Kate Hill - The Female Investor

liaise with your bank or broker to ensure the property is rightfully and legally transferred to your name, or from your name if selling, on time.

A solicitor can also give you legal advice around ownership structures, which a conveyancer cannot. Check their quals before proceeding.

Property managers are the middle person between the owner of the property and the renter.

A property manager will generally:

advertise the property for rent

screen tenants

process tenant applications

manage rent paid

maintain and repair property

stay current with landlord‐tenant laws

keep property records

keep accounts.

However, before you've even bought the property, they can assist you in these ways:

evaluate potential listings

inspect properties on your behalf

advise on potential maintenance items

provide you with a rent appraisal on each property you're considering making an offer on.

Property managers are an invaluable part of the process, and it pays to have them on board before you start your property search. There's way more on these fabulous people throughout this book!

Quantity surveyors document and assess each asset within a property and calculate the depreciable value to ensure that the investor maximises their tax deductions. This would include, for example:

measuring rooms using a laser measurer

recording an asset's brand or model number

photographing improvements at the property.

The information they record from their inspection is used to prepare what's called a tax depreciation schedule, which outlines the depreciation deductions that can be claimed every year at tax time. It's a must‐have for every property investor who owns property of a certain age and can make a difference to your cash flow — especially in the first few years of property investment ownership.

A building and pest inspection is a vital part of the property purchase process that you can, and should, have completed before or during the process of buying; again, depending on which state you're buying in. The report will list any signs of termite or pest infestation or damage, and will highlight any significant building defects or problems such as rising damp, movement in the walls (cracking), safety hazards, or a faulty roof.

The inspectors will check and inspect things like:

the interior and exterior of the building

the roof space

the under‐floor space, if there is one

the roof exterior

the land on which the property has been constructed

garages, sheds, drainage, retaining walls, fencing etc.

You can also ask for a particular item or part of the property to be inspected, such as visible signs of asbestos or operable smoke alarms.

Building and pest inspectors are an integral part of your buying process, so that you know what you're getting into. It's all about buying with your eyes wide open, and not getting any nasty shocks six months down the track. One last time — check their credentials before engaging them.

A lovely lady called Claire came to see Kate a couple of years ago. She's a more mature lady and she wanted to purchase an investment property to add to her portfolio.

What Kate thought was so amazing about Claire was that she already owned six (yes, you read that correctly) other investment properties. She still had debt on some of these properties, she owned some of them outright, and as they were also scattered across six different states in Australia, she had never actually visited any of them. They had been carefully selected, purchased, and held in her portfolio for the long term.

Claire's husband of 30 years had passed away fairly recently, so she'd gone through quite the process in terms of rearranging her finances and all the legalities. But here she was knocking on Kate's door raring to go with the next one. She knew what she wanted to achieve with her next property and had some specific criteria to follow in terms of purchase price and rent return.

There really is no limit to what women like Claire, who have a clear plan and know their own risk profiles, can achieve. It was a complete joy to bring Claire's dreams of real financial freedom one step closer to reality.

Start thinking about the experts who can help you.

Ask for recommendations from successful investors.

Make sure you check out their credentials before contacting them.

Ask for testimonials — if they hesitate, well, it's time to keep looking.

Your family may not have talked much about money, right?

Most of us certainly didn't learn much about it in school, which is thankfully changing, so that the next generation will be more clued up about money management than most of us ever were.

Talking about finance became a dirty word at some point in history, it seems. It likely had something to do with the long‐held power imbalances in relationships, such as the fact that most women stayed home and looked after the children once they were born. Many never went back to work again because of lack of opportunity or, ahem, permission.

The 1960s and 1970s started to change all that, with women heading back into the workforce in record numbers.

When we think about the hundreds of years of mainly men making all the money, then, women really haven't had long in the grand old scheme of things to learn how to make the most of theirs, have they?

One of our motivations is to help change that, so that women of any age can understand how to take charge of their own financial futures — whether they decide to partner up with a man or a woman, or not at all.

We think that improving financial literacy can only be positive for society and if we can help more women become financially independent by way of strategic property investment, then our time on this earth will have been used wisely.

We're not going to instruct you on what is the best way to invest in property, because it will be different for each and every woman.

Each of us has different hopes, dreams, and aspirations, financial or otherwise, don't we? We are all individuals who have diverse careers, incomes and responsibilities. Some of us have children and others do not. A number of us will get married in our 20s, others in our 40s, and some of us not at all.

You can see where we are going with this, can't you? Your property investment journey should be tailored and unique to you personally as well as your phase of life, and your wealth creation and retirement goals. Anyone who tells you otherwise should be given a wide berth.

Our hope is that you understand all of the ins and outs of property investment so you can make your own informed decision on what is the best path for you. Never again will a woman be hoodwinked by a spruiker if we have our way!

The first step for many women is deciding to prioritise their own financial future. The second is to save that first deposit which — we're not going to lie — has always been bloody hard.

Most of us don't have a Great‐Aunt Mildred who conveniently dies and leaves us a wad of cash to buy our first property with, do we?

In fact, we hope that more women will learn how to rely on their own endeavours to improve their financial lot in life, rather than banking on an obscure elderly relative, a long‐lost cousin, or their future, or current, partner.