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Something similar, and cheaper, is offered by Barclays – from memory its about $60 a year cheaper than comparable policies. It’s a “debt recovery” service rather than an insurance policy per se. My understanding is that Barclays buys the debt from you, and goes and recovers it from the tenant. Has anyone else used this?
A word of warning…
My mother is looking to buy a two bedroom townhouse in Castle Hill… she has been looking at one in particular, which was formerly owned by Defence… it’s been on the market for 8 months, and the price has dropped from $499k down to $410k in that time. Capital growth might be slim on the ground for a little while.
I think we’re all intrigued…
The scepticism is caused by the fact that your original post was big on sentiment, but pretty skinny on facts.
Perhaps you could outline the basics?
I’ve just come back from 4 weeks in the UK, and I’m due to return in a few weeks time. While I was there I saw lots of ads for property investment seminars etc in the newspapers – even the Metro – that look interesting. They’re not hard to find if you have a poke about. [cap]
I couldnt think of anything worse than trying to obtain advice from a solicitor online!
Being a solicitor myself, I know that the best advice is given to clients with whom the solicitor has developed a working relationship. That is never going to happen online.
Also, any dialogue that you might be able to establish online will inevitably be quite stilted – you email a question and they reply. But a face to face meeting provides a more conducive environment in which you can ask questions and get a flow of dialogue happening.
Byronet is right. It’s an expensive and painful lesson, but suing for damages would be worse (trust me, I’m a litigation lawyer).
If you do decide to push on nonetheless, you will likely to have to make your claim in the local court, where it is realistically possible to represent yourself. Be warned, though. Even the filing alone may cost you over $1000, and if you lose the case, you will be exposed to a costs award in favour of your opponent which could easily go past $10k.[cigar]
That’s brilliant advice guys. It’s strikingly clear to me that I need to spend 6 months or so just educating myself about this before I jump in. Thanks again for the words of wisdom.
Benny
Thanks for your advice Derek.
True enough, I haven’t got a budget in place, nor any other savings. I was paying off a car loan and my credit card, so paying off debts was my main focus. Now that I can afford to pay these debts off immediately, I would like to start putting my money into investment.
In terms of what type of investments, and what my goals are, I would like to make some good capital returns and, if possible, do that through positive cashflow vehicles. With those goals in mind, does it make more sense to invest in several properties instead of one? And what level of gearing is thought to be appropriate? Is there a rule of thumb?
thanks again
Benny
[biggrin]
Thanks Robert.
I’m pretty comfortable taking on debt, so developing a broad portofolio would be the goal.
I will take a look through the older threads to see if I can find anything on buyer’s agents. Are there any in particular that I should look at?
cheers
Benny
