Linz’ Musings – Jun 7th, 2019

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G’day all 

Happy Friday and welcome to winter! Brrr… now while we don’t generally get snow as bad as the picture above in the more populated areas of Australia, those of us in the southern states at least, are feeling quite a blast of chill coming down! 

I posted a question on our Facebook page this week, asking what people’s favourite thing about Winter was…one of the funniest comments from the SD Facebook family was “the end...”  LOL 

But you know, this can be an interesting thought.  We can often find ourselves in less than ideal conditions in life or even investing.   

Now, stay with me here…  

It might be winter, it might be a deal that hasn’t seemed to work out the way it should, it might be a work related position you are now in… Often we gripe and moan about how bad things are…”Oh you will never believe what happened to me the other day…”  But does all this complaining really help?  Maybe makes you feel a little better to share the misery around some, but you will then also find less and less people join you around the water cooler (or heater) … 

Truth is, complaining about a situation or action does little to help.  What can be useful, is to try and think of something good in this situation…anything at all, no matter how small.   

From a winter perspective, my wife says she loves the winter wardrobe!   

If you can somehow find something small that is good about a bad situation and then focus on that, you will often find it will firstly, help your frame of mind (more friends around the heater with you!) and secondly, can aid your subconscious mind to find a solution or way out of the problem. 

In investing terms, even if a deal is going sour, what is the best thing still about that deal?  Is it the location of the property? The layout? Close to a particular school or park… Whatever it is, if you can focus on that positive, often you will slowly see a thread form that can help weave you out of the sour deal and give you a better outcome! 

Have a great weekend all and Happy Investing…oh… and rug up!! 

Cheers,

Lindsay

Linz’ Musings – May 24th, 2019

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G’day all

Happy Friday! So, its done…it appears that ‘ScoMo’ has pulled off the “Steven Bradbury” of politics…winning the unwinnable election. Question I guess for the much more politically savvy than me, is that did the Libs win or did Labor lose it…?

I kinda feel is more the latter than the former, but the markets certainly were happy with the result – the USD/AUD jumped up over the weekend (short term rise though); ASX, and particularly banking stocks took a nice short term rise as well. The Labor loss will certainly allay the fears of many investors, particularly in Real Estate, with Labor’s proposed changes to Franking Credits, Negative Gearing, and Capital Gains tax now confined to the Recycle Bin of history.

With APRA also finally seeing the light and allowing the banks a touch more leeway when lending (they have released the tough constraint of rating serviceability at equivalent rates of 7% when its clear our interest rates will not be back near level for a LONG time) and the Fed Reserve chalking up two rate cuts this year (one is pretty certain to be next month) this should see an easing in the financial markets and make lending more accessible for everyone. Throw in the Liberal Gov’ts “First Home Buyers Grant” which is not really a grant, more like a bonus, and I think we are in for a nice period of growth again in property in the months to come. It will take some time to see this in pricing (up to 6 months possibly) but soon could be a good time to start looking to set up offset loans against property here, and get some high cashflow from the States!

If you need help with the strategies of where to start, or how to set this up, sing out, we would love to help.

Have a great weekend all and Happy Investing…!!

Cheers,

Lindsay

Linz’ Musings – May 17th, 2019

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G’day all

Happy Friday! In this election version of our newsletter our country will be headed to the polls this weekend to vote for who we believe should be leading us forward for the next few years…or considerably less, if recent history is any indication…

With that in mind, and irrespective of your view or political alignment, I believe everyone would agree that Australia lost a legend of Australian politics this week in Bob Hawke. Labor’s longest serving prime minister, the Hawke’s government did a lot for the economy of this country and helped put us in a great global position. From creation of Medicare, to deregulation of the financial sector and floating the Australian Dollar, much of this was pivotal in shaping economic Australia. One of Australia’s greatest Prime Minister – RIP Mr R J Hawke.

