The Government Just Declared War on Self-Funded Retirement

George Markoski They just killed property in super. The Labor government have been systematically dismantling the middle class of Australia, the Aussie battlers, the nurses, the tradies, that want to get ahead and actually retire on their own instead of relying on the government. For 25 years, I’ve watched governments come after the property investors, and last week they signed a death warrant on buying property inside your super. And I’ve watched this for 25 years, and the government’s always having a war against property investors. But the window’s open right now and not closed. I’d be jumping on this before the door closes, because this is your last opportunity. The government just declared war on self-funded retirement. Well, it’s been an ongoing war. George Markoski First they hit negative gearing, then they’re hitting capital gains tax, and now they’ve decided to hit borrowing in superannuation. So, what is this government doing? Well, the Labor government have been systematically dismantling the middle class of Australia. Those are the Aussie battlers that are working hard to create financial freedom. The Aussie battlers, the nurses, the tradies, that want to get ahead, invest in property, and actually retire on their own instead of relying on the government. That’s what’s happening. Really, the government should be encouraging people to self-retire, because each person that self-retires saves us a lot of money, and that’s going to be our biggest expense in the future. George Markoski So, we’re literally waging war on the people that are actually making it easier for the government in the future to help people that retire, which is crazy. But what really annoys me is this wasn’t about property, right? What the headlines say. So, what happened is the Labor government, they got these new negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms that they want to put in because they want to get a bit of extra money out of the middle classes. They’re always trying to squeeze out of us. And they couldn’t get it through without the Greens voting on it. Now, the greedy Greens, for some reason, want to stop people from borrowing money in their self-managed super fund, even though it’s like 1% or 2% of the whole borrowing anyway. George Markoski So, what they said is they said, “We’ll support you if you support us.” They’re saying, “Labor, I know you want to screw over all the middle class with negative gearing and capital gains tax, but we want to screw them over this way instead. Let’s join forces, and we’ll help each other do that.” Literally what they’ve done. So, let me go through this. This is what’s happened in Australia for the last 20 years, which is sad. Sad fact. Australians aged between 20 and 30, their income has improved by $0 net over 20 years. Just let that sink in. This has never happened before in history, because normally what happens is wages go up, people have more opportunity, they make money. We’ve got a very rich country, and we do very well. One of the richest countries in the world. But the issue is: where is our wealth? Where is it going? George Markoski How are we sharing it out? And the fact of it is the government keeps squeezing the middle class and giving more and more tax concessions to all the big corporates and all the rich, and this is what’s been happening. So, the $1.9 million cap on superannuation. All right? $1.9 million per person can sit in pension phase completely tax-free in Australia, and couples can do $3.8 million. But earnings above that cap are next in the crosshairs, and this is what they’re looking at doing. Balances above $3 million have already got a double tax of 30%. So, think about this. They’ve doubled the tax on money that you’ve put away for retirement, which is crazy because it’s supposed to be tax-free. The current pension phase is taxed at 15%, up to $3 million. George Markoski But they’ve legislated 30% tax on earnings above $3 million, and now they’re looking at lowering the target to $1.9 million, so they can get more money out of your super. Because superannuation was created so people could self-retire. It’s literally you and your employer putting money away, so that way you’re not a burden on the government. Which is a great thing. I love it. It’s awesome. However, now the government is looking at it like a piggy bank, and now what they want to do is raid it. So, if you look at every other wealth vehicle when it comes to tax, you look at property, super, term deposits, and shares, negative geared property sits at 22% versus 45% for term deposits. And when super now is going to be 30% anyway, if you’ve got more money than that, then even super is more tax. George Markoski So, the fact of it is, property is the best tax haven still to this day if you know what you’re doing. And what’s happened is the Labor Party, they’ve attacked tax, and they’ve made it more difficult. But the smart investors still know how to use all the loopholes, and