The answer is equity. It’s a hidden source of wealth that grows inside your property purchases over time. Equity is one of the biggest financial benefits of home ownership, a benefit that could allow you to turn your first home into a money tree that helps you finance property investment activities and build wealth for your future.

What is equity exactly?
Your equity is the difference between what your home is worth and what you owe on it. For example, if your property is worth $500,000 and you owe $400,000 then your equity is $100,000.
In order to calculate your equity position properly, you will need to establish the current market value of your home. You can do an estimate yourself by comparing your home to the price of similar homes that have sold in the surrounding area recently. If you would like a more accurate assessment of your home equity, you will need to obtain the services of a professional valuation expert.

How do you access your equity?
Once the equity in your home has increased, it may be possible to access it. Accessing your equity requires making an arrangement with a lender. There are several different ways you can go about accessing your equity. The options that are available to you will depend on your personal financial circumstances and goals, so you should talk with a professional mortgage broker about which method is right for you.

The two most popular options to access equity are to refinance your existing mortgage to extract a lump sum, or to establish a line of credit against the equity in your home. However, it should be noted that a lender will seldom allow you to borrow against all of the equity in your home, particularly if you still have a mortgage. They usually prefer to keep back at least 20% of the equity in your first home as security.

How can you grow your equity faster?
A popular strategy to grow equity quickly is to add value to your property. This can be achieved by renovating or expanding your home. You can often create quite large equity gains with a relatively small capital outlay and the equity increase occurs as soon as you have completed the project. Improving your property also tends to help it to continue to go up in value more readily over time – out dated properties, particularly run down properties, tend to experience less value growth because prospective buyers view them as fix-me-uppers and only want to pay a bargain price.

If your property is on a large block of land, you may even like to consider subdivision as a means of accessing the equity in your home. The subdivided block will acquire a value of its own, which you can borrow against to build. Or you can simply sell the block and access the funds.

What is the equity investment strategy?
When investing in property, time is your friend. Over time, the equity grows in your first property, which you can then use as a deposit to purchase a second property. This will mean that you now have two properties growing in value over time, which has the effect of growing your total equity position twice as fast. After a little more time passes, you can access more equity from the first two properties to invest in a third property, and so on.

Whilst you continue paying the mortgage on your first property yourself, your tenants pay the mortgages on your second property and any further properties you may purchase after that. Both the tenant’s financial contributions and home value growth in the marketplace continue to increase your total equity position. The more properties you own, the more quickly your total equity grows.

Are there any risks?
There are always risks associated with any kind of investment strategy. The danger is that you will borrow too much money and when interest rates go up, your tenant’s rental contributions will not cover your mortgage repayments and you may not be able to cover the difference from your own pocket. If a decline in property prices was to occur at the same time as an interest rate rise, you may find yourself in the position of having to sell off your properties at a considerable loss.

The way to mitigate these risks is to invest conservatively and always get the advice of a professional mortgage broker to help you determine how much you should borrow. They will help you take into consideration what could happen in the worst case scenario and help to make sure you don’t get caught out.

For more information about using the equity in your home to invest, please call us today. We’ll be happy to help you formulate an appropriate strategy that’s right for your personal financial situation and goals and help you to get started by helping you access your equity and by getting you pre-approval on an investment loan.

Don’t you just love getting a tax refund? Whilst nobody enjoys all the paperwork that goes with filing a tax return, getting it right can be rewarding particularly if you’re a property investor. One of the major benefits of investing in property over other asset classes, is support for your investment from the Australian government in the form of tax relief. And of course, if you have a property investment or are considering investing in property soon, you won’t want to miss out on a single cent from any of the deductions that are available to you. Here are some tips to help you maximise your tax benefits this financial year if you are a property investor.

Make sure you’re claiming every cent you can for depreciation.

Depreciation is one of the major tax benefits that property investors can claim. Depreciation occurs as an item’s worth becomes less over time as it is used and it wears out. When you’re talking about a tax deduction, depreciation is a method of allocating the cost of an item over its useful life. For example, if your investment property has an oven that is valued at $1,000 and has a ten year life, you can claim $100 against your taxable income for 10 years on that individual item.

With an investment property, you are only allowed to claim depreciation on certain items against your taxable income. There are two types of depreciation tax deductions that you can claim:

• Depreciation on plant & equipment: this refers to items within the building like ovens, hot water heaters, air conditioners, carpets, blinds, light fittings and so on.
• Depreciation on buildings or ‘building allowance’: this refers to the construction costs of the building itself, such as concrete, brickwork, and so on.

In order to make a tax claim for depreciation, you need a report that identifies all the things that may be claimed against your tax and the current value of each item. This is called a depreciation schedule. Unfortunately, the Australian Tax Office will not allow you to create your own depreciation schedule, you’ll need to employ the services of a qualified Quantity Surveyor to do a thorough inspection to identify what can be claimed and make the necessary valuations on those items. But don’t worry, the cost of preparing your depreciation schedule is also tax deductible.

Spend money on property maintenance now so you can claim it back right away.

Every investment property requires maintenance and if you do it in June, you won’t be out of pocket for the expense for very long. If your property’s smoke detectors need servicing, or you haven’t sent the pest control company around for a while, now is a good time to do it. Cleaning, gardening and lawn mowing costs are also usually tax deductible (for you, not your tenant). Any other necessary repairs, maintenance and service costs – like checking the gas and hot water heaters for example, are also tax deductible for most property investors, so consider taking care of any issues before the end of the financial year.

Get back the other money you hate to spend.

When you own a property, it sometimes seems like you have to pay out a lot of money for invisible things that don’t have much benefit for you, which can be annoying. Tax time is when you can get your own back, with land tax, council and water rates, property management fees, advertising costs for marketing the property to tenants, body-corporate and strata-title fees all tax deductible expenses. You can also claim back any travel and car expenses directly related to inspecting your investment properties, but do keep a log book and any relevant receipts.

Remember to claim your finance and insurance costs.

Generally speaking, you are allowed to claim all finance costs associated with your property investment, including bank fees and charges, borrowing costs and interest on your loans. All insurance costs for your investment property are also tax deductible. So if you talk to us about your insurance coverage now, we can make sure you have the right cover for your current needs just in time for you to put in a claim for the cost with this year’s tax return.

Remember, if you’re a property investor or are considering investing in property soon, we’re here to help you get your finances right. We can help you access a loan structure that’s right for your ongoing investment strategy and help you access the most competitive rate available for you considering your personal financial circumstances and goals. Give us a call today.

We recommend that you seek independent financial and taxation advice before acting on any information in this article. General information only and has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. We recommend that you consider whether it is appropriate for your circumstances and your full financial situation will need to be reviewed prior to acceptance of any offer or product. Subject to lenders credit criteria, terms and conditions, fees and charges apply.