49 - Cash savings cost you money

Interest earned has a nasty sting in its tail: it's considered taxable income. Save some cash in a savings account (or term deposit or similar) and interest earned will be included in your taxable income and taxed at your marginal tax rate.

Don't forget to take out inflation too (which was not inconsiderable at 1.9% for 2016/17).

Here's the simple workup:

• Invest $10k @ 5% p.a to earn $500
• Assuming your income is $87-180k, your income will be taxed at roughly $0.37 per $1 earned. As such, the ATO takes $185 of your $500.
• The cost of inflation, calculated on the principal of $10k @ 1.9% p.a., is a further $190 (in other words, your $10k is now worth $9,810 in real terms).
• Instead of earning $500, you've only earned $125 (or achieved a rate of return of 1.25%)

Current interest rates are already low and a 5% interest rate is probably unrealistic. Most 60-month term deposit rates are earning less than 3%.

If you're saving cash, you'd better have a very generous interest rate or a very low income—or you're probably going backwards. Let’s not get started on the opportunity cost of not putting those savings into a better-performing (and safer) investment.

Given the above example again, if you’re earning 2.5% interest, your actually working at a net negative interest rate of –0.33% at a cost of $32.50. As a bonus exercise for the reader, compound these examples over multiple years.

If you have a mortgage, get an offset account and stash your money in there right now. Either way, get a good accountant who can help you legally maximise your deductions.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I’m not selling anything and I do not receive any form of commission or incentive payments for any companies or individuals I endorse. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

47 – How we saved 1 million dollars tax free

You may not have realised but the mortgage on your family home is one of the most flexible and safest “investment” vehicles available to you.

Let’s start at the beginning, with the basics. Say you take out an owner-occupier, principal and interest home loan from a bank for $750,000; the loan is for thirty years with a variable interest rate of 5.25%.

As an owner-occupier you’ll live in the home (note different factors, such as tax deductibility, are at play with an investment loan). Your interest rate will rise or fall depending on several factors, including the RBA’s official cash rate, regulatory changes—such as those implemented by APRA in recent years, market conditions, and the business outlook of the bank itself (such as exposure to business issues in other industries or countries).

As a principal and interest loan, you’ll start by paying off the interest (mainly) and your regular repayments will likely be about $4,100/month. You’ll pay that amount every month for thirty years. After 360 payments, you’ll have paid off the principal amount of $750k and nearly $750k again in interest.

So in a nutshell, your house will cost you twice as much as the price of the house itself if you take on a mortgage (I’m glossing over deposits and stamp duty, of course). That’s a lot of money!

This is why my #1 tip is to pay off your mortgage as soon as you can. To achieve this, negotiate annually with your bank to secure the best interest rate you can and move banks if you’re not happy; employ an offset account (don’t use redraw) to ensure all of your cash is being used to reduce the principal owing; switch to fortnightly or weekly repayments; throw everything you’ve got at your mortgage until it’s at least well under control if not obliterated—and by this I mean scrimp and save and defer buying the things you want for a few years.

Many banks and financial institutions offer interactive, visual calculators which demonstrate how changes in interest rates and repayment frequency will affect the total cost of your loan. Check out this calculator from CANSTAR, as one example. It was the looming threat of having to pay thousands of dollars every month, illustrated in a calculator like this, and the idea that our house would cost twice as much in interest, that drove me to our strategy of removing our home loan from our lives. 

If you’ve got money squirrelled away elsewhere, it’s probably time to liquidate and toss it into you offset account. If you’re using a high interest savings account, the ATO will treat your earned savings as taxable income (which will be taxed at your marginal tax rate). The same goes for capital gains income from other investment vehicles such as stocks. Don’t forget your savings are also being eroded by inflation at a rate of ~3% every year—meaning your cash loses 3% of its value once every year to the point where you position is probably moving backwards.

Ask yourself if your other investments are earning you a return of 5% p.a. or more, after CPI and tax—where the 5% figure is taken from interest rate on your mortgage. You’ll likely find they’re not. Don’t forget to consider your risk exposure with these investments: when the next dotcom crash or GFC arrives, will your investments hold their current value?

By contrast, you live in your home and, while it’s not an income-producing asset, it is a huge (albeit generally low-risk) liability which will undermine your ability to purchase strong assets if not reduced. That said, no matter what happens, your house will provide you with shelter and warmth and privacy even if it drops in value or the worst happens: it’s something you can use.

Suppose you are taming the bear that is your mortgage: you’re chipping away at it using an offset account and making extra repayments. Meanwhile, the value of the security—the land on which your house sits—has likely increased in value. If you need a large amount of cash for that rainy day emergency, it’s immediately accessible to you from your offset account or by redrawing. In other words, your mortgage as a “reverse investment” (if that makes sense!) is not only low-risk but it’s fluid in that it can be rapidly converted into cash.

With the passage of time and increase in value of your property, you may now be able to take out a line of credit, effectively a mini-mortgage secured against the difference between the current value of your property and its original value or what’s been paid down (the equity but this is also called your “lazy money”—set it to work for you!). You could go silly and use this to fund a holiday or buy a fancy car but that would undo your hard work. Instead, use that available money to pay a deposit and costs for your first investment property. Welcome to the world of leverage.

The above is exactly what we did and we effectively paid down our mortgage in full in about eight years (ours was largely a dual-income family on average salaries for the majority of that time). From the line of credit, we’ve been able to extend ourselves into two investment properties, all the while saving somewhere between $500k – $1m in interest (depending on future interest rates), paying no additional tax, and watching the value of what is now our home increase rather than moving backwards, as cash would have.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I’m not selling anything and I do not receive any form of commission or incentive payments for any companies or individuals I endorse. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

46 – Holiday Homes Make Poor Investments

We spent last weekend five hours South of Perth in Albany, WA. With the kids in tow, we rented a cutesy old cottage for they duration so they’d have their own rooms and space to run around.