they’re still around, and we’re still getting the tax deductions and still doing what we need to do. That’s the beauty of it, because you’ve got to know the rules, and you’ve got to follow the rules, and use the rules to your advantage. So, this is the thing. Australia Has got a total of 3.9 trillion in superannuation assets. The world’s fourth largest pension pool. That’s amazing. It’s astounding. With that sort of money, the government’s got his eyes on it and wants to get some of that money back now, and that’s the issue. Now, look at this. George Markoski So this is the problem with the frozen tax bracket, because the top tax bracket has sat at $190,000 since 2008, but wages have risen 78%. So what happens is, every time you make more money and inflation goes up, your expenses go up. So obviously, your wage needs to go up. However, the tax bracket doesn’t move, so people keep flowing into the next This is called tax bracket creep. It’s a very sneaky way of getting more money out of people, because literally the tax bracket should actually be indexed on inflation, but it’s not. And therefore, or not even inflation, wages going up, and it’s not. And therefore, what happens is, as you make more money and things are more expensive, you’re paying more tax. That’s why we live in a country that’s got the highest tax in the world. And this is the thing that I want to rant about. George Markoski This is the one thing I want to talk about. They just killed property in super. That’s it. They’ve killed it. They’ve destroyed it. It’s not law yet, but let me go through the timeline and tell you what’s happening. But this is the big news. You’ve only got 45 days and the door shuts for good. Forever. And the thing is, these sort of things, when they close, they never get opened again. That’s it. This is our last opportunity. So, for 25 years, I’ve watched governments come after property investors, and last week they signed the death warrant on buying property inside your super. I’ve watched this for 25 years, and the government’s always having a war against property investors. And for the last 25 years, each time, we got around them. George Markoski When they introduced GST, there was a window, and they said, “In 30 days’ time, everything’s got GST.” What do we do? We bought property. And what happened? We saved 10% on the property purchase and made 10% instantly. So, pretty powerful. Before the CGT changes happened just only a few months ago, if you bought before that date, you could’ve saved yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now comes the next fork in the road in this never-ending sequence of governments closing loopholes and us finding new ones and moving forward and creating the best way to invest. So Albanese and Chalmers, they cut a deal with the Greens. And the new rule, your self-managed super fund can no longer borrow to buy a home. It’s not harder, it’s banned. Full stop. I’m going to read this to you. George Markoski I did a rant about this a couple of days ago because I was really p****d off. And what happened was I had people comment on my video, and there was one comment. It was very interesting. You know, I’ve got people like this saying, “Why isn’t the few selfish investors complaining about this government? I’d like to know what you really stand for.” Right? So people are obviously p****d off about us investors, and the reason they’re p****d off is not because we’re the problem, it’s because the media and the government try to create us versus them. I’m not against people that don’t invest or don’t have money. I want to help them as well, because I was one of those people once myself. I remember when I was 18 years old, I had no money. My parents didn’t have money. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon, and I knew I wasn’t going to inherit anything. George Markoski I read “Think and Grow Rich” and thought, “You know what? I’m going to program myself for success. I’m going to make money.” Right? I never thought, “Those rich b******s, I hate them,” or investors. I thought, “I want to learn from them. I want to be like them.” Right? What causes people to be upset with investors? Because this person and other people that are getting upset and thinking, “Oh, the rich people want to borrow money as superannuation and buy property.” Well, no. The rich people don’t need to borrow money to buy property. They can buy it in cash. They’re rich. Borrowing money in your SMSF is a great way to self-retire and fund your retirement, which saves the government lots of money, but also creates a better lifestyle for you, who’s doing it. And I think it’s a great idea, and it’s sad that they’re closing it. George Markoski So what’s actually changing? New loans to buy residential property in your SMSF, no more, finished, nada. The strategy itself is switched off for good. So what happens normally, you get a self-managed superannuation fund, and you start a bare trust, and the bare trust borrows money on behalf of the superannuation, and it’s a