I set-up my own boutique twenty years ago and have been contributing to superannuation since it came in 1992.
Anyway I’m a bit of a control freak so needless to say I want to make the decisions on how I invest my superannuation. After all it’s my third biggest asset after my business and my apartment and worth a pretty penny by now.
So a few years back I went to see a financial adviser about setting up a self-managed super fund and ended up seeing Kathy. She’s a power broker just like me and we get along wonderfully. She helped me with all the details of setting up my own superannuation fund. It wasn’t easy but, since my balance super is about $600,000, I’m saving myself a lot on fees and that kind of thing.
Then last year, the owners of the space where I lease my boutique finally decided to put it on the market and I couldn’t be more thrilled. My boutique is going great guns these days and a lot of my goodwill is tied up in its location. Plus, there’s a lot of room for growth in the area. So I went to see Kathy about how I might go about buying it.
After reviewing my situation, she suggested that I use some of the money from my self-managed super fund to buy half the property and buy the other half with equity in my apartment.
So now when I pay commercial rent, half goes to my super fund and the half goes to me! Kathy says later on down the track when I’ve made more super contributions, my SMSF can buy out my share of the property but for now I’m just happy with greater control over my own financial future.