Yay a question I can help with! Give Matt from Opening Doors a call. Google them. Not the government thingo, they had the name first. He is a finance broker who’s a very smart investor himself, very helpful with strategy suggestions and has the knowledge to back them up.

Why do you need both your homes as security for your new building? That amount of cross-collateralisation seems a big worry to me. If the bank won't lend you enough on the strength of the security in the 10 acres and new building, why not? Are you overcapitalising? Is it legal to build two dwellings on one land title in that area? It seems to me…[Read more]

My wild guess is – just don't charge her the rent that weekSurely decreasing income gives you as much tax benefit as increasing expenseBetter ask an accountant though, on the whole

Good accountant: Finkelstein HickmottGood broker: Loan FocusQ 1,2,3,4 – see 6 As far as I know, if you buy property in any kind of business or trust structure, you can't get tax breaks off personal income.

Yes tax benefits apply and (very rough guess) may halve your 9k input per year.If you can, put as much deposit down as you can to avoid spending thousands on mortgage insurance.Get an offset account to the loan so that you can all store your $1200pm in there, reducing the loan interest, while having it easily available for future investment.I…[Read more]

The WA office of state revenue has a dire warning up about cancelled and re-signed contracts. Not sure if the threat has any teeth but read & consider.

I am an investor and, currently, also a FHB with a nice freshly signed land contract.So my view: eeeeeeexcellenttttt

My guess would be that it'd been on the market for a while and the owners decided they weren't going to get the $ they wanted for it in this market. Ask the agent if the owners might change their mind if you offered their asking price. He oughta jump at the chance to get his commission after all. Assuming you are willing to offer the asking price…[Read more]

I went to a seminar or two of theirs and that got me started on PI in the first place. They have a lot of very good information available during the seminar and seem a whole lot more honest than most. Nevertheless, after a little research I felt I could find properties that met their own criteria better than the ones they had on offer and decided…[Read more]

1) is the unit worth what they are asking for it2) is the rent worth what they are quoting (beware unrealistic quotes and even unrealistic rental guarantees that will leave you short after expiring)3) is there plenty of demand for units to rent in that area4) is there any chance that demand for housing could go sharply down in that area eg town's…[Read more]

Yes. Don't ever live on the property, just rent it out. That way you don't get the FHOG on this property but you can still get the FHOG later on a property you buy to live in.

I liked his book, I found it very inspiring.I took it with a good handful of salt, like I do anything I read

Yep – correct – I actually phoned 'em up and confirmed it.

I also believe that the only wrong way is doing nothing. I suggest that you look into exactly what you would do if you sold your current property before you think about selling. You may find that the alternatives make your current situation look quite good after all…!

Hi – I realise I am resurrecting this thread from a while ago – but if you have not yet found a job consider moving to Perth. We are screaming out for engineers of all disciplines/levels!

Well I bet you feel better having got that off your chest My mortgage broker refuses point blank to deal with one of the major banks because he says their incompetence is not worth the commission. He refuses to give any juicy details but I'm sure he has a story or two like yours!

I am in WA and researched this question before buying anything. Here, if you buy an investment property and never live in it, you cannot claim FHOG on that property but can still claim it later for your first PPOR. Ask your state revenue department to confirm this. WA’s is at http://www.dtf.wa.gov.au/cms/osr_content.asp?ID=344.

I agree, they can do much better than the pension. How about a no doc mortgage on the property, increasing the amount each year. On a fully owned $1m property, growing in value at a very conservative 5% they can borrow $50k in the first year to live off, tax free. The property is then worth 1m + 5% = 1,050,000 so they still have their 1m equity.…[Read more]

Yes. For me. The ~$10000 basically gets you research on what they think is the best area to invest in and a guarantee on building time. Most of the rest you can get from builders anyway, for similar or lower cost, depending on how much you’re willing to shop around. And after the time I’d spent checking up on their research to see if they had done…[Read more]

Anyone thought about this possibility?

Reasons people don’t invest in property: requires a large amount of money, can’t get out of it quickly, everyone else’s horror tenant stories.
Reasons people don’t invest in shares: perceived to be riskier, have to continually monitor, not willing to borrow for ‘riskier’ investment, can’t borrow over 50%…[Read more]