recourse lending. And back in 2019, the government actually floated canceling it then, actually. And what happened? Well, Westpac and a couple other banks actually stopped super lending straightaway, even when the laws didn’t even change. That’s the other challenge, right? So now, this is the thing. If you’ve already got a property in super and you’ve got a loan- You’re totally fine. So what’s still safe is loans you already have, commercial property, shares, EFTs, and managed funds. George Markoski Now, I’m finding it crazy that I’ve got to keep talking to people about what’s gone forever and what you can still do with this government, because this government keeps making all these amazing, sad, terrible changes to our financial future and ability to borrow money. Right? So it’s crazy what they’re doing, and I’ve got to keep telling, explaining things and where is the end of all this? Where are they going to keep going? So let me show you the timeline. So 25th of June 2026, that was the deal struck with the Greens. Behind closed doors, cloak and daggers meeting. They said, “We’ll help you if you help us.” Right? And 45 days after it’s signed, then it’s law. That’s the legal countdown. The real one is faster. So by the 2nd of July, the Senate votes it through. Then the royal assent clock starts. George Markoski So if you’ve got 45 days, it’s going to be around mid-August. But I wouldn’t wait for mid-August. Not a lot of time anyway. But the thing is, in order to get an SMSF loan, one, it needs to be legal, which it is at the moment. Two, you need to find a bank to do it. And last time they said they were canceling it, some banks pulled out of SMSF loans altogether. So what’s going to happen is, one, it’s going to be challenging because a lot of people are going to be jumping on the bandwagon. I know our phones, our emails have gone nuts. We’ve had a lot of people scrambling in that have been sitting on their hands thinking about buying property in the super. Now they’re pulling the trigger and doing it. So what’s going to happen? There’s going to be a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. George Markoski And superannuation properties are difficult because you can’t buy a two-part contract. So what a two-part contract is, if you buy a house and land, you buy the land, and then you buy the build a property on top of the land. Well, you can’t do that in superannuation because you’ve got a bare trust and you’ve got a limited recourse. So because of that, you can’t do that. Because there’s less people giving loans in super funds, it’s harder to get and the interest is slightly higher, and sometimes you’ve got to pay a bigger deposit. Also, because you’ve got these new negative gearing and capital gains tax rules and everything else like that, brand-new properties are a lot more scarce than they used to be because now the smart investors are buying brand-new properties, and for a super fund, that’s what you want. George Markoski So there’s going to be limited properties with a lot of people wanting to get them. What I suggest you do is get your ducks in a row. If you’ve already got a self-managed super fund, great. How much money have you got in your self-managed super fund? How much can you borrow? Get a house. This is what I’d be doing. I’d be jumping on this before the door closes because this is your last opportunity. If you haven’t got an SMSF, can you get one in time? And then do it. Now, you need to talk to a super specialist for this because I’m not licensed to talk about super. All I can talk about is what we’ve done and how I do it, and I’m going to go through a real live example of one of our clients who bought a property in super and see how he did. But we have plenty of people in our group, lots and lots, that buy property in super. George Markoski It’s a great way of doing it. So it’s not law yet, but it’s coming. The deal’s done. Labor plus the Greens have the numbers. This is going to pass. Then the 45-day clock starts. But the window’s open right now, and not for long. So let me be straight with you. This is really, really urgent. And back in 2008, what happened was all these people lost money in their super, and a lot of retirees lost 50% of their whole retirement fund because of the share market dropping. And look, this was never about housing, right? Because cutting borrowing for SMSF is not going to help the property supply one iota. It’s only 1% or 2%. If you borrow money in super to buy property, you’re not allowed to live there yourself. You have to rent it out, which means one more house for someone to rent out, and we’ve got a rental crisis. The Greens wanted it. George Markoski That’s the Greens for you. The– What– It puzzles me about their real wants, what they want, because whatever they want, I definitely don’t want. Labor needed it, the vote, to push through the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. So that’s why they did it, because otherwise Labor would’ve done all this kerfuffle and wouldn’t be able to push