A good start with the due diligence with dual or multi income properties is to see what your insurer says as well as what council says, controlling risk is very important here.

Catalyst is spot on, have a close look at what is legal at the moment and don't assume you can fix a problem.

With that kind of deposit and borrowing power you have a wide array of choices, don't get fixated on making any one particular property fit into a box it's not designed for!

One obvious change from the flooding is how it's hit buyer sentiment over the whole of the market, not just the 2% of flood affected properties.

If you have the view that Brisbane is in a flat phase before growth kicks in at some point in the future, and we are into our fourth flat year capital growth wise now, then it's a better time to be buying now than at any time in the last three years, generally yields are pushing up which is a positive. However buyer sentiment is the lowest I can remember since 2007, the maximum number of buyers always tend to appear just after you've had that 20% growth in a year like we did in 2007

I think the market has taken a considered view to pricing in flood issues with property, true forced sales and bargain prices appear most everywhere so my bias is to still avoid any flood issues with a property, can't see anything compelling with flood areas at the moment unless perhaps you are looking to snap up a luxury waterfront house, even then it would just be because you are able to buy rather than any impressive discount as the reason.

Alan Fox knows his stuff, always heard good things from his clients as well.

http://www.propertunity.com.au/

Forgive me if he doesn't cover those areas, worthwhile asking anyhow.

Hi Tonju, Just saw this thread but have already answered to your post on Somersoft.

Even with 20k discount I'm not interested for adding to my own porftolio Heading in the right direction though.

If I wanted to spend 428k my bias would be to buy something in Brisbane! eg.. Brisbane city council. say <10k CBD, nice brick lowset in good condition yielding higher than this new house is offering, established house and no shiny depreciation tis true.. but small trade off to pay in my opinion. Or when buying around Kallangur/Northlakes/Mango Hill/Rothwell would be looking in the mid 3's price band, so you aren't so far above the median with truck loads of cheaper housing around. Can get (and have bought) significantly larger blocks of land with higher yield and very good condition 4BR houses in better locations.

This is not advice, just my own personal opinion and experience, your individual position will change matters, there is a risk with investing and not investing in property, we all have our bias, vested interest etc. Good luck!

A few possibly unrelated matters

1) Moreton are having significant fun when it comes to charging property owners, factor in higher costs here compared to Brisbane.
2) There is a lot of activity around Mango Hill/Northlakes, a lot of new builds and fun and games with property marketing companies. Get your shark repellent ready when swimming in these waters.

Can go on.. but I've said plenty already!

This might be of interest. It's a standard enough charge these days.

Lease Renewal Fee – I cannot believe there are still a lot of departments not charging this fee. To sign an existing tenant to a new fixed term agreement, we see departments charging anywhere from as little as $25 right up to 1.1 weeks rent. It is common that the lease renewal fee represents half that of the letting fee.

– Top 15 fees charged in Australia. Leased Magazine

Empire15 I'm sure you will find a lot of variations throughout QLD, local councils are usually very helpful in my experiences and you should be able to get this information quickly. I can't see the attraction of looking for these blocks specifically instead of just looking at the universe of all double blocks!? Why the interest in widows if you don't mind me enquiring?

The following is a thought exercise only, not a suggestion as it would contain plenty of risk of loss as well as gain.

Assuming you had some super information about a rezoning to higher density or something similar.

One strategy to go aggressive quickly for an individual would be to do as much off the plan buying as you could (land/units or whatever is available), using as little deposit as possible for each purchase.

Options require that someone will say 'yes', which can involve asking the question a lot of times before you get to your first hit.

Residex have free capital city data.

Residex housing data

Chris Joye also has a good article to explain the basics.

House Prices for Dummies

Those figures look like they might be unreliable for judging real growth, medians can be very volatile, much better to look into direct resales and see how they have fared. There are also housing index providers that do a good job, I don't pay attention to median data mostly.

Generally I would say that Perth has to be looking interesting at the moment on a national scale due just to it's extended flat period.

My top 3 capitals for 2011-2012 in no particular order would be Brisbane, Sydney & Perth.