You may have heard the phrase, ‘asset rich, cash poor.’ No one likes to hear anything with the word ‘poor’ in it, but if you have to be poor, this is the best way! If you or someone you love is asset-rich and cash-poor, there are various ways that you can use those assets to improve your financial situation.
For households with at least one person aged 65 or over, the Australian Bureau of Statistics recently compared average household wealth between those that owned their own home and those that did not. The difference was enormous and the message is clear: owning a property – or a similar kind of asset - is critical in creating wealth. Our job often includes identifying that similar kind of asset.
As of the 1 January, the Commonwealth Government’s First Home Loan Deposit Scheme comes into effect. The scheme lets borrowers get a loan with only 5% equity saved. Places are filling fast, so if this could be of interest, get in touch with us ASAP.
Compared to previous years, the 2017 Budget was a bit of an anti-climax. In previous years, there have been a number of big-ticket changes - such as the big changes to superannuation that we have been discussing in recent articles. But this year there have simply been a whole lot of small changes, some of which will be of benefit and others will represent a small loss.