First Home Buyers Accounts

Ah, the barefoot investor, the person I go to for investment advice. He loves the first home buyers savings accounts, they're great:

"The only problem I can see with the FHSAs is that there's a minimum lock-up of four years on your funds. It's too bad if you find a house in year three or if you break up with your boyfriend, quit your job and want to use the cash to move to London, as you do."

Hmm yes not very flexible when set against the lives of your average first home buyer. Good point hero investor sensai.

Then this gem of wisdom:

"The problem is, Gen Y have never known hard economic times."

What, we didn't exist in the early nineties recession? We didn't exist when the stock market crashed in 1987? Tech wreck? Asian financial crisis? Just because we weren't active participants in these eras, doesn't mean that we didn't witness them in an indirect way.

What's more, how does this apply to people exposed to the dwindling manufacturing industries in Australia. Anyone with a passing exposure to these industries, through parents or older siblings, will probably not see the last twenty years as an unrivalled period of economic sunshine.

Then he closes with a great Delphic/ astrological piece of investment advice:

"Opportunities like this come around only every so often. Embrace it.

Tread your own path!"

So should we opt in or out?

Little bit contradictory there bro.

I guess maybe he should have of finished with: "if it suits what you want to do, then do it". That seems to be the gist of these inflexible savings accounts.

Or maybe he could have added, invest in stocks at the bottom of the cycle, and you may be better off than dumping your money in these accounts for four years- given that your life circumstances could change a lot over four years.

Ah well, if this is the kind of economic guidance we are getting in these challenging times, God help us all!