Sharemarket, commercial property or managed funds?

Q.

I am an IT contractor earning a very good daily rate. I am always mindful of the work arrangement that I have and therefore am very cautious when it comes to any big investments. Last September I bought my first property for $260k. Although my first choice would have been a family home, I resisted and went ahead to buy this apartment. As I fall in the highest tax bracket, I need to invest in something otherwise I may end up paying a huge tax bill. I now have roughly around $120k sitting in my online savings account. I do not have any children, nor do I intend to in the future. I am planning to leave around $40k as contingency funds and invest the rest. I know that the share market is too delicate right now, so my options are either to buy commercial property or go for managed funds. Can you please provide some advice on this?

Only you can decide when it is the right time to enter the share market, but surely a time when prices are down is better than when they are high. If you are looking to buy your own house at some stage, you should be keeping cash available to do this, so it may be worthwhile talking to an adviser about a margin loan to buy shares or managed funds. If you borrow as much as you can, but keep a large amount of money in cash, you should not suffer unduly if you receive a margin call. Obviously this strategy should be discussed in detail with an adviser.