On the other side of this particular political coin, we have struggled in the past 8-10 years to have any consistency or leadership in the role. This election does seem to have a larger impact on the property market in Australia than elections of the past. It will be interesting to see how Labor’s concept of scrapping Negative Gearing (one of the most overused, and overrated strategy in our market in my view) will effect the market; with Morrison’s implementation of a new First Home Buyers (FHB) Grant, where essentially if the first home buyer can save 5% of the deposit, the government (read taxpayers) will fork out the remaining 15% of the deposit so the FHB can avoid mortgage insurance… interesting…

I do feel that with the FHB Grant probably imminent, irrespective of which party wins, and an interest rates cut imminent in June as well (the banks are already starting to pass this on, thats how certain it is…) that we may start to see the bottom of the property clock, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney and prices start to pick back up again, but lets watch and see

Anyway, I would wish the pollies all the best in the election and say “may the best candidate win” but I am not certain the “best candidate” is even running…but that’s another blog for another day…

Have a great weekend all and Happy Investing…oh and voting!!

Cheers,

Lindsay

Linz’ Musings – April 12th, 2019

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G’day all

Happy Friday! As Easter draws near, the US have started their Baseball Season and football and Hockey is shelved for another season. Here, we are well into our football, AFL or NRL, pick your poison and go <Insert Your Team Here>!

Its great to see the passion a great many have for their sporting teams. Watching the games, the sports news and discussion shows, listening to talk back radio, its a big thing! Then the week at work, all the discussions around how the weekend went well (or didn’t go well depending on the results!). In my family tipping competition, i have gone from last years champion (reigning premier yeah!?) to having trouble tipping a hat at the moment.

What we need to do is also ensure we use the same passion on the other areas of our lives. Imagine how different our society would be if we also were out for a few drinks on the Friday night and chatting to our friends about how well our career/business/relationship/life was going; friends listening intently and giving hints and tips on how to get better… But alas, it seems we are rather more intent on judging and making sure we don’t “get ahead of ourselves”. We even feel or justify to ourselves that by keeping our friends or family “grounded” we are doing the a favour…hmm….

So we stick to sports as an outlet, rather than have the passion across all areas of our lives. We often get so caught up in one area, we start neglecting the others. It may not be sport it might be business, or career, or even health. Now, any of these areas certainly deserve our focus, our passion, but not to the detriment of the others?

What if…Monday you made a goal to spend at least 15-20 mins focusing on each of the 6 areas of your life every day – Family/Relationships, Social, Health, Finance, Career/Business, Intellect. Imagine then, in a months time we are at the pub having a couple of Friday frothies and talking about how each area is going? Would it be better? Would you find you have more passion across the board? Would be an interesting experiment to test out…

Have a great weekend all and Happy Investing!!

Cheers,

Lindsay

Linz’ Musings – April 5th, 2019

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G’day all

Happy Friday! April is upon us, and its almost time in the Southern states to put our clocks back to normal. I will admit I am a fan of daylight savings to a point, the extra daytime in the evening is fantastic during summer periods, but I do think it goes on a bit too long. Getting up at 6:30am to head to the gym is certainly not early compared to a lot of people, to be still dark in March is crazy really, and even this week, still almost dark when I finished at 7:15! Wow. Anyway, as they say, change your clocks, change your smoke alarm batteries!

I was reminded this week by our wonderful neighbourhood Facebook, of a seminar I attended two years ago in Sydney and was able to see Arnold Schwarzenegger speak and meet him. Probably a highlight for me as he as been one of my heroes, with what he has been able to achieve. To have reached the pinnacle of success in not 1, but 4 completely different industries – Bodybuilding, Real Estate, Acting, Politics is incredible. I guess it does just show that whatever you put your mind to, no matter how different, you can achieve.

During the seminar he spoke about his 5 Rules for Success and elaborated on each. Funnily enough, a week or so ago, Facebook also showed me a video of the same speech he had done elsewhere (this is not a recording of the Sydney seminar i went to but another). I posted this on our Facebook site but here it is again below if you didn’t catch it, just click on the photo. This is a cut down version, only around 7 mins, so I definitely recommend you watch it when you can. In brief, his 5 rules are:

1. Find Your Vision

2. Think Big

3. Ignore the Naysayers

4. Work Like Hell – he uses slightly different terminology 🙂

5. Give back

Go ahead and watch this and he goes into each one briefly. I love the quote right at the end, and am going to put this on my wall:

“If not us, who? If not now, when?”

Wow!

Have a great weekend all and Happy Investing!!

Cheers,

Lindsay