Being away in this context soon got me thinking about the many reasons why we veered away from holiday homes/apartments as an investment. With family frequently visiting from intrastate and overseas, a property that could be rented out is when not in use was hugely appealing to us at first glance but many reasons led us to reconsider.

When we first started looking seriously at property investment, one of my first thoughts was to purchase a holiday apartment. I figured something with a few bedrooms in nearby Scarborough might not cost too much and “Scarbs” is an increasingly vibrant area in Perth. It’s also a good spot for visiting tourists with its expansive beaches and nearby amenities. I’ll note this was before I came to prefer land (i.e. a house on a block of land) over apartments and decided to invest for long-term growth rather than cash flow—in short, don’t buy an apartment because the land content ratio is too low…). In general, you’ll likely pay a premium to buy in a holiday location—which may not relate to long-term capital growth. In other words, are you better off buying into a highly-priced holiday location or doing your research to buy into a cheaper suburb that’s likely to grow faster and produce a better return on investment in the long run?

We also had to ask ourselves whether we buy something local for the sake of the visiting relies or choose something further afield in a more interesting (to us) location—either out of town or in another state. If we wanted to make use of the property ourselves, would a “holiday at home” (er, a property in Perth, where we live) be all that desirable?

Regardless of location, the ability to produce an income will always be at the mercy of the local short-term rental market and tourism conditions. Although I’m no expert in this area, I’ll hazard a guess that sites like Air BnB are eating into the traditional short stay markets.

With a normal rental, you have the surety (in a way) of a guaranteed weekly rent for the term of the lease. With a holiday home, you might have a higher nightly rate but the uncertainty of whether the property will be full one night and vacant the next—which, on average, may or may not equate to the same income as a regular rental. Averages are useful but may hide seasonal ups and downs and corresponding cash flow troughs throughout the financial year.

Unlike a typical suburban house rental where we’re renting a property to a tenant as a place to live, as their home, with a holiday home we’re dealing with a different set of variables. How closely are holiday makers vetted? How do we insure the property? Will neighbours object to the comings and goings of visitors at unusual hours? What happens if China crashes and the Chinese tourists suddenly dry up? We had a global recession not all that long ago; are the Yanks still flying in to little old Perth at the same rate they were before the dot com and housing market crashes?

At the very least, you’ll need to estimate vacancy, affix a nightly rental price tag that fits the market and attracts the right kind of holiday makers or travellers, and then consider marketing costs (for your online listing, membership with the local tourism body or visitor centre, etc) and cleaning costs. Of course the property will also need to be furnished with not only furniture and appliances but linens, cookware, books/DVDs, artwork, etc. Other running costs will include electricity, water, gardening, and possibly cable and internet, as well as the usual rates and insurances.

Don’t forget, if you want to use the property yourself, the ATO will require you to exclude the period when the property was not available for rent as a percentage of any deductions you might want to claim (i.e. negative gearing). On the upside, you may be able to claim a higher rate of depreciation (4% p.a. over 25 years instead of 2.5% p.a. over 40 years).

If you want to use the property yourself during peak periods, then you’ll likely have to forego any income the property would otherwise generate during that time.

The property we rented in Albany, although lovely in an historic kind of way and very practical for our young family, has zero appeal to me from a practical and maintenance standpoint. Although the main house felt sturdy and sound, the back extension (these places always have a back extension, right?!?) had a definite lilt to it despite being the newer construction.

Then my wife plugged in the kettle for her morning tea but it wouldn’t switch on because she’d unwittingly tripped the circuit. Of course we just thought the kettle was a dud—until it came time for a shower and we had no hot water from the instant gas system with its electric ignition. It took a very upset wife and a call to the neighbouring manager, at 8:30am on a Sunday morning, to sort that one out.

We’ve been living in a relatively new house in Perth for going on a decade now and although it’s been a pretty easy run there are always things to deal with—we’ve already had to replace the hot water tank, for example. I cannot begin to imagine the countless number of ongoing issues to be found with an older house. On the one hand, it’s established and “bedded in” but how soon until the roof needs replacing or the foundation restumping? Insects and damp or mould may be problematic in older houses and the electrics may be shady.

Although I’d love to have a nearby holiday home for the relatives or a beach shack down south that we can use periodically, as an investment we’ll be sticking with suburban houses for now and fork out for a week or two in that holiday rental when we want to get away.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I’m not selling anything and I do not receive any form of commission or incentive payments for any companies or individuals I endorse. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

36 - On Goals

I scared myself silly when we signed up for our first mortgage in 2006 to buy a block of land and cover the ensuing house construction. That mountain of debt looked insurmountable and, considering the higher interest rates at the time, the repayments felt like an invisible shackle binding us to the daily grind of working life. The system had us by the balls and would continue to hold on for the next thirty years—according to the bank’s timeline.

This mortgage was, in many ways, a necessity (of modern life, anyway) as it would fund the establishment of our family home and promote us from the status of mere tenants. As projected, we now have two young children and are proceeding to raise them in the house we built.

In the years preceding the build we rented, paying what felt like dead money to our landlords—around $125/week or so. After repaying a student loan to my mom and moving to Perth we had very little money to our names, despite the fact I’d been working full-time as a professional for two years. My infamous frugality comes to me honestly after several years of having to live on the cheap!

On deciding to buy the block, the savings we had put aside for a deposit were all but spent by the time the deposit (we borrowed 95%, from memory) and stamp duty were paid and then we had that fun little surprise of lender’s mortgage insurance to deal with.

