New Investors – Yale Property Solutions

Brett,

Firstly well done for starting your research BEFORE you have signed on the dotted line. This forum and somersoft the other big property forum are two of the best places to get current info from a range of sources. Keep reading and your level of education will rise. This knowledge is what will help you avoid a dud decision.

I have no knowledge of Yale solutions so I am not trying to promote or disparage them, but you have to ask yourself whether a new H/L package is the best investment for you. Often they are in areas of oversupply and have lower than average capital growth for at least 3-5 years. It may or may not be an ok deal, but you need to understand why its good, or why not.

I posted the below paragraph previously….in the “property spruikers thread”

“The main thing everyone needs to ask themselves (and the person in front of them!) when taking advice about property:
How does this person get paid?

If you can answer that you will have a better understanding of whether they are a “spruiker” or not, or whether they are there working to help you or the vendor. Remember real estate transactions are 2 sided affairs.”

So what I am saying is that if you are an investor – and Yale gets paid by the developer (which if I was a betting man I would put $2 on) then they work for the developer. Their goal is to get rid of stock. Not to find you the best property FOR YOU.

Any indépendant Buyers Agent would be highly likely to get you a better result. If you don’t want a BA but are patient, then invest some time in your education and read like crazy for a few months, find some successful investors (with more than 3 properties) and buy them lunch. Ask them to tell you the secret to their success.

If its not a good deal then an overpriced H/L package as a first investment can ruin your progress and slow down your wealth building. Worse still it might be worth less than you paid in a year or 2.

Hi Brett,
When working out if a H&L sales outfit is “good or bad”, the main thing to know is the values in the area in which they are selling.

So many of the “bad dude marketeers” will be selling in an area foreign to YOU (e.g. they would fly interstate people up to the Gold Coast FOR FREE). Without knowing the “local values”, you could be swayed into thinking “Wow, how cheap is this?” when the REALITY is that the area they are selling is even MORE cheap than they are selling.

It is like going to a smaller city away from where you live – it is LIKELY that homes in (say) Orange will be WAY cheaper than Sydney. Your job is to find out HOW MUCH CHEAPER, and is the H&L group trying to sell for $40k MORE than a similar dwelling in that area sells from a builder. Many of the bad dudes will also offer a rental guarantee just to counter any reservations on your part (but YOU will be paying for that guarantee).

The group you are using may well be one of the many “good guys” – I don’t know, but with careful consideration, YOU will be able to tell.

Benny

You are in control of your financial future. You can engage professional help but if they are hard selling or rushing you then I am hearing alarm bells.

Brett wrote:

Thanks Benny,

I think one of the things that has thrown us a bit is that the timeline to start pushing things along is a lot shorter than we probably wanted or expected. That is why the brakes will go on and we can think more about what is best long term.

Cheers
Brett

Hi Brett

Jacqui (JacM) from the forum is my business partner and covers the Buyer Agency side of our business.

She is a Geelong expert and can certainly tell you whether the property you are buying is overpriced and also give you some information on the suburb.

Shoot her an email or PM and I sure she will give you some independent advice.

Cheers

Yours in Finance

Hi Brett,

You can do the following free checks for that suburb:
1) Check the prices for all the properties sold in that suburb using http://www.onthehouse.com.au (need to register first).
2) Check the prices of all the leased properties in that suburb using http://www.homehound.com.au.

From there you can get some solid numbers which should help your decision.

Good luck!

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by  Rupert.

Glad to see that I am not the only one having a hard time trying to get hold of reviews relating to Yale Property Solutions.

I am in Perth and just finished having a presentation from Yale and whilst I didn’t get any initial bad ‘gut feelings’ about the meeting, I don’t fully understand how my outlaying $60 a week could get me an IP. I spent 3 months researching for solar panels so I won’t be jumping into anything head on without reaching out to the experts for advice/knowledge.

To be honest, I had not thought much about IP’s before tonight as I always viewed them as too expensive and too big a risk should it stay vacant for extended periods. What are realistic costs associated with buying an IP? To me, if $60 a week is all it took to buy a $350k IP, everyone would be doing it.

Thanks in advance for any assistance or advice you can provide.

Deano

Thanks for the welcome and the information. Got my cup of coffee ready and will start reading your recommendations. Yale is all about negative gearing which is where the $60 a week to own an IP came from, being on a military pension if that’s all it cost, I’m all for it but I know that won’t be the case and there are more $’s required. My brother has two IP’s, one house and one apartment and his situation is what has me nervous. The house is going great but the apartment is ending up costing them $17k a year because the developer they brought it off overvalued by a couple of hundred $k.I dare say I will have more questions but will wait until I have read your recommendations.

Cheers for now

Dean.

Great comments by everyone above.

The only additional comments I would make is that it is best to separate the financials and the house hunting/buying processes. There are many great brokers on this forum who will step you through the refinance process, then when you are ready you can step through the buying process. There are also many great buyers agents on the forum who are experts in the areas they cover. The good thing about refinancing is that you keep the refinanced money against your PPOR mortgage until you need it, so it isn’t costing you anything until you need it.

Take it at your own pace, you need to be on top of your game to run with companies that take you through the whole refinance and buying process all at once (as Yale appears to be doing) (it is exciting yet draining each time you go through the process!).

I found this article (https://www.propertyinvesting.com/investing-rental-property/) a good little summary for rentals.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by  ChrisA1. Reason: Added website link

Those are some pretty solid advices there. Also the links provided as well is really good for other people with the same questions in mind.