Property Investment Opportunities It would seem the Auckland property market is reaching a plateau. Price increases in the Auckland market have been underpinned by a shortage of properties, high net migration and high investor activity. New conditions to be imposed by the Reserve Bank on 1 November, 2015, including a 30% deposit requirement for Auckland house purchases, alongside an easing of restrictions outside Auckland...

A Winning Gift It’s the old stand-by. When you can’t think of something to give a friend or relative on a special occasion, a lottery ticket is a convenient solution. Lottery promoters use special events such as Fathers’ Day, Mothers’ Day, Christmas and other special days to encourage us to think of lottery tickets as gifts. It’s great to give somebody the possibility of becoming instantly wealthy. While the rea...

Reduce Your Cash Flow Risk Conversations about financial risk focus on investment and finding the right balance between risk and return. While these are important conversations for investors, there are other aspects to financial risk which can be just as significant. Your income and expenses, or in other words, your cash flow, are just as affected by risk as your investments, but in a different way. An investment loss wil...

KiwiSaver for Retirees A recent survey conducted by the Financial Markets Authority and the Commission for Financial Capability found that around a quarter of people are not sure how to manage the money in their KiwiSaver funds after the age of 65. There are variations between different scheme providers and once you turn 65, providing you have been in KiwiSaver for five years, you should ensure you understand what your op...

Why Investors Shouldn't Read Headlines There is nothing like a sudden drop in the share market to send investors into a panic. It is easy at the time of investing to be full of confidence and classify yourself as someone willing to take risk in exchange for the potential of a higher return. However, when volatility strikes, confidence can quickly be eroded. Volatility quickly sorts out those investors who truly understand...

Making Confident Financial Decisions There are various points in everyone’s life where it becomes necessary to make a decision that has major financial implications. Making a significant financial commitment such as taking on a mortgage to buy a house or borrowing money to set up a business, taking on a student loan, investing a large sum of money, moving to another location, changing career, starting a family; all thes...

Prepare to Retire A quarter of those in retirement say they don’t have the money to do the things they want. Another quarter say they have enough to do everything they want and the rest, around a half, are able to do only some of what they want. These are the grim findings of a recent survey of people over the age of 50 done as a joint project by the Financial Markets Authority and the Commission for Financial Capabilit...

Balance Your Assets Assets are things of value that you own, such as your house, the contents of your house, your car, your investments and, if you have one, your business. Some assets are better at generating wealth than others, and some assets drop in value over time, thereby reducing your wealth. Assets should be valued at the price they can be sold for. List all your assets and their value, then look at their nature. ...

Plan Your Legacy With careful planning, most people don’t run out of money or assets before the end of life. Money, as they say, is something that has no use to you when your life ends, however it can provide benefit for others. Planning a legacy is something that often gets overlooked, yet everyone, even a person of very modest means, has the ability to have an ongoing beneficial impact on the world after death. It can...

The Three Barriers to Good Financial Management For most people, sorting out financial matters ranks well down the priority list. Confronting one’s finances elicits emotions ranging from boredom to fear, guilt and anxiety hence it is less stressful to ignore them. A study done in 2009 by Professors Karen Pine and Ben Fletcher of the University of Hertfordshire on the barriers to financial change identified the three pri...