Managed Funds Ralton - Managed Fund

Hello everyone,
This is my first post, so please be gentle. I have been a lurker on somersoft for quite a while, and just love all the info and discussion there. I am not very good at computers - tried to post on somersoft but kept bungling it. Yes I am a baby boomer, not that they are all techno phobic like me. I love property and we (Hubby and I) have several properties but got ourselves negatively geared the last few years after what I call the "development debacle"... which was all my doing, tried to do too much and took too long doing it (small lot sub-divisions in Newcastle area). Market diving did not help either. Anyway, have sold a few and now getting some cashflow from navra Oz fund. We want to invest some new funds into another managed fund and wanted to ask Michael White about Ralton which he mentioned somewhere. Have tried to find it but no luck so far. Can you please tell us more about it Michael and how to find it? We are also putting some funds into Platinum Asia and maybe Japan, plus a bit in BHP and gold (nervous about $US). Share market is very new (and a bit scary) for us. Hubby got burned playing with CFDs recently. So we are taking it steady from now on.
Many thanks for your ideas.
Seaview

 

Seaview,

No problems. They're a bit of a boutique fund and only take on clients with $100K minimum. They've performed exceptionally well since inception and they trade the ASX. You can only gain access to them via a Financial Planner's recommendation and they use a complex financing structure so this is probably appropriate anyway so that it can be explained to you.

I was introduced to them as a possibility by my financial planner, Mark Raymond, of NFS. If you want to find out more then if you call their offices I'm sure they'll help you out. If you're in Navra Oz then you probably know Mark already. I personally stand to gain nothing by sharing this information so please don't read this as some form of sell on my part. I just reckon that Ralton looked good, hence my original post about them.

Cheers,
Michael.

 

Hi Seaview and welcome!

You may be well beyond this stage...but can I make a suggestion?

Have you sat down and analysed:

a) what have you achieved to date? - sounds like a lot more than most!
b) what have you learned so far? - e.g. are CFDs & developments definitely not for you... btw there's no right or wrong answers here!
c) what are you trying to achieve with your investing and over what timeframe?
d) how will you achieve the lifestyle goals identified at c)?

I guess what I'm saying is...if you can set the big picture that will guide you in implementing the detail. Because each time you consider an investment you can ask the question..."will this move us closer to our goals?"

Just my 2.2 cents worth.

Welcome to IE!

N.

 

Hi

Hello again. Thanks for replies.

Michael, I will call my adviser at Navra to discuss Ralton. By the way, congrats on your pending development. It sounds good. If you don't need extra equity once finished, have you considered not strata/torrens titling them. But doing a dual occupancy instead. If you are keeping them it saves LOTS in land tax and council rates (especially in Sydney). We have some properties with 2 houses on one lot, and the land tax is much cheaper where we kept it as a dual occ. But in another similar property, when we sub-divided the land, valuations and taxes plus council rates all doubled. Something to consider if you plan to keep them and don't need much extra equity. Of course later on you could always sub-divide/strata them if necessary.

Nigel, Re our investment plans - we have had a steep learning curve the past few years. Started with $150k equity in 2002 and used it (at 90% lend) to buy a million dollars worth of property, mostly in Brisbane but one on Central Coast. These doubled in value within 2 years, which was pretty neat! Along the way we discovered 221D forms, depreciation etc and finally started to reclaim some of the vast amount of tax we paid the government for 20 years with no deductions. If only we knew about this years ago .... oh well.

Our portfolio was neutrally geared after tax benefits and paid for itself. But I decided to buy some houses on big lots and chop off back yard and build/sell new lot. Only problem was that I loved buying property so much that before I knew it I had 3 on the go and did nothing for about a year. All the while the holding costs grew, then I started developing one of them and got bogged down with council (what a surprise). At the same time we managed to quickly do another one but the market had turned and we only came out even.

Worst of all was the accidental renovation (my husband almost had his finger amputated after it got infected, and the ceiling fell in on him - builder said it would not! )... and hubby never wanted to renovate to begin with, it just sort of happened, so I felt quite guilty for a while. I guess the good thing about that is that whenever hubby does something really dumb now, I find it hard to get mad at him, as he has been quite decent about the accidental renovation and his subsequent painful injuries and stress, and nothing he can do is as dumb as my development debacle.

Reading this back I sound like someone who jumps in without thinking, which is not quite true. I spend a lot of time doing research and have learnt HEAPS from all the mistakes I've made. Though it has set us back: now we are asset rich, and cash poor. If we had not developed and made a loss, we would probably be able to live off equity now through Navra fund and hubby could retire or do part time work.

I do not hate development, but don't have enough time to spend doing it now. It takes a lot of time and attention. (Why is it tradesmen almost always do the opposite of what you ask, unless you stand over them?) The next property project will probably be to just buy land and have someone else build a duplex. This way we have the benefits of a new property, and the extra rent increases cash flow. And we don't have to lose sleep over council hassles etc.from sub-division. If we need extra equity we can always strata them later. Also most of our current properties are rather old and it will be a nice change to not have such high maintenance costs.

Now we seem to be entering a new phase of investing, having discovered managed funds, especially Navra that pays regular income. And margin loans are just the best thing since sliced bread (of course they must be used wisely), but I wish I could borrow money twice against our properties, like I can with MFs at 50% ML ! Anyway, we plan to balance a MF/share portfolio with growth and income funds, some low and some higher risk. Hubby has definitely had enough of CFDs, but learnt a lot. Thankfully he did not have much invested and got out before latest fall in market.

Meanwhile, each day brings new ideas to explore, like how to avoid paying CGT on all the growth we hope to get from the Asian fund over the next few years. I was pleasantly surprised when my Margin Lender said they would give us cash anytime, with no questions asked, from the increased equity in our MFs..... so it would be possible to live off equity from your margin/MF account if you created a big enough buffer ..... I wonder...

Life is full of interesting possibilities, isn't it.
Cheers
Seaaview

 

Very interesting read Seaview.

Thank you for sharing. You've certainly done a lot in a short timeframe.