Now, it is possible for a person to purchase a property in Australia using their superannuation and utilise the tax benefits and other features of the home loan.

Home loans for a self managed super fund (SMSF) can be complex and it is recommended that you speak with a mortgage broker to help you research on the various mortgage loans available to find the best home loan product that suits your needs.

Legislation changes in September 2007 to the Superannuation Industry Supervision Act (SIS ACT) now allows super funds to borrow to invest in direct property or shares, subject to certain strict conditions.

How does it work?

Your self managed super fund (SMSF) wants to buy property (either residential, commercial or rural) but it does not have enough funds for the full purchase.

Your SMSF can make an equity contribution on the property and the remainder of the funds can be borrowed from a mortgage lender to complete the purchase.

Some advantages of using a SMSF to purchase property in Australia include:

• Greater investment choice available
• Your SMSF can acquire property worth more than its available funds through the benefits of gearing
• You have control over investment strategies
• You can invest in direct residential and commercial property
• Gain access to investment gearing opportunities
• Can be used for efficient estate planning
• Ability to own your business’ real property (but not operating assets) in the super fund
• Maximum 10% capital gains tax is payable on any capital gain if the property is sold after a minimum of 12 months and no capital gains tax is payable if sold during pension phase
• Maximum 15% income tax on rental income
• Your assets are secure as the mortgage lender does not have recourse to your SMSF’s other assets in the event of default
• Income from the property can help pay off the mortgage loan
• Interest expenses may be claimed as tax deductions by the SMSF which can potentially reduce your SMSF’s tax liability Features of SMSF loans
• The self managed super fund must purchase the property from an unrelated party – arms length
• Investing in property must be consistent with your SMSF investment strategy
• The property is held in trust for the SMSF, which is entitled to its income
• In the event of a loan default, the mortgage lender only has recourse to the security property. It cannot make claim to any other SMSF assets
• Your SMSF makes the loan repayments. After the home loan is repaid, legal ownership of the property is transferred to the SMSF
• Your SMSF can purchase any kind of property, for example, retail, commercial, retail or rual
• SMSF’s can deal with the property in the same way that a normal property investor would deal with their property, for example, lease it out, renovate, repair or sell the property. However, this is subject to the terms and conditions of the relevant home loan or mortgage
• The SMSF can pay out or reduce the mortgage loan at any time (subject to the terms and conditions of the home loan or mortgage)
• All rent is paid directly to the SMSF. Loan repayments are made in the usual way from the SMSF to the mortgage lender
• When the home loan is paid out in full, title to the property can be transferred to the SMSF or the property

The process of a self managed super fund for acquiring property works like this:

• Set up a self managed super fund (SMSF) through your financial advisor
• Set up a trust structure to allow your super fund to invest into the property or other asset that is appropriate
• Roll over your existing superannuation accounts into the SMSF bank account
• Speak to a mortgage advisor about lending for the purchase of your property through SMSF
• Acquire a property – you can also speak to us about our wide range of property developments available in Sydney
• Sit back, relax and watch your rental income come through direct to the SMSF

There are many complex laws restricting the use of SMSF’s to borrow money which you need to understand prior to committing to any loan product. We strongly recommend that you speak to a qualified financial consultant first before implementing any strategy, as they will be able to help you better understand and abide by these laws and also to advise you whether this is an appropriate solution based on your needs and circumstances.

Channel Seven television personality Larry Emdur is having another crack at selling his redundant Dover Heights home. Last September, the 417 sqm clifftop property was listed with price hopes of more than $5 million, but the extensively renovated P&O-style house failed to sell.

Now scheduled for May 30 auction through Daniel Baran of BHR Estate Agents, the price of the Weonga Road property has been revised down to more than $4 million – and no doubt Emdur will be hoping the price is right.

Before co-hosting The Morning Show with Kylie Gillies, Emdur was a game show host and last week  returned to  Seven’s late afternoon game show slot in a rebooted version of The Price is Right – a show he’s hosted twice before (1993 to 1998, and 2003 to 2005). A year ago Emdur and his wife, Sylvie, upgraded to another Dover Heights clifftop residence bought for $6.8 million.

By Gerard Minack, head of global developed market strategy at Morgan Stanley.May 2, 2012

It is at events such as these that our amazingly creative and driven young designers may seem to suddenly achieve overnight success.    However the reality, as with all successful endeavours, is far from fantasy.

Cutting a break in any industry usually involves an enormous amount of hard work, drive and passion as well as the possession of remarkable capabilities.  In every part of our community, there are young people working hard to realise their dreams.  They may be participating in social, political or civic sectors; or working long and hard to achieve their business or creative dream.