through this stuff. Because, I mean, who benefits out of this? What’s the point? Are the Greens getting money from the stock exchange or the big super fund managers saying, “Stop that so we can get everyone back in” because they kept You know, the big super funds were losing so many people because people were leaving in droves, literally, and getting their money out of these stupid super funds where you pay lots of fees and they just put an index fund and hope for the best. George Markoski They don’t do any work for you, but take all these management fees out and basically rip you blind, and you don’t get the return that you want. And then what people are doing instead is putting in property and seeing their properties going up and making real money. They’re protected from market fluctuations because stock market can drop 50%, property can’t. Property can drop 5, 10%, and what happens? It bounces back anyway. So as long as you wait through it, it doesn’t matter. So what do they do? They put everyday property investors on the table when they traded you away. That’s what they did. And like I said, this won’t build a single home. It won’t house one single renter. Their claim, it’s going to ease the housing crisis and help first home buyers. It won’t fix a thing. This is the math. George Markoski SMSF borrowing is around 1% or 2% of all lending. Zero new houses get built, zero first home buyers get helped. It’s not policy, it’s a press release. That’s what it is. And this is the part that hits. They’re punishing the responsible ones. That’s what they’re doing. So the people doing exactly what they’re told to do, to take charge, self-fund your retirement, and stop leaning on a pension. And that’s who they’re trying to punish. So those are the Australians that it hits, not the big end of town. The tradie, the nurse building a future inside their super. And that’s the part that really annoys me. What annoys me, one, is the whole narrative that goes against investors because investors, one, have to work hard, they have to save hard, they have to take risk, and then fund their own retirement and lifestyle. George Markoski And then people are like, “Oh, wow, they’re bad people.” That’s just ridiculous. Don’t be so stupid. And like I said before, in 2019, same idea. The banks didn’t wait. NAB, Westpac, CBA, ANZ, all pulled SMSF lending before a single vote was counted. So the announcement alone killed the market. This could happen again. So forget mid-August. That’s the legal date. The real deadline is whenever the last lender pulls the product. A handful of non-bank lenders are all that’s left. When they go, they go overnight. They don’t get a warning. That’s it. It’s finished. So this is the deadline no one’s telling you about. So the key is you’ve really got to get your ducks in a row as soon as possible. But the good news is, if you’re already in motion, you’re protected. So if you’ve already got something set up, you’re protected. George Markoski The other thing is, with this 45 days, we’ve got till mid-August to really get our ducks in a row and get involved in having a property in your super. What I love about property in your super is, one, you’ve got a real asset that’s growing. Two, you’re housing someone and helping the rental crisis. Three, that property, that’s going to double every seven or 10 years. Most of it’s going to be tax-free, which is awesome as well, when you sell it. So the existing loans are untouched. They’re fully grandfathered. But the line in the sand, this is the important thing, this is the legalese, it’s the contract date, not the settlement, not the expression of interest. Contract date. George Markoski What a contract date is, when you sign an official contract, you need both parties to sign it, and that’s when it’s executed, and that’s the date that says, “Am I in the window? Am I out of the window?” It’s unambiguous, black and white. So what you got to do is make sure you exchange before it starts and you’re in, even if it settles months later. So if you got a house or a townhouse or an apartment, even if it wasn’t built yet, even if it’s not built for another two years, if you got a contract and you’ve paid for it, you can get a loan for it, and you can have it in your super. So five years from now, there’s going to be two types of people. Those who say, “I wish I’d set up my fund in 2026 and taken advantage of the last possible time ever to buy a property in my super.” And those who did. Which one are you going to be? George Markoski That’s the question. So these are the three moves you need to do before the door shuts. Number one, see if super is the right structure for you, because it’s not right for everyone. And for some people, it’s just not the right thing. So if it’s the right thing, get the right advice. Don’t guess on this one. I’m not giving super advice, I’m giving property advice. And what I’m saying is get the proper advice for super, and if you can afford to buy property and they think it’s the right thing to do, then do