Just starting out – looking for good accountant and/or property investment advisor

Hi,

We are looking at making a serious start on our property journey and looking for recommendations to put together a good team of professionals to work with us on it starting with finding a good Property Investment Advisor and a good Accountant that specialises in property investment. (Once we have these in place, we'll then be looking to add a lawyer/conveyance and a mortgage broker to our team, but, for now, just want to start with the Property Investment Advisor and Accountant, and then move on to the next step).

We've already been to numerous courses/workshops, etc. and read plenty of books, so, we're not really looking at more education offerings - just the right team to support us in our journey.

What we are specifically after is

1. Someone who can take a look at what we have, where we can go with it and what we need to do to achieve our end goal (eg. how many properties per year will it take to get there) and put together a plan for us. We will then go away and do that work to achieve those goals and come back to them whenever this plan needs to be reviewed.

2. A good accountant who understands about building wealth through property and can advise the best way to buy each property (eg. in one/both of our personal names, in a company/trust, etc.) and is accessible for us to find that information out about each property as we are ready to purchase them.

Can anyone help with recommendations for either/both of these?

Note; we live in a regional/remote area so the actual physical location of the advisor/accountant isn't a big issue for to us - we already know we cannot get anyone anywhere near where we live, so no matter who we choose they will be in another city. What is more important to us is that they are good at dealing with clients via distance (ie. email, phone, web conferencing, etc.) than where their office is physically situated.

 

I don't know what a property advisor is/does but if you're looking for a good accountant you should hit up @Paul@PFI from this forum. Dude knows his stuff and will be easy to work with from a distance.

Cheers

Jamie

 

agree - look up accountants here.
as for financial advisors, give it 12 months, focus on learning every day and once your knowledge is up, the best advisor in the world would be in the mirror.

 

Looks like someone did win a lotto!

 

Whenever I hear 'Property Investment Advisor', I worry. SO many PIA's are nothing more than salespeople for developers.

Whatever you do, DO NOT buy a property from a PIA or anyone they recommend, and do not be talked into a one-stop-shop that takes care of everything for you.

Do your own shopping, make sure you find your own legal advice and you should end up okay.

All the best

 

You say you don't need any more education offerings although education is the way to answer your questions.
Some do it by joining programs offered at these workshops. These guys will tell you what to do. It may or may not sit right with you. Others read, speak to others and work out their goals.
This forum is a good place to start.
Answer some basic questions then go from there.
Eg what are my long term goals? How long, how much.
What is my risk profile? High risk, low risk?
What's my strategy? This may change over time, but where do you want to start? Buy/hold? Renovate? Do you need high yield? Ie you have little disposable income?
Speaking to a good property accountant is imperative. Not just any accountant. Ask how many properties they have. Ask what their strategy is. Not that it has to be your strategy.

Good luck on your journey.

 

Property advisors are not all sales people/sharks - Check http://www.pipa.asn.au for details.

 

@simang - we are with Nick Moustacas from www.strategicwealth.com.au

Nick looks after several fellow investors on PC. We have recently outsourced our accounting to him (after me being @monalisa 's accounting apprentice for so many years). Their pricing seemed reasonable to us, in particular due to our time value for money.

Get in touch with Cathy Chitty at [email protected] . Cathy is the administration manager

http://strategicwealth.com.au/about-us/our-team/

As for advisor, I'd highly recommend you start on the forum & the previous forum http://somersoft.com/forums/ (now archieved), which has wealth of information.

I too was a newbie and leveraged off the knowledge shared by the forumites. You'd be surprised how much you learn by osmosis!

Recommend finding a great broker (more like a strategist!) to look at your finance side to ensure you have the right structures in place for purchasing and you are set. Sounds like you are looking for a broker as opposed to an advisor? A broker can tell you what your borrowing capacity is and what your plan should be going forward.

