Invest In Australia? Now Is The Time!
July 28, 2008 by Mira · Leave a Comment
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For those with money to invest in Australia , now is the right time…Australia is experiencing an upward growth cycle. This offers significant opportunities for international businesses and welcomes foreign direct investment and investors. All the major cities are seeing a rise in their indices. Economists expect this trend of upward growth to continue for many more years to come.
Services Sector
The country is a major exporter of agricultural products, minerals and natural gas. But the economic prosperity in this country has been dominated by the services sector. Australia’s Service industries have expanded in recent decades more than that achieved in other countries.
Focus on Reforms
The country lays emphasis on reforms and has been modernized which has led to financial deregulation. The per capita income of Australia is much higher than other countries. The inflation rate has been quite low. The standard of living has improved considerably. Unemployment is very low and there is a sustained budget surplus. The IMF has commended this milestone which no other country has been able to achieve.
600,000 New Jobs
The business sector is vital to the country - creating more than 600,000 jobs and providing confidence to businesses through the structure of its institutions. Australia has thus become a destination favored by investors.
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The governance system is strong and transparent.
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It offers low barriers to trade and investment.
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The country has been ranked by the World Bank as the second easiest economy in which to start up a business.
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The infrastructure is extensive and provides easy transport corridors, power, and other utilities.
International Business
The country has now become home for citizens from over 200 countries and the work force is multi-lingual and skilled. There are many international business opportunities in Australia thanks to low tariffs and minimal barriers to entry. The country is ready to adapt to social changes and technological advancements thus inviting investment of skills, knowledge and enterprise. It welcomes global information networks.
The country has been an extensive user of Information and communication technology, with sophisticated financial systems and transparent markets which help investors to really look forward to invest in Australia. Financial services are one of the fastest growing sectors of Australian economy.
Don’t Lose Out - Invest!
With all these major advantages and the government encouraging investment, for those able to invest in Australia at this time, it is a wise decision which no one should hesitate to take.
Brought to you by the Australian Immigration Experts at Synch1
Rules and Regulations - Foreign Investment in Australia
June 11, 2008 by Mira · Leave a Comment
I have made quite a lot of foreign investments in Australia. The thought of making foreign investment in Australia came to my mind last year when I saw news, blogs all talking about Australia playing a leading role in international property investment. One of the reasons for this being, Australia is taking second lead role of being populated with migrants from other countries. When I was about to start my foreign investments in Australia, I had no knowledge in that. But the process I went through got me highly interested in this subject.
First of all, for making foreign investments in Australia, a foreign investment approval is vital. But foreign investment approval depends on what a person wishes to invest in. I went for residential real estate investments and some investments in commercial real estate also. For making these investments, I went through the process of foreign investment approval. In certain cases, even acquisitions of shares or other assets of businesses would require foreign investment approval.
All these depend on the size and type of investment a foreign person is willing to make in Australia. The approval for getting a brand new residential property is much simpler provided all rules and regulations are followed. Thus, the primary rule a foreign national must clearly have in mind while making foreign investments in Australia is that unless they have permanent resident status or meet another exemption, it is vital to get prior FIRB approval before making any investments in Australia.
While undergoing this process, I had a doubt whether it is essential to get FIRB approval for transfer of property even if a property is being left by a citizen in Australia to his close relative who is a foreigner to Australia. When I had this query I immediately mailed officers at FIRB about this and the reply I got was that the property in this case would get transferred easily without even notifying the board. This rule holds even if a foreign national is married to a citizen of Australia and makes a joint investment in Australia. After submitting the papers for approval to the board, I got the approval within 20 days as the board is required to make a decision within 30 days of receiving an application though in certain situation it might take another ten days more. Thus it is sure that one would get the reply from FIRB within forty days of submitting their application to FIRB.
The commercial property foreign investment I made in Australia was less than AUD50 million and so I didn’t need to go through the process of FIRB approval. The FIRB approval for foreign investors on commercial properties is essential only if the amount exceeds the above value or if the amount exceeds the approved amount by FIRB. Once I decided to make foreign investments in Australia, I gathered sound knowledge on rules and regulations related to this from various sources. Then I selected the property for foreign investment in Australia. After this step, I sought legal advice before entering a contract to buy Australian property. This step is important to avoid hurdles and to get us clear about the laws and about the property.
