After watching the leader’s debate last night, one thing stuck in my mind, it wasn’t any particular party policy (at the moment it seems they all have flaws somewhere) it was… the poor old lady that is currently having to live on £59 per week as her state pension!

The thing that I find the worst about this is that, we all know that by putting our pension in the hands of the government, we are never truly in control. I, like many others, like to be in control of my finances and this is where I would like to make the case for the Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) known.

Not only do I like to know how much of a pension I will have to live on come retirement age, but I would also like to be able to increase this amount which will either mean me retiring earlier than originally planned or living a more prosperous retirement period. The only way you can truly take control is by utilising the money in the form of a SIPP. There are fantastic benefits available for people putting money into a SIPP such as attracting tax relief at your tax rate; this means that if someone is taxed at 40% the government will add 40% to any contributions they make towards their SIPP!

Another advantage to a SIPP is the ability to borrow up to the value of 50% of your SIPP to increase your buying power this means; if an investor has a pension value of £100,000 they can then borrow a further £50,000 against this, giving a purchasing power of £150,000.

I believe that the only real way to have a secure and happy retirement is to use a SIPP to invest in property, be it in the UK or Overseas. The returns available in our Cape Verde Investment for example, show that if an investor had a pension value of around £84,000 they could increase this figure to around the £300,000 mark in 10 years, and still have an apartment providing a net profit per year of £12,000! This is based on pessimistic figures, assuming that growth isn’t as good as it has proven to be over the past few years.

We think now is a fantastic time to invest in any property with your SIPP, especially those in Cape Verde; which is a real emerging country currently receiving 15% growth per annum and tourism increases of around 27.5% pa expected to top 1,000,000 per year by 2015.

For more information on investing in property with the use of your pension including unlocking frozen pensions contact info@freshinvest.co.uk

Is your pension working for you?

With the recent drop in shares values, do you know the real value of your pension?

A combined state and private pension amounts to an average monthly income of just £500, so if you don’t want to live your retirement in poverty it’s time to do something about it!

The situation is down to many factors. Few people know exactly how much they need in their pension to achieve a comfortable standard of living.

Pension values have dropped by as much as 40% over the last 2 years, the result of the recession is that many people have not increased their contributions in order to offset this drop. In many cases they have actually scaled back in order to pay for important every day goods.

In order to draw the most basic of incomes we need to accumulate a fund of at least £184,704 which would provide a monthly income of roughly £1,000 gross.

Want to know what the average private pension size is at the moment….just £25,000! That will pay roughly £125 per month. Add state benefit of £90 per week and you have a monthly total of less than £500 gross to live on.

To give you an idea of how little this is, most individuals need a retirement income of two thirds of their pre retirement income after they retire. To calculate what you need take your current monthly income and times it by 0.75. More than £500 isn’t it!

If we take a basic income of £1,000 per month, so £12,000 per year, times this by 25 (the average amount of years we are currently living after retirement) that’s £300,000!

If you aren’t already investing in a pension or you have sat back and ignored this problem, perhaps now is the time to take note and do something about it?

To make up the deficit pension providers normally ask you to divide your age in half and invest that amount of your salary into your pension, so a 40 year old will be expected to invest 20% of his salary into a pension.

So what are your options?

We have already discounted stocks and shares, only the most high risk share dealing we enable you to obtain the funds you need by retirement.

The answer in my opinion is property.

By purchasing a property and putting it in your Sipp you will gain all the advantages of high capital growth and rental income and be able to do so without dipping into your existing savings or re-mortgaging any properties you own.

Our properties on Dunas Beach Resort start at just £82,000, you would need a pension value of about £55,000 to purchase it outright or alternatively you can use part of your pension and top up the rest via cash or a loan.

We have calculated that it would take just 10 years for the value of an £82,000 property at Dunas Beach to increase to over £300,000!

That’s on an initial investment of just £55,000.

This is based on very pessimistic figures including:

• A 10% increase in prices per annum (15% for the last 3 years)
• A room cost of €110 per day (currently €150)
• An occupancy rate of 68% (currently 95% in 5* hotels)

As you can see Dunas Beach offers an incredible opportunity to get the run on your current pension plan and boost it to more realistic figures!

Transferring your pension:

Many of you will have a few pensions with different companies and moving all of these into a SIPP can be a long term project. Our IFA can take care of that for you; all you need to do is fill in some information on your current pension plans and they do the rest!

When this is complete (average time is 6 weeks) you are free to purchase a unit of your choice dependent on money available.

For more information on funding your investment with a SIPP click here.