It was around this time I casually voiced my apprehensions about all of this to a work colleague (the CIO where I was working at the time, Colin Macdonald). His simple advice to me—which I would readily pass on to anyone else in a similar position—was to repay the loan as quickly as possible.

The bank had us down for thirty years. Colin’s advice was to clear the loan in ten years.

Say what now?!

I broke out a spreadsheet and projected some numbers forward in time. At best, I thought we might be able to repay the principal amount by 2018 (so ten or eleven years). I played with the bank calculators and quickly realised we could save the value of the property itself in interest costs—hundreds of thousands of dollars—by making extra repayments. I was intrigued.

We had a basic home loan at the time with no offset facility. The bank did include a free redraw facility with this product, however. With the redraw setup, we could manually (electronically) transfer our savings into the mortgage and therefore save the associated interest costs that would otherwise be charged on that amount. Better yet, the redraw funds were fluid, meaning we could redraw, on demand, some or all of funds we put in if we needed that money (in an emergency, to fund a car purchase, for a holiday, or for any reason).

There is one caveat to note with redraw, which I only learned about more recently: the ATO considers funds contributed to redraw to have contributed to paying down the original debt. In brief, if you think you might rent out your property in the future, you’ll only be able to tax deduct costs associated with the loan amount you haven’t yet repaid (even if you redraw the surplus funds). Offset accounts may attract a small fee but are immune from the ATO, work in the same way as redraw, and are more convenient.

And so we set ourselves a goal, which would later become our very basic financial strategy: put it all into redraw. Rather than making interest at whatever low interest rate the bank would offer, we save the interest the bank would charge for some of the mortgage amount (whatever we could put in).

With me working as a contractor and the wife working long hours in a good job (that doesn’t pay terribly well) we continued to live as we had: simply. We didn’t spend excessively—we didn’t often have the opportunity to do so with the wife working 60-80 hours a week. Entertainment costs were out!

Instead of keeping our savings in a regular bank account, we kept them in the redraw account.

Slowly but surely the extra contributions started to add up with the added benefit of reversing the huge impact of compounding interest fees the bank would have otherwise been charging us. The Albert Einstein quote says it all: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.”

But today’s post isn’t about compound interest, it’s about goals—specifically the huge goal we set out to achieve nine or so years ago.

Admittedly I’ve been a little distracted by being back to work and the kids and I’d neglected for some time to update my spreadsheet that tracks the balance of our home mortgage and the offset account we now employ in place of redraw. I updated this spreadsheet recently and noticed what I first thought was an anomaly in the data: the negative amount highlighted red I normally show for the balance of our home loan minus the offset balance was no longer negative and it was no longer red: it was black and it was positive. The balance in our redraw account was more than what was owing on the mortgage.

I do keep an eye on our monthly repayments so I knew before this point we were heading in the right direction. In the last six months the monthly interest charge had plummeted steadily from a couple of hundred dollars to less than $10.00.

It then dawned on me: we’d met our goal. We’d met our goal a year early. Although the mortgage account was still open (and will remain so for a couple of specific reasons), we effectively have the option to repay the mortgage balance in full, if and when we choose to do so.

Back in 2006, this milestone was equivalent in my mind to being financially free. Today that’s not quite the case as our commitments—financial and life-related—have increased and of course there is a cost of living in groceries, petrol, clothing, and so on. I can say achieving this goal feels as good as I hoped it would back in 2006—perhaps all the more so because I neglected to watch as the odometer tick over.

This post is isn’t to boast, it’s to celebrate and inspire. From a very low base, ten years of hard work and time has allowed us to meet our single financial goal. Your goal(s) might be different depending on your circumstances: your timeline to repay your mortgage, depending on the value of your mortgage and your income, might be the same or it might be a shorter timeframe or a longer timeframe. You may also favour a better balance in life than what we’ve managed to achieve (I believe strongly in delayed gratification but I’m also nearing forty…). Nonetheless, set a goal and then plan to achieve it. The world can then be yours.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

30 – Progress Update: Done!

And that’s the end of the beginning, so to speak.

Since land settlement in March (only six months ago), we’ve built a house and found tenants. The grunt work to secure financing happened before all of that, of course, so make it nine months all up if you exclude our dithering at the beginning of the process.

I spoke to our Client Liaison Manager at Open Corporations earlier this week—the final phone call to say “it’s all done”—and today we received a fitting gift from Open Corp in the form of the Monopoly game.

From here we transition into the various guarantee phases with Open Wealth (rental and maintenance) and start on the pathway to long-term property value appreciation. Hopefully the property will become positively geared one day in the near future (I’ll post a financial overview of our current situation in an upcoming post). The next few years will certainly be enlightening as I interpret the numbers come tax time and we do our best to ensure we’re keeping the ATO happy.

It’s impossible to accurately predict what the future holds for our family and our country and whether this will prove to have been a sound investment. Will negative gearing laws have been abolished and would that really affect us much anyway? Will more significant tax reforms have come into play? What will population statistics show? What will the employment landscape look like. Will China be at war with the West? Will the upwards trend in property values that started in the 70’s continue at the same pace or fall back? Will there be a shift towards a preference for apartments over houses?

Going on the history, it will have been a wise investment and become an asset but I’m not going to assume history will repeat because there’s no guarantee. For now, however, I think we’re on the right track and I’ll leave it to the goodwill of time to smooth out any short-term lumps and bumps. The hope, of course, is to one day retire—if not live—off the income from this and other (as yet to be acquired) properties.

Of course Brisbane hasn’t seen much in terms of significant growth for a little while now so it will be very interesting to see if we do get that initial growth as the property clock advances and the cycle peaks in the next few years.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

28 - To Inspect or Not to Inspect?

