At best you sell the house in the long term and get a tenant for the short term if that is what you were intending to do anyway, it’s a bonus, perhaps it might be worth having the agent manage the property to keep the separation, and get checks to make sure he is going to be a suitable tenant.

I am assuming your bank meant that he could not…[Read more]

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the weird and wacky world of property investing, I have been at it as an amateur for over 10 years now and still feel like I really know next to nothing, these forums are an excellent place to ask questions and learn things.

Good luck with your investing.

Not to sound facetious, but can everyone list the top 5 best films?

My point being, everyone will have a different opinion. Also price would be another thing, no good list 5 million dollar plus suburbs if you only want to spend $300K

For Brisbane, I am seeing a lot of activity stirring in Brissy and from experience am finding the inner north…[Read more]

I would also recommend a broker, you can always walk away (and I have on a few occasions in the past) if they can't give you the best deal for your situation. I wish I had been able to find a decent broker back when I started buying property, but the internet and brokers weren't a big thing back then (not how they are now with property anyway).

Benny wrote:

  "they cannot be a normal tax deduction as the property is not rented"      So, for clarification, has the Sydney place been not rented for the last 4 years?   Or is there more to the story?  e.g. "it was rented, but the tenants moved out xx months ago….." 

To elaborate on that part, I meant the house we are currently living…[Read more]

Painting the house can sure save you cash, I have done it myself about 5-6 years ago, I also did doors (same colour). It was not really that hard, though the scotch tape is a pain if you leave it on for more than half a day or so, though a small tub of sample roof paint patches over the few small spots well.

We didn't do the roof though, and I…[Read more]

Your bet is probably right Freckle, and this argument could go on, hence we have a legal system where it can be taken to court, but unless one side bows to the other, the court (usually) relies on onus of proof… at the end of the day unless you have the toy or crap dumped down the toilet (hopefully not IN your hand in this instance) it is going…[Read more]

I agree with Terry, the toilet needs to be working… if it is simply blocked without cause, perhaps it is a building fault, the tenant can't be held responsible for that, its like saying the lights don't come on some times so the tenant has to pay to fix that because an electrician can't figure it out.

Unfortunately unless you can prove it was…[Read more]

Someone above mentioned that a financial adviser just tries to sell you their product, I thought they were regulating this and changing the industry as of July this year? Is this the case or has this not changed yet?

To answer the OP original question:
Where to get Depreciation report?:

There are many you can use, I don't know most of them as the one I use works.
The one I use is Depreciator, I have a few DS from them and they are excellent: http://www.depreciator.com.au/
They charge around $650 and they will charge you $50 to update it when you make changes…[Read more]

Depends on your contract, most are conditional on approval of finance, so if the bank isn't ready to pay down the loan, then your finance is not finalised and the contract cannot proceed, check with your conveyancer/solicitor to find out exactly, as they are the contract people.

If you have an unconditional contract ( I have never had one without…[Read more]

Yup MJM I feel your pain,

I made this same mistake, and now cannot access the collateral in our property. As we are wanting to organize finance quickly for our new home we have cross collateralised (gasp!) our old PPOR now IP to reduce what we need to pay as a deposit for our new PPOR. I know this cross collaterlising  is often seen as a dirty…[Read more]

Yeah I agree with Terry, it is all to do with the wording of the contract.

Generally the spa would have to be specifically mention as included in the contract (usually listed items are on the first page ir two these include dishwashers and any other non -standard item), if it was not, then the vendor has the right to pull it out all together as…[Read more]

We have done an immediate change on PMs, so we have had to pay out the old one for 90 days, the new one is not charging us for 90 days so there is not commission atm anyway.

My concern is if an insurance company would frown upon this and if the ATO would as well, but if there is no issue I will jsut let the tenant decide which they would prefer.

Sounds like its well overdue for schools to teach "life skills" so people can learn some basics of life, we have plenty of "smart people" with no street sense and it's really bad to see someone ripped off because they didn't know any better

Oh, thanks for the heads up on that, I will have to speak to a knowledgeable accountant about this, though as I have the monies in my offset account, the amount of interest incurred each month has not changed, and I have had some monies (DHOAS subsidy) still going into the loan (from the type of home loan it is the subsidy has to go into the home…[Read more]

Thanks for the advice Richard, this is why I like to ask questions and keep up with these things as not being in this profession I can miss things like that. When I originally took out the loan it was a feature of the loan, they no doubt would have sent me something about the changes I just probably missed it.

I will have to look into what is…[Read more]

Hi Scott,

I feel for you and your family, as it would not be a nice situation to be in, but that being said I think you need to look at the reality  of it. You are living in a house work twice that of an outer suburbs property in most cities, and you only owe 60% LVR. I really don't want to sound rude, but the reality of it is you are living…[Read more]

Hi Lisa,

As other have said first and foremost, if you can't afford it or don't see it ever going up whilst you own it, then get rid of it, you wouldn't keep a car that ran through $200 of fuel and oils a week when it should be using $50.

But, true investing is for the long term, anyone who says they buy and sell properties are not investors…[Read more]

For starters you are saying that you want to transfer a property which in reality is owned by the bank to her, no bank is going to let that happen without discharging the mortgage first. Just like when you sell a car, as long as there is a loan, the banks hold the item as security, that is the difference between a secured and unsecured loan – the…[Read more]