Online Real Estate Technology

While it’s tempting to borrow to buy property for an SMSF, getting the right advice is imperative.

Using superannuation to buy an investment property is becoming immensely popular with baby boomers. Do-it-yourself super is by far the fastest-growing segment of superannuation, with about $14 billion in superannuation being transferred out of externally managed funds each year and put into self-managed super funds.

For many SMSF trustees, property ticks all the right boxes. While rent is usually a steady, reliable income, once you’re on a pension, you can sell properties free of capital gains tax.

But if you intend to hold property in an SMSF, you need high-quality, unbiased advice. This applies not only to the way you set up and administer an SMSF, but also to advice about the type of property in which to invest.

It’s all too easy to be burnt financially if your SMSF borrows to buy an underperforming asset. The chances of falling victim to a spruiker or an unethical adviser are also quite high.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is devoting more time and energy looking at risks in the self-managed superannuation sector.

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If you’ve ever built, renovated or even had to do a few simple jobs around the home, you’ve probably come across a wide range of tradies.

We’ve had them all – from Dennis, the electrician who always arrived with a smile, and for whom nothing was a problem, to two other young sparkies who were within an inch of a punch-up in the garden over who was buying lunch.

Jokes about short fuses aside, finding good tradies can prove challenging. Problems over residential building work are the number one source of complaints to the NSW consumer body Fair Trading.

Of the 40,000-plus complaints that the government department receives each year, the number one gripe has to do with residential building work, including major renovations.

Nearly 60 per cent of building-related complaints are about builders, and almost two out of three complaints centre around the tradesperson’s workmanship.

In NSW, former chartered accountant Laorence Nohra thinks she has a solution to the problem of finding good tradies – a referral business that keeps a list of tried and tested tradespeople.

Home Building Complaints – By Cause © State of New South Wales through NSW Fair Trading 2012

"I grew up with tradies [in my family], so I pretty much always knew who to go to whenever I needed tradespeople around the home," she says.

"But in the corporate world, I found a lot of my colleagues really, really struggling when it came time to look for tradespeople. I was the go-to person in the office whenever someone needed tradespeople."

Nohra, who is 39 but started buying and renovating homes in her early twenties, says she was surprised to find there were virtually no trade-referral services.

Home Building Complaints – By Industry Type © State of New South Wales through NSW Fair Trading 2012

"You should be able to pick up a phone and just get a plumber, painter, electrician, whatever you want," she says. "It amazed me it didn’t actually exist."

Nohra’s business – Tradebusters – remains relatively small, servicing about 250 requests this financial year, 80 per cent of which have come from women.

Homeowners ring with a job request, and Tradebusters tees up the relevant trades and books in a time for them to visit the homeowner.

Homeowners don’t pay for the service, instead Nohra charges the tradespeople a commission.

Nohra is confident she’s tapping into a genuine need and plans to expand the service into Victoria later this year.

Whether or not this type of service will take off remains to be seen but if the need is as great as the Fair Trading figures indicate, then it certainly stands a chance.

Home Building Complaints – By Defect Type © State of New South Wales through NSW Fair Trading 2012

For most homeowners, once you’ve lived in your property for a while, you inevitably start building a list of good tradies – usually from desperately needing a plumber at such super convenient times as a Sunday morning after your toddler has flushed a full pack of nappy wipes down the loo.

However, if you are still looking for a good tradesperson, here are some ways to get started:

1. Ask friends and family if they can recommend anyone they have used before.

2. Ask other tradespeople for their recommendations.

3. Specialist stores, such as tile shops, often keep a list of relevant tradespeople, or may be able to recommend some they deal with regularly.

4. Local newspapers can be a good spot to find tradies in your area.

5. Always check whether tradespeople are licensed. You can do this by phoning the relevant licensing body in your state or looking at their online databases.

Story by:Carolyn Boyd a property journalist and keen follower of Australia’s housing market.

  Story source: www.domain.com.au

At its meeting today, the Board decided to lower the cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.75 per cent, effective 8 May 2013.

The global economy is likely to record growth a little below trend this year, before picking up next year. Among the major regions, the United States continues on a path of moderate expansion and China’s growth is running at a more sustainable, but still robust, pace. Japan has announced significant new policy initiatives aimed at strengthening demand and ending deflation. The euro area remains in recession. Commodity prices have moderated a little in recent months though they remain high by historical standards.

Financial conditions internationally continue to be very accommodative, with risk spreads reduced, funding conditions for most financial institutions improved and borrowing costs for well-rated corporates and sovereigns exceptionally low.

Growth in Australia was close to trend in 2012 overall, but was a bit below trend in the second half of the year, and this appears to have continued into 2013. Employment has continued to grow but more slowly than the labour force, so that the rate of unemployment has increased a little, though it remains relatively low.