One of the inclusions of building an investment property with Open Wealth Corporation is a travel “allowance”, of sorts, funded from the development management fee paid at the beginning of the process. The question facing us now is whether we take advantage of those funds and see the property and the house for the first time with our own eyes.

Open Wealth offered us the opportunity to fly to Queensland from WA to inspect the area when we were considering a purchase and again at land settlement. With construction now complete, and no tenant in the house as yet, we recently received a final offer to have a look. In our case, we’ll be reimbursed $400 for costs to get to Brisbane and back, which is money that will otherwise go back to Open Wealth. As a return flight to Brisbane from Perth costs $538 at a minimum, we’ve been asking ourselves whether we spend the extra money and inspect the build or not.

Were it not for the money (and possibly the time), the question would be a silly one and the answer would be “of course! We’ve just built a new house so why wouldn’t we want to see it?!?”

The obvious response is to remain emotionally detached from what is a purely financial investment. We have no plans of ever living in Queensland or in this property and as long as it can be successfully rented to fund the cost of holding the true asset—the land—we shouldn’t care if the front door is pink or what the view out the front window looks like. We don’t actually need to see it in person.

The practical man inside of me, however, has a slightly different opinion on such things. Including our family home, this is the second house we’ve now had constructed by a project builder. From experience with our first build, we know some things will have been overlooked and some things will have been delivered to an unacceptably low standard. These defects, if not addressed during the builder’s warranty period, have the potential to translate into a significant cost to us in the future.

I’ve previously noted Open Wealth conduct a number of inspections throughout the build and the first and second practical completion inspections have already occurred. A small number of defects were logged and the builder addressed those defects promptly. The defect list seemed well-considered and detailed. To that end, my visit is likely redundant but for the $200 and a day out I’d rather be certain—I don’t have laser vision but it’s pretty close and I’m a stickler for details.

I’d also like to photograph the house inside out before tenants move in. Open Wealth will again be providing us with professional photographs of the completed house and the property manager will take dozens of photographs for the baseline property inspection report before the first tenant moves in. Like I said, stickler for details.

Beyond the basic house inspection, Open Wealth will supply me with a driver for the day and suggested I have a look around the local area. I’ve never been to Brisbane before and, if we opt to build again, having a better (albeit very quick) feel for the city and state will be helpful. I’ll also be meeting the builder’s site manager and one of the property managers from Century 21 and it will be great to have that personal contact.

As we’ve got two young kids at home it’s going to be a quick one: fly over in the morning and fly home that night. I’m hopeful it will be worthwhile.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

27 - Appointing a Property Manager

The first step in transitioning our newly-built Queensland investment property to an income-generating asset—rather than a financial liability—is to find a rent-paying tenant. But let’s not jump ahead because first it’s time to find a good property manager.

As we reside in Western Australia, managing an interstate investment property ourselves would be challenging but not impossible.

Travel costs to inspect an investment property are tax deductible once the property is income generating but not before. Once a property is tenanted, the ATO allows its owners to deduct travel costs twice per year but be careful because if you and your spouse are joint owners and travel together that’s your two trips (and if you’re thinking about making the trip into a holiday opportunity, think again: you may not be able to deduct all—or any—of your costs). It’s also worthwhile attaching a dollar amount to your time and asking yourself if that time can be spent more productively.

Then there’s Queensland law, in our case, which entitles a property owner to only four inspections per year. That number includes regular, scheduled inspections by the property manager.

To my mind, hiring a licensed property manager to manage an investment property offers another layer of risk management—an insurance of sorts—and is yet another cost of “doing business” as a property investor. We could play the role ourselves but it doesn’t seem to be a good idea apart from the cost savings, which are tax deductible anyway. Speaking of insurance, some insurance companies offering landlord insurance require the insured property be managed by a professional property manager.

In theory, even an average property manager will know the area (and rent benchmarks for that area) and may have a database of possible applicants ready to go. The property manager will advertise the property, schedule and host open for inspections, screen applicants, conduct rent inspections, and manage maintenance. We also have the option of having the property manager arrange payment of some charges, such as rates, the water connection, cleaning, landlord insurance, etc from rents collected. Of course a property manager also deals with rent collection and bond monies and can represent you at tribunal (for an additional fee) if necessary.

Importantly, a property manager offers a layer of separation between you and your tenants to avoid getting too personal and keep things business-like.

Expect to pay between 7 and 10 percent for a property manager. In our case that breaks down as commission of 5.5% of one week’s rent (including GST) plus a 2.2% management fee.

I’ve heard it suggested finding a good property manager is imperative but perhaps not the easiest thing to do. There are countless property managers for hire out there and a much smaller selection of really good ones.

Open Wealth recommended us to West Property Group (Century 21) and I spoke with Kerry West, the proprietor, who was extremely helpful and patient as we talked about everything from insurance to rent expectations to annual rent increases to pet bonds and so on. Kerry is a property investor herself and having someone representing you who understands what you’re trying to achieve is a big plus in my view.

Notably, Open Wealth include a rental guarantee with their properties, the terms of which mandate the property is to be managed through the agent they nominate.

Our success is linked with that of Open Wealth, in a way, so it’s obviously good for Open Wealth to have their client’s properties managed by good managers, with the added bonus that we receive a slightly discounted management rate. At the end of the day, this property is a turn-key investment and I’m happy to accept Open Wealth’s advice as we move from acquisition and construction to “commissioning”.

There were a few minor differences between property management norms in WA and Queensland that surprised us.

We’ve previously rented in Perth and, as tenants, had to pay the letting fee ourselves; in Queensland, the landlord pays the letting fee (of 110% of one week’s rent—inc GST). 

