Hi James,

I would get quotes for the work and look to reduce the price. Most vendors don't want to be bothered with repairs unless they're minor.

Good luck

Carlin

Hi everyone,

We're looking at a potentially good commercial property deal at present. We're new to commercial investing, but one thing we know we need to do is to checkout the property's history. We have a fair idea of what this means, but would really appreciate someone spelling out just what they do – ie: what specific information do you seek and where do you go to get it?

All advice gratefully received.

Carlin

Hi there – we have a place that we rent out by the room. Is working OK, but you do need to have the time (and energy) to do more work (ie: maintenance, gardening, sorting out household "issues" etc). We manage it ourselves, so priority if doing this is not only to have it somewhere where people want to rent by the room, but also somewhere close to your home.

Anyway – we've struck a snag. We want to buy another place and do the same thing BUT our lender has told us they won't lend for a serviced apartment or serviced house – classified as "ineligible security". This is despite us having a 2 year track record of making this work. All our loans (PPOR + 3IPs) are with this lender. I was told that – had they known we were going to turn one of our places into a serviced house – they would not have approved the loan. They base their sums on what the house would achieve as a standard rental.

Has anyone else encountered a lender with this policy of not lending for serviced accommodation (or have we just got a very conservative lender)?

We plan to refinance, but want to know if we're likely to strike the same problem with lots of other lenders.

thanks for any help on this.

Carlin

Thank you Mortgage Hunter. Clinical depression must never be trivialised by using terms like "sadness". It is a treatable medical condition, but both the sufferer and those around them don't always recognise the symptoms until it is too late.

The treatment's these days are very good, with a range of options that will suit all conditions and not affect your intrinsic personality. They will just help you to get up each morning and see things in perspective. I am not pushing drugs here, as the management of depression requires a tailored approach for each individual that most likely also includes professional counselling.

A huge chunk of the population suffers from clinical depression at any one time. I know I did some years back, and I was very lucky to have people who cared enough to get me the help I needed.

Please, PLEASE, do not suffer needlessly or feel alone. The beyondblue website is a good start , not just for getting the help you might need but also for running through a checklist that can confirm that you are indeed suffering from this common and treatable medical condition.

Carlin

We've got ourselves cross collaterised badly with our PPOR and 3IPs. We didn't have enough to fund deposits so didn't see any other way to be able to purchase. Elkam, I didn't know we could have increased the loan on our PPOR and used that money as a deposit for the first IP. Is that a common way of avoiding cross collaterising?

Anyway…I thought that, as your property's value went up, you could get a revaluation and get the lender to reduce or remove the security it's got.

Anyone able to enlighten me?
thanks,
Carlin

I think just before Christmas is a great time to put out offers. There are people who just want to start the new year fresh, so do the research – and I don’t just mean knowing the area inside out.

Find out how long the place has been on the market, has it gone to auction, if so what price did it get passed in at, what’s the vendor’s situation (how much does he/she want to sell, and why?). Know EVERYTHING you can about the place so that you can make an offer with confidence. And tailor it to suit the vendor – do they want a quick sale? Then make it a short settlement period. Do they want to stay on and rent it back for a while? Then let them.

If you want a building inspection, get it organised to be done during the cooling off period. And make sure your finances are well in order – I know many people will say “always make your offer subject to finance”, but I disagreee. If you know you can get the money and you know it’s a good deal, why put this unnecessary hurdle in the way of your offer being accepted?

And when you put in that offer, back it up with evidence. The agent can use this to persuade the vendor to sell. For example, find some other properties in the area, and sale prices (RP Data is the place to go for this), find out what rent you can achieve – what kind of return can you expect? What work needs to be done? Get some quotes to back up the immediate costs you’ll be up for.

The more you can show that the figure you’ve come up with is based on sound research (and not just plucked from the sky) the better the agent can work for you in getting the vendor to accept.

There is no replacement for solid research, so once you’ve chosen your area stay focussed on it to the point where you can look at any house and put a dollar value on it. Then, when that great opportunity comes up, you’ll recognise it immediately, act quickly, and hopefully come up trumps.

Oh – and always leave a little room to go up with your offer. And DON’T EVER go higher than your top price.

all the best,
Carlin

Hi there,

We’re managed to cross-collaterise to the hilt with the one lender. Serviceability not an issue, but want to undo the knot we’ve tied. But only way to borrow from another lender with next property we buy(without swinging loans on current properties across) is to come up with sufficient deposit for a stand-alone loan.

That’s what I find hard to work out. When people are setting up a different loan with a different bank just about every time they buy a new property, they clearly can’t access the equity in their existing properties because it’s tied to that lender. So where are they getting the money to make deposits??

Carlin