My Agent in Armadale W.Aust. says prices are falling and numbers sold have dramatically dropped in the past two weeks. They again have properties on the books instead of everything selling within a week.

Take into account the ages of the owners and whether they still have primary school age children. Many country kids go to cities for high school and follow on to higher education never to return and the parents quite often follow. If it is a butcher shop, forget it. Post Offices and Supermarkets as well as mechanics, auto electricians, panel beaters, welding etc wouwld all be saleable.

Bill certainly isn’t tardy in his e.mailing and I must say his ad ideas are very very good. He will be receiving a personal e.mail for sure. You are all right that it is far better to give but like Huey I get a bit overwhelmed at owing too and am far happier giving. November 11 can be a difficult day for many Australians. My own Dad took 12 years to die from wounds inflicted, so I hope it was not too bad a day for Bill and the other Forum Veterans.

I’m just back from a seven day, 5000km[] return trip to Alice Springs from Perth via the Great Central Highway. Two blown tyres but that’s another story. Saw this ripper at Leonora “Trucks please brush tyres before entering town” or very close to it. It is a mining area so it stands to reason but did make me laugh.

My husband always “used” to say (he knows better now) “We have a perfect partnership, I make the money and she spends it”

It’s that first returned phone call or e.mail that makes all the difference. We all know Brokers are busy and it is sometimes near impossible to get through all the calls in one day but if they could manage someone to return a call and perhaps get some rough outline of what the customer wants and just how urgently advice is needed………….well, it would make us feel important to them wouldn’t it.

Castle Dreamer, There are many of us who have never received any help with buying our home or investment properties. Sorry but I can’t see that you have anything to complain about as you did manage to find the funds to purchase a property that could have been your own home but you chose to have it as an IP. There were many reasons the FHOG was introduced, introduction of GST, affordability with the huge prices that must be paid on the east coast and to give the building industry a boost. As builders I can tell you that the industry is very competitive and we have never worked as many hours for as little return as we are at present. Project builders have huge buying power and beat the socks of the little guy price wise. The FHOG has helped them sell more homes and employ more tradesmen but now it is hard for us non-project builders to get tradesmen ie electricians, plasterers and plumbers as they are flat out with guaranteed on-going project work. I hope you managed to make a profit from your IP and that you can soon afford your very own PPR.

Today’s West Australian has figures for the number of homes between $500,000 and $1M that have received the FHOG, the number of recipients that had been successfully prosecuted and the number that had been requested to repay. Can’t tell you the figures as I was sitting in a coffee shop sipping a latte and reading their paper[] The loophole for babies will be closed as will grants for purchases over $500,000 but it will take some months. Having studied law in Melbourne back around when the Ark was being built I cannot but wonder at those that write legislation. We were taught to read read and read again all proposals before submitting them. What type of lawyers are writing our legislation that they cannot even follow this most important and simple rule to make certain that loopholes never exist?