Today’s episode starts with a recap on the AREC16 Conference ( ps: Bryce refused to talk about AFL ). Bryce and Ben also discussed the possible impact of technology on the property market for example, what would happen if we don’t need to drive a car in the future anymore? Would car spots still be a consideration in asset selection ? They then moved on to answering a couple of the listeners’ questions below; Asset selection question from James. Next step question from Mat. Question on strata pro...
May 26, 2016•40 min
It has been quite some time since our last case study so this time on The Property Couch, Bryce and Ben will be discussing one of the case studies that we’ve received from our fellow listeners! Here’s what Tom wrote to us: After listening to Episode 56 where you discussed various other case studies I thought I might write in to see if you were interested in discussing our situation. I’ll try and keep it short! About 18 months ago we signed another contract, this time on a 4-bed H & L in Dool...
May 19, 2016•39 min
It’s Q&A time again! This week on The Property Couch, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be answering the questions below from our fellow listeners. Thanks again for submitting your questions! Next step to building a portfolio question from Derrick: Size of portfolio question from Jason: Question on leverage from James: IP or PPOR question from Karla: Case study question from Deanna: I am 22 yrs old and am convinced of the benefits of property as a long-term wealth-building strategy, for n...
May 12, 2016•38 min
What a week in the property industry! It started off with ABC’s Four Corners Monday night segment called Home Truths . This episode focused on housing affordability and negative gearing and they interviewed a few parties for this segment. Following that, we have the Cash Rate announcement at 2:30 pm on Tuesday. As widely expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia has dropped the cash rate by 25 basis points to 1.75%. A few factors contributed to this decision but one of the main reasons is the defl...
May 05, 2016•37 min
Listeners of The Property Couch will probably know our views on property renovation. If it’s a small project such as fresh paint, we are all over it but if you are looking at renovating for profit, we always ask our listeners to proceed with caution because a renovation project can be quite daunting for the inexperienced. In this episode, Bryce and Ben invite a close friend and fellow property expert (especially when it comes to renovation!), Jane Slack-Smith from Your Property Success to share ...
Apr 28, 2016•43 min
It’s Episode 60 and we’ve got a special guest on the show today! Bryce and Ben have invited Chris Gray , host of ‘Your Property Empire’, on Sky News Business Channel and CEO of Empire Property to talk about all things property. Apart from being a property expert, Chris also manages his own property portfolio and is currently a rentvestor. In fact, he has been rentvesting for quite some time. So, drawing from his experience, the three of them will be discussing: How he built his property portfoli...
Apr 21, 2016•36 min
As mentioned in the podcast, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be talking about rentvesting today! It’s not a common property investing strategy but it is gaining some momentum amongst Australian property investors . In fact, Ben was asked to write about this for the recent cover story of Money Magazine . In this episode, our hosts will be explaining what this strategy is all about. The concept is fairly simple but it is important to note that rentvesting is NOT for everyone. You need to look...
Apr 14, 2016•36 min
In recent weeks, a few lenders have begun to tighten their terms and conditions on apartments in certain suburbs across Australia. Needless to say, some commentators are putting a blanket statement on the future of apartments and claim that they are looking rather bleak at the moment. However, how much impact will these changes have on apartment value and if so, will it affect all types of apartments? Listeners that have followed this podcast since its inception would know about Bryce and Ben’s ...
Apr 07, 2016•35 min
The whole idea for this podcast is to help others become successful property investors (or perhaps avoid them becoming unsuccessful property investors). But Bryce and Ben know that the more successful you become, the more likely you are to be criticised. Unfortunately, it is far easier for people to share their thoughts on what you are doing wrong and when something does turn up a little haywire, you would get the usual, “I told you so”. Now, this is probably very different from the usual topics...
Mar 31, 2016•36 min
It’s Q&A time! This week on The Property Couch, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be answering the questions below from our fellow listeners. Thanks again for submitting your questions! Exiting a contract question from Alex. Crowdfunding questions from Carol: What is “crowdfunding” and how will it work? Ownership questions from Rob: What property ownership structure should investors use when buying an investment property ? Individual, trust, company etc. Is there a need to balance tax adv...
