Hope you have good insurance coverage to cover the works and loss of income while it gets repaired!
Make sure you have a good property manager to start with so they do thorough screening of potential tennants and regularly visit the premises and provide you with condition reports and photos.

If you have wooden floors, why wouldn't you sand and polish them?

ps. After the work you do, make sure you get your depreciation schedule updated to cover all the changes.

Kind Regards, Ana

Hi noddy7,

I'd always first start my search by looking for a good property accountant and then seeing where they are

We have had James speak at a couple of our events and I wouldn't hesitate to send one of my clients to him. He runs House of wealth but is also an investor himself. His contact details are: http://houseofwealth.com.au/index.php/our-team/james/

Cheers, Ana

Like most of the guys who have replied I agree that it comes down to really doing your research. If you know what those types of properties in the area are worth, you will know if they are asking too much or offering it at a discount.

And then it comes to looking at your strategy and doing the profitability analysis. For example, I have paid $10,000 more than the asking price to secure a property that was going to be a quick turn around renovation project and net us over $100,000. Would I do it again? You bet.

If it's worth it, it's worth paying the money.

We've had some volunteers helping up there and there has been quite a few cases of people ripping out wall lining not realising that it is asbestos, especially in bathrooms and laundries. If you are not sure, get it tested and get it removed by a licencsed professional.

We have also been putting together a 'Flood Renovations – Quick Guide' together with the Reno Kings and Property Women. One of the things that Geoff emphasises is 'asbestos can handle exposure to water without damange. You can clean with just one side off or remove a section to clean'.

Basically, the worst thing you can do is start ripping it off in sections and worse, what we saw some people do is, then just throw those sections into the water lying around and piles of rubbish.

You also probably don't need to remove all the plaster, just the damaged sections and then replace those sections of plasterboard and stop (wet plaster) the joins..

For anyone interested, we will be releasing the Quick Guide in the next few days which goes through all different aspects of renovating during flooding, from how to deal with insurance, what you can salvage, heal and safety, etc

I have to start by saying that I am not an accountant, however we had a similar question come up at our last seminar and the accountant specialist that I had on the panel of experts told the investor that:

If you move out of your primary place of residence (PPR), and don't purchase another PPR but instead go to rent, you can for all intents and purposes still recognise that property as your PPR even if you are receiving rent from it for up to 6 years. This means that if you go to sell it in that time frame, you will not have to pay capital gains tax.

Hope this helps.

That sounds like a lovely plan, to travel around Australia. We just got back from our honeymoon travelling in Mexico and Cuba and it was wonderful. We've been talking about taking a campervan around NZ at some stage too because that is where my husband is from.

Maybe have a think how to monoterise your goal… work out how much you want to make per annum from your investments in order to be able to finance that dream and go from there.

p.s. I know what you mean about renos. I absolutely love it, this is my passion and dream and I get to live it every day, but its not everyone's cup of tea. I have clients who want to be involved in the whole process and I also have clients who call me up and say 'we've got another one' and then leave us to renovate it for them and just give them a call when it's nearly over for handover. There's a strategy out there for everyone

All the best!

Word of mouth is great which is why you often see questions and comments on forums. Also, ask to see some of their case studies of what they have done or what they have helped their clients do. Preferably some of those should already be on their website, but if not, ask to have a look at them, most importantly the numbers.

Best of luck with your investing, Ana Stankovic

I can help, our teams do this all the time. Give me a call at the office on 03 9005 7992 and we can organise from there.

If you are planning on holding on to your property and renting it out, where it is likely to suffer wear and tear and have hot items being placed on it and water, the paint is just not going to be as durable long term as replacing it.

By the way, if you did have trouble removing the tiles in a different reno you can rent from any of the building supply rental companies (Coats, Kennards, etc) an attachment for the jackhammer which is specifically used for removing tiles (helps get under them easier to lift).

Wishing you every success, Ana Stankovic