Australia vs USA, where to invest?

[haschen]

Life status:
Married, 31yo, no kids. 2 years ago moved to Houston from Australia, currently on working visas.
Main focus is to build wealth, and not earlier retirement. We both love our jobs, and don’t really want to leave any time soon. But we would like to have some options in case we lose our jobs and will have to move.

Gross Salary:
On average, 15000$ per month after tax +40K annual bonus

Tax-relevant Info:
Husband works offshore and his taxes a paid by his company. Still not sure how that would work out in US



Current Expenses:
30y Mortgage in US @ 2.75% fixed for 5 years
     P&I $1570
     T&I $700
      28 yrs remain
3y car loan, $1066 per month @0.9%. 1 year left to close off
Utilities: ~$3500/yr
All Other Cash Expenses: ~$4k per month, ~50k per year
Total Lifestyle Expense: ~$90k

Assets:
$75k in my 401k in US with Vanguard (just 2 years into this plan)
$5k in HSA
$150k(me) $45k(hubby) in superannuation plan left in Australia
$60k with Betterment (transferred last month, so not much growth yet)
$50K in cash

Australian home is around $500k worth,
Home in America is about $460k
Car worth 23K


Liabilities:
$370k US mortgage @2.75%
$220k mortgage in Australia @4.58%

$15K Car loan @0.9%


Main question for now?
Should we be focusing in closing off Australian house, or just let it be and focus on building wealth in US?
In Australia our mortgage comes with Offset account, so that we don’t pay interest on money with have sitting at that account, but we have access to it any time. We have some money sitting there to cover ongoing expenses. I’ve done some calculation, and it seems like we are better off to keep that house at negative gear, but any other thoughts are appreciated.


Also, we are not sure how long we gonna be staying in the US, and it makes it hard to plan long term. I have to understand Tax system here, cos it may be not efficient to keep our money here if we move to another location.

What do you thing about investing in the properties in other countries?

On a side note, when ppl are reporting net worth here, do they only take into account cash+ investments, or that includes 401K, properties, and shares?

Thanks in advance for your ideas and suggestions

[Grogounet]

Good topic:

First: refinance your Australian Mortgage, you can easily get lower these days :-)
Second: To be sure, your question is about where to invest right? You've covered a lot.

I believe investing as you did so far is absolutely great. You have real estate in two different countries which spreads the risk. IMHO, keep both to start with.

But questions for you:
Do you want to continue investing in real estate? Shares? Other asset classes?
What are your goals and time frame? Just build wealth?

For shares:you can use a broker to invest globally, in the US, in Australia, etc... I personally use interactive brokers.

I believe this is a great chance to have $ in two different countries.

[marty998]

Good topic:

First: refinance your Australian Mortgage, you can easily get lower these days :-)

Perhaps not as an offshore investor / non-resident. Lending criteria has tightened substantially in the past year or so.

Where is your Australian property located? The negative gear may not be worth it if the local market is stalling in terms of capital growth.

[haschen]

Good topic:

First: refinance your Australian Mortgage, you can easily get lower these days :-)

Perhaps not as an offshore investor / non-resident. Lending criteria has tightened substantially in the past year or so.

Where is your Australian property located? The negative gear may not be worth it if the local market is stalling in terms of capital growth.

Thanks for you replies guys

Our Australian house is in Perth, we bough it in 2010 and I think it has great potential to grow over the next 10 years or so. Although, we would have some issues with taxes if we keep it for longer than 6 years after we've moved out.

Not sure if we can re-finance in Australia, but I will check with our broker.

About overall strategy for us- we have none. We never been thinking about finance too much, but I'm trying to sort it out now. I've put togetehr the spreadsheet, so I can play some different scenarious. I think we want to have diverse poortfolio, just in case. Investing in real estate is a bit scary, too much work and not that much profit after all. But may be I need to look more into that

It becomes more complicated when you have to deal with two countries. If we move out of US, it wont make sense to keep any rental properties there, cos it would be taxes way too much,

I'm glad that there are few Ozzies around here, I hope to pick your brain more in the future.