It's valuable to always be looking at strategies to help increase your profits, but a less talked about aspect of property investing is the downside - identifying common traps that investors fall into, and providing warnings on how you can avoid them.

That's why we wanted to direct you to this article, "Common Property Investment Mistakes", by Damian Smith.  In it, he argues that investors run into three common problems: over-capitalisation, DIY, and lack of funds.

For over-capitalisation, Damian focuses on people over-spending - and on the wrong things!  He recommends that you limit your spending to 10% of the property value.

For DIY, Damian discusses the feeling that "doing it yourself" always saves time and money from hiring a professional.  In fact, as Damian mentions, it often ends up being far more time consuming, and more expensive!  Damian offers some alternate solutions to the DIY craze.

For lack of funds, the article addresses the common issue of hitting a wall with renovation costs, and what you can do to avoid this problem.

Click HERE to read the article now.

Tax Tips and Strategies:

Negative Gearing Explained

Negative Gearing is a concept that many property investors have heard of, but few fully understand. 

That's why we wanted to present this article "Negative Gearing Explained".  In it, the author does a great job of illustrating exactly what Negative gearing is, and looks at the positives and the negatives.

So what is negative gearing in a nutshell?  Basically, it is intentionally setting up the cash flow on your rental property so that you show a loss.  The strategy is that the loss will keep your tax burden low, and then when it comes time to sell you will make the money back (and more) in capital gains.

This strategy remains highly controversial in tax and investor circles, and this article does a good job of going into depth on scenarios using Negative Gearing, and what the implications are.

Click HERE to read now.

Excel Tip:

Formatting Data

There are many ways to format the data in Excel.  The key is to select the range first and then apply one of the formatting styles and then follow the menu path:   Format > Cells   or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL and 1 (one).

In addition, there are several options available from the formatting toolbar including:

• Currency style $10.00
• Two-decimal place style 10.00
• ...and percentages 10%

Borders can be placed around cells to give a more readable appearance. 

• Use the borders button...
• ...and its various drop-down options: