Book Reviews

Reviewed by Sarah Ell

The Female Investor: Creating Wealth, Security & Freedom Through Property

Nicola McDougall and Kate Hill Wiley, $31.99

It’s an unfortunate fact that women often get the short end of the stick when it comes to financial security. The gender pay gap, taking time off work or working part-time to raise a family, and relationship break-ups can mean women find themselves facing their retirement years a lot worse off than many men of their age. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way, with a bit of strategic thinking and careful planning. Author Nicola McDougall was born in New Zealand but is now based in Australia, working as a property and finance journalist. For this book she has paired with investment advisor and property mentor Kate Hill to write a guide to help women looking at investing in property, to give themselves great financial independence. While some information in the book is Australia-specific, there’s plenty of good stuff here for Kiwis. The authors believe in arming women with information so they can create an investment solution that works for them, and this is a good place to start. Case studies of women Kate has worked with and real-life examples from the authors’ own portfolios bring investment scenarios to life. And it’s not all roses – the book talks about what to do when times get tough and markets are unsteady, too. It’s a useful read for women at any stage of life who are looking to dip their toe in the property investment pool.

Property Quadrants: The Passive Income Formula

Nichole Lewis Best Seller Publishing, $29.95

On the subject of generating wealth through property investment, Kiwi Nichole Lewis has a few tricks up her sleeve. Lewis is the CEO of The Property Lifestyle, which aims to show investors how to secure their financial future through active property investment. Through her experiences of making – and losing – money this way, she has developed a model of the four different ways property investment works, or ‘quadrants’, which she outlines in this book. Quadrants one and two cover ‘cash-poor’ property (the family home, and a second home or bach), for which the mortgages have to be paid out of your wages. Lewis’s theory is investors need to maximise investing in ‘cash-rich’ properties in quadrants three and four, generating cashflow through ‘flipping’ and investing in specific properties to generate passive income to pay off properties in quadrants one and two. It’s an assertive approach and not for the faint-hearted, and even if you’re not ready to go the whole hog, there are some useful ideas on getting the best value out of renovating and selling, what to look for in investment properties to maximise returns, and ways to make property deals even if you feel like you don’t have enough money to get started. Lewis is honest about mistakes she has made, and provides plenty of advice, tips and checklists. As she explains, property can either be your biggest cost in life or your biggest asset.