ACT real eastate slowing down ?

No, that was my point. I guess I didn’t express it properly. A licence holder can be held to be giving advice in any context, paid or unpaid, talking on the bus and overheard by a third-party, anywhere. It’s incredibly onerous, I guess because it was the only way ASIC could actually prosecute the rogues back in the bad old days. The point is that it is up to you to prove you weren’t rather than them to prove you were, which you do by ticking off a number of boxes on a checklist, which you cannot do if you don’t know the audience.

In reality, it’s almost impossible to meet 100%, hence my first post to Graham reminding him. Graham’s second post removed any ambiguity about whether he was giving advice or just a recommendation to do more research, which is a crucial difference.

I could go on and on but I won’t because we are already into shades of meaning and the reality is ASIC can remove your licence any time they want anyway. But it doesn’t help you if you give them a reason to want to. They are red-hot on anyone they think might be a rogue, even if you think you were just careless.

So, in context – as everybody who posts on RA is unpaid in that role (as opposed to financial planners or reps or holders of other licences who are providing a fee based service), you agree completely with my post above, and were merely stating the obvious for the less perceptive readers of RA…

Maelinar, anyone can talk about whatever they like. OTOH, Financial Planners or Reps or holders of other licences can’t, without doing some checking up on their audience first (that are too boring to detail). Believe me, ASIC takes it quite seriously, probably because of the rorts and rogues of the 80s and early 90s.

“It certainly is a busy time to be allocating capital! The stockmarket is piquing my interest more than property at the moment.”

Yep there are some interesting speculative buys out there in the resource sector.

I treat it like gambling just invest in speculative stocks money you can afford to loose or at least take a big hit. But when it comes off its quiet amusing.

This whole nobody’s allowed to talk about what they think might be good or not on the stockmarket is all bollocks. It’s not the f’ing secret service. Besides, anybody reading a paper in the last 3 years would know that the US and Europe have been handing out dollars hand over fist for fertilizers.

Well, it’s up to you, but personally I don’t do it, in public anyway. FYI, the advice from our company’s lawyers was that even dinner party conversation could be held to be giving investment advice. The issue that caused them concern is that the recipient of the details only has to believe you are an ‘expert’, that knowing you manage investments makes that a reasonable belief, and that therefore you are giving investment advice. Therefore they could potentially sue, or ASIC could decide to make an example of you for not taking due care. I suppose, like any advice from lawyers, it could just be arse-covering, I’m not qualified to judge.

You want to be very careful about saying things like that, Graham, esp on a broadcast public forum like this.

(25 years experience as a portfolio manager in wholesale funds management.)

Gentlemen invest in the stockmarket, not residential property.

I agree with “thetruth” the ACT housing slow down will be sped up by public service cutbacks, just as it was in 1997-98 after Howard Govt came to power. This time, the additional financial pressure for house prices to stagnate or fall will be the increasing cost of borrowing (thanks to the credit crunch) and the large numbers of baby boomers who will downsize and try to buy their dream townhouse on the coast. But if those boomers invested their super funds with the share market in its current volatile state, well… they might just be moving in with their 30-something kids for their twilight years.

We haven’t seen this level of interest rate since about 1997 when the average house price in Canberra was $140k (compared with $460k now). Wages (gross) have increased by about 50% (my guesstimate) over that period which make it equivalent to purchasing a $210k house.

Now there are a number of other factors so I am not suggesting that this is the real value of real estate, but it shows how sensitive folks are going to be when the double whammy of interest rate rises and slowing growth hit (we can feel more comfortable about borrowing if we know our salaries are going up through growth (but Rudd has a deliberate policy of making working families hurt to stop borrowing and stop spending)