Good news goes unheralded. One of the findings in a recent survey caught my eye. Only 12 per cent of New Zealanders surveyed said the value of their financial investments had grown in the previous six months, with 42 per cent saying the value was unchanged and 46 per cent saying it had fallen. The vast majority got it wrong.
More than one way to tax investment property. There’s more than one way to skin a cat — or to change the tax system to discourage New Zealanders from investing in rental property.
Performance pay not as good as it sounds. Here’s a radical idea: pay financial advisers according to the performance of the investments they put you in. Sounds appealing, but would it work?
Secrets of real estate agents. Sorry — this is my third column in a row about real estate commissions. It’s just that readers keep responding. Lately it’s been agents or former agents, letting us in on their secrets.
Readers love or loathe real estate fee idea. The subject of real estate commissions brings out strong emotions — as reader response to my last column shows.
A fairer deal for all on real estate agent commissions. Now — with real estate agents hungry for listings — might be a good time for home sellers to negotiate a new way of paying agents. This is not about kicking a man when he’s down. What I’m proposing shouldn’t leave an honest agent worse off. In fact, if she or he is good at their job, it will leave them much better off.
Recession could be a blessing for most. The response to a question in a recent survey bothered me a little. Asked what they would do with a $10,000 cash windfall, 54.3 per cent of the respondents said they would pay off debt or save the money — down from 58.3 per cent three months earlier. It’s not exactly a huge drop. But I was hoping for a substantial increase.
How would you have done in financial knowledge survey? It’s question time. How would you have answered the following in a recent survey: “Which is generally considered to make you the most money over the next 15 to 20 years: a savings account, range of shares, range of fixed interest investments, or a cheque account?”
Time to top up KiwiSaver to make the most of the scheme. Mid-June is top up time for many people in KiwiSaver. If you don’t take action in the next week or two, you could miss out on up to a thousand dollars or so from the government.
Nyah nyah to Morningstar. One aspect of the recent Morningstar report on investors’ experience of managed funds — in which New Zealand came bottom out of 16 countries — got little coverage in the news media. Ironically, it’s about media coverage.