Tuesday, February 3, 2015

RBA Reduces Interest Rates

The official cash rate has been reduced to a new record-low of 2.25 per cent after being left on hold at 2.5 per cent since August 2013.
The Reserve Bank’s decision has come as a surprise: a finder.com.au survey of 30 economists and commentators found that 28 expected the cash rate to remain unchanged.
However, a rate cut is hardly a shock given the weight of speculation that has occurred since the last board meeting on December 2.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Module, Beecroft Shopping Village

Last night [Wednesday, 17 December] the NSW Joint Regional Planning Panel unanimously approved the redevelopment of the Module site, corner Beecroft Road & Hannah Street, Beecroft.  The approved development generally satisfies the concerns of the community that were raised following the first proposal, refused earlier this year.  

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Ray White Beecroft Excells in State Statistics

In November 2014, Ray White did the best ever monthly trade of $1.2 BILLION!

As usual, Ray White Beecroft featured in the list of Personal Bests (Metro), coming 50th out of 227 offices.  Not bad with only one salesperson for much of the year, whereas others have 6, 10 or even 15 salespeople.




Wednesday, November 12, 2014

How to pay off your Mortgage Quickly

The real answer is, you can't.  Here is an extract from a Real Estate news blog.

"An Australian security watchdog has offered an olive branch to a property management and financial planning business, warning them to clean up their act over misleading advertising.
"The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has accepted an enforceable undertaking (EU) from Gold Coast-based Equanimity Concepts.
"ASIC said from January 2012 to July 2014, Equanimity advertised on its website, YouTube and in numerous in-flight magazines and police journals that consumers could pay off their home loan in a very short amount of time.
"For example, one line read, "Pay off your 25-year home loan in less than five years".
ASIC said by making these promises and publishing them in advertisements, Equanimity is relying on various assumptions in its financial modelling, which is considered by ASIC to be “unrealistic”, including but not limited to continued growth in property values, high rental returns, annual rent increases of eight per cent and no upward movements in applicable interest rates.
"Equanimity presented to consumers that they could direct all and any rent and negative gearing tax benefits received in relation to the investment property into their existing home loan.
"ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell said the need for finance advertising to be accurate cannot be stressed enough.
“Anything misleading can create unrealistic expectations that may lead to poor financial decisions and, ultimately, consumers could end up in a dangerous debt spiral,” he said.
"ASIC’s investigation found that Equanimity’s compliance processes in terms of its advertising were unsatisfactory and may have breached consumer protection credit laws.
“Consumers who may have comes across these ads may have been misled in Equanimity’s ability to help them pay back their home loan in a significantly reduced timeframe without incurring further debt,” Mr Kell said.
“Advertising of this nature will not be tolerated and ASIC will take swift action when confronted with false claims.”
"Under the EU, Equanimity must appoint an independent consultant to review its compliance with consumer protection credit laws and proper advertising processes, and develop a plan to rectify any deficiencies identified by the expert.
"The independent expert will report regularly to ASIC over the next year on Equanimity’s implementation of the plan.
"The advertisements have been removed."

So ASIC has allowed this company to mislead the public for over two years, and they no doubt benefitted financially from those who believed the adverts.  Yet ASIC imposed no penalty other than to 'appoint an independent consultant'.  ASIC's promise to 'take swift action' might itself seem to be false advertising, as it makes no promise that any effective penalty will be applied, only that swift action will be taken.  Nice to see ASIC at it's ferocious best defending the poor people of Australia from unscrupulous advertisers. 

Thursday, September 18, 2014

JRPP Rules to Kill the Tree

Regarding my last post, the JRPP sided with the developers and condemned the tree so that the developer can build another 9 units.  Beecroft shoppers will find the public open space surrounded on all four sides by residential dwellings.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

DA for The Module

DA 1006/2014 is now with Council, and appears to be a huge improvement over the earlier DA 545/2013!  There are now retail shops along the street front of Hannah Street as well as commercial offices along Beecroft Road.  The residential units are set back from the street front, and a green public space is provided between the three five storey blocks, looking out to the north.  Hopefully the magnificent White Mahogany tree behind 83 Beecroft Road will be spared from the developers and will then present a spectacular feature of the public space.





The Grove Units Selling Fast

In the first showing of The Grove on 13 September, 12 of the 36 units were taken up!  This was a private showing to people who had put down a deposit to get first dibs.  The next showing on 20 September will be open to all comers and from the interest expresed in the Ray White Beecroft offices the remaining properties should sell quickly.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Two more Sold at Auction

On 30 August RWB sold two properties at auction:

Douglas Macarthur sold 2 Kedron Avenue in an auction with over a hundred people present:

Peter Raco sold 77 Appletree Drive in Cherrybrook, a property we are managing on behalf of the owner who lives abroad.  Fortunately for the tenant the property was bought as an investment and the new owner is very happy to keep the tenant in place:

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Instant Access to the Chinese Market

Ray White has signed a new agreement to market all of our real estate listings in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia in the Chinese language exclusively on the leading international Chinese property portal, Juwai.com.

From Monday 1 September all residential, rural and commercial properties listed for sale within each offices My Desktop account will go live automatically on Juwai.com.

Juwai is one of the leading international property portals in China and this is a significant opportunity for Ray White to build our profile in China

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Sold Prior to Auction!

A couple of months ago we blogged that sales were looking up with properties selling at auction.  Now the market is even more exciting with several properties being sold PRIOR to auction.
RWB recommends selling by auction precisely because it puts so much pressure on the buyers, worrying about missing out to higher bids.  And many vendors are delighted to accept a good offer before the auction in order to avoid the stress of the auction itself.
Here are three such houses that were scheduled for auction this month but all three sold prior:
Cherrybrook
 Beecroft
 Cheltenham
Another property in Beecroft due for auction end August has already had good offers made, but interest is so strong that RWB is advising the owner to go to auction.