Posts tagged: financial assistance

Buying a New Home Is No More a Distant Dream

money for homeEvery individual dreams of purchasing their own home. A safe place where they might want to raise a family, or look after their parents. While the rising cost of real estate often dissuades people from the task, it’s important to remember that with the help of a home loan, your dream home is no longer just a distant hope that won’t be fulfilled.

If you’re hoping to realise your ultimate dream of owning a home, let’s take a look at a few steps that will help you along your journey.

1. Get Your Priorities in Order

Before you even start looking for a house, it’s important that you understand what you’re looking for. Do you want a home that’s in the middle of the city where you work, or do you want something that’s a bit quieter and closer to your hometown? Think about whether you want a large house with a garden or park nearby, or if you’re content with a smaller home with a good view. Figure out what is most important for you to have in your home. This makes the selection process much easier.

2. Outline Your Budget

Whether you’re funding the house by yourself or applying for a loan, it’s important that you have an estimate of how much you can afford to spend on a home. Even if you do take out a loan, you’ll have to factor in the EMIs that you will have to repay into your monthly budget. For a better understanding of what you can afford every month, you can use an online home loan EMI calculator. Once you have your budget and priorities in order, you’ll be able to find a home that meets your needs.

3. Create a Shortlist

The house-hunting process is generally quite a long-drawn one. You may see several houses before you find one that you truly identify with. If you’re lucky, you may like a home the instant you walk in and see it. However, this isn’t always the case. Once you’ve seen a wide selection of houses, you should make a list of the ones that you would definitely consider buying. Then you can list out the pros and cons of each home before making your final decision.

4. Find Financing

Unless you’ve won the lottery or you’ve been saving incredibly well over the last few years, you’ll probably require a loan to cover the cost of your new home. There are a number of loan options available to you, and you will need to find one that fits your needs. Depending on your requirements, you could find a loan that offers higher financing, better interest rates, or quicker disbursals. You could also use a home loan calculator to find out the kind of EMIs you would be required to pay based on the interest rates being offered.

5. Budget for Your EMIs

Now that you’ve found your perfect home and got a loan to finance it, it’s a good idea to come up with a repayment plan. You may have to readjust your monthly budget to factor in your EMIs and curb your expenditure a little. Of course, it goes without saying that you should also ensure you put away some amount of your savings for any financial emergencies that may come your way.

With our 5 quick tips, you could soon be on your way to finding your dream home and settling down with your family. Remember, a home loan doesn’t have to be a burden, it could be the stepping stone that helps you achieve your dreams.

How should you plan for a proper trading method?

money tradingTrading is simple and hard at the same time. It could be either one for you. Or you might experience both while you are in this business. But, if you manage to make a good and simple plan for the growth of your business, it will be very easy for you to maintain your trading performance. With time you can improve your performance and quality of your trading. For that, you must have a basic method of trading. It will be the skeleton for your trading process. And all of the fleshes can be modified according to your preferences. Today we are going to talk about a simple method of trading. Hope you will use this technique for designing your trading approach.

Long lasting trades is first

You might be thinking like a normal business while trading in a marketplace. But here, it is actually the opposite. To make profits, you don’t have to trade too much. If you can trade with efficiency for a long time, it will help you to make a good amount of profit. And the amount would be far better than winning multiple trades. This is the secret of the trading business, to be simple and relaxed. Because with that environment, your head remains sharper than being busy with trades. So, it can think properly and use the strategies in your trade’s plan correctly. And when you can execute a trade correctly and you keep it open for a long time, it will make you a lot of money in the end. So, always try the long trades.

Learning from your mistakes

Learning from your mistake is very hard. But the professional Aussie traders always rely on their past trade to make a decent profit from this market. You might be thinking about the digital journal in the CFD trading industry. Being new to this industry it’s very obvious you will get confused with the long-term outcome of this market. But this is just like your traditional business. You can’t make any real progress unless you trade the market with discipline. To be a disciplined trader you must work really hard. But this is not enough to ensure your profit factors. You must develop the unique skills to learn from your mistakes. Fix your existing issues with the extreme level of care and trade the market with logic. Forget about the big winners even though you have access to high leverage accounts.

Using the daily charts

Before executing any trades, you must observe the condition of the market first. For that, you will have to look at those price charts that are changing in real time. It defines the condition of a market in any current situation. Looking at the charts also have some effects on your trading performance. When you use the smaller time frame charts, it will bother you more than using a longer time frame chart. Because the prices will be frequently changing, you will have to look at them more often. You have to keep up with the market to trade. But, being too busy with chart watching, you might get distracted at the right moment you have to trade. So, you must use longer time frame charts for example at least with 1-hour time span.

