Not sure how proficient you are with Excel Tiger but I've found making a spreadsheet can be an excellent way to understand the numbers for any calculation or project. There are spreadsheets you can borrow to begin with and use them as a complete product or modify yourself.

Hi Elizabeth,

Here's one for Brisbane that does qualify! Free on first visit and not generating commission income from selling product.
http://www.meetup.com/brisbanepropertygroup/

Good luck with your site.

Andrew

An example of the kind of event that is out there, low key promotion, no upsell and real investors to network with. The most popular segments always are the 'real deals' where investors show the details of their latest project.

http://www.meetup.com/BrisbanePropertyGroup/events/50335982/

Good idea about talking to a valuer. Sounds unlikely as a plan though.

When we have bought flats on the one title the valuer has looked at a per flat comparison, so 2×2 flats they can even look at single 2 bed flats in the suburb as a comparison.

As well as asking agents check carefully with council or a trusted source. The idea being agents often know but you should always trust but verify!

Agreed, first point of call if you are clear on the 'why' and are just working on the 'how'

I consider negative gearing is a tool rather than a strategy and therefore neither good or bad in itself but to be carefully weighed up as part of your investing. Blanket statements such as 'avoid negative gearing' or 'only buy positive cash-flow properties' are at best not helpful and at worst plain wrong in my opinion.

Fantastic question!

There's so much toxic prediction out there and precious little concrete suggestions to pin down. There are good legal reasons why a person might not want to be specific but most predictors aren't specific for other reasons including they don't know any better.

Three important questions you need to answer for any trade:

1) What to I buy
2) How much
3) When do I sell

If a person opines that residential real estate is not a good investment then so what? Steve Keen sold his apartment and values are up significantly in the area since he sold, doesn't mean anything other than prediction and profiting from market timing that prediction can pass by each other quietly in the night without ever meeting. If a person then opines that a fixed term deposit is a good alternative then we have something to test, great.. we can measure our total and risk adjusted returns and build a track record.

Applying the Jan Somers recipe to our three questions we have:

1) Residential property!
2) When you can afford it
3) Never

Not a perfect recipe by any means as Jan admits herself but one that will continue to perform well (even if under longer term trend) with a few assumptions.

1) Take Residex 5yr forward predicted returns
2) Favourable tax, leverage and government support continue to exist
3) We aren't invaded or something equally disastrous, there's always a possible scenario to cancel all bets

This is just for buy and hold investors, those who are actively adding value are doing great in this market and will continue to make money but they can reasonably be viewed as operating a business rather than being purely investors.

Also back on track… offset accounts set a high benchmark to beat when you take into account tax considerations

The last couple of interest rate cuts have really buoyed the Brisbane market, I suspect the Dec-Jan figures will reveal that though it takes some time for the data to filter through.

I personally know investors who have got rich from property in the 50's,60's,70's,80's,90's and 00's.. Now it's time to step up to the plate for the 10's!

There are always angles to be played and strategies that are working well.