In this issue we also feature boutique bistros.  Those involved in this constantly evolving and competitive industry are often young self-starters who face their challenges with innovation, creativity, studying the latest trends and of course, many long hours of work.

So if you get thee chance, take the time to encourage our young entrepreneurs toward achieving greatness.   With young people like these, the future is very bright indeed.

Like most countries, Australia has certain restrictions on foreign investors, but basically, if you are looking to invest here, approval is usually granted if you are purchasing a new property, either complete or under construction.

As an introduction

Real estate can be purchased by anyone who is not an Australian citizen or permanent resident provided certain requirements are met.

Under Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) rules, a foreigner needs permission from FIRB before they can purchase residential property in Australia.

Permission will generally be granted if the purchaser buys a property in one of the following ways: buying off-the-plan (or during the construction phase) or when the dwelling is newly completed provided that it has never been occupied or sold.

New properties like The Lancaster development in Rose Bay are generally good purchases for foreign buyers.

The purchaser can buy a house/land package, an apartment, or a townhouse in this manner.

It is also possible for a student attending a recognised tertiary institution and holding a valid student visa to buy a property to live in while at university.

The simple guidelines in obtaining necessary approval from the Australian Government can be found by reviewing the FIRB’s Information Guide.

When a person buys a property, the Purchaser can pay the full amount for the property, or borrow part of the purchase price from a financial institution. In the latter case, in exchange for the loan, title in the property would normally be held by the financier as security. This is called a mortgage.

Ownership

Residential property in Australia is usually freehold, unless it is in Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). Freehold means the buyer owns the house and land in perpetuity (it remains in that person’s name “forever”). In the Australian Capital Territory, the land on which the house or unit is located is leased to the Purchaser for a 99 year period under a “Crown Lease”. At the end of that period, the Crown Lease will usually be extended for the payment of an administration fee.

The owner of freehold land or lessee under a Crown Lease (or their family) can live in the property or rent it out. The owner or lessee can also sell the property, gift it, or it forms part of their estate at death.

Title

A “title deed” is a term used to describe a document relating to the ownership of land, house or a unit. It is usually held by the owner. However, if a loan has been obtained using the property as security (and secured by a mortgage), the deed will be held by the lender (‘the mortgagee’) and the mortgagee will be named on the deed until the loan is repaid in full. In all Australian jurisdictions, the ownership of land is registered under a title registration system. That system also records the “interests” including mortgages.

Strata Title

Strata Title usually refers to multi-unit developments on one block of land, commonly known as units and townhouses. As they share common property, their ownership is governed under different rules to those for houses. They have a plan of subdivision, called a strata plan, which is registered at the Land Titles Registry. Under this subdivision each unit or townhouse is registered separately and individual titles are issued for each unit or townhouse in the plan.

An executive committee representing the owners corporation (made up of all unit owners) is set up to manage the common affairs of all the owners. Each owner will contribute towards a strata levy which will pay for managing the common property and meeting recurring capital expenditure.

Conveyancing

Conveyancing is the legal term for transferring legal ownership of title from one owner to another. This is the process that is undertaken when a Purchaser has made an offer for a property and it is accepted by the Seller. This process is traditionally carried out by solicitors or licensed conveyancers. The timeframes for such processes can vary depending on the urgency and circumstances of the transaction. Generally it takes four to six weeks from the time contracts are entered into (known as “exchange of contracts) to completion of the purchase when the Purchaser will take possession of the property. It usually takes between 6 – 8 weeks to complete a purchase from the time a buyer and seller agree on a price except in the case of purchasers of properties which are in the process of construction. Such purchases need to await completion of construction and timing will depend on the construction period.

Apart from the purchase price of the property, the other major fee is the government’s stamp duty on the purchase price (and, in some jurisdictions, on any mortgage).

Australian Visas

With the exception of Australian citizens, anyone entering Australia requires a visa.  The Australian visa system is complex as there are many visa categories:  apart from the Visitor category, there are also temporary resident (e.g. business long term or retiree visas), or permanent resident categories (e.g. Family Migration, Skilled Migration, Employer Nomination or Business Skilled).  Each category has its own range of visa subclasses.

As Australian visa rules change regularly and given their difficulty, it is recommended that you consult with an accredited migration lawyer or agent if you wish to come to Australia.  Your agent can assist you with obtaining the most appropriate visa, or the agent can advise strategic options for you to consider in obtaining Australian residence in the longer term.

