by Chris Pullen | January, 25, 2023 | Goals Goal setting can be a valuable tool for helping individuals achieve their personal and professional aspirations. Here are a few tips for setting effective goals for the new year: Be specific: Clearly define what you want to achieve, and make sure your goal is measurable and achievable. Set realistic and challenging goals: Your goals should be challenging enough to stretch your abilities, but not so difficult that they are impossible to achieve. Set a deadline: Having a specific date in mind when you want to achieve your goal ..read more

by Chris Pullen | December, 14, 2022 | Property Investing Well, what a year 2022 has been! We have seen a lot of stress in the building industry both with construction and land releases, and the wet weather causing havoc with developers. With the property boom, properties reach their peak in about March of 2022. Then elections, and now with the Reserve Bank of Australia hammering the cash rate every month and inflation figures staying high, the war in Europe between Ukraine and Russia affecting energy prices it has really felt quite stressful. As an investor, we ask ou ..read more

The first question you’re asking is what is equity? Equity is the difference between the current market value of your home Minus the remaining amount on your loan. Equity can be used to buy a home or an investment property without having to save for a deposit. How to calculate total Equity – For example, if your house is worth $500,000 and you still owe $200,000 your total equity is $300,000. Keep in mind that the equity is reliant on the market value of your home and not what you bought the property for. As the market fluctuates so will your equity. To get an accurate read on the market value ..read more

In days gone by, Nambour struggled to compete with the coastal beaches of Noosa or the bright lights of Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast. Indeed, during its history, Nambour was mostly known as being the commercial hub for the region, as well as having one of the most widely used train stations on the coast. However, over the past decade, and over the past few years in particular, Nambour has come into its own courtesy of a plethora of projects big and small. On top of these, the region’s landscape is also evolving due to new residential development, which is also changing the demographics of ..read more

Somewhere in history, it became a commonly accepted “wisdom” that all debt was bad. Our parents worked their butts off during their lives to pay off their homes, because having a mortgage was something they believed should be done away with as quickly as possible. While it remains true that you never want to retire with still having a mortgage to pay off, property loans should not be seen as bad. Rather, they are simply vehicles to improve your financial future by using someone else’s money! Now, when I say someone else’s, I really mean a bank’s money, which borrowers can recycle into making m ..read more

Once upon a time, not that long ago, we would “high five” each other when we secured an interest rate of 7%. In fact, before the GFC, the cash rate set by the Reserve Bank was 7%, so if you managed to get an interest rate of less than 10% from your bank, you were pretty happy. Of course, now, those sort of interest rates seem absurd to anyone who has started investing in the past decade but for those of us with some age on our bones they were the norm. Sure, property prices were lower back then, but the monthly repayments still took a much larger chunk of your cash than they do today. In esse ..read more

In some ways, this year has dragged on, but in others it has flown by. Now, here we are, only a few weeks out from Christmas after one of the toughest years in living memory for all of us. With borders reopening and restrictions generally easing, there is every chance that these holidays would look very similar to years gone by. However, this time around, we will all likely be more grateful for the simple pleasure of being with friends and family. Property markets tend to quieten down over the holidays, too, but this year that may not happen as much as in the past. That said, for many people ..read more

Queensland is back open for business with the final border reopening on Tuesday to Sydneysiders and Melburnians. Over the past nine months, there has been plenty of conjecture on what the extended border closure might do to the state economy. However, the answer appears to depend on where you are located in the Sunshine State. Talk to any sales agent from Brisbane all the way up to Cairns and you’ll learn that property markets have been in excellent shape – even when the border was still closed. Part of the reason has been pent-up demand from local buyers and investors as well as super low in ..read more

By Chris Pullen, Blue Wave Property Strategies It’s been official for a while that our national economy is in recession. The last time we were in a technical recession was a few decades ago because the GFC, at least in Australia, is classed as an economic downturn. That’s because, back then, our resources and construction sectors were firing on all cylinders which helped our economy to stay in the black. This time around we haven’t been able to do that but that doesn’t mean the national economy will be that way for the super long-term. Rather, once the pandemic has passed, or at least control ..read more

By Chris Pullen, Blue Wave Property Strategies Unfortunately, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that most people don’t decide to invest in property until everyone else is doing the same thing. It’s the herd mentality or an ill-conceived “safety in numbers” mindset. Whichever one it is, one thing it is not is a sound investment strategy. That’s because, when it comes to getting the best properties in the best locations at the best prices, it’s the early movers who secure the real estate gold. Rather than waiting for hundreds, or even thousands, of other people to make the “first move”, tho ..read more