With the peak in the level of resources sector investment likely to occur this year, there is scope for other areas of demand to grow more strongly over the next couple of years. There has been a strengthening in consumption and a modest firming in dwelling investment, and prospects are for some increase in business investment outside the resources sector over the next year. Exports of raw materials are increasing as increased capacity comes on stream. These developments, some of which have been assisted by the reductions in interest rates that began 18 months ago, will all be helpful in sustaining growth.

Recent data on prices confirm that inflation is consistent with the target and, if anything, a little lower than expected. The CPI rose by 2½ per cent over the past year, and measures of underlying inflation gave a broadly similar outcome. These results have been pushed up a little by the impact of the carbon price. Growth of labour costs has moderated slightly over recent quarters while productivity growth appears to be improving. This should help to lessen increases in prices for non-tradables. The Bank’s forecast remains that inflation over the next one to two years will be consistent with the target.

Over recent meetings, the Board has noted that interest rates have already been reduced substantially, with borrowing rates approaching previous lows, and that the effects of this on the economy are continuing to emerge. Savers have been changing their portfolios towards assets with higher expected returns, asset values have risen and some interest-sensitive areas of spending have increased.

The exchange rate, on the other hand, has been little changed at a historically high level over the past 18 months, which is unusual given the decline in export prices and interest rates during that time. Moreover, the demand for credit remains, at this point, relatively subdued.

The Board has previously noted that the inflation outlook would afford scope to ease further, should that be necessary to support demand. At today’s meeting the Board decided to use some of that scope. It judged that a further decline in the cash rate was appropriate to encourage sustainable growth in the economy, consistent with achieving the inflation target.

QR code scanning – once the domain of the younger crowd – is becoming more evenly distributed across various age groups, according to [download page] data released by ScanBuy. The company, which says it processed a new high of 6.7 million scans via ScanLife in March, reveals that 57% of mobile barcode scanners were aged 35 and older in Q1, up from just 41% a year earlier. In particular, the 45-54 (18% share, from 12%) and 55 and older (14%, from 9%) groups represent rapidly growing proportions of scanners.

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During that yearlong period, the biggest drop came from the 25-34 crowd. In Q1 2013, that age bracket constituted 35% of mobile barcode scanners, but that’s now down to 25%.

While QR code scanners seem to be getting older on average (a trend first noted here), their gender split hasn’t changed that significantly. In Q1, 65% of scanners were male, which is slightly (but not drastically) down from 68% in Q1 2012. In terms of operating systems, Android remains the leader at 57% share, up from 53% a year earlier, while iOS’ share has dipped 2% points to 41%.

The study also shows that QR code scanning tends to be popular throughout the week, with 14% share of scans occurring each day from Tuesday through Friday during Q1. Scanning volume did go up slightly on the weekend (16% on Saturday; 15% on Sunday) before dipping on Monday (13% share). Scanning volume also tended to rise after lunchtime and see sustained levels of activity until the primetime hours.

Other Findings:

• The most scanned QR code campaigns in Q1 connected users to product information, social media, and mobile commerce.
• The top industries, in terms of scanning activity, were retail, food and beverage, and wireless.

Source: www.marketingcharts.com

Another month has flown by and it is now time to report our Australian Social Media statistics for April 2013.

As I have mentioned in the past, social media growth in Australia has slowed right up. The larger networks are now reaching saturation point and not growing like we saw in 2010 and 2011.

In Australia both Facebook and LinkedIn are happy to speak with members of the press about Australian user numbers. For some reason Twitter has never been so willing.

Last month I got a response from the official Twitter Australia, Twitter account – in regards to a question I have long been asking them: How many Australian’s are on Twitter?

This is a strange reply as Twitter have commented many times to the media about the US user numbers.

April 2013 stats:

(Please note the numbers below are the number of Unique Australian Visitors to the site over April).

1. Facebook – 11,489,380 Australian users/accounts (down approx 220).
2. YouTube – 11,000,000 UAVs (steady)
3. Blogspot – 3,000,000 (down 200,000)
4. WordPress.com – 2,900,000 (steady)
5. Tumblr – 2,800,000 (up 200,000)
6. LinkedIn – 2,700,000 ( down 57,000)
7. Twitter – 2,167,849 Active Australian Users (see calculation below)
8. Instagram – 1,083,924 Active Australian Users (see calculation below)
9. Flickr – 860,000 (up 10,000)
10. TripAdvisor – 830,000
11. Pinterest – 630,000 (down 10,000)
12. MySpace – 300,000 (steady)
13. Yelp – 220,000 (steady)
14. Reddit – 180,000 (up 10,000)
15. Google Plus – approx 100,000 (my estimation *revised*)
16. StumbleUpon – 95,000 (steady)
17. Foursquare – 51,000 (steady)
18. Digg – 33,000 (steady)
19. Delicious – 31,000 (steady)

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The Clean Energy Council recommends the follow these top 10 tips when buying a solar power system:

Be an informed consumer.

