Famous Australians - Property and Real Estate
Ian Somers and Jan Somers – Building Wealth through Investment Property
January 11, 2010 by Editor · Leave a Comment
Ian Somers and Jan Somers formed Somersoft in 1989 as Somerset Financial Services Pty Ltd, its role has been one of research, analysis and education.
Somersoft is a publishing company that specialises in helping residential property investors. While many organisations use Somersoft material to assist their clients with investment in property, Somersoft is completely independent and does not sell property, finance or even personal advice. Instead, through the publication of books and computer software, Somersoft provide investors with all the objective, well-researched information and tools they need to be self-sufficient in their investment decisions.
Jan Somers, a former high school biology and mathematics teacher, is now an acclaimed author with several best-selling books on property investment to her credit. Her first book, Manual for Residential Property Investors was released in 1989 to a limited market in Brisbane.
This manual was so well received that it was expanded into a second book, Building Wealth through Investment Property, and distributed Australia wide in 1992. It was an instant best seller, becoming one of the top selling self-help books of the 90s. Both these books were adapted and released in New Zealand in 1993.
By the mid 1990s, economic conditions had changed in Australia, and with it came a barrage of ‘what ifs’ by the media and cynics who questioned the validity of the Jan Somers strategy in times of low inflation. In 1994, Jan released her third book, Building Wealth in Changing Times, in response to those questions. With hundreds of thousands of books in circulation, Jan became inundated with stories from people who had successfully invested in property — and some from those who could have or should have. As a result, 101 of these fascinating stories were published in 1998 in her fourth book, Building Wealth Story by Story, the final story being Jan and Ian’s own, describing the types of property they bought and the kinds of finance they used.
With a large following of devotees, and a whole new wave of investors interested in property, Jan received numerous requests for her earlier books to be updated. While still totally committed to the principle of building wealth through residential property, Jan recognised the need for people to be reassured that the recipe was still relevant in the new millennium.
The result is her latest book, More Wealth from Residential Property, which not only updates and consolidates the information in her first three books, Manual for Residential Property Investors, Building Wealth through Investment Property and Building Wealth in Changing Times, which are all now out of print, but also contains a wealth of new information.
Ian Somers is a former research scientist with more than 20 years of experience in mathematical modelling and computer software design. In collaboration with Jan, he has written the internationally acclaimed Property Investment Analysis (PIA) software which makes difficult property investment calculations easy to do and easy to understand. Even novice property investors can find the answer to virtually all of their questions with just a few clicks of a mouse and the entry of a few key variables.
On the market since 1988, PIA has become an industry standard in both Australia and New Zealand, being used extensively by leading real-estate groups, property marketers, lenders and accountants, and by thousands of property investors.
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