new houses falling to levels not seen since 1975 and research forecasting rents to rise by as much as 40 per cent within two years.The results of a study, by BIS Shrapnel, has shown construction of new homes in Sydney has hit an historical low, rivalled only by the slump of the mid 70s.

Coupled with housing affordability, low to middle income earners are being warned that prices are likely to spike again within four years with “steep price increases”.

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