Archives for February 2012

Commercial Property: The Changing Retail Scene

<span class=THERE WAS an article in The Age last Saturday (BusinessDay) — which provided some fascinating insights into Australia’s retail scene.

Based upon GPT’s national portfolio, some interesting long-term trends are taking shape. And while GPT’s overall earnings actually rose by 7% over the past year … it required a fair amount of “fancy footwork” to achieve that. [Read more…]

12 Fundamentals You Need to Follow … When Buying Commercial Property

There are 12 Rules you need to follow to successAS YOU WILL appreciate, being able to sleep at night is one of the key objectives for any Commercial property investor.

And that’s what many property investors refer to as staying below your “Threshold of Insomnia”.

There can be several things that might cause you to lose sleep. One is over-borrowing; and the others are making a poor assessment of the market and the property itself. [Read more…]

Commercial Property to Benefit From Structural Changes Within the Economy

Industry Restructure is necessary for Australia's long-term growth.IN CASE you missed the lead story in last Friday’s Financial Review … the Treasury secretary (Martin Parkinson) was outspokenly critical of the government’s recent handouts to the car industry.

And more particularly, given the recent strong growth in the unemployment figures.

In his view, taxpayers ought not be subsidising so-called “strategic industries” — when these represent inevitable structural changes, which need to occur in order to make Australia more productive in the long-term. [Read more…]

What Makes You a Successful Commercial Property Investor?

 You need to determine your underlying Investment PrinciplesWHEN IT COMES to Commercial property investing, have you ever actually sat down and analysed your principal aims?

And have you then matched them against the properties you already own — or those you may now be considering?

Basically, you’ll find most people purchase Commercial property for one (or more) of four reasons. [Read more…]

How Commercial Property Investors Benefitted From The Past 7 Days?

The Reserve Bank believes things are on the up.LAST TUESDAY, the RBA left the cash rate on hold — much to the surprise of most pundits. And yet, only the week before, that’s exactly what I suggest would happened.

You might also remember I suggested that you lock in a fixed rate mortgage — because it was then about 1% below the variable mortgage rate.

Many scoffed, and said that rates will continue to come down. Well, the past 7 days have certainly put paid to that theory — with the big 4 Banks raising their rates, quite out of step with the RBA. [Read more…]

Your Success in Commercial Property Begins With The Correct “Investment Vehicle”

Your need to choose the right Investment Vehicle from the outset

BEFORE YOU purchase your next Commercial property, you do need to take some advice on which purchasing vehicle is right for you — because it’s definitely not ‘one size fits all’.

Tax Considerations

The Australian Tax Office is quite happy for you to arrange your affairs so as to minimise the tax you pay. In other words, it is quite legal for you to avoid tax — you simply cannot evade it. [Read more…]

National Office Market Shows Steady Improvement

LAST WEEK, the Property Council of Australia released its Office Space survey, for the 6 months to January 2012. And this will have some interesting implications for the Commercial property market.

National Vacancy Rates have fallen over the past 6 monthsAcross the 26 markets depicted in this chart … demand was up 20% up and supply 30% down, on the 20-year average for the six-monthly period.

As you can see, total vacancies fell from 9.0% to 7.9% — the lowest since January 2009. And perhaps a quick summary of the CBD Office markets would be worthwhile. [Read more…]