Mar 24, 2016•34 min
The last time we did a podcast on finding a mortgage broker was in Episode 43 . We’ve received a lot of feedback after that episode on what kind of questions the borrower should ask to determine if the broker they are speaking to is investment savvy and if there are any websites that sort of serve as a directory. So this time around, our hosts will be sharing a framework to help you understand the difference between a banker and an investment-savvy mortgage broker. They will also be focusing on ...
Mar 17, 2016•35 min
It’s Q&A time! This week on The Property Couch, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be answering the questions below from our fellow listeners. Thanks again for submitting your questions! Entry into the property investment market question from Aaron: Hi guys! could you possibly talk about entry into the property investment market ? Specifically how much money do you need? I have some money sitting in a term deposit but I have heard that you need more like $40,000 before you can even look at...
Mar 10, 2016•32 min
By now, our listeners should understand the importance of good money management habits. It is the core of building a successful property investment portfolio and has been reiterated multiple times throughout this podcast. As part of the Four Pillars of Mastery, Bryce and Ben have talked on various occasions about Cash Flow Management and the flow of money in your household. This includes where the money comes from, types of spending and types of investments for your surplus. In episode 41, they ...
Mar 03, 2016•38 min
It’s our One Year Anniversary!! Time does pass rather quickly and if you’ve found this podcast from Episode 30 or something, we strongly recommend you to rewind a few episodes and start with Episode One . It used to be 15 minutes, so it wouldn’t take long to catch up. For today’s episode, we are bringing in Phillip Tarrant, Director and Managing Editor of Sterling Publishing and host for the Smart Property Investment Show Podcast. Apart from his daily job, Phillip is also on the board of the Pro...
Feb 25, 2016•37 min
What an interesting weekend! We always knew that the negative gearing debate was one that would never fade away but last weekend on the 13th of February 2016, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten used his speech at the NSW ALP conference to unveil some possible changes to negative gearing should Labor win the next election. Needless to say, this opens up a lot of conversations and debates surrounding what this policy would involve, what data the decision is based on, the policy’s framework and its imp...
Feb 18, 2016•42 min
Only a couple more weeks left to our Summer Series. This week, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be answering the questions below from our fellow listeners. Thanks again for submitting your questions! Credit card management question from Peter on Facebook: I want to adopt your setup but worry about using a credit card, considering we don’t have one currently. Thoughts? Professional Fees questions from Andrew: I am a first-time investor with limited funds for my purchase, and I am trying to ge...
Feb 11, 2016•33 min
The Governor and Reserve Bank have decided to keep interest on hold at 2% in the cash rate announcement this month. But will there be another out-of-cycle rate rise by the lenders? We’ve seen it last year when interest rates on residential loans were raised but what are the chances that it’ll happen again this year? Bryce and Ben talks about this in today’s episode. They will also be talking about the recent hype in media commentaries regarding the Australian Property Market . Not to forget our ...
Feb 04, 2016•33 min
Our loyal listeners would have noticed by now that every single time a tax-related question pops up on the podcast, Bryce and Ben will try and answer it in a general sense (sometimes, probably too general). So, this time on The Property Couch, we have invited Frank Azzopardi from YK Partners to help give a clearer definition when it comes to questions related to tax and property. Sit tight and be prepared because this episode can be very technical. Some of the issues that they’ve touched on in t...
Jan 28, 2016•34 min
Peter Koulizos is back on The Property Couch podcast! The last time Peter joined our podcast, Bryce and Ben couldn’t stop discussing his thesis on Gentrification. This time, with his thesis almost at its completion stage we are more than keen to invite him over and discuss in detail the findings his thesis has uncovered. On top of that, as a bonus, they will also be revealing their 2016 Property Outlook for the Australian Market . With the dropping auction clearance rates in Sydney and Melbourne...
Jan 21, 2016•31 min
We are back on with the Questions and Answer time for our Summer Series. This week, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be answering the questions below from our fellow listeners. Thanks again for submitting your questions! Question from Alex: Knowing what you know now, what 5 things would you both have done differently ? Buying sight-unseen questions from Lewis : Best advice for buying property without being able to walk through the property . The best area to buy in Australia if you don’t kno...