it. Then what you got to do is set up your SMSF, get your finance pre-approved. This is the bit that takes time, and start it today. George Markoski And what I suggest you do is when you set up your bare trust, because that’s going to have the loan, have a very unique name, so therefore, you can still do what you need to do, and you know you’re going to get that name. Because if you have a name that someone else has already got and you start doing paperwork and things like that, could get messy. And then buy the asset, exchange contracts before commencement. Contract date locks you in, and that is the line in the sand. And now waiting is a decision as well, but it’s the wrong one. So that’s what we need to do, guys. That’s what you have to do. You got to get your ducks in a row now, and you got to follow this. And really, if you’re part of my program, Positive Property, reach out to your coach. George Markoski If you’re not part of our program, type in super and one of our team will reach out to you and see if it’s appropriate and see if we can help you. But don’t delay. Do it now. Type in the chat now. Type in super. Or if you’re listening to the podcast, go to my website, positiveproperty.net. Fill in the form there. Find me on social media. Do what you need to do. So why listen to me? Well, 25 years. I’ve helped 3,500 Australians invest in property. Retired at 37 on property. Media sells fear. Banks sell restriction. We sell strategy. This is the moment strategy beats fear. Bottom line is, this could be the last chance to own property inside your super ever. The door is closing forever. So don’t let it close while you think about it. Let’s get your fund sorted before the window shuts. So comment super and see if we can help you. George Markoski And now I’m going to go through some wins for our clients. Real people, real results. Okay. This is Simon Hatters, and if he’s on here, I’ll say hello once I finish this. So this is Simon. He got an investment property in Northgate, Queensland. So what he did, Simon started up a super fund, and he got this property in Northgate. Because I like this because it’s an actual super fund, and he paid $429,000 for it. It’s a one bedroom, one bathroom, one car. So 10% deposit in his SMSF, $42,000. Settled November for $430,000. Current value is $630,000, so he made $200,000 in this deal. Pretty awesome. Now, the investment property, Caboolture, this one here, three bedroom, two bathroom, one car, $550,000. SMSF deposit, $55,000. Settled October 2025 for $550,000. Market value now $735,000. Current profit $184,000. George Markoski So total profit $385,000 in one and a half years in his superannuation. Now, there’s no way in the world your super fund could do that in one and a half years, at all. Impossible. If Simon’s here, I’d love to say hello. No, he’s not here. That’s okay, I’ll go on to the next one. This is David Cachia. Okay. Cachia bought a property in Caboolture, $550,000. Three bedroom, two bathroom, one car. Used 10% deposit, $55,000. Settled October 2025 for $550,000. Now it’s worth $735,000. Made $184,000. So if you notice, this is the same one that Simon invested in, but Simon did a super one, and David did his in his personal name using his equity, and he made $184,000 in eight months. George Markoski Okay. Now, David. Hi, David. David Cachia G’day, George. How are you, mate? George Markoski Very good. Yourself? David Cachia Yeah, really good. George Markoski Excellent. So I want to talk a bit about your investments. Pretty exciting. First, I want to talk about how did you decide to get involved in property investing? David Cachia So I’ve probably done what everyone else done. I tried to do it myself. Early days, I did okay. I bought a property next to my house where I live. It’s done okay. I’ve still got the property. So it’s done okay, but it took its time to get to where I wanted it to be. And then I bought a property in Sydney. I did a bit of renovations and I sold that, got a little bit of money out of that, but it wasn’t really that good, and then I sort of just let it go. I didn’t try again. And then, yeah, I found probably about maybe eight years later, I saw yourself on Facebook and, yeah, I thought I’ll bite the bullet and let’s go for it. George Markoski So tell me, you joined Positive Property. And why Positive Property in particular? David Cachia I looked at a few other companies to do this sort of thing. And the thing I loved about you guys is that you were actually buying property as well. The team was buying property in the same areas. And I thought, if they’re buying property there, well, so am I. George Markoski Okay. Excellent. David Cachia So that’s what really got me over the line, for sure. George Markoski Okay. So what got you over the line is we actually practise what we preach. David Cachia Exactly. Yeah. George Markoski And I like most of our staff actually used to be clients, which is pretty cool. That’s where we normally hire our staff from, if we can. Otherwise, you can’t get all your staff