Introduction New energy efficiency requirements for investors building new homes or renovating existing properties, and for commercial landlords refitting properties, will be phased in from November this year. Prime Minister Helen Clark and Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove recently announced three energy efficiency changes.

First, new houses, and major extensions to existing houses, will need better insulation. The new requirements come into effect for South Island and North Island Central Plateau houses from November 2007. They take effect in the rest of the North Island up to Auckland from July 2008, and for Auckland and north from October 2008.

The Prime Minister and Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove said the changes would make Kiwi houses healthier, cheaper to heat and less damaging to the environment. Department of Building and Housing Building Standards Group Manager Mike Stannard says the changes mean new homes will use about 30 percent less energy to achieve healthy average indoor air temperatures.

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All education is good, you will always be able to learn something at every event you attend. Rineke and I (Dorien Forster) travelled all over the world to attend and also to be guest speakers at many courses and have found that there are two types of courses;

A – Where there are a lot of speakers on different topics doing a one or two hour general presentation each. Typically a large audience.

B – Just one or two speakers for the whole duration of the event speaking in depth on one topic only. Smaller audience.

It is best to be selective of what you spend your education $$$ on depending what your needs are at that time.

A – Where there are a lot of speakers on different topics doing a one or two hour general presentation each. Typically a large audience.

- The cost of putting on such an event is usually huge for the organisers as each speaker will be charging a fee for speaking, perhaps accommodation and travel costs. - In order to compensate for these costs the audience has to be high in numbers. - Typically the presentation is rehearsed and because of time constraints does not allow for questions or perhaps just a limited time for questions at the end. - There is not much interaction with the audience and so the speaker cannot get to know the specific circumstances or needs of the people attending. - The speaker can only give a general overview of the topic and this will not normally give enough in depth information for the audience to implement any strategies. - Sometimes (more common in the States) a speaker doing a one or two hour rehearsed presentation has NOT actually done the business themselves and they are just spokes people for others. - The speaker may introduce their topic and then encourage you to buy tapes, DVDs, more courses etc. - There is not usually any follow up care offered. - If there are five or more speakers in one single day then this is the sort of event that will only give a general overview of each topic.

These days have great value as an overall introduction. Perhaps if you are getting into a completely new field of work and you are at the moment only a starter in the business, then it is best to attend a day with lots of speakers.

But if you are looking for “In Depth” knowledge on a topic it could be better to spend your education $$$ on the second type of event.

B – Just one or two speakers for the whole duration of the event speaking in depth on one topic only. Smaller audience.

If you really want to learn something you may be better to select a course where there are only one or two main speakers in a day.

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Property Talk's Wiki team has put together a list of common terms and jargon which makes a great starting point for anyone new to property investment. In addition, the common abbreviations in property investment list is another very useful resource.

Hi all,

I invested 3 years ago with Blue Chip Financial (yes yes I know, why did I do it!?) on 2 properties which, for many reasons, were never developed (it took well over 2 years for them to advise me of the fact that these properties were never going to get off the ground). Their "customer service" since the beginning has been a total zero. I still have the open contract with them and am trying to get my deposit, fees, etc monies out of them as well as some small compensation to make up for the 3+ years that my money has been locked up without return. They even resorted to bringing in the heavies to try and force me into alternative Auckland apartment properties which were so ridulously over-priced it wasn't funny, but they were so intimidating I very nearly did! I have a very long story to tell and am interested in getting this story out in the open domain (assuming anyone wants to listen I suppose) to warn off anyone thinking about investing with these crooks, and am also interested in talking with any others in the same boat as me to see if anyone has taken legal proceedings against Blue Chip, how they got on, whether they had any joy with extracting compensation, etc.

I have had initial chats with some legal representaion who feel I probably have a case but, as always with the little man with a wife and young kids to support, I can't afford to take the risk of spending all that money in legal fees and not come out with anything. Maybe there are other (cheaper) legal avenues open to me?

Any advice would be appreciated, but please don't just reply to criticise my intial decision to invest with them as I have already lost many nights sleep over that decision already believe me!

Rgds, Fed Up

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Monid: My Story

Two disclaimers before I begin.

1. While this is going to be the story of my wife and me in terms of property investing I’m going to write in first person and say I rather than we. Apologies, to my wife, but I think it reads better that way.

2. We are not super investors certainly not in the same league as folk like Dean or Robyn. For a fair while I’ve let that put me off doing one of these my story things, both on the don’t have as much to share front and on the don’t like to blow my own trumpet front.

3. Simone's disclaimer: Having just found out that David has pasted our life story on the net without warning me I was initially shocked and reticent to have so many strangers to be reading the intimate details of my personal finance. Lucky for him I did read it because I found a whole lot of misremembered reporting going on! However having read through all the posts and having seen how helpful people are finding it I have agreed that it should remain in all of its riveting glory for everyone's enjoyment and education, on the condition that the information not be used for comparative bolstering of anyone's egos. We are what we are and we are pleased with it.

However thinking about it recently it occurs that while the super investors are very inspiring they are also somewhat off putting (no offence guys ) because they are so darn super… And there is only so much room in the market for super investors not everyone can consume that many properties, and not everyone wants to. I thought people might enjoy a somewhat different story of a somewhat risk averse small scale investor, and they might find it more in tune with where they are or where they might be heading.

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