Look, it’s about feng shui – the art of living in harmony with your environment. It’s recently started to boom in Australia, but is it just a flaky fad or is there really something to it?

Feng shui has been practised in China for more than 4,000 years – which you’d have to say is a pretty long run for any fad. It was first used by the emperors, who employed practitioners they called Masters of Di Li. Their brief was to locate cities and towns so that they prospered.

Today in Australia, feng shui is being used in business environments as well as in the home. Feng shui audits on properties are becoming more commonplace in the real estate world. Given the frantic pace of urban life, the idea of creating a harmonious sanctuary at home doesn’t seem flaky at all. Time to dig a little deeper.

Master Joseph Yu has just completed his third feng shui lecture tour in Australia. He’s a graduate in physics and mathematics and has studied feng shui in Hong Kong. Now based in Canada, he’s been concerned about the way “pop” feng shui has been taught in the West, believing it dwells too much on superstition.

Students at his Sydney seminar are a mixture of newcomers and experienced practitioners. It doesn’t take long for the complexity of the subject to be revealed, and by late afternoon this student still doesn’t have a firm grip on her bagua and ming gua, although she’s committed to giving her “red bird” (front yard) and “black turtle” (backyard) a much-needed overhaul.

Why would Master Yu, with his scientific background, choose to become involved with this esoteric ancient art?

“In the beginning I saw a lot of malpractice and people getting very superstitious,” he explains. “This is not the right thing to do. But unless I knew what feng shui was exactly, I couldn’t find fault. I studied and studied and found it made a lot of sense. I changed my attitude from sceptical to supportive.”

Does he think of it as a science? “We don’t claim feng shui is a science. We try to be parallel to scientific methods. When feng shui is practised in certain houses the effects are phenomenal.”

Sydney architect Howard Choy has been applying classical feng shui principles in his practice for more than two decades. Once Choy practised feng shui only for Chinese clients, but now 80 per cent of his clients are Westerners. Currently he’s involved in the upgrade of Chinatown as part of the Olympic 2000 capital works program – the first time, Choy believes, that feng shui principles have been used in an Australian urban renewal project.

“Feng shui is defined through energy,” he says. “It’s the flow and containment of energy in our environment.”

According to quantum physics, everything is made up of energy. This same principle lies at the core of feng shui.

“Original matter has energy – it affects you and you affect it,” Choy says. “The Chinese think nature is magical. It becomes alive. We look at a cloud and see a tiger. We react to it. We give a quality to a building – maybe fire or earth based on the five elements.” He likens a house to a human being – a friend. When reviewing a home for a feng shui consultation, his first consideration is always: “Where is the heart in this place? Can people get together here and talk?”

In feng shui terms, a house also has a mouth, the door. This is considered important as it is where the energy, or chi, enters.

“It is necessary to assemble the chi in order to assemble affection. Make the house feel like you love it, then the house will love you.”

But there’s bad news for people who live with clutter. It’s a big no-no because it “stagnates the chi”. Choy believes “the action of throwing out unwanted things means you clear your mind. Everything becomes possible.”

After examining the orientation of a site and its chi patterns, a feng shui consultant will look at its yin and yang qualities. The birth dates of the occupants are used to calculate the ming gua which is needed to find their appropriate element; fire, water, earth, wind etc. Then, if the house isn’t working from a feng shui perspective, the consultant will look at the furniture arrangement and find colours and shapes to give support. The aim is to arrive at a balanced and harmonious solution.

“Colour is very important. It has two aspects – psychological and symbolic. How a house smells is also important,” Choy explains. “We work on different levels, between the mundane and the spiritual.”

As well as doing “reactive” consultations, Choy designs and builds buildings based on feng shui principles. He won’t be drawn into discussion about the growing number of new age feng shui consultants, except to say that he thinks some have “idealistic, romantic concepts which they don’t know how to tie down to earth.

“My teacher, Master Ren, used to say ‘the further you fly the kite, the tighter you have to hold onto the string’.”

Choy was horn in China and migrated to Australia as a child. After graduating in architecture from the University of New South Wales in 1974, he moved to Hong Kong.

“My first project there was a hospital. A few weeks before construction was due to start the project was stopped because of bad feng shui.”

This prompted Choy to commence studying feng shui with Master Ren Zhi-Liang. Later he continued his studies with Professor Wang Yu-de in mainland China.

INSPIRED after reading a few books on feng shui, Siimon Reynolds, managing director of Moon Corporation, decided to incorporate feng shui principles into his home and work environment.

“I realised that a lot of bright, successful business people in Asia used it,” says Reynolds. “The more I investigated, the more I realised buildings either had good luck or bad luck.”