from your clients, but yep. And how was the process after you joined Positive Property? How did it go getting to your first? You got one property now. How did that go? David Cachia Yeah. It was a little bit tricky at the start. We had a few little hiccups and stuff, trying to get loans and getting it all through. But look, we stuck at it and the team managed to pull through, and we got it over the line. But after that, it’s been a really smooth process. I’ve signed a contract for my second one in my SMSF. George Markoski Oh, right. Excellent. As we’re talking about it. So you’re going to get there in time, too. David Cachia Well, yeah. It’s in the one in Muswellbrook. So I signed that probably, yeah, six months ago, whatever it was, something like that. George Markoski Beautiful. So the 45 days is not going to affect you, fortunately. David Cachia Well, I’m thinking maybe I’ve got to get onto Aidan and try and see if I can squeeze another one before that happens. George Markoski If you can, possibly totally worthwhile. Because you’ve got this 45-day window, and that’s it. Then you’re going to be one of these few people in Australia that own property in SMSF when no one else can. David Cachia Yeah. George Markoski Because they keep trying to close every door on us. And look, what I find interesting, you had a few hurdles as the way through. Right? It wasn’t smooth sailing. David Cachia No. George Markoski You just didn’t walk in, buy a property, and make $185,000 doing nothing. You had to put a bit of work in. David Cachia Certainly did. And even at settlement, it was only got to do with my. It was all good getting the loan. I had plenty of overtime with my work. And then as we went to do the settle the loan, my overtime wasn’t as much as it was when we actually signed the contract. So the bank wouldn’t accept it. So I had to just go with another lender. And Aidan pulled some strings and got it over the line pretty quickly for me. And since then, we’ve refinanced again back to that same bank that wouldn’t give me the loan six months ago. George Markoski Yep. Exactly. But that’s the thing. David Cachia Yeah. George Markoski If property investing was easy, everyone would be doing it. And a lot of people don’t realize that you’ve got to go through all these hurdles, but do you think it was worthwhile going through those hurdles? Like the work. You did a bit of work to get there. David Cachia Totally. Yeah, mate. Yeah. It’s really good. Really good. Loving it. George Markoski Because now you’ve got two properties under your belt. David Cachia Yeah. George Markoski And how long you been with us for? David Cachia Well, three. I’ve got three now. George Markoski Oh, three. Yep. And how long you been with us for? David Cachia I joined in October in 2024. George Markoski October 2024. So I think you’ve done very well. David Cachia Yeah. George Markoski Because there’s a very rare amount of people that own more than two investment properties, and you’re one of them. And you might even get your third now, which is exciting. David Cachia It’s good. Yeah. Loving it. Yep. No, the team’s great. George Markoski What would you say about our team? David Cachia Love the team. Really good. Just clear as crystal. Always just nailing it for us all the time, giving us all the options. They’ve made it really easy for us. George Markoski That’s fantastic. And what would you say to someone if they were looking at Positive Property, they were thinking, “Should I join, shouldn’t I? Is it worthwhile?” David Cachia Jump on the G train, mate. Let’s get on it. Get on George’s train, and get in there and get given property. It’s really good, so for sure. George Markoski I love that. Jump on the G train. I like that. David Cachia Yeah. Yeah. Love it. No, it’s been fantastic, George. So, I can’t complain, and I’m happy I done it, and we’ll just keep going. George Markoski Excellent. Excellent. Great. Thank you. I really appreciate you. Keep kicking goals, and I might see you in September, in October in Queensland. David Cachia I certainly will. I’m there. George Markoski Okay. Very cool. You’re going to be there? Awesome, great. David Cachia I certainly will. George Markoski Okay. I’ll see you there in person. David Cachia Cheers. Good on you, George. George Markoski Thank you. George Markoski I’ve missed out all the questions. If someone can read the questions out, I might do the Q&A quickly. And then once we do the public Q&A, we’ll go into our private group. Okay, someone just said, “If we can no longer use SMSF, can we buy property using our super in a trust? Not sure if I’m asking this correctly.” Vic, you can buy a property in your SMSF. They haven’t closed the door on that. They’ve closed the door on borrowing money in your SMSF. But that means that if you want an $800,000 property, you need $800,000 in your SMSF. Previously, you used to use a trust with your super, a bare trust to do that. Now you can’t do that. How does this affect superannuation agents in business like super