Apparently the area attracts many families with pets. In WA, as pet owning tenants, we paid a pet bond. In Queensland it’s not legal to charge a pet bond. I’ll be writing more about pets in an upcoming post.

Given the rental guarantee, the geographic distance between Perth and Brisbane, and our lack of experience as landlords, appointing a professional property manager is the right thing do in our case, at least for now. Hopefully they earn their keep and attract a quality tenant at a good weekly rent!

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

21 – Tax Time

I’ve spent the last few days (on and off) gathering together everything needed by our accountant to complete our tax returns. This year’s tax return is more involved than normal because we have the purchase of our first investment property to consider and my wife’s life insurance—part of which may be tax deductible.

We’ve had an accountant prepare our tax returns for many years now—initially because it all seemed a little complicated and now because it is a little complicated.

Back then we had income from one or two employers, bank interest, HECS debts, and deductions like professional memberships and insurances, training, mobile phones, internet, stationary, uniforms, and depreciation of office equipment and furniture. I wasn’t sure how my income and tax returns related to my wife’s and vice versa.

These days, we’ve got more of the same plus private health insurance, life insurance, the investment property establishment costs (any IP is an interesting mess in its own right when it comes to taxation), dependent children, and the occasional minor offset to me as a non-earning stay-at-home parent. And of course the tax laws are always changing in many of these areas, making it hard to keep on top of what we can and cannot do, legally. Next year we’ll have the IP income or loss, interest and running costs to deduct, building and fittings depreciation, and so on.

The first accountant we worked with claimed he would be able to to cover his costs and we always found that to be the case… in other words, he was able to include valid deductions that we probably wouldn’t have considered (plus he didn’t charge us much). 

That first year our intention was to use his return as a template for subsequent years but it seemed just as easy to go back to him and so we did.

Although I wouldn’t recommend using your accountant as your financial adviser, our first accountant was the only financial professional we relied on at that point in time and he was able to offer some useful tips. For example, he highlighted the benefits of having private health insurance instead of paying roughly the same amount for the Medicare Levy (of course our insurance premiums increased as we started planning a family and it seems like the Medicare Levy doubled at some point along the way too…).

Now days our accountant is a key member of our broader financial team and we’ve “upgraded” to an accounting firm that deals regularly with clients who own investment properties (WSC Group—I’ve written about them before in the context of financial advice and insurance). WSC were recommended to us by Open Wealth and they’ve offered an outstanding service thus far—note they’re not directly affiliated with Open Wealth.

We pay for the expertise of an accountant but did you know accounting costs can be deducted the following year? Our first accountant also claimed he’d never had the ATO question a return he submitted (I assume tax return audits are fairly random but having a professional submit your return can’t hurt). While I probably could do our taxes, I’d prefer to know the return is correct and, more importantly, that I’ve claimed all of the deductions I can to reduce our taxable income.

If you’re considering the purchase of an investment property, or hold an investment property today, do you know how your quantity surveyor’s report relates to the depreciation of your building and fittings—and therefore you tax return? I’m estimating those two deductions alone will be worth nearly $10,000 in the first year. Don’t know what a quantity surveyor’s report is? Ask your accountant!

I forwarded 7MBs of PDFs to our accountant this morning so that’s my job done for now, hopefully.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

13 – Life Insurance

As part of a review of all matters financial I initiated in the middle of 2014, one of the items I added to my list of things to mull over was life insurance. The matter surfaced for me when I realised I no longer had any insurance cover through my superannuation fund by virtue of not working (i.e. being a stay-at-home parent) and not contributing regularly to my super account.

I’m not planning to die or be critically injured any time soon but I remember when we took on the mortgage for our PPOR in 2006: the commitment felt almost too large handle. I used to commute into the city regularly by bicycle but, having recently moved to Perth from Adelaide—with a related increase in minor accidents, and as one of two income earners critical to our ability to repay the mortgage, I felt it was time to stop riding. With a few years of wisdom on my side, I don’t feel the same way this time around with the investment property but, conversely, I now have kids and want more than ever to protect my family from the risk of loosing an income/resource.

From personal experience again, my father died at the age of 56 and my grandfather at 65 so I joke that I’ll likely expire at 45. Specifically, my father had a life insurance policy worth $500k when he died and had only recently opted not to increase that policy to $1m. The $500k has served my mom well over the years as she retired and downsized the family home but she also weathered the 2001 tech bubble and then the GFC with most of that money in the stock market. With the payout she’s been comfortable; without it, I don’t know that her retirement years would have been as amenable as she was expecting had my dad lived to retire with her.

When we were working, my wife and I both had automatic life and salary continuance insurance (SCI) (also called income protection) through our super funds. We didn’t pay directly for these policies but they were funded through the fees we pay to each fund (a percentage of our super balances). Notably, the amounts insured were very small—a couple of hundred thousand each for life and SCI.

We had the option, of course, to increase the benefit amounts and do everything through super but I soon came to learn there is a better way—an approach that not only pays for some of the premiums from our otherwise inaccessible (preserved) super balances (we’re not running SMSFs) but also offers tax benefits.

By way of background, I’d scheduled a complimentary meeting with a financial advisor through our accountants at WSC Group (through Jigsaw Financial Planning—again no affiliation here). I took with me our written financial goals and described to Matthew Laird (the advisor) what we’re doing with real estate, where we are with super, and that I’m not looking at stocks or mutual funds. It soon became apparent we didn’t need much in terms of paid financial advice… yet. We did, however, talk about insurance and Matt promised to get some numbers together for us. Importantly, he highlighted the concept of a partial rollover from our super funds to pay some of the premium costs, reducing our out-of-pocket expenses and thereby removing what had been the single biggest blocker, to my mind, to insuring ourselves adequately: cost.

