Be Cautious When Investing Using Your Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) (Ep86)

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When investing in your self-managed super fund, it is important to still do your own research and not relay completely on a another advisor or another external company that’s helping you, either form yourself managed super fund or helping you to invest using yourself managed super fund. Recently there have been some issues and a man by the name of George Norwak from Chatterhew Group had his assets frozen and his travel restricted because of his work in advisement of other people’s self managed super funds.

Now obviously, this is going to be a big concern to those people who have invested with George but it also should be a big concern to you if you’re considering investing in yourself managed super fund.

It is still possible for you to get swindled and for you to get stung or purchase something that’s not going to be a great investment for you. So you do need to do your **due diligence** before buying any investment property using yourself managed super fund. It’s still your money.

A lot of people don’t think of their self managed super fund the same way they would think about buying a property themselves with their own money outside of this super. And so therefore they would rely completely on a an external company, or completely on another licensed advisor to help them and take their advice 100% without doing any research themselves.

In PositiveCashflowAcademy.com I have a whole tutorial, a whole module dedicated to ways that you can do research using free tools online and find out things like demographic, population growth and some key figures you need to know when you’re investing in property.

When investing in your self-managed super fund, it is important to still do your own research and not relay completely on a another advisor or another external company that’s helping you, either form yourself managed super fund or helping you to invest using yourself managed super fund.

Recently there have been some issues and a man by the name of George Norwak from Chatterhew Group had his assets frozen and his travel restricted because of his work in advisement of other people’s self managed super funds. Now obviously, this is going to be a big concern to those people who have invested with George but it also should be a big concern to you if you’re considering investing in yourself managed super fund.

It is still possible for you to get swindled and for you to get stung or purchase something that’s not going to be a great investment for you. So you do need to do you **due diligence** before buying any investment property using yourself managed super fund. It’s still your money.

A lot of people don’t think of their self managed super fund the same way they would think about buying a property themselves with their own money outside of this super. And so therefore they would rely completely on a an external company, or completely on another licensed advisor to help them and take their advice 100% without doing any research themselves.

In PositiveCashflowAcademy.com I have a whole tutorial, a whole module dedicated to ways that you can do research using free tools online and find out things like demographic, population growth and some key figures you need to know when you’re investing in property.

But it is important that you go ahead and you do your research yourself. There’s a lot of companies out there who are offering basically a complete package with self managed super funds.

They can help you establish yourself managed super fund, they can help you roll over your existing super, they can help you source and purchase property, they can help you with property management, they can help you with insurances, they can help you with taxation and they do everything.

And why do they do everything, well obviously, there’s money in that to be made for them. There are some companies out there who have been around for a long time, they’re extremely large, they’re extremely reputable and they’re great to go with but there are some players out there as well who don’t necessarily have your best interest at heart.

So what can you to make sure that you don’t get swindled with your next property deal in yourself managed super fund?

Do your Own Research

Tip 1 for me would be to do your research yourself. Don’t just rely on what the advisor is saying or what the company is saying. Don’t just rely on the data that they give you. Go out and do your own research and assess the property yourself, and assess the area yourself and decide whether it’s going to be good investment for you.

As a previous sales rep I know that there is the potential for sales person to spin facts and figures the way that they want to make something look like the best investment it can be. So something will always be presented in its best light to you, if the goal is to get you to purchase the property or to get you over the line. You need to understand that behind the curtain there might be some other things that you need to consider. So doing your own research is always advised.

At the end of the day, companies who are helping you invest with yourself managed super fund, I hope that want you to do well so that you can have more money so you can continue to reinvest and form that long term partnership with them that’s going to be extremely profitable for both of you.

Get your Financial Services Guide

My next tip would be to get your financial services guide which you’re entitled to, and that will help to outline any conflicts of interest which may exist and that way you can assess any deal that’s been put forth, look at the conflicts of interests that are there or may be there and then make a decision based on those facts as well.

Check Your Company’s License

Another tip would be – anyone providing advice on self managed super funds needs to hold an Australian Financial Services license. So you can contact ASIC if you want to find out if the person that you are dealing with has a license.

Because some people will act as advisors or will try and get you to invest in a certain way without holding license, so you can find out whether they have that license or not. That’s really one of the first steps you should be taking before you deal with anyone when it comes to yourself managed super fund.

Check Your Company’s Reputation

And last tip would be to ensure that the company that you’re dealing with has good reputation. You can do that by looking around the Internet, by finding out whether people had done things and it hasn’t gone too well, talking to previous customers if you can get access to them.

Overall, just finding out whether the company has been around for a long time, whether they’re reputable, whether they have their customer’s best interests at heart and then that way you can assess everything based on the information you’ve gathered.

So basically all I’m saying is don’t go in blind, do your research both on your company that you’re working with and the properties that you’re purchasing and don’t just believe everything you hear because even though it might be true it can obviously be spun in such a way that it makes it sound like it’s going to be a better investment for you than it actually is.

I’m not licensed as a financial advisor and so none of this is to be considered financial advice, it’s just general education to get you to go and do more research and to make sure you’re making the best investment decisions for your situation.