Hi guys, read your contracts, I think you will find that they state (the QLD REIQ one does definitely) that insurance is the responsibility of the purchaser from 5pm on the next business day after signing of the contract.

Cheers
CD

CastleDreamer

Yack, whether or not I subscribe to a magazine bears no relevance to my ability as an investor or otherwise. Who cares who subscribes or who buys it at the newsagency? Yes its a great magazine, but its only one source of information. I wouldn’t base my life’s investing on it.

CastleDreamer

Ginamarree, you can also try searching this site using the search function on the left side boarder. Try looking up some of the key terms from your post and see what other people have to say.
Cheers

CastleDreamer

Hi Ginamarree,
welcome to the forum

Manage yourself or use a PM (property manager)?
This will depend on how comfortable you feel, and how much information you will want to gather. If you chose to manage yourself, you will save around 6.5-8% in management fees, but you will need to do your homework in case something goes wrong. I recommend going to the residential tenancies website for your state and having a read about responsibilities of landlords and tenants – lots of information about leases, notice periods, mediation etc etc etc.
Managing your self can be great if all things are going well. Would you be prepared to go and speak to the tenant about rent in arrears? Tell them to remove their pet dog which is not on the lease but is chewing up your carpet? evict them? Rentals managers can take the brunt of this for you. If you get a manager, still take the time to get to know your rights and those of your tenants. You should still check in with the PM on occasion to see how things are going. To a certain extent Real Estate can be set and forget, but you can’t ignore your investment – still needs your involvement

Avg cost of PM fees – 6.5 – 8% of rent plus postage and petties, other sorts of costs such as advertising for new tenant, relet fee generally one week.

Take out house and contents insurance – this should have public liability cover in it. your responsibility is to provide a safe place to live for your tenant – so probably would not cover you if you were at fault knowingly leaving an unsafe problem unfixed – eg exposed electrical wiring.

4. Yes you can do your own repairs and maintenance, you can have your PM contact you whenever there is a problem, and instruct them whether to get it repaired or let you do it.

5. Your insurance covers you even when there is a reasonable gap between tenants (most do, check the fine print)

Cheers
CD

CastleDreamer

Yep your right, I guess I read the quote in my post as meaning really ‘don’t try and rent out the renovators dream!’ let someone elses skanky unrenovated dream be the property that sits vacant. Yours aren’t skanky renovators dreams anyway Mini, you did them up and now they are cute little properties with Cash Flow AND capital growth!! All power to you…

CastleDreamer

1993 – Brick and tile 90K Logan. Rent 150/wk, interest around 11.5%. Sold in 1996 to take a year off work – sold for on paper loss of 10K: (see…. if I had bought positive cash flow I would not have needed to sell it!!!!!!!
It all makes sense

CastleDreamer

“His advice to property investors is to keep your investment property occupied. He says it is important to buy a unit or house that is low maintenance and does not require a lot of money to be spent on upgrading it.

“Buy a place that is not a renovator’s dream. You want a place that is attractive to renters”

Makes sense doesn’t it? If you have a place that tenants want to live in, they’ll choose yours over the skanky feral option down the street!

And people take the x#$% out of +CF property…

CD[nowords]

CastleDreamer

Hi KBH, yep that’s my understanding – if you buy it to use as an investment then you don’t get the grant.
However, (this is not financial/investment advice, you need to check it out with your own accountant) I have heard that you only need to live in the place for six months. That six months has to start within the twelve months after you buy it. So ….(theory for you to check out…) in theory you could by your home, leave tenants in it for 11 months and some days, move in on day 363, live there for six months, and then move out and put tenants back in…….

Food for thought…
Cheers
CD

CastleDreamer

Hi James, for simple straightforward conveyancing, try conveyancing works in Brisbane $295.00 plus outlays. My properties have cost around 5-600$ tops for purchases.
Cheers
CD

CastleDreamer

Matt,
lender is Westpac, but if you try the front door, they will tell you that they only lend to O/S investors who put down 50K per property – which is not much good if you intend to purchase a 40K property!!!! Its also not much good for chewing up deposits.

I am happy to give you some specifics about my NZ lender if you PM me.
Cheers
CD[computer]

CastleDreamer