The first thing Matt’s team did was prepare a Personal Protection Plan document for us which summarised our current position in terms of income, assets, expenses, liabilities, goals, and existing insurance. This offered a framework for understanding our insurance shortfall and potential requirements into which the planner injects their recommendations for level of cover and ownership structure. There was no charge for this.

It’s worth quickly describing the different types of insurance because I found this enormously confusing at first. I like to categorise insurance into two simple groups: living benefit, which you receive if you’re not dead, and death benefit, which your estate or nominated beneficiary receives when you die.

Living Benefit

• Total or Permanent Disability (TPD). A lump sum payout when you’re declared totally and permanently disabled—and can’t work. These policies might exclude heart attack, stroke, cancer and others. A very important distinction to be aware of between TPD policies is that of “Any Occupation” versus “Own Occupation”: with an Own Occupation policy, you’ll receive a payout if you can’t work in your own profession; with an Any Occupation you’ll only receive a payout if you can’t work in any occupation (as Matt says, “as long as you can lick stamps…”). The premium is not tax deductible and the payout is typically not taxed.
• Trauma (also called Critical Illness or Living). A lump sum payout that covers heart attack, stroke, cancer, and other specific conditions. The sum insured is typically lower and this cover overlaps somewhat with income protection. The premium is not tax deductible and the payout is typically not taxed. For us, I felt this was very much an optional insurance given our SCI cover (see below) and we didn’t buy any trauma.
• Salary Continuance (SCI) (also called Income Protection). Pays ~75% of your income on an on-going basis, after a waiting period, to the age of 65 if you can’t work. SCI covers heart attack, stroke, cancer, etc. The premium is tax deductible and can be paid through super but I’m told it’s best to pay this one yourself for maximum tax benefits. The benefit is classed as taxable income. With the wife’s insurer, the maximum monthly benefit they’ll underwrite is based on 75% of her highest income year in the last three years.

Death Benefit

• Term Life. A lump sum payout at death or when you are declared terminally ill (i.e. before you die but with less than 12 months to live). You’ll likely purchase “term” life insurance, in which your premiums cover you for death up to a certain age. You might also be able to purchase permanent life insurance, although I’m not sure this is available in Australia. The premium is not tax deductible and the payout is typically not taxed (but it may be if paid via a super fund or if paid to someone who isn’t a financial dependent—i.e. not your spouse or children).

Note that life insurance tends to get more expensive the older you get—I suppose because you’re more likely, statistically, to receive a payout. I was specifically told by Matt insurance gets a lot more expensive past the age of 47.

The other problem you might face the older you are relates to your medical history. In my (young) case, I broke my back in a snowboarding accident at the age of 21. So my insurance policy includes a blanket exclusion on spinal cover—with no reduction in premium, of course. Basically if my back suddenly gives way tomorrow I’m not covered but if I’m in a car accident and break my back I would be covered. Of course, some insurers may offer you a policy with increased premiums to cover the additional risk. My suggestion therefore is to get yourself insured as soon as you can, as a young person, so you at least have something in place even if health problems do present as you get older which might preclude you from becoming insured.

In the same vein, you’ll also want to be careful what you tell your GP—and what they record in your patient file (the insurer will request your patient file from your GP as part of the assessment process). One thing in particular to be mindful of is mental health—depression, anxiety, etc. If you’re having a bad week at work and mention that when you visit your GP for an unrelated reason—and let’s say your GP recommends you see a counsellor, the insurer may take that into consideration when assessing your application.

With some insurance products like SCI you can insure at indemnity value or agreed value. Indemnity value means the benefit is paid as a percentage of your earnings (i.e. 75%) whereas agreed value means your benefit is whatever fixed amount the insurer has agreed to cover.

Your premiums will also increase annually (these are called “stepped” premiums)—beyond the rate of inflation. You may have the option to pay a higher, “levelled” premium that remains constant throughout the course of your policy. If you can afford to, a levelled premium seems like the way to go to me—assuming premiums will increase beyond the levelled premium and you’ll save money. That said, part of me thinks “the house always wins”.

Our risk of death increase as we age but we conversely approach the end of our careers and our income generating potential. In other words, we should theoretically have a lessened need for insurance as we get older. My aim therefore is to wind back insurance over the next twenty years, with the assumption that we’ll be further progressed in our financial lives and less dependent on income or a large payout to set us in good stead. I’ve therefore opted for stepped premiums.

With other products you can purchase a lower-cost “rider” policy. For example, if you have a trauma rider to your life policy and claim against the trauma policy, your life policy benefit will be reduced by the amount you claim for trauma.

With the concepts out of the way, we started by defining our insurance goals, i.e. what costs would need to be paid for if one or both of us could no longer work. With my wife as the only income earner, we would firstly want to reduce debt and replace her income. With me providing child care, we would also want to cover the cost of child care if I couldn’t provide that function. Pretty simple. Anything else is a bonus—i.e. paying down property debt. In short, we calculated benefits from income, factoring in living expenses and debt. As with most things we do, we insured for modest amounts. Since income protection would be paid at 75%, I opted to go for the maximum amount we could purchase however.

From there, we were able to structure the insurance so the premiums are partly held through a superannuation account. This is accomplished through a partial rollover from our own super funds to the insurer’s zero-balance fund for the amount of the annual premium. In other words, that percentage of the premium for the policy held in the super fund is paid with super dollars that I otherwise cannot touch until I reach preservation age or retire. Yes, that money is no longer earning money for me in my super account but at least I’m not having to pay out of pocket for something as mundane as insurance (and in all honesty I consider the balance of my super as dead money… I’ll look at an SMSF one day).