Focusing on the position

Timing is necessary for your trades. Otherwise, they might not make good profits. Because the market is not obsolete and it is constantly changing. One minute it could be by your side and the other it can be the opposite side of your trades. So, you must trade with accuracy on time. It is not possible for every trader or every time. But, you must try to improve yourself with time. If you have the focus on timing, one day or another it will get right. Just stay relaxed and look for the right moment to pull the trigger.

What’s a Limited Company and How Do I Start One?

building businessWhen you are starting up a new business there are a number of different ways you can set it up – one of these options is to create a Limited Company – this creates a business which is entirely separate from you and your personal finances.

1. What is a Limited Company?

The company has its own business name and its own separate identify. You need a business bank account and the business can make profits or loss. It can pay taxes and have debt, of its own, all separate from you as the business owner.

You have to have a company bank account – it can’t be in your name – and all money earned by the company have to go into the company bank account but this is relatively simple to set up.

It is important to understand that the company is separate from you as a person – if you want to have more control and be more involved then it might be better to set up as a sole trader – when you and the business are one and the same.

2. How to set up a Limited Company

The first thing you need to do is choose your company name, and then decide where it will be based. You also need to decide who will be within your company as well. Once you have all that decided you need to think about shares – if you have more than one of you owning the company you will need to decide what percentage you each own. Find out exactly how to set up a limited company in this step by step guide from Crunch.

3. Shareholders

You are able to add shareholders to the company but you should seek professional advice on this side of things as there can be tax implications.

4. Register with Companies House

Once you have decided on everything, you need to go to Companies House website and register your company for a low fee. You can do the whole process online. They will check if any other businesses have the same name as you and will ask who your company director and company secretary are.

It is often possible to do this through an accountancy firm. You need to be aware that being a company director comes with legal responsibilities.

5. A Memorandum of Association

Companies House also require you to file a Memorandum of Association which outlines why the company was set up and how it will be run. It can be used in tax issues or legal proceedings so make sure it is drafted correctly. You can write it but keep it as simple as possible in that case.

6. Consider professional advice

While the process is simple, if you get it wrong it could cause problems further down the line so you might want to consider getting expert help from your accountant or from a company set up specialist. There will likely be a fee involved but it will be worth it to get everything right from the start.

7. Working with your accountant

An accountant will often provide the support to set up your company for free as long as they then continue to work with you to deliver your payroll and taxes and support your business on an ongoing basis. It is definitely worth looking into for all of the help and support which you will get for your business from day one.

8. The business bank account

You don’t necessarily need a High Street bank for your business bank account but there are plenty of other options out there which can be set up quickly to help your business get off the ground without delay.

9. HMRC help and guidance

As a new business owner you need to understand your expenses and tax obligations as well as VAT potentially so it’s worth checking the HMRC website as they have a lot of information and advice for business owners.

They also run regular webinars and advice sessions on all kinds of tax-related business issues so check out everything on there to make sure you register with them for tax and if you need to register for VAT etc..

Again, it’s better to make sure you get everything set up from day one, correctly, so that your business starts from a positive footing. If you have any questions or doubts about business taxes you can also seek help from your accountant.

Setting up a Limited Company is a fairly straightforward process but it’s important to work out if this is the best route for you by looking at all the options first. If you do decide it’s what you want to do, then seek professional advice, from you accountant, before starting out so that you make sure everything is done correctly right from the start for your new business, giving it a good foundation.

Need Urgent Cash? Try These Tips

need money urgentlyCash in a Flash! Well, How to Generate Funds Quickly, Anyway

Short of robbing a bank (which incidentally, we’d NEVER advocate, just for the record) there’s precious few ways to get our hands on a lump of cash in an instant. Or so you might think. However, there are far more legit ways to fund ourselves, which involve neither masks depicting former Presidents of the United States and/or a job lot of Mini Coopers, if we’re mixing our heist movie metaphors. So, what other avenues can you venture down to put your hands on a shed load of money before you can say “This is a hold up!”

Which of course, it isn’t/won’t be.

Finding ourselves short of cash at times when we need it most in our life is not unheard of. On the contrary, as most of us will experience this feeling at some point in our natural, as it can happen to pretty much anyone. Scenarios which tend to create this sense of dread and subsequent cold sweat/blind panic include unforeseen car problems, unpredicted job losses and/or an undetected illness coming to bear. The question is, who do you turn to for help in your darkest hours?

Many people would suggest that you try a good payday loan lender, and there’s many arguments as to why this would be amongst the best choices you could make when faced with this situation. But then you must also be aware that aside from payday loan lenders there are a number of alternative methods you could look into, all of which might be able to free up some much needed funds here and now. Below we take a quick look at just a few of these.