If you have a pension and are interested in seeing how this works, e-mail us for more information.

Here at Fresh Invest we have been working hard, attempting to provide our investors with the means to build and prosper from a balanced portfolio.

Why is it so important to build a balanced portfolio?

A balanced portfolio will perform well in every market. You need to prepare yourself for every eventuality, for example. If there is another fall in house prices, people are likely to look elsewhere for places to hedge their savings or pensions and hopefully provide them with an income. This will therefore push prices up in the relative sectors, as demand increases people will look to charge more of a premium.

As markets become more volatile than ever, you should be looking to put your hard earned savings and pensions into a range of products where the value is governed by an increasing demand and a decreasing supply, during varying economic climates.

How about UK farmland? Well let’s get one thing straight we cannot create more land, neither can we build upwards, agriculturally. UK Farmland has been growing in value by 15% pa over the past 3 years where other investments have been decreasing in value.

We always need land

Another point is that if the UK housing market was to recover there will be uplift in demand for farmland yet again as housing developers start to look for land to build on. Putting further pressure on price rises as resources are diminished. Now if this happened and you were lucky enough to purchase in an area where planning gain is possible for further housing, this could greatly increase the value of your land!

Not only can alternative investments provide safe returns in uncertain economic times, many of them can provide great taxation benefits such as capital gains and inheritance tax relief.

There is a vast array of alternative investments on the market at the moment and without specialist advice you may not end up with a balanced portfolio at all.

So speak to the experts www.freshinvest.co.uk

So where does Cape Verde fit? With a sunnier climate than the Canary Islands and Half the flight time of the Caribbean, Cape Verde looks set to be injected with massive investment from developers looking for the next “sure thing”. When developing or investing anywhere, the most important factor to consider is “LOCATION”.

If you can find a location that has all the benefits of its competitors but still remains relatively unspoilt, you could be on to a winner. Cape Verde offers exactly that! It’s not rocket science to realise that with increased flight costs and many people being able to take even less holiday the British public is looking for a location to holiday that they can get to quickly, won’t cost them the earth to stay and perhaps most importantly has “Guaranteed sunshine”!

Many well known developers have pinpointed Cape Verde as the Place to Be over the next few years, land and property costs still remain relatively inexpensive with apartments starting from £72,000 and villas from £150,000. If you equate this to the classier parts of Tenerife which it is competition with, they are at least 50% below Tenerife values. Perhaps the best apsect is that this country made up of 10 islands, all of which are relatively unspoilt, the government wants to retain the lush greenery of the Caribbean whilst building up select areas giving the necessary infrastructure to support the holiday trade that looks sure to increase over the coming years.

Some forward thinking property investors have already realised the potential capital growth to be gained by purchasing property in Cape Verde. Property prices have started to increase, the last 2 years capital growth has been at around 15% per annum. Prices have been so strong that they seem to have become recession proof, the predicted slow down in buying has just not happened! If you are in the market for a holiday home or have grand aspirations of retiring abroad one day, why not take a look at the Fresh Invest website. In a climate where we have all seen our pensions probably halve in value, investing in a property that you also get to use and also could give you a return in double figures may be the best thing you ever did!

How safe is your pension? Is it something you think about often?…. Maybe it should be

Now, more than ever is the time to be thinking about a SIPP in Investment Property.

Did you know that for the first time in history the number of over 60 year olds in Britain is larger than the number of under 16’s? The reason for this is “The Post World War Two Baby Boom”

Between 1946 and 1964 there was a dramatic change in the planets demographics. There was suddenly a huge increase in the amount of under 16’s.

Average growth in the population aged over state pensionable age between 1981 and 2007 was less than 1% per year. Between 2006 and 2007 the growth rate was 2%! Source: ONS

Because of this the government is going to have a very large increase in state pension payouts.

State pensions are Index linked therefore as long as the economy is in deflation your pension is decreasing in size.

So the outlook is bleak for your pension? Now is the time to change this!

Invest in any of our overseas property to see long term capital gains and great rental yields!

For example: Our most recent overseas opportunity is Dunas Beach Resort in Cape Verde. Now I strongly believe that that this is one location not to be underestimated! In terms of capital appreciation you are likely to see at least a 15% rise per annum during the course of the first two years. With rental yields estimated at 9.4% (Pessimistic) this is a great place to invest.

Not only is Cape Verde receiving massive Foreign Direct Investments but demographically they have an extremely strong population with only 6.7% over the age of 65 this puts Cape Verde in a great position for economic growth.

To see our Blog on Cape Verde click here

To view details of all our overseas investment property click here