Hi Michael,

I deal with a couple of people over their who could help you out, depending on where you are looking. Different people are generally better in different States. If you email me the State you are looking at I will send you the contact for an appropriate person.

I’d also be interested in speaking with you about the area that you act in and what opportunities there might be.

Regards
Alistair Perry
[email protected]

Hi Misty,

Have you obtained a town planning permit/Development Approval. If not this should be your first step. You can’t really do anything until you have permits. I’m not sure about other States, but in Victoria this process alone would take at least 3 months, but it would be smart to budget for 12 months in your due diligence.

If you already have permits your time frame may be ok, although it still seems a little short. If not, you should add another 12 months of holding costs to your due diligence.

Regards
Alistair

Hi Rayson,

When choosing a potential development site, one of the most fundamental things you need to know id what it will be possible to do with the site. If you don’t know this, you can’t do a proper due diligence. Therefore the first thing you need to do is to find yourself a good architect or draftperson, whio can give you some idea of this. It is also a good idea to find a town planning consultant and also to get a rudimentry (at least) understanding of the planning system.

Regards
Alistair

Hi Jay,

I was in a similer situation to you a few years ago. My wife (then girlfriend) and I bought a PPOR and have been doing it up ever since (I don’t have a great amount of time or skill in terms of renovations). This has worked well for us, as I have been able to access significant additional equity since purchasing.

Regards
Alistair

Hi Grossrealisation,

I agree with everything you are saying. I just thought your initial comments pointed to unlisted funds as only being smallish, when there are some very large ones.

It’s actually quite interesting going through the Financial services legislation. You can operate outside of its duristiction if you only deal with “sophisticated investors” (meaning wealthy people. Because of this people who operate syndicates as a business can offer much better products (ie lower fees) to wealthy investors as they don’t have to go through all of the crap and expense involved in getting a FSL.

Regards
Alistair

Most of the people I know in Vic who wrap use Lewis O’Brien. I haven’t got his contact details at hand, but if you do a search for him on the forum, I’m sure you will find him.

Regards
Alistair

On their web site they say they get paid by the developer, not the client. There is no problem with this, and both the companies I mentioned do this. What you want to make sure, if you want to deal witgh them, is that they get the properties for their client at a discount, which is what both GPS Network and WPB do. There are some less scrupulous companies out there who don’t bother negotiating a discount and siimply lump their fee on top of what the developer wants, which results in the investor purchasing at above market price.

I don’t know anything about this company. I do know that if I was going to buy off a company such as them, I would use one that contributes to this great forum. I have met both Danny and Roy in person, they’re both great guys and contribute a lot to the people on here, both also provide a great service.

Regards
Alistair

How much you borrow is really dependent on the situation. If the place needs a lot of work you might be better off borrowing extra straight away, but this will cause you to incure some costs such as additional LMI.

If it doesn’t need that much work, given that you are going to live in it for six months, you may be better off simply paying for the improvements out of your own cash flow.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Alistair

Thanks to Danny for organising the night and Tony for standing in as speaker. As always it was very entertaining and informative. I look forward to hearing of Ozi and George’s US adventure at the next meeting.

Regards
Alistair

It is possible, in some cases, to get up to 95% for serviced apartments. The rates start to get high as the LVR goes up, but if you can buy well enough you can make money out of these.

Regards
Alistair