This change is for the best as until recently there was no requirement for Financial Planners or Investment Advisers to have any Financial Planning Qualifications or experience before providing advice to clients. Obviously this caused a huge amount of grief in New Zealand over the last 5 or 6 years.

So what is Financial Planning?

Financial planning is a process of setting objectives, assessing assets and resources, estimating future financial needs, and making plans to achieve financial goals. Many elements may be involved in financial planning, including investing, asset allocation, and risk management, Tax, retirement, and estate planning.

You will notice that investing and asset allocation are only a part of Financial Planning and this is where the significant difference between real Financial Planners and Investment advisers comes in, Financial Planners do all of the above whereas an Investment Adviser only advises on the investments they have to sell.

Financial planning plays a starring role in helping people get the most out of their money. Careful planning can help individuals and couples set priorities and work steadily towards long-term goals. It may also provide protection against the unexpected, by helping people prepare for things such as unexpected illness or loss of income.

I believe house prices, in the main centres, will continue to appreciate, especially Auckland which has already started to occur. This is due both to supply and demand. There are less new dwellings becoming available as there are fewer being built (especially in the apartment market), demand is increasing due to higher immigration figures, more Kiwis returning home and a natural population increase.

Interest rates will go up but in the second part of the year only as the Reserve Bank honors it’s commitment to the nation when it said it would keep rates low. The amount they go up all depends on the recovery happening, how strong it is and if unemployment is starting to fall.

Finance will be difficult to obtain for self employed, businesses and construction projects due to the demise of virtually all second tier lenders. This is a serious issue for the country and will hinder our future growth.

Each month the international credit crisis moves further into the background and hopefully next year it can be consigned to part of global economic history.

As you will see by reading the article Property has not been something Financial Planners in Australia could traditionally recommend (unless like me you also had a full real estate license).

Property investment specialist “Quantum Group” has launched a real estate product for financial planners to support clients investing in residential property.

Quantum PropertyLink Warrant allows financial planners to find, fund, purchase, settle and manage a residential investment property for their clients.

The product has been designed for the fee-for-service advice model where sales commission normally earned by a real estate agent is rebated to the financial planner, who can then choose to reimburse the client.

Quantum managing director Peter Gribble said financial planners have traditionally been limited to direct shares and managed funds because the industry was not equipped to recommend and manage retail property investment.

“We have overcome this problem by designing a very simple structure to encompass an investment property as a financial product, with a product disclosure statement and an independent research rating,” he said.

“Real estate agents generally aren’t qualified to provide financial advice and planners aren’t set up to search and find appropriate properties, so Quantum’s PropertyLink Warrant meets them in the middle.”

The product is designed so that financial planners can establish diversification for their clients with a prudent level of gearing of up to 70 per cent loan-to-value ratio, Gribble said.

“There is a big opportunity in real estate for financial planners as many of their clients are still jittery from the last sharemarket crash and want to diversify into property,” he said.

source:
Quantum bridges property gap for planners
Launches real estate product
By Victoria Papandrea

Investor Daily.com.au