Empower Wealth experiences?

Learnt a lot reading this thread.

I'm 23, working full-time and have an alright deposit (~100k) ready. Looking to get first IP next year and was considering EW to set up a good foundation. Don't know enough yet to feel confident doing it myself.

This thread dates back 5 years and people's experience with EW has varied quite a lot, especially as EW became bigger. If you've used EW recently, could you please describe your experience? If you used EW a while back, how have your IPs performed?

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Cheers,
Dan

 

I posted this in another thread about EW:

"I've had quite a bit to do with Ben and Bryce from EW and I can tell you they're both stand up guys, very honest and genuinely care about the client, product and end result. I would be more than willing to refer someone to them. They're a bigger operation, but that can also mean checks and balances and more accountability sometimes too."

- Andrew

 

Thanks Andrew for your kind words.
Yes as you grow to serve more people on their financial transformation journey, you certainly do get more attention. Some valid and welcome criticism, plenty of speculation and guessing about us and what we do here and finally those who use this channel for self promotion, as this forum is a commercial operation, and these practitioners get their paid exposure by commenting here.
All I say to anyone considering our service/s - if you contact us you will learn what is true about us and our offerings and what is not true yet discussed in this channel.
I just also want to be fully transparent here, from time to time there may be a waiting period, due to strong demand for our services. And as I penning this note, this is certainly one of those times, so you might have to join a waitlist in early 2021. For that we are sorry for any inconvenience we might cause, but we won’t compromise on our quality of our tailored service, which does take time, just to get more people in the door.
Merry Christmas 2020, and time to look forward to 2021, a very positive year for Resi property I suspect.
Ben K

 

I have used their property strategy/planning and buyers agent services of which I was completely satisfied with. I then thought I would get an update to the existing plan, which was surprisingly expensive which was disappointing after spending over $17k with them.

 

Hi All,

Just thought I’d give this thread a bit of an update.

My partner and I engaged Empower Wealths services back in Q4 2019 where we first started off by using their property investment advisors. We opted to use their next property plan package that only covers the purchase of the next property rather then their full retirement map package purely because there was to many unknowns for us. Our advisor David was brilliant through out the whole process we regularly kept in touch by email about how we were tracking or if we felt we needed a more face to face meet we would just book in to organise a time.

Second we used the mortgage broking service where we were paired up with Mel and her team. We have used Mel for the refinancing of two existing properties and to finance our latest purchase also. We have never had an issue getting in contact with Mel and her team and always receive a prompt reply either by phone or email.

Third we used their BA service which we engaged earlier this year as per our plan. We dealt with Bryan which once again like Mel and David is top notch in the communication department. We are currently 2 weeks away from settlement and the assistance offered by Bryan and his team to not only source and negotiate the property, but to also help organise conveyancing and to organise the vetting and recommendation of a rental agent has made this process well and truely worth the fee so far. Obviously time will tell if the fee was worth it when we re-value the property in the long run.

all in all we have been exceptionally happy with the team as a whole and will look to take out the longer term plan going forward.

 

Very one stop shop ? How would you know if any part was not necessarily in your best inteersts or a great deal. Every elemnt is actually a different person / entity usually and they will always cross promote each other. They make $$$ fro each other why wouldnt they ? I see they are also selling tax services. EW is NOT a tax agent. I think they use Bantacs. But thats not what their website indicates. Very dubious IMO.

Often "refinance" can also hide truth. Many spruikers and property sellers do this. They look to use refinance and equity out as a benefit. In return you dont actually see how the new purchase values poorly since the shortfall is met by other borrowings. So excessive debt ona over inflated cost perhaps ? And some will sell you on the merits of borrowing 100% as its a tax benefit.

The team may have all played you. Do you know what a indpendent / lender valuation actually came thorough as ? Or even worse... it was already pre-valued ?

Helped to organise conveyancing - no, no, no. Never ever do that. Let me see ....they recommended someone else who may usually assist them...You want a soliictor or conveyancer who is ONLY acting for you and has no concerns with saying "this contract looks dubious".

 

My guy I’ve merely shared an experience if you want to turn that on its head and give it a negative spin then go right ahead but as I said I’ve had nothing but a positive experience nothing more nothing less

 

Given your logic, could we not draw the same conclusions about Price financial? You seam to offer nearly all the same services as Empower Wealth except for buyers agent..

 

@Paul@PAS makes a good point about each person of your team working only in your best interest.

I also think clearly this structure suits people as they sign up for it knowingly, willingly & enthusiastically. I would not. But it’s not for me and probably not intended to be so.

 

[How much was the EW fee for their BA service Mitch?
Thanks legend

 

13k

 

It would be the buyers agency link in the equation that would have a potential conflict of interest.

Registered Tax Agent and Mortgage Broker wouldn't have a conflict as they have no relation to the product being sold.

 

I don’t necessarily think there is a problem with either business. But paul was criticizing them for being a one stop shop and cross promotion, yet his is very similar by having tax, mortgage broking, financial planning, smsf, insurance and more. You could easily argue a conflict with all these services using his logic.

I think it is a bit ordinary of him throwing speculation on EW when most the feedback on this thread is largely positive and he appears to operate a one stop shop model in a slightly different industry.

 

Anyone that knows the team at Empower Wealth also knows it's absolutely laughable to suggest they would not act in the best interest of their clients. With their founder the current Chair of Property Investors Council of Australia (PICA) and former Chair of Property Industry Professionals of Australia (PIPA), i'm not sure you'll find a more passionate consumer advocate in the Industry.

 

I think you need to think more about the consequences of the products involved. Only product that sounds like Paul is selling in insurance policies? No idea amounts but under 5-10k. Rest I believe is services.
BA is selling property and countless stories of BA working in developers interest than their clients.

I dont think anyone is saying EW is the problem. Just the one stop shop model has been the common denominator and weak point in many shoddy BAs. Usually if the service is available but clients are allowed to use their own preferred service provider then its probably not any issue

 

Um their buyers agent services is a service, not a product. By definition a buyers agent is not selling property, they are an agent for a buyer..Yes their are some spruikers who market themselves as a “buyers agent” but I have never heard a suggestion that they are and they are on record against that sort of behavior. Paul also did suggest EW may have all played the poster… I have never used the service of either business, but have heard good things a out both of them. I was just calling out a bit of unfair hypocrisy.

 

I’m also interested in the company after listening to many of their property couch podcasts

I’m time poor and not really interested in learning everything there is to know about real estate but I like what I have seen so far with the portfolio plan simulation software

Any new or exisiting users care to elaborate and give any new feedback that hasn’t previously been mentioned?

 

Can anyone recently that has used them to build a property portfolio plan confirm if they still put together the plan like this excel version from 9 years ago or has it evolved into something similar to the “my wealth portal” that has the finished portfolio plan in it?

this video is from 9 years ago from a seminar it looks like and shows how they build the plan


the below shows how it is out to the client in the my wealth portal