Every Australian accumulates savings through their compulsory superannuation accounts, and of course, every Australian wants to learn how to manage their money to the best of their abilities in order to be set up for a comfortable retirement. However, does that mean every Australian needs a financial planner? Possibly not, if your finances are relatively simple, but there will probably be times in your life when some financial advice would be welcomed.
Here’s a bit of great news for home owners who are renovating to sell. According to a report on Smart Property Investment, you can boost apartment value with a second bathroom, and by a significant amount at that.
If you’ve been doing some channel surfing lately, you’ll see that programs that deal with home improvement are becoming quite popular. Their popularity clearly shows how everyday Australians are becoming more interested in renovation. An article written by Cameron McEvoy for RealEstate.com.au talks about this love for renovation among Australians and more.
Having a home you can call your own is perhaps one of the best feelings in the world. However, there is one word in the world of real estate that somehow brings a euphoric home owner back to earth, and that word is equity. It is the one word that reminds home owners that they only own the value of what they have already paid for the house against its fair market value. That means for a home that has been appraised for, say, $200,000 with the owner still owing $125,000.00 on its mortgage, the equity is $75,000, and that is what the home owner actually owns of his/her home.
Of course, the natural way to increase your equity would be to pay off the mortgage, but unless you have lots of cash lying around that will help you pay for it immediately, that would take a really long time. There are ways that you can create instant equity to your property, and making renovations on your home is at the top of that list.
If you’re a home owner, there will eventually come a time when you have to get some renovation work done on it. While planning a renovation project can be a rather exciting thing, it can also get really stressful, particularly in the finance department. Managing your budget responsibly can get a bit tricky. If financially managing a renovation project becomes a bit of a problem for you, perhaps this article written by Tony Rigby for RealEstate.com.au can help.
A study commissioned by the NSW Government Fair Trading has confirmed that word of mouth is the best kind of marketing for tradespeople. The 2013 study, which looked into consumer behaviors when they hire a tradesperson, was conducted by independent research company Instinct and Reason. About 1,000 NSW home owners who had hired a tradie in the past 18 months from the start of the survey acted as respondents.
Australia’s housing industry is looking good this year based on the recently released Summer 2014 edition of the National Outlook report by the Housing Industry Association (HIA).
Home safety is always a concern during the Christmas season, and rightly so. With all the Christmas lights and decorations made of light materials all over our homes, there is always the risk of accidents.
These accidents, fortunately, can be avoided by implementing certain safety measures during the holiday season. Here are some of them that will assure you of home safety this Christmas.
So you’re planning a Christmas party at your home this year. As you already know very well, there are lots of stuff to be concerned about, from the food and drinks to serve right down to the people you want to invite. Of all these things, however, what you need to work on ahead of anything else are the Christmas decorations, which we all understand to be the single most effective way of spreading holiday cheer and making people really feel that it’s that wonderful time of the year once again.
So you already have a Christmas tree inside your home, and all sorts of Christmas decorations all over the place. How about the outside of your home? If you plan on making your home as Christmassy as it can get, here are some outdoor home enhancements for your Christmas party that you might want to try.
As renovation season in Australia gets underway, unscrupulous people pretending to be trustworthy tradesmen are expected to be on the increase. Many of these target unsuspecting victims like seniors or females, claiming to perform home repairs or renovations at a cheap price, but unfortunately only end up leaving part way with your money, and never to return to finish off the work.