Jan 14, 2016•32 min
Welcome to The Property Couch’s first episode in 2016! Joining us on the podcast today is Paul Baker from Inside Out Property Inspections . As mentioned in Episode 22 and Bryce’s video on “ When to conduct a building and pest inspection “, pre-purchase building inspections are non-negotiable for us. We cannot emphasise enough the consequences of buying a property only to discover later on that a lot more money has to be put in to ensure its livability. Not only will this impact the investor’s ca...
Jan 07, 2016•34 min
For the last episode of 2015 and as promised for our Summer Series, we will be going through quite a few questions! Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley will be answering the questions below from our fellow listeners. It’s going to be a full-on one so sit tight! : Building cash reserve question from Maria: Can you please discuss how to build cash reserve buffers into your property investment plan, and the options for funding unexpected large expenses like medical expenses and family needing financial...
Dec 31, 2015•33 min
Merry Christmas! It’s the first Christmas on The Property Couch and Bryce and Ben are definitely in a festive mood. In this podcast, they will be sharing some of their stories on mortgage brokers and what role they play in building a property portfolio. We’ve spoken about this before in Episode 17 where we talked about the concept of a Personal Banker . In this episode, we’ll list out the criteria to look for when you are thinking about including a mortgage broker in your property team. Yes, it ...
Dec 24, 2015•32 min
Our next guest on The Property Couch is Steve Waters from Right Property Group ! Steve comes from a Buyers Agent background and his company is part of the Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) association. With a combined experience of more than 30 years in the property industry, this trio will be chatting about: What triggered Steve to start his investment journey and the biggest mistake he had ever made in his own portfolio The philosophies and strategies in property investment...
Dec 17, 2015•31 min
This week on The Property Couch, Bryce and Ben discuss the moving parts of a cash flow management strategy. Compared to Episode 3 (Four Pillars of Mastery – Cash Flow Management) where we talked about the flow of money, this podcast is mainly about the Money and Wealth Accumulation Model. It includes the variables and assumptions to consider when modelling sophisticated wealth outcomes. As this topic can be fairly detailed, we strongly recommend our listeners have the diagram open while listenin...
Dec 10, 2015•34 min
Introducing the first episode of our summer series! Let’s kick start with Q&A episodes. If you have a property-related question that you couldn’t solve or needs an opinion on, please do not hesitate to let us know here . In this episode, Bryce and Ben will be addressing some topics: Line of Credit (LOC) question from Brad: I have a finance-related question, specifically about the intricacies of Lines Of Credit. I understand that you would use your LOC for investing costs, such as a deposit o...
Dec 03, 2015•30 min
As mentioned before, getting the right strategy and perfecting the art of asset selection is crucial to any property investor. But what happens once the contract is signed? This time on The Property Couch, Bryce Holdaway and Ben Kingsley talks about the post-purchase process when buying an investment property. Bryce started off the podcast with an analogy. Imagine you are on board a plane and it’s about to depart. When a plane takes off, from the moment it leaves the tarmac to the point it level...
Nov 26, 2015•37 min
In their daily role as a Buyer's Agent and Property Investment Advisor , Bryce and Ben often conduct comparable analyses on properties that they are going to buy. This is a crucial part of their due diligence because it demonstrates the suitability of the property for the client’s property plan and also sets a starting point for their negotiation process. So in this episode of The Property Couch, they will be sharing the process that they go through when conducting property price research . Our ...
Nov 19, 2015•35 min
Scarcity. It is one of the three filters in our asset selection criteria and you’ve probably heard Bryce and Ben talking about it numerous times in previous podcasts. In this current market condition, it is more important than ever to ensure you nailed the scarcity factor right. But how do you determine if a property is scarce or not? In this episode, our hosts will be breaking the scarcity factor into two parts and will be sharing their very own. “Scarcity Scale” . As mentioned previously, loca...
Nov 12, 2015•33 min
It’s confirmed! Ben Kingsley is the Property Investment Advisor of the Year 2015 Award! This is the second year we’ve championed the PIA Category of the Reader’s Choice Award organised by Your Investment Property Magazine. But this is not a reflection of an individual’s work. Thanks to all of our team members at Empower Wealth and all of you who voted for us. We wouldn’t have done it without our customers and loyal listeners' ongoing support. To celebrate this win, Bryce will be asking Ben to sh...
Nov 05, 2015•32 min
