All Topics / Help Needed! / How many properties do we need to inspect before we buy

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  • Profile photo of sswssw
    Member
    @ssw
    Join Date: 2010
    Post Count: 5

    hi 
    I  am new in property investing and would like to purchase my first investment property. Some  books  say at least we need to inspect 100 properties before we buy one in order to undersatnd the market value, area etc….to me it is getting very hard  with full time job,little kids etc
    Could i please get some opinion regarding how many properties do you inspect before you buy  and any suggestion to understand market value etc with out doing this much leg work  ?
    or are you all in favour of doing leg work?
    thanks heaps

    Profile photo of number 8number 8
    Participant
    @number-8
    Join Date: 2010
    Post Count: 333

    I am relatively experienced and have been in the game for many years, and my next property has been in progress for six months to date (no luck as yet). Some are only several months…….. When you have done the research, due diligence, you will know when you have seen enough and the right property. There is no magical number.

    Further, no leg work is often (not always) selling yourself short.

    http://www.birchcorp.com.au

    Profile photo of SingerSinger
    Member
    @singer
    Join Date: 2009
    Post Count: 75

    Looking for property again after a long time out of the market.   Up to 57 now, getting to know every agent in area, keeping a spreadsheet going so that I can remember each one, and just starting to get a feel for the market in a fairly small area.

    Have made 2 offers, both knocked back – that's fine.   In no hurry and prices seem to be steady or decreasing.

    Leg work will pay off.

    Profile photo of RandJRandJ
    Participant
    @randj
    Join Date: 2005
    Post Count: 14

    there is no magic formula as to how many or how long.. do your homework.. read the papers, go to auctions, take to agents…
    and when the deal comes along grab it :)  we just purchased 2 at once.  Was after 1 in our local area as its going to grow a lot over the next 2-15 yrs.. new major suburb for the region planned just a 1-3 kms away.
    offered successfully on 1st place I saw, but kept looking as a back stop… went to look at 3rd place out of interest.. found out  the 1st place had a successful offer on was directly behind and a subdivision was a peice of cake with access perfect and over 2000sq m to work with in total.
    so i brought both :)    2 weeks for renos and tidy up and tenents moved into both on same day.
    keep looking.. keep out there and its like all things .. you get back what you put in !

    Profile photo of sswssw
    Member
    @ssw
    Join Date: 2010
    Post Count: 5

    thank you…your comments are indeed helpful……yes now i am in my home work stage ….thanks agaqin

    Profile photo of propertunitypropertunity
    Participant
    @propertunity
    Join Date: 2008
    Post Count: 136

    You know that you've done enough homework when you can walk into any property in your chosen area and pick the right price to within $10K or so.  Otherwise if you can't do it or don't want to spend the time, outsource it…….but either way it has to be done….by someone.

    Profile photo of yoyo galaxyyoyo galaxy
    Member
    @yoyo-galaxy
    Join Date: 2009
    Post Count: 79

    We inspected roughly 100 for the first IP, it was hardwork, 3 months of non stop inspecting every saturday from 10 to 3 with lots of sandwiches lunch in the car or on the go. But it paid off, we got a great bargain that gave us positive cashflow from day one and nearly 100k capital gain within 2 years.

    the second one we took a different approach, as we are looking for long term capital gain + good rental yield with no additional renovation work, I did lots of due diligence on paper, purchased the residex report growth report, filtered the 50 suburbs down to 2 suburbs based on our criterias, then drove to the area to verify the due diligence on paper, then we bought in the third weekend of inspection, didn't inspect 100 properties this time, as timing is critical in this purchase and we were not after an absolute bargain this time.

    from my experience, it really depends on the area you are targeting at. One thing I suggest is being focused, taget at one or two suburbs only. The last thing you wanna do it run around every saturday to different suburbs every week. I have done that, really time consuming and tiring but even if I inspect 500 properties, it won't help to develop solid knowledge in any suburbs.

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