Cash in Your Life Insurance Policy – Not all of it, obviously. It’s just that should you have been in possession of a whole life insurance plan for so many years; the chances are that you’ll have accumulated a decent amount of equity that you could, hypothetically, borrow against. Understandably, if you exercise this right at this juncture, the upshot is you’ll reduce the amount paid out at a later date, but on the plus side at least you won’t be accountable for any taxes if you choose to cash out (as it were) right now.

Home Equity Loans – Adhering to a similar principle to the one outlined above re: life insurance policies, providing that you’ve paid a decent amount into your existing mortgage plan already, you could be able to borrow against the equity of your property. Reverse mortgages could also be a makeweight at this testing financial time in your life, although they only really come into play for those who own their homes outright. But as a cautionary note, it’s worth remembering that both these types of get out of jail free cards come at a price. That price being both types of short term loans to yourself will need to be repaid further down the line. Failure to do so might put your home in jeopardy.

Consider Visiting a Pawn Shop – Careful how you spell/pronounce this one, but actual pawn shops (the modern, more socially acceptable version of these being the likes of Cash Converters et al) are in the business of giving you no-questions-asked short and medium term loans. And the best bit is, there’s usually no restrictions placed on the arrangement of said loans or how you choose to spend the funds recruited. The flip side is that pawn shops only ever lend you a percentage of your item’s monetary worth, plus they do have a habit of charging significantly high interest rates. Oh, and don’t forget. If you fail to repay the loan, your possessions become the loan providers. So think on, if it’s a family heirloom you’re swapping for some much-need folding stuff. That said, if needs must there are worse ways…..

Cards are a Gift Horse – A recent study revealed that in the region of £300 million worth of gift cards went unused in the past few years, which is a staggering amount of money to be sitting on and not actually doing anything for you. Collectively, that is. There are various ways in which to cash in your unused or wanted gift cards too, where monetary recompense isn’t quite the face value, but nevertheless better than the nothing it’s generating sat in your wallet or purse.

Rent a Room out – Most people are under the wrong impression that Airbnb rentals are all about summer holidays, and homeowners who allow you to rent out their gaff whilst they themselves are away somewhere for varying lengths of time. But this couldn’t be further from the truth, as a growing number of the website’s listings encompass both extra and/or shared room arrangements. So, effectively, you still live in your house but allow other (rent-paying folk) to come and go. Works better of course, if you live in a picturesque area and not next to a cement works or something.

Real Estate Investments in Australia – Private Equity in Commercial Property

property investmentsA portfolio solely consisting of shares, bonds and stock has the probability of generating low returns at higher risks. Commercial properties, however, have a potential to offer long-term returns as the market is more stable. Additionally, it diversifies your investment portfolio and opens up future possibilities of growth.

From a more professional aspect, commercial properties in Australia offer a better investment perspective. The cost of the building with minor customization work is initially higher but covers up the expenses through increasing returns. This is why you can observe an upward trend of people investing in commercial properties.

There are several ways one can invest in a commercial property including investing through Real Estate Investment Funds (REIT), which invests in public properties; or through private acquisition. Out of these options, private acquisition either through property syndicates or property trusts has seen prevalence in Australia. Choosing either one of the two is a matter of personal choice of the investor as both have different impacts on a portfolio.

But in the past few years, we have observed a huge growth in private equity as it gives investors more control. Besides that, people have realized that due to a growing need for commercial properties for rent, they have become a more viable investment option than residential properties. The points mentioned below are a few reasons why investors have been compelled to invest in commercial properties through private acquisitions:

High Returns

As mentioned previously, private acquisition in commercial properties yields higher returns on investment across the majority Australian cities. Since private investment gives investors the opportunity to do with their businesses as they please, most rent it out. This rent generates a higher returns than residential properties, making private acquisition of commercial properties a sound investment opportunity.

Portfolio Diversification

Putting all your money in just one industry or company might not be the most intelligent move, as it increases the risk of low returns. This means that if the industry or company fails, the stocks will lose their value and increase the chances of diminishing returns. Creating diversification in your portfolio by investing in commercial properties balances that risk. And since private equity eliminates the risk of a fluctuating stock market, it becomes an attractive alternative.

Low Risk

Private acquisitions, unlike publically traded REITs, are significantly correlated to the stock market. This means that if various economic factors change and fluctuate, it impacts the risks too. REITs have proven to be a volatile market with fluctuating return rates and indexes. Having private equity in a commercial property doesn’t involve this risk and increases the chances of high returns.

Active Ownership

While investing in public commercial properties might give you the chance to earn in returns, it limits how much active ownership you have in the business. On the other hand, private acquisition in commercial properties made through Stamford Capital Property Investment will give you the opportunity to hold a controlling stake in the business. You can do with the property as you wish to increase its value and maximize the returns.

From this, we learned that private acquisition in commercial properties have seen a prevalence in Australia as it gives investors a chance to add value to businesses and build a more sustainable portfolio.