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Invest in Australia You Must
June 9, 2008 by Mira · Leave a Comment
I always believe that getting the right Property, at the right Price, at the right time fetches the right results in future. In this aspect investment property in Australia offers high capital growth potential and I personally found higher gains in my properties at Melbourne and Sydney. I recently had one my property around Perth sold and it fetched me a higher gain of 39%. All property investors are sure to get solid projected medium to long term growth for their investment properties in Australia. Read more
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Property Crash Not Likely
June 3, 2008 by Mira · Leave a Comment
Author: David Koch
Date: June 2, 2008
Rapid increases in interest rates have slammed Australian home owners with a mortgage to a point where they are now making the highest repayments in the developed world. Thankfully, one consolation is that generally house values are holding up.
I know there is a big increase in home repossessions and loan defaults, and property values are relatively stagnant, but compared with the rest of the world our real estate prices are staying pretty solid.
The question now is whether Australian residential property prices are overvalued and could we see the same sort of cracks which are happening overseas.
The news from overseas is just appalling. A recent US house price survey by the National Association of Realtors recorded an average 7.7 per cent drop for the year to March - the biggest fall since records started in 1982.
Would you believe states such as California and Florida are seeing average falls of up to 30 per cent over the past year as the credit crunch bites hard. At this stage 1-in-194 homes in the US have been repossessed and that ratio is climbing constantly. There are reports that some financiers are repossessing homes and then asking the owners to stay rent free to protect the property from vandals.
Now there are fears this sort of property crash could spread to Britain based on its current valuations. Average house prices in Britain are running at six times average earnings, which is way above the historic average of 3.7 times wages.
Australian residential property values are currently double Britain’s historic high - 12 times earnings in Sydney and 10 times in Melbourne.
Australian mortgage repayments are 57 per cent of average incomes compared with 50 per cent in Britain where the historic average is just 30 per cent.
A recent survey in The Economist magazine says Australia has the most overvalued residential property in the world.
All these comparisons make for very nervous reading and you’d think would point to an impending crash the size of that in the US. That may very well be the case a few years down the track.
But for the moment there appears to be a couple of significant planks underpinning Australian property values.
Firstly, the high skilled and business immigration numbers combined with low construction levels is creating a shortage of supply accentuated by the banks tightening development financing.
Full employment also means that even though higher loan repayments are stretching family budgets, household incomes won’t fall.
The other factor is the rental crisis. Strongly rising rents are usually a precursor to rising values as investors chase property to take advantage of the strong yields.
For property owners it looks like a crash in values isn’t on the cards for at least a few years. For those looking to get on the property merry-go-round for the first time, property is not going to get any more affordable either.
But it seems there is hope of picking up an affordable bargain if you know where to look.
Last week on my Sunrise program we interviewed Terry Ryder who is a former property writer and now runs a business called Hot Spotting, which analyses property issues.
Terry Ryder put together a list of the top 12 places to buy a house for under $200,000. Yep, $200,000 and many on the list are well below that level down to $90,000 in one area.
Now before you chortle and say they must be in the middle of nowhere, Ryder’s 12 locations all have good community facilities and reasonably good employment prospects for people moving there, because they’re booming.
There are only two locations on the list close to a capital city - Melton near Melbourne and Elizabeth on the outskirts of Adelaide.
Ryder says most areas close to Sydney and Brisbane were priced out of this list.
His personal pick is Parkes in regional NSW because of its location as a transport hub.
In Queensland, Charters Towers is the best pick while in NSW there’s Broken Hill, Glen Innes and Inverell.
In Victoria, the best buys are Gippsland, Melton and Mildura.
Further south in Tassie, George Town and the Rosebery-Zeehan area are on the list.
In South Australia, Elizabeth rounds out the top 12.
Source: The Sun-Herald
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