In my particular case since I’m not working, I wasn’t eligible for an Own Occupation policy or SCI and all of my premiums were covered by the partial rollover. My policy covers me for life and TPD.

In the wife’s case—interestingly—the advisor recommended a different insurer and she’s covered for life, TPD, and SCI. Premiums are again paid through a combination of a partial rollover and a personal contribution. Interestingly, dear wife is with an untaxed super fund so there’s the little catch that rolling over from an untaxed fund to a taxed fund will likely result in tax being payable on the rolled over amount. This is still being resolved but it sounds like a tweak to the ownership structure will sort it out.

Finally, I should mention buying this insurance didn’t cost us anything in broker fees. The broker received a commission from the insurer which is detailed to us. I didn’t think insurance was sold this way so that was a nice cost savings and, since I know nothing about these types of insurance companies, saved me a lot of research. Yes, brokers are selling products that make them a commission which may vary from product to product but WSC Group (through their subsidiary Jigsaw Financial Planning) seemed very professional and above board in their dealings with us.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. This content is not professional advice and is not tailored to your situation. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,

Michael

3 - First Steps

There are so many subtle decisions and parallel steps in the property buying process it’s hard to know where to start in describing how we went from A to B. I suppose I’ll start at the very beginning, following our decision residential property investment was the thing for us.

Selecting an Investment Advisor

I’ve written about our “A-Team” previously so won’t reiterate the contents of that post here. Suffice to say we knew we’d need to decide on an individual or company to assist us to select a market, suburb, and property. I considered the risks too high to attempt this on my own, the first time around. You might do this yourself, someone might do it for you at no cost to you, or you might pay someone to provide this service (such as a broker).

I met with a few property investment companies and ultimately decided to move forward with Open Wealth Creation. We aligned to the Open Wealth methodology because it made sense and the Open Wealth team provided a large quantity of quality educational materials at no charge (a reminder, this blog is not an advertisement or referral for any of the entities I mention in these posts).

As we evaluated Open Wealth, I was also interacting with Joyce Property (based in Perth) but I opted not to move forward with them because they also promote and sell apartments; I don’t believe apartments are a good residential investment and I believe if you’re spruiking apartments you’re not working in the interest of those who are investing with your firm. Notably, Joyce does not charge a fee for their services, whereas Open Wealth do charge a fee. Joyce are obviously a very experienced organisation (I met with Graham Joyce and he oozes professional history). 

My wife and I also met with a representative from Investmark and I attended a seminar and had a follow up meeting with IPG but neither were up to the task I set them and seemingly just wanted to shift stock onto naive investors. Their eyes widened when we first explained how much useable equity we had but neither one followed up with me, despite prompting, when I asked them to back up their claims. The free IPG seminar was more or less promising and it seemed like what they were selling was based on good research. At the end of the day, both felt very slippery, verging on dodgy.

Finally, I met with Nicheliving a few times (primarily for their mortgage brokering services but initially for their house and land packages). They’re obviously big in WA but were really pushing us towards NRAS properties and their approach seemed somewhat thick. I knew pretty quickly I wanted to be building in Queensland (Brisbane) but it was worth the discussion with Nicheliving. Nicheliving are a one stop shop, which might be a good thing (or might not!). Their advertising also shows a dude holding wads of cash so it seemed like they target the get rich quick crowd which is not what I’m about.

Getting Money

In parallel with the discussions I was having with these advisors and property development firms, I initiated contact with our current bank and with the mortgage broker we used when purchasing our PPOR.

Although I didn’t intend to send the investment property mortgage to the bank that holds the mortgage over our PPOR, I needed to understand how much equity we had in our family home and, secondarily, how much they thought we could borrow. This turned out to be a good move as the bank was able to very quickly order a full valuation at no charge to me and it turned out to be a very positive engagement in terms of learning how to to converse successfully with the bank. Importantly, because the bank ordered the valuation directly, I was able to get a copy (I wasn’t able to get a copy when our mortgage broker requested a second valuation—which also went through the bank…). 

I wasn’t as impressed with the bank’s view about our loan serviceability—and in turn how much they would lend us; this was due primarily to the fact we’re a single-income family. Nonetheless, the home loan specialist I dealt with was immensely useful in helping me to understand the value of our family home and how we might go about refinancing its corresponding mortgage and optionally financing the investment property purchase. The specialist was also able to share the valuation report with me and it was helpful to see how the valuer saw our property (interestingly, we have a four bedroom house—as per the plans I supplied to him—but he recorded and valued the property as a three bedroom house with a study…).

I didn’t want the bank which has our PPOR mortgage to also hold our IP mortgage because I didn’t want to cross-securitise the loans. I highlighted this when I spoke to our bank and was reassured it wouldn’t be a problem but I’ve read a single lender holding both mortgages will always ensure they come out best in the event of any problems. Yes, we might have secured a lower interest rate and it would have been convenient having everything in one place but I’d only consider a single bank scenario if we eventually get to the world of private banking.

Following that initial conversation with the bank I also got in touch with a mortgage broker. Broker’s are often recommended and, as mentioned, we’d had success with a broker when mortgaging our PPOR (we used Mortgage Choice). You can do your homework and check out products from each of the banks on your own but why bother when using a mortgage broker doesn’t cost you anything and they’re already familiar with countless loan products? The broker I dealt with reassured me Mortgage Choice is paid the same commission for all of the products they recommend, removing the opportunity for the broker to recommend one product above another that will earn them more money; of course I’m not sure how true that is.

