Saving for a home loan: rental payment history is now ‘genuine savings’?

When you apply for a home loan, the lender will request a wide range of information from you. A lender needs to be sure that you’ll be able to meet your repayments and comfortably service the loan, so you’ll need to provide information about your income, your assets and your liabilities.

Interested in property investment?

If so you probably want to make sure your portfolio is successful and will grow in value.

But with so many pieces to the property research puzzle, how do you make the right decisions to ensure positive outcomes?

I believe demographics will hold the key to the future of our property markets.

How many of us there are, how we want to live and where we want to live will be a more important factor shaping our future property markets than the short term ups and downs of supply and demand, consumer sentiment or interest rates.

This means understanding Australia’s lifestyle and demographic trends will provide you with the type of insight you need for constructing a successful property investment portfolio.

Australia’s central bank has cut the official cash rate by 0.25% to a new record low of 0.75%.

The long-expected move follows months of signals from governor Philip Lowe that the Reserve Bank was prepared to push rates lower to increase employment and lift stubbornly low inflation back into the 2-3% target band.

The Spring selling season is just around the corner and clearance rates are rising, so is now a good time to sell your home at auction?

An analysis of properties sold via auction versus private sale over the past four years shows that auctions can typically achieve $20,000-$60,000 more depending on the market.