Empower Wealth experiences?

have not used their services but Property Couch is hands down the best podcast in the property space

 

We just had our buyers agent put in an offer on a property in Boronia Heights last week for $550k and the next morning it was accepted

this property was due to to go for auction but due to the sellers change in circumstances they changed to private sale

in the end they weren’t motivated by money it seems and just wanted to get it done asap

I couldn’t be happier as we’ve used them for the property portfolio plan, mortgage broker, financial advisors and buyers agent services

 

Thanks for sharing your feedback Woody. I'm also considering Empower Wealth so nice to hear some current feedback. Were the financial advisors used as part of the property portfolio plan (i.e. does the plan provide financial advice)?

 

Hi

the plan does not offer financial advice as the person that does the plan is Qualified Property Investment Advisor

they give property investment advice in order to model out sensible property purchases over time

The financial advisor team is seperate but is a critical part of their “defence” strategy as talked about on the podcast and in the book

We also saw a financial advisor after the plan had been completed who took all of our superfund information and income protection, tpd and death cover insurances and compared them around to find the best suitable level of cover to protect against our situation

he also found a better performing cheaper superfund

he also asked about other investment options outside of property as an option if we wanted to but that wasn’t for us at this stage

the fee for that service is $2200 and he said could be paid in cash or funded through super

we opted to pay through super so we weren’t out of pocket but also as it made sense financially paying inside super as it’s taxed differently

We are more than happy to have paid for the professional services provided to make our plan visible to us with goals we could see to meet and know financially we would be ok as opposed to going into property blindly

 

Thanks for sharing your positive experience Mitchell.

 

In Helping others on this threat - re: Our Property Plan - we have invested heavily in our proprietary software and platform and now over 95% of our plans are produced via this new cloud software instead of Excel and the final plans are captured and stored within a secure client portal for our client to access and revisit whenever they wish.
Regards
Ben K

PS - I'm not often on this platform, so apologies in advance if I'm untimely in any future responses.
PSS - It's a helpful and useful platform for many users, but from time to time I do need to correct or clarify any misinformation posted on here, as we do not pay to feature or promote ourselves in this forum to win new business or speak indifferently about any other business featuring their services.

 

Thanks Ryan for helping others understand - we don't sell property, we don't take commission or kick-backs from any third party businesses, builders, or developers. We are a fee for service advisory firm and as such we are independent in our property assessments, our tailored property planning work etc. etc
Regards
Ben K

 

Thanks for raising some questions here Paul. Happy for the transparency and anyone who doesn't know us or what we do - to start from a level of some skepticism .
Yes we offer a range of property, finance, money management, educational, research, financial planning, tax services etc, as a holistic advisory firm seeking to provide fully tailored solutions for our clients. You don't need to use them all, you might even opt to use just one, but we have always recommended whoever makes up your advisory team - it's best that the left hand is talking the right hand.

For the record - because we don't sell property, we work for the buyer, and buy existing property on-market and off-market, (not house and land or off the plan), our clients know 100% what the bank valuation is for each property (we, as a rule of thumb, do not cross securities property, unless it's in the clients interest to do so).
We are a Tax Agent, but yes we are part of the BanTacs accounting co-op group sharing knowledge and insights lead by one of Australia's best property tax experts in Julia Hartman
Independent?? - Got to be careful here - ASIC don't like the use of this work to describe financial planners, so let's pass on that definition for our Financial Planning team, but in terms of Independently looking after each customer, our fees are fixed and quoted upfront to clients (in writing, we are not associated with any builders, developers, etc. We tailor our advice specifically for each client coming to us. Our Mortgage Broking business again has it's own license, but we aggerate via Australia Largest Mortgage Broking Group - AFG, to get the best deals for our clients from over 45+ banks and lenders
We don't receive payments from any third parties professionals like builder, developers, quantity surveyors, solicitors, conveyancers etc, etc.

For other reading this
To keep up with all that we are and all that we do - you can visit our website. But because we don't pay to feature and advertising on this forum, we can't actually promote it hear, so just google us. I think you know our name from this thread

Cheers
Ben K

 

I don't mean to put a damper on your purchase mate as it's an exciting time... so firstly congratulations.

I do however wonder why this suburb was chosen by the BA service when Boronia Heights specifically has seen growth of close to 70% in the past two years alone. Not knowing your personal strategy, this would be a risk to future immediate/short term growth.

 

Hi Stugot, how do you check out growth rate at suburbs level?

 

No problem mate

My BA would have been well aware as most of the people on here who can access the data

The purchase decision was based upon my particular property plan briefs time, purchase price, growth and yield rate

Short term and intermediate growth isn’t part of the strategy

 

Fair enough woody, all the best!

 

I am currently talking to them, considering getting the strategy plan and potentially using buyers agency service. The guy that I spoke to is now on leave, but I don’t know how this would end up at. So far I emailed him; no auto reply or nothing. Hopefully someone will contact me soon.

 

Has anyone used the Empower Wealth accountancy service.
I changed accountants two years ago and had a horrible experience. Impossible to get a response from the Accountant, email after email. Told the accountant is working from home OMFG- finalising 2022 FY
I have my doubts as to Empower Wealth maybe getting large enough now they will struggle to service, welcome any feedback. Have used Empower Wealth a Mortgage Broking Business, Financial Planning, BA and did one of their plans. Service has been good apart from the BA business where I felt they were looking just to close out the transactions. When we did our second purchase and was asked if they could help with further purchases, I stated our cash flow for now meant we were in a hold stage and could feel in the email back that, time to move on

 

Hi Tobytom,
Our tax team are now doing the tax return work for over 1,600 clients. Unlike other accountants we don't do business tax returns or advisory work - we just specialise on property investor how have passive investment meaning our subject matter tax knowledge should be first class in this space. So individuals who have property investments in their personal names, in a passive trust vehicle or their SMFS.
In terms of you last experience - we want to offer the best customer service experience, but that didn't sound like it was. Happy for you to contact me via our empower wealth website if you want to share more about this experience with me so we can improve if it wasn't a 5 star experience.

 

For clarity - we've moved to the cloud with our property planning simulator these days. So when you do a property plan with us, it will be housed in our Moorr platform - formerly known as MyWealth Portal. Moorr is our client portal platform, but it is also free for anyone to use to manage their properties and finances.