Our broker told me he has a few investment properties himself and I think finding people who understand investment property is really important because they’ll have a better appreciation of the path you’re following. As some of our requirements were different to your mortgage broker’s average client requirements (more on that in a moment), I wanted to structure our loans differently than what the broker first had in mind. At the end of the day the broker was able to find the products we needed, submit the applications (he walked through every line on the application forms with me), and secure an interest rate on the main loan that is 0.02% better than what that bank would have offered had I gone to them directly.

With my wife being a doctor, it turned out she was also eligible for a partial LMI waiver (this is one of the interesting requirement I mentioned earlier). Essentially, some lenders will offer members of specific professions an LMI waiver on the basis that they present a lower risk as borrowers. Search for LMI discount or see here for examples—you may be surprised what you find. I certainly wish I’d known about this offer/wish it existed when we purchased our PPOR as we had some major cash flow problems for a little while when we first had to sort out stamp duty and then LMI (and then retaining walls)!

Both of the brokers I was dealing with (Mortgage Choice and Nicheliving) were across the major lenders offering LMI waivers (initially CBA and Westpac but now ANZ and possibly Macquarie and St Georges) and we ended up being able to borrow 90% of the IP costs without incurring LMI. Note the 10% balance was paid from the line of credit secured against the equity in our PPOR but we could have done an 80/20 split if necessary. You can take the latter approach too if you don’t qualify for an LMI waiver but don’t want to pay LMI and have sufficient equity.

Mortgage Choice submitted applications for the main IP loan and the line of credit with our existing lender. Both lenders performed their respective valuations, the first on the property we were buying and the second on our home.

After all was said and (nearly*) done, our unconditional finance approvals came through without a hitch. People get all bent out of shape about finance but I don’t let it phase me—in this case I’d done my homework and knew what to expect. In other words, I wasn’t asking for more than any reasonable person in our situation might need and the numbers were simple and made sense. I was also confident our team would get us through. Might be different next time around though!

* Land settlement is due in the next few weeks. When settlement occurs, the solicitor will meet with the bank and land developer to ensure monies are dispersed appropriately and all of the legals are taken care of.

Land and Builder (etc)

Following an initial phone consultation with Open Wealth and a bit more back and forth, the first thing we needed to do with them was have our name added to a waiting list for a property in the area (the development) they were recommending.

After looking over the property details and the house specifications, we had to sign an “Exclusive Hold Agreement”, which essentially allowed us to deliberate further, and undertake additional due diligence, while the property could not be offered to anyone else. The hold agreement also required payment of a $1,000 refundable deposit. If we chose to back out, the deposit would be refunded in full. This deposit was payable to Open Wealth and is ultimately part of their 2% fee.

With the land contracts submitted, we then had to pay a $2,000 refundable holding deposit to the land developer. This deposit is essentially part of what would be a typical 10% land deposit—there is no further deposit to pay for the land and the balance of the land price and costs are paid at land settlement. The land contracts included the Contract for House and Residential Land (REIQ) and Terms of Contract for House and Residential Land (REIQ), as well as special annexures.

Note we had no opportunity throughout this process to submit an “offer” as such and when I enquired about negotiating on price, I was told the prices are essentially non-negotiable. This is something I want to find out more about if we repeat the process again with Open Wealth.

Next, we had to pay the balance of the Open Wealth “Development Management Agreement Fee” (their fee) within seven days following unconditional approval. This fee is 2% plus GST of the total land and construction price and is tax deductible.

Finally (FINALLY!) we had the 5% builder’s deposit to pay; we were given the option of paying this before settlement so the builder could make a start before we actually owned the land (due to an arrangement between the land developer and the builder negotiated by Open Wealth). We had the option to pay this after settlement.

Note I would have paid all of these costs from our line of credit in order to tax deduct the interest but unfortunately the LOC wasn’t yet available when I paid the $1k and $2k deposits. I may still be able to claim something for these but it gets tricky as I paid both of these initial deposits from our personal transaction account and that gets messy in the eyes of the ATO; will let the accountant sort that one out come tax time! [Update: on advice from our accountant, I “refunded” the $3k to our personal account, in two separate transactions, from our LOC.]

In summary, these were our upfront costs and the timing of relevant milestones:

September

• Exclusive Hold Agreement signed and returned.

October

• Open Wealth deposit: $1,000 (of the total Development Management Fee) to Open Wealth. Refundable.
• Land contracts signed by us and returned.

November

• Land developer deposit: $2,000 (of the land price) to the land developer. Refundable. Payable once land sale contracts submitted
• Unconditional finance approval received. 
• Development Management Agreement Fee: 2% plus GST (minus $1,000 paid initially) of the land and construction costs to Open Wealth. Tax deductible.
• Construction contracts signed by us and returned.

December

• Builder’s deposit: 5% of the construction price to the builder. Tax deductible.

[Update: March

• Land settlement]

Reading and Learning

As all of these events unfolded, I was busily reading everything I could get my hands on. I’ve started a bibliography which I’ll publish soon in case you want to follow what I’ve read. Education is obviously a time consuming (and at times tiresome) activity but I feel it’s important to understand the principles of property investment inside and out—especially as I lack the repeated experiences myself.

I suppose a disclaimer is also worth posting: I'm just a guy, I'm not an accountant, lawyer, solicitor, tax agent, mortgage broker, banker, financial adviser, insurance agent, land developer, builder, government agent, or anything else so I disclaim your application of anything I write here is to be applied at your own risk. What I write may be incorrect and you are best to seek your own professional advice (tax, legal, financial, and otherwise) before entering into contracts or spending your money. Your situation is unique to you and what I write here reflects my experience only. I'm learning too and expect to make many, many mistakes along the way.

Enjoy,
Michael