News

Testing times here in Australia. There has been flooding across most of Queensland and now also in Victoria. People have lost homes, possessions and even loved ones. It has been a very difficult couple of weeks. Our hearts go out to all the people this has touched.

These floods will affect all of us one way or another – for us the main problem is lack of supply of fruit & vegies. Many of these areas that have been inundated are our main suppliers of fresh produce. We have no idea how long it will take them to get up and running again. The farms that haven’t been flooded are very wet from all the rain so find it difficult to get their produce harvested and much of it is water damaged. Mostly with water damage, you can just cut that bit off and use the rest.

If you have been following my blogs you will know that the cost of fruit & vegies is dependent on supply and demand and we now find we have very limited supply and very high demand so prices have gone up accordingly, about 20% apparently. I believe this will be the case for quite a few months until farmers can replant and harvest.

For us it is really just an inconvenience, we are so grateful not to have been directly touched by the floods; our home, family and friends are all safe.

The silver lining has been seeing all the volunteers who dropped everything and turned up in their old clothes with the buckets, brooms, mops and hoses to help with the clean up. Thousands of complete strangers helping distraught families by giving their time and effort. Some people have lost everything so it was great to have a little bit of sunshine amongst all the rain, which is still falling. Tradesmen are being rallied to give their time and building supply companies to donate products to help with the rebuilding, the generosity has been overwhelming.

Property Investing

Feedback from The Investors Club is that very few of our properties have been affected. We have our great research procedures to thank for this, we don’t list low lying properties and now we see why!

Club Cares is also fund raising to help needy families with goods and money needed to help start again, many people did not have flood insurance or even insurance.

This may slow the capital growth for a while but I’m betting prices will still double in the Brisbane area in 8 years. Hopefully the infrastructure can be remodeled to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

‘Til next time.

Regards Arlene
www.tic.com.au

Don’t wait to invest in property – invest in property and wait!