strategists? Superannuation agents, they’ve got a lot to do. They’ve always got a lot to do. They’re going to be fine. George Markoski What is the minimum deposit for an SMSF? I am not a finance expert, so I can’t tell you that, but I would imagine it’s at least 20%, because most loans in SMSF are 20% to 30%. Is that what you’d say, Billy? Yep. I would agree with that, George. Yep. Because you look at the contracts all the time, so you’d probably have more idea than me. I don’t look at all the nitty-gritty. Sue and David, they said, “If you have signed the contract and paid a deposit or even just an EOI, but completion’s not due till end of 2027, we’ll be able to get finance through the SMSF.” Okay, Sue and David, you’ve said two different things. Basically, an EOI is an expression of interest, and that is not going to give you anything because all it is is an expression of interest. And paying a deposit is a deposit. George Markoski What needs to happen is you need to actually exchange contracts before the due date. What that means is you need to sign and fill out the paperwork, and then the seller, who might be a developer, whatever, they need to sign the paperwork and you need to exchange contracts. Once you’ve got that, that’s what keeps you safe. Completion is irrelevant. Settlement’s irrelevant. The only date that matters is the contract date. Hope that makes sense. Scott said, “I signed up to create an SMSF today.” Awesome. Hope you get it done quickly. “Could we use the equity from SMSF investment property to secure another property within the 45-day window?” No, you can’t. You’re not allowed to use the equity. That was closed. So the only way to use your equity in a super property is by selling it. George Markoski So for example, if you buy a property for $500,000 and then it goes up to 900, you’ve got $400,000 equity sitting there, which is beautiful. It’d be great to be able to use that, but unfortunately, you can’t take that equity because of the complicated nature and the limited recourse of the loan on the bare trust on superannuation. So because of that, the only way to take advantage of that is you sell that property, you bring in the money, pay off the old loan, and then divide that into two or three different properties. “If my SMSF already has a property but next to no cash, is it possible to borrow against the property in the SMSF?” Same question. Unfortunately, you can’t do that. “Why is the government making so many changes to the law regarding investment property this year? George Markoski Is this common?” The Labor government have been trying to attack the middle class investors and business owners for a long, long time. And at the moment, this is the only chance they’ve had to have enough votes to actually be able to pass it through, and that’s why they’re doing it. Even though they promised that they wouldn’t touch any of this with the election promises, which is interesting. Now, Nick, you wrote something about Kevin Rudd. I’d love you to write that again because I missed it earlier. “Irony. Kevin Rudd introduced borrowings for the residential properties in SMSFs in 2010, ’11 to help young people get into the market. His mates have canned it. Typical.” Exactly. Thank you, Nick. That’s so hilarious that it’s true. George Markoski “Are we likely to find it harder?” Are we likely to find it harder? Oops, there’s so many comments, I’m missing everything. “Are we likely to find it harder to get an SMSF loan in the coming months because the law changes? Will some lenders exit the market?” Ken, good question. Back in 2019, quite a few lenders exited the market prematurely, even before the laws changed. And as you saw, even with negative gearing, a lot of banks changed their policy even before the new negative gearing came in place. So that is a possibility. “Once Pauline gets in, can this all be changed again? Or SMSF future property investing is done?” I doubt Pauline’s going to change it. Okay. “If I have property in SMSF bought 2023, pre-May CGT, negative gearing rules, if I sell it to release equity, I’m also buying it with the different CGT tax rules. George Markoski I’m best to keep it, or aren’t I?” Or, “Can we buy commercial industrial?” Industrial and commercial hasn’t changed, Emma. Good question, and I would like to answer that question carefully and correctly, and I wouldn’t want to answer it without doing a bit of research, because the capital gains tax on a SMSF, I know when you retire, you don’t pay any capital gains tax. So capital gains tax on SMSFs is complicated. I’d need to talk to an expert for that. Does it take time to change to self-managed? Yes, it does, but it can be done. So what I’m going to do now, I’ve got a lot of interesting questions that I’d like to answer, but in our personal group. So I want to say goodbye to our public group. Type super if you want help, because this is your last chance. Get those ducks in a row. George Markoski We’re going to go to the private group to talk about more nuance and more detail. Thank you.