Tips for financial advisers choosing direct property



Forrester Cohen chief executive officer John Moore provides financial advisers with some recommendations on how to help clients choose the right direct property opportunities.
1. Start with the end in mind
Think about timeframe, the purpose of the investment (is it for capital growth? cashflow?), the required return, and the investor’s risk profile.
2. Consider demographics when looking at residential investments
Population trends can be a great predictor of capital growth.
Each city has its own microeconomic climate where growth can continually outperform nearby areas – for example, in Melbourne, Prahran is popular with limited new apartment supply, while Docklands gets more apartment blocks on top of struggling demand.
3. Use the right research
Financial advisers need to refer to useful data to make a clear-cut decision, rather than real estate agent opinion or meaningless data on median house prices and average rents. Sources of data need to be interpreted through trends analysis to predict future results.
4. Get the risk profile right
With uncertainty at the front of investors’ minds, advisers need to understand more about the risk profile of their clients to be able to address their concerns and deliver what is required.
5. Consider costs
The holding costs of older properties are greater than new buildings, with higher maintenance costs and more time required to oversee maintenance work – diluting cashflow.
Reduced cashflow could be an issue for people holding investment property in retirement.
Recommended for you
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to discuss Australia’s stagnating productivity ahead of the government’s economic reform roundtable, and how picking all the “low-hanging fruit” for reform in the ’90s helped kick off a surge that has since stalled out.
In this episode of Relative Return Insider, host Keith Ford is joined by Cyber Daily deputy editor David Hollingworth to take you inside the evolving landscape of cyber crime, how even huge companies can be at risk of breaches, and what that means for anyone trying to understand the risks.
The latest episode of Relative Return sees host Laura Dew chat with Richard Ivers and Mike Younger, co-portfolio managers at Prime Value Asset Management, on their newly launched Microcap Fund and opportunities in small and mid-cap shares.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford dive into the week's top news, from investors remaining blasé about tariff announcements to bitcoin surging and unemployment numbers.