The extra 50k makes a lot of difference with the budget, 200 v 250k, main road will bring the price down, there are 405m blocks in that price range in decent locations <12k CBD.

Cheapest way to get the land is to get is as part of a subdivision or house shift, not the easiest way though.

Domain suburb profile for Alexandra Hills
Wikipedia on Alexandra Hills

Getting feedback for a suburb a good resource is talking to specialist property managers, the more people you talk to the better cross referencing you can do, nothing beats feet on the ground research though, you can even check how wet your feet are getting which is an important consideration when buying property at the moment.

Paul Keating said something along the lines of 'Always back self interest'.

Pays to know where everyone's vested interest lies and how they will be compensated I believe.

Be aware of the marketing model that gets the rights to housing stock then tries to push that stock onto investors while saying they are independent investor helpers, all done for numbers that should make them blush (25-40k in a few cases I'm aware of). I much prefer the model that finds the investors needs first of all and then goes out and matches a property (selected from the entire market!) where the helper is continually on the ground and an expert in that specific location and also has a transparent fee structure.

I have a vested interest also. As Ronald Reagan said (to continue the quoting theme) "Trust but verify!"

A second vote for the group Martha mentioned.

I attend every month and the speakers and networking are excellent, all for $20 and you get tim-tams and coffee as well, hard to beat!

How did the property search go cellphone? It's been a few months now since this thread started.

Be careful of vested interested, most of the posters in this thread have one including myself, some choose to hide it however!

If you are still interested in yield data for residential property by suburb then send me a message and I can provide some relatively recent info.

Planning on holding long term it's more important to consider the area you are buying in, for a buy reno and quick sell the location is not so important in my opinion as it's very much about the numbers and not what infrastructure will be built there 5 years from now.

I look for 20%+  increase in values for a renovation project at the cheaper price ranges as a decent minimum benchmark; just looking for cosmetic reno's as well, avoiding structural issues and value takers like roof, gutter, stumping etc.

Rough figures for eg:

Buy for 300k
Close costs @ 5% = 15k
Cosmetic reno @ 20k
Total costs: 335k
Revalue at 360k+ (300k +20%)

Time for turn around an issue, units/apartments potentially much faster!

On a serious note a reasonable rule of thumb for a maximum fee for a buyers agent should be around the 2.2% of purchase price level in my opinion, there is quite a bit of difference in fee structures out there however. Do your research as in everything involved with spending your own hard earned money!

Working without decent breaks at anything would likely prove draining. I think a key is knowing when to place limits on your work time and have the systems in place to allow yourself to take relaxing holidays now and then.

Hi Jo,

in Brisbane I would strongly suggest you attend at least one monthly BIG meeting

First night is free (now normally 'free' can mean watch out for property sharks… but not this time!) and you get to listen to a speaker present on their area of expertise and network with other property investors, free coffee and biscuits as well. As a potential renovator I would imagine this months speaker would be a great source of help.

It's a not for profit group run by volunteers and usually they get excellent speakers (Matusik, Spann, Somers etc etc), in five years of attending I can't think of one evening I haven't learnt a few new things from.

Regards,
Andrew