After a three-year search, Reynolds found his current apartment at 3/1 Wiston Gardens, Double Bay. The site has good feng shui elements; it’s near water, with a hill behind and a park nearby. The apartment is also a pure rectangle which is considered auspicious.

Iain Halliday, from Burley Katon Halliday, arrived at an initial design for the apartment’s renovation. Reynolds then approached Howard Choy for a feng shui consultation and Choy felt the plans had a few problems.

“Siimon decided to be quite strict about the feng shui,” explains Halliday, who had already worked in Hong Kong where, in his experience, feng shui problems were usually solved with mirrors.

In the Reynolds apartment the kitchen and bathroom were located in the centre of the unit which in feng shui terms was considered inauspicious. The entrance was narrow, which reduced the flow of chi, and in the bedrooms beds were placed under windows which was considered undesirable.

Bringing these matters to the attention of a designer could have been a delicate matter. Choy remembers: “I said ‘I’m not criticising your work as a designer, I’m just pointing out the feng shui elements’. The aim is not to curtail a designer’s input, but to deepen it.”

“We have a wide range of clients with a range of needs; feng shui is just one of them,” Halliday says. “We can work with lots of things. It’s another part of the brief.”

Another solution, incorporating feng shui principles, was reached.

“The end result is something we’re all happy with,” Halliday says. “From our point of view we’re pleased we could achieve it in a language we were happy with too. It’s a restful apartment.”

However, Halliday feels if a person is interested in using feng shui, the feng shui consultant must be involved at the beginning of the process. “Feng shui’s principles of restfulness and wellbeing are admirable and we’d like to think there’s an element of it in our work already,” he says. Reynolds says: “When you walk into the apartment you feel comfortable … A lot of feng shui is just good design. If you feel comfortable and calm it affects your thinking.”

3/1 Wiston Gardens, Double Bay will be auctioned by BHR Estate Agents on Wednesday 30 May 2012.    For a Confidential Discussion or to arrange a private viewing please call Daniel Baran on 0418 243 093.

Exquisitely finished and impeccably presented 30 Weonga Road, Dover Heights is a magnificent coastal residence occupies a commanding clifftop position overlooking the Pacific. Wrapped in mesmerising 180 degree views, an innovative, bespoke architectural redesign by Andre Baroukh in honour of its P&O heritage has transformed this exclusive, private retreat into a unique entertainer’s nirvana.

Step inside, and you are presented with the dramatic panorama of the Pacific Ocean through the curved glazed wall that surrounds the intimate living area. Signature curved glass walls capture nature’s dramatic oceanic beauty, while shutting out the elements with high grade acoustic glass  From serene sunrises to Mother Nature at her most spectacular, from majestic breaching whales to the spinnakers of the Sydney to Hobart, these views are to behold from every window, in every room, on every floor, indoors, outdoors and by the pool. These views are uninterrupted; and these views are yours forever.

At the heart your home is the large, custom-built gourmet kitchen, replete with designer finishes, beautiful arabascatta marble, European appliances and generous cabinetry. Sitting adjacent, with butler’s pantry and sound system, is a banquet-style dining room. Here, more dazzling views are captured through glass walls and doors that beckon to one of many alfresco terraces which provide the perfect setting for chic summer cocktails and lazy, sun-kissed Sunday brunches.

Ascend to the upper most level and you have arrived in your own penthouse-style master retreat. Reminiscent of international designer boutique hotels, your whole floor suite includes a sumptuous bedroom framed by glass walls and full length drapery, an exquisitely indulgent ensuite with twin vanity, rain shower and bathtub for two, an extensive walk-though dressing room to house this season’s hottest fashions and latest accessories, a separate dedicated home office and a wraparound outdoor terrace with fabulous views.

Guests, friends and family are equally at home when afforded the entire ground floor, dedicated to relaxed, casual day-to-day living. Currently with two double bedrooms and the capacity to create a third if required, this level houses a stylish, full bathroom, gymnasium and a wonderful open plan entertaining area that spills out to a north-facing outdoor terrace, saltwater pool and wraparound timber deck to while away those summer day, while those who prefer a more active outdoor lifestyle, you need only step through your private gate and onto the manicured lawns of Rodney Reserve and the coastal walk.

This is the ultimate lifestyle property. And it’s just waiting to be all yours…

See more of this spectacular home at www.30weonga.com

The home will be auctioned by BHR Estate Agents on Wednesday 30 May 2012.    For a Confidential Discussion or to arrange a private viewing please call Daniel Baran on 0418 243 093.