Thanks for your comments.  The place is heading for a mortgagee auction and has essentially been stripped bare.  No filtration or other associated equipment – just an empty concrete pool, with cracks. 

From an IP perspective, I assumed (perhaps erroneously) that having a swimming pool in a tenanted property would be more trouble than it is worth (in terms of mainatenance etc).  What do people think?

An update!

Same agent calls me to change the booking time for another property he is showing me later this week.

He then talks about the one I’m interested in (with no prompting from me). I feigned to forget which property it was as I have seen so many. [biggrin] Anyways, so he tells me that there has ben “an update on that one”. He said “the tenants have given their notice to vacate and will be out of there by June. No would be a good time to make an offer if you want to move in now, otherwise we are going to have to put it up for rent soon.” he then said we have had a few offers “In the low y’s” – when last week he told me there was an offer in the mid y’s which was rejected.

The way I read this – the owner is committed elsewhere and needs to sell by 30 June ideally. The mid “y” offers are a nonsense.

I am going to get a copy of the contract and a building inspection report and then likely make an offer of low y.

Would be grateful for any tips on what I can read into this or possibel tactics.

Alistair, no she has not resided in the IP. Many thanks.

I appreciate your forthright thoughts Derek. You may well be right on the over extending part and no, I don’t have anythign up my sleeve.

I will of course, be going over the figures in more detail when I get back home and get a loan approval, work out a new montlhy budget etc – but I guess I just wanted some gut reactions from people with more experience than me.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for all those thoughts guys.

I have my own views but am always keen to get other views.

Probably a fair comment there.

I am developing my own strategy and hope to get it into action within the next 6-12 months, depending on movements in the market.

I guess my point is – I do like Steve’s book, but it has not convinced me that buying cf+ properties (if I can find them) is the right thing for me.

32 people have read this post – but nobody has responded! Come on boys and girls – share an opinion!

They are probably out there, but it seems to me a whole lot of effort. I just don’t know that the “positive gearing” ethos is for me. Steve had to work hard to find 100 odd properties that give him only $200,000 per annum in income. When I say “only” I realise that’s not anything to sneeze at – but you need a lot fo time on your side to do that – clearly it was wast Steve wanted because he wanted to have that replace the income he earned as an accountant.

I’m making good money and I like what I do. The income I make per annum is almost the same as what Steve makes form his property empire – and I like what I do. So I want to buy an IP for the purpose of having good capital growth over say 5-10 years. I’m under 30 and figure this is a better strategy for my personal circumstances.

I’m not rubbishing the theory – I just think the effort that is required to do it and the stratgey – do not fit in with my personal aims and circumstances.