Review - Auckland Property Investors Expo

November 2007, Auckland Showgrounds

I attended the Auckland Property Investors Expo on day 1. I was expecting a little more from a prestigious sounding event. The expo was extremely small and I would have thought there would be more exhibitors and patronage. A possible reason for the small scale is the fact that the property boom and surrounding hype has died down stopping Property Investing from being investing flavour of the month. At least to Mom and Dad investors.

The first seminar I attended was the Ron Hoy Fong hour. Ron has been featured on many Investing programs on TV and he is a well known Richmastery Graduate. I have always liked Ron Hoy Fong after meeting him at a Richmastery seminar. He expressed some insightful concepts about the property cycle. In particular he talked about the wave of property price rises during the last boom in Auckland. He says that in the last 2 year boom period, the first rise of prices in Aucklands Central suburbs (Parnell, Mt Eden etc) took 2 years for those same rises to hit the outermost Auckland suburbs like Pukekohe. Essentially a ripple effect of prices rises, from the CBD, outwards in all directions. It is a very intriguing concept.

The next seminar I went to was a short presentation by GRA (Gilligan Rowe and Associates). They discussed Propert Investing Structures such as trusts and LAQC companies. They also covered tax minimisation techniques. I had seen the bulk of a standard GRA presentation before so the info was nothing knew but they have some interesting insights on immigration and property price rises.

I attended a presenation by How2 which seem to be an amateur developers advisory service. They talked alot of about different ways to develop property and how to assess possible development options prior to purchasing a property. I was alittle confused at how their business works but from what I understood they sell software to help you manage the development process and run a few seminars for more intensive techniques.

Hotspace was an interior design agency. Essentially they send a consultant around to the property you'd like to sell and advise on various design aspects that could be applied to give the property a lift in preparation for selling to obtain a higher price. Their before and after hptos did show dramatic improvements in interior and exterior changes which really did lift the appeal of the properties. Hotspace are not contractors or project managers, simply just consultants that come in and advise on how to decorate.

Sue Tierney, President of the Auckland Property Investors Association was up next to talk about her mortgage broking business Mortgages by Design. She had some interesting takes on banks and how they assess loan applicants. She explained the ratios they apply to applications such as (LVR) Loan to Value and (UCM) Uncommitted Monthly Income. She also fielded lots of questions from audience members on aspects of mortgage broking fitting their personal circumstances.

Sue also spoke in the next section about the Auckland Property Investors Association and the benefits to be gained by joining. Quite a convincing presentation and I know of a few people that signed up. Essentially the networking and industry news aspect of belonging to an association are great selling points.

All in all the Expo I found to be vsmaller than I expected and light on good content. It With 2 seminar rooms they were only ever each half full. I suppose the expo was really just a showcase of the support businesses to the private mom and Dad investors market.

Auckland, New Zealand