If I was advised about a possible safety issue I would get it sorted quick smart, don't mess with the legal implications.

Hi Chappy,

Would be interested to know what the selling agents were thinking, perhaps they had you tagged as not a serious buyer for whatever reason? Then their actions might make more sense whilst being very unprofessional still. No matter how you slice it there are always two sides

Be careful of any advice suggesting you might try and cut the selling agent out of  commission whilst contact is made during a listing agreement, there are legal issues to consider here and you should tread carefully.

Regarding is this common behaviour, when you deal with as many agents as I do you could say it's not surprising, probably not common as most agents can rustle themselves up with the smell of an offer in the air but not surprising. Glad you have got over it and moved on, you have to kiss a lot of frogs in this game to find that prince of a deal sometimes!

Depending on what you want to achieve there are some good resources around about how to approach things. If you want sensitive information from an agent just open a friendly dialogue about whatever, how the Knights are playing, how the market is going, if they are that kind of talker which is often the case; you won't need to ask to get plenty of information, can be more specific on how I approach things if requested.

When looking for a property to buy I would start by compiling a watch list, writing everything down and benchmarking all the property you find against your purchase criteria and goals.

I have a home built during the great depression not far from my house. The house was relocated from Mt Morgan to Brisbane timber by timber and rebuilt, looks in very good nick today. No indication of the maintenance or renovation costs along the way though. It's about to be sliced and diced to fit another house on the block, which is the key really, if the timber can last long enough for the land to be utilized for higher use then that's all it can reasonably do.

I regularly get the request for brick houses as the perception is they will be more low maintenance, all depends

Low income areas like high income areas have good and bad patches, good and bad streets and good and bad neighbours, which can be worked out quite easily by thorough research. We are fortunate in Australia that with our capital cities almost all areas tend to get better over the long run, or at least don't turn into no go zones, nothing yet like Detroit in the USA thankfully.

There are a few areas in the greater Brisbane region with some choices in the under 200k price bracket, Logan most people know about already but there are others, In 2010 I saw a 3br brick house sell for a tad over 200k in a beach side suburb (small poetic license used here, but it's technically so!) 30k from the Brisbane CBD, reasonable condition and a nice block of land as well. Property was on the market in the morning and sold by the time I called just before lunch Someone walked in off the street and asked for cheap property and bought it straight away.

Parraboy one quick way to do a bit of benchmarking is to compare your houses with houses in the area you have bought, use the free ABS, Residex data for houses and compare growth with these numbers to your individual properties. If you aren't adding value to your houses then that's really all you can achieve, you check your areas are performing well, and if they aren't is there some reason there might be some mean reversion or improvement in the future.

ABS quarterly data
Residex Data

DHA properties are neither good or bad, just deals that need to be weighed on their own merits. In the last twelve months we have purchased some DHA properties on behalf of long term investor clients. It's not unusual that I see some very poor results for previous DHA investors as they simply paid too much at the time, what might have been perceived as low risk (guaranteed rent and new carpets!) was anything but for these buyers.

Also there is the issue of location, to me location trumps most other considerations, so the hierachy of investment decisions should be 1) location and budget 2)Best property to suit (Is there a DHA property here?) rather than.. 1) I will buy a DHA property 2) Hmm where are they and what can I afford?

It's my experience that the threat of vacancy and bad tenants is sometimes given too much weight by investors and this is perhaps one factor in why DHA properties can attract a premium price. Hedge your risk with good insurance, property management and good buying and you have no need for rental guarantees or any other hand holding.

Likely it will make for some interesting viewing for those wanting to munch some popcorn and enjoy the banter, never much time to go beyond the superficial with such events.

I will read a quick summary from their own sites after the event

So much energy expended trying to prove a prediction of the future and so little spent on working towards investing goals.

Nice work Scotts, enjoyed reading your post, top use of visuals as well

I will talk up my area since nobody else is stepping in for Brisbane and SEQ

The question is general so in reply I will pose the following general thought question.

There has been a divide in the performance of the greater Brisbane area (including the growth corridors to the coasts and Ipswich). In broad brush strokes the higher quality areas have outperformed the mortgage belt areas. Would you then be looking on an identical dollar for dollar basis to invest X$ in a gentrified area 2-4k from the CBD which has held it's own nicely or gained in value over the last few years, or would you instead be looking to invest X$ in an suburb 25k+ from the CBD where values might have fallen 10-20%? (Might be 1 x 600k house compared to 2 x 300, but dollar for dollar to be fair). I have my own thoughts on this but I find people with strong opinions on both sides.

The latest HTW month in review newsletter has some excellent snapshots of reduced values.

Link to May 2011 HTW newsletter

I don't see any compelling value, though I'm sure there are individual gems to be picked up, the flood could have been contained or averted with the benefit of hindsight, so you imagine that future events might be better, they were saying that after Wivenhoe was first constructed though Buyer beware I think and check your insurance and risk carefully.