Research your options, be clear on your needs and compare quotes.

Know your daily electricity consumption.

By understanding what you use, you can assess how much you would like your solar system to generate, depending on your budget.

Get an estimate of how much energy your system will generate.

Your contract should include an estimate of the average daily output of your system in kilowatt-hours (based on where you live and the size and position of your system).

Check with your electricity retailer.

Never purchase a solar system without knowing what rate you will be paid for the electricity you generate and whether this will affect any hourly rates in your electricity bill.

Always use a Clean Energy Council Accredited Installer.

You can check your installer is accredited.

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It appears Aussies are starting to suffer from ‘Facebook fatigue’, according to new data from a social media monitor.

The data, collected by social media monitoring firm Social Bakers, shows around 115,000 less people have logged on each month since the beginning of 2013 – with almost 400,000 users walking away from Facebook since December.

‘When Facebook was starting up they got a lot of people on and it was very novel, but the novelty has worn off a little bit, so now people are scaling back use,’ Social media marketing expert at the Queensland University of Technology Business School, Professor Larry Neale, told News Limited.

And it’s not just Down Under – in recent years, millions of users in the US and Europe also started deactivating their accounts.

A spokesperson for Facebook Australia disputed the figures, News Limited reports.

Story source: www.bigpond.com

The Reserve Bank of Australia still has plenty of scope to cut the cash rate, if need be, after the inflation figures for the March quarter were in the middle of the central bank’s target band.

Australia’s consumer price index (CPI), the key measure of inflation, rose 0.4 per cent in the first three months of 2013, to be up 2.5 per cent for the year, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday show.

The central bank raises the cash rate if it thinks inflation in the medium term will be above its two to three per cent target band, and cuts it to sustain growth.

The RBA has kept the cash rate at three per cent since the start of 2013, after reducing it four times in 2012.

JP Morgan chief economist Stephen Walters said the figure was low because of weak price rises in food and clothing.

"The RBA said there is scope to cut rates and this will probably increase the likelihood of them doing that sometime soon," he said.

"There’s a lot of things to come out before that. We’ve got another employment report in a couple of weeks and we’ll be more informed about the mining investment story by another capital expenditure report at the end of May."

Market Economics managing director Stephen Koukoulas said a May rate cut was now almost a done deal.

He said the low inflation rate gave the RBA plenty of room to move while current conditions, including the high Australian dollar, weak business sentiment and an uncertain global economy justified another rate cut.

"I think there is enough now for them to deliver a cut in May," he said.

"On balance, this is probably the thing that will push them across the line."

Mr Koukoulas said the RBA would probably have to cut the cash rate further, possibly to 2.5 per cent or 2.25 per cent this year.

The cash rate is currently at three per cent.

"Unless the (Australian) dollar falls to the low 90s and unless we get a quick turnaround in the global conditions and commodity prices I’m now of the view that will have to go a couple of times," he said.

Reported by AAP Story source: www.ninemsn.com.au

Is it wise to lock into a fixed-rate home loan or should you continue to keep a keen eye on the market?

Up to 30 per cent of new home loan customers are fixing the interest rate on all or part of their borrowings, a record market share for fixed-rate loans in Australia.

If you’re considering a fixed-rate deal, you need to research all your borrowing options and be aware of the risks.

You shouldn’t blindly accept that the interest rate cycle is at the bottom, either. Many economists and commentators believe the Reserve Bank is engaging in a ”tactical pause” on rate cuts.

”I think it’s too soon to lock in,” says adviser Richard Wakelin, of Wakelin Property Advisory. ”It may not happen next month or the month after, but there is room for another rate cut.”

The RBA held its cash rate at 3 per cent at its March and April meetings. On both occasions the bank said slightly sub-par economic growth gave it the room to cut rates again if necessary.

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Twitter has began to allow ads to be targeted at users based on the words written in ‘tweets’ and messages forwarded to followers at the popular social network.

Previously, contents of Twitter messages relied on algorithms that pool the interests of users to send them potentially relevant ads in the form of tweets ‘promoted’ at the top of feeds.

Twitter produce manager Nipoon Malhotra said the new feature would allow ‘advertisers to reach users based on the keywords in their recent tweets and the tweets with which users recently engaged.’

Malhotra gave the example of a concert venue being able to target local music lovers with tweets promoting upcoming shows by bands they have raved about in messages at Twitter.

‘Users won’t see any difference in their use of Twitter; we’re not showing ads more frequently in timelines, and users can still dismiss promoted tweets they don’t find relevant,’ Malhotra said in a blog post.

Twitter is expected to earn $US582.8 million ($A563.55 million) globally in ad revenue this year and nearly $US1 billion next year, according to industry tracker eMarketer.

Story source: www.bigpond.com