Are you heading off on holiday during the festive break? While you’re easing yourself into relax mode, opportunistic burglars will be ramping things up – summer holidays are a prime time for crooks. Unfortunately, homeowners commonly make the thief’s selection process easy – by failing to take some simple precautions. By taking a back-to-basics approach, here are some ways to help burglar-proof your house.
Limited cash flow and equity mean many first-time property investors feel the need to chase down a bargain to enter the market. But, like most things in life, you usually get what you pay for, which – in the case of property – can mean unrealised returns or even losses. While there’s nothing wrong with paying less in the hope of making more, investors need to understand when a cheap property is truly a bargain and when they could be selling (or rather buying) themselves short.
School’s almost out for summer, with most teenagers probably planning to do as little as possible except sleep in, hang out and spend mum’s and dad’s money. But the Christmas holidays are an ideal time for kids to pick up a part-time job and hopefully learn a little about life along the way.
It seems Australians’ love affair with renovating continues to blossom. We forked out more than $28 billion on refurbishments last financial year, with that figure set to jump further over the next three, according to the Housing Industry Association.
Designer Jake Phipps reinterprets a British cultural icon by lining a felt bowler in anodised aluminium transforming it into an eccentric light shade. Named Jeeves – after the iconic P.G. Wodehouse butler – the authentic bowler pendant light is sure to add some dapper Brit-class to your place.
For many Australians retirement is an opportunity to down-size their homes and simplify their lives. For more than 138,000 retirees*, that means opting for life in a retirement village.
Spring has sprung and home buyers are emerging from hibernation. That’s the theory, but the reality is home buyers are on the hunt all year round for the right property at the right price. The economic cycle and how you present your property will have a far greater impact than the weather on how soon it sells and how much it fetches
In March this year Australian workers had more than $1.8 trillion stored away in superannuation funds, in part thanks to a system that generally requires employers to pay a contribution on employees’ behalf. From July 1, this required employer contribution jumped .25% to 9.5%.*
For many wage and salary earners who benefit from these compulsory super contributions, super is often something they think about once a year when their statement arrives in the mail. But we could all benefit from paying more attention to what are essentially our future funds.
According to MoneySmart Week, a not-for-profit movement set up to boost our financial literacy, one of the best ways to get a better handle on your superannuation is to consolidate your super accounts. We’re part of a group that is proud to be a key supporter of MoneySmart Week (September 1-7) set up to encourage Australians to take simple steps to make their money work harder and go further, now and well into the future. Here’s our guide to building a better financial future by consolidating your super funds.
Amidst the frenzy of today’s Melbourne Cup, we have the latest cash rate announcement hot off the press. The Reserve Bank of Australia has today decided to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 2.5%. There was some debate as to whether rates would change as result of the tenth…
