It's a big area, lots of different categories and markets. Excellent distressed buying, also yields are starting to look attractive, things like brick homes a few years old being sold at 7%+ in good areas as the builder has gone bankrupt, lots more like that.  Still a lot of negativity around, probably likely to continue for some time, though it has picked up in recent months.

If you are looking for a project such as reno and strata as one example then I know there are superb properties out there at the moment.

Interested to see how it all works out, will help rents push up if they have any success in cracking down on all the scenarios, the up/down house rental where d/stairs is not legal height would comprise a lot of examples in greater Brisbane.

It's a trendy area these days, I'm always meeting people at Nundah Village as it has a good range of coffee shops and restaurants. I quite like 'C Word' and the Coffee Club there as the owners always looking to talk about property Also if you would like a good laugh have a read of the online reviews for 'Jam cafe'. Impressive how  Nundah has transformed over the last 20 years. Also I tend to view Nundah/Northgate as a potential package in that you might consider both.

Excellent improving area with train and will grow as a location strongly, no problem with that, the issue you need to work out is whether the higher density and incoming supply will be of significant impact on your target property. Chermside and other activity hubs have similar issues. 

A few quick issues to watch for

> plenty of low lying land, check for flood/overland flow

> some busier roads cutting through the suburb

> high proportion of strata properties than many other suburbs in the 10k radius, 59% of total stock last time I checked, issue of supply again so important to check you are buying your apartment well and the rents/yields are checking out

> Some nice stand alone villa/townhouses come into play depending on your price points

Saw a 1 bed about that size advertised for 199k in a nice Brisbane suburb recently, creative use of space and it still had a shared laundry, 2 beds in 24m2 sounds a little tardis like!

Otherwise there is some excellent commentary about the potential capital growth issues. One bedders by themselves can be excellent and there's some powerful demography pointing that they could be strong performers in our future, the issue is really the scarcity factor (or lack of in large complexes where they are all the same product), supply and demand again, rather than any issue of 1 v 2 or more beds.

The future.. pretty much like the past, opportunity mixed with difficulty! To quote Jim Rohn

For some punditry who has time to do anything else than defer to someone more intelligent, and with considerably more time to read the tea leaves, than themselves when it comes to Global Macro? Of all the commentary I've ever read on that score I can't think of any much better than Cam Hui. Not the most well known money manager but I've found him to be impressive. http://humblestudentofthemarkets.blogspot.com.au/

Don't settle for anything less than fully documented and verified information about their compensation, then you can compare the sales person's conviction with some reality. 'Free' can be a very expensive option in some cases!

Birds of a feather marketeering companies; but very generally you are looking at 25-40k margins on top of the developers profit, I have seen as much as 100k though when they are squeezing this much the valuations are understandably harder to make stick. Some 'clubs' operate off 6.6% commissions, whatever way you slice it the markups tend towards intolerable.

Excellent article Jane, I particularly like the referral method for trades people, if they've done good work for other investors then that carries a lot of weight.

A growing and quite large market segment unfortunately, people in their 40's early 50's usually and recently divorced and looking to rebuild wealth.

Of little consolation I'm sure but to move forward it's probably best to focus on what has been retained. In this case it's a good salary and flexible time and also a motivation to rebuild, combine this with your health and hopefully good relations with the ex and children and it's beginning to look a whole lot better. Good luck with your journey!

Finding a good networking group can help with the education process, we have an excellent one in Brisbane that meets once per month where real investors are sharing the deals they are doing in the current market place. Important to make sure that the group is actually focused around education and networking as opposed to selling you property as most don't qualify judged on that criteria.