 

And don't forget lawyers.
Lawyers can advice on structuring ownership (this is legal advice) and various other issues with some lawyers even advising on state taxes such as land tax and stamp duty and commonweath taxation too.

 

Ownership structure is important - particularly from a security perspective or tax benefit perspective - but should also be obtaining advice from a qualified property investment advisor around best use of capital and cash flow - specific to property.. More than just a financial advisor perspective... All advisors need to leave egos at the door and work together with a clients best interest in mind to maximise the benefit for any particular client.

 

Yes, I agree Bryan. But no licencing is needed to advise on property so often the broker or tax agent takes on this role - lawyers rarely do because they are worried about risk. I don't give this sort of advice myself. I don't tell clients where to buy or what to buy, just 'how to' buy.

But an advisor being a member of PIPA or that other one will provide some level of comfort for the client that the advisor has done the relevant industry course.

 

A friend of mine went to one of those "investment adviser" one stop shop (not Pipa member) only for their mortgage broker service... While there, he received the full speech about the areas he needed to buy into and build with etc etc...and when he pointed that he wanted just the mortgage broker service he was told that they could not help them... So basically you need to buy their product otherwise they're not interested in you...

I thought that smell very fishy and wonder whether is legal to do something like that....

 

PLENTY of those out there. They take a cut not only on selling OTP, but also - conveyancing and B&P.
I saw something I received from someone who attended one of these. It said conveyancing will cost $2300 (I pay $1100+ searches, with total ~$2000 in QLD to a soli and $1100-1600 to solis in NSW). While B&P will cost $710....I thought they must be kidding. It was a lot of cuts for the company along the way!

Just that the industry is not well regulated?

 

I don't think it is regulated at all. Taxi drivers could give advice on property as long as they were not directly trying to sell or lease there would be no licence needed.

 

A wonder why so little regulation when the transactions can be for the millions of dollars.

And they add those costs into the loan so people feel they are not paying for anything.

 

Gday @simang , welcome aboard.
Start with finding an accountant who does tax for IP's. If you're happy with their work, give them more.

 

I really adore our accountant. Brett Cox from proctor major, based in Malvern East. I am not sure about their capacity to work remotely. I think they may do a fair bit if it due to where i first came across them.
Their systems for ensuring we stay compliant and organised with everything is exceptional. All the other professions we have needed referral to that they have provided have been equally as excellent.

They give us the "preffered" way of doing things but also understand that sometimes costs and effort get in the way of doing things the very best way right away so they work with us to get us to the preferred/optimal position while working within what is possible for us right now.

They priorities things for us to work towards.
Are strategic with tax planning and structures and are excellent with their communication/ returning calls. They work with a lot of property investors as well as medium sized business's and developers.

 

In regards to property investment advisors, I know that Margaret Lomas's destiny group have a program where they tell you how many properties over what time period.
Their strategies are very conservative, so if you are not looking to go for the types of properties or areas they typically recommend, this won't be a great avenue for you. (Neutral geared, below the median price, blue collar type areas). They do not sell property, they educate on how to buy them.

The only other ones I have come accross typically do plans that lead you into buying their product or their strategy.

One in particular sells theirs as "mentoring" and charge to sign up for it but then sell their developer stock to their mentoring students. Which is not unbiased and I don't believe is ethical to promote it as "mentoring" when it isn't really, it's just selling people who have paid good $$$ to be sold to.

The other option is an independent financial planner. I believe the are only 6 in Australia that are truly independent. if you find one that is pro property and does financial analysis on property versus other investment options they can be really worth while if you want to invest in other asset classes as well. Typically booked for a year in advance though. Being 100% independent you pay a fee upfront for the year of working with the and then a review and monitoring fee each year afterward.

 

Wow! Only 6?
How do you go about finding out who they are?

 

I think there is more than 6 now but at one stage there were just 6 members of a certain organisation which promoted itself as the only 'independant' financial planning group.

Not sure, but it may have been this group http://www.ifaaa.com.au/about