Nice graphs F,Only a couple of points to add:You can still pay off the principal if you have an IO loan. Your reasons not to do so may include:1) your desire to deploy that cash into other investments, perhaps leveraged. If these investments are successful then the money will have worked harder for you. Also, there's a lot of accumulated cash flow…[Read more]

Hi Rob,You need to sack this property manager (because they are not really a property manager – are they?). Is there a larger town nearby that has more property managers. If so, you may find an alternative there who will manage properties in your town.Daedalus.

Welcome VI!I would highly recommend reading some books on property investing over the next month or so. Things in the property market tend to get a bit quiet over xmas, so it won't set you back much time-wise or money-wise. The knowledge you gain will be more than worth it.There's a good choice of books by Australian authors around. Read a few.…[Read more]

I agree with NorwegianBlue. There is always a new reason why NOT to do anything. You are either moving forwards, or you are moving backwards. Procrastinating is moving backwards. Evaluate the risk, work out a forward move, then make the move.I personally would look for an investment that doesn't require me to provide so much ongoing funding (i.e.…[Read more]

Hi p_mac,You should definitely buy the book now.WRT starting. Your first investment will be determined by:1) Your level of income (assuming you need to borrow)2) What funds you have to invest3) Your level of knowledge.Maybe the starting point is to ensure you have adequate capacity in those 3 areas? Maybe the starting point is to refine your…[Read more]

Hi p_mac.I don't think it really matters what you're strategy is at this point, unless you already have a war chest to invest.Whatever strategy you come up with now will probably have changed within a few short years. My 2 recommendations for you at this point in your life are:1) Make sure you do something i.e. make sure you actually start on some…[Read more]

Hi JL,I'm pretty new to the forum too, and it takes a bit of reading between the lines to pick up some of the terminology. However, here's a link to a glossary with a lot of property stuff in it: http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9382.Some abbreviations are Internety ones, such as WRT (with respect to), IMHO (in my humble opinion)…[Read more]

Hi Richard,"but often it is for only 10% of the purchase price"Could you elaborate on this please? Won't the serviceability over the other 90% still be a problem? I can understand if the no/lo-doc is over the whole purchase…CheersDaedalus

Hi all,It seems that this approach is well suited to IP's where the yield is high and CG is high, but the expenses are minimal. While you only pay 15% on the upside, you can only claim 15% on the expenses too. Since many CF+ IP's at personal tax rates are only CF+ because of the depreciation, many of these will no longer be CF+ on a tax rate of…[Read more]

Cheers CM,I think that the servicability rules are developed for the masses. Fair enough. They should have another set of rules though for people who are putting effort into their financial future….I found out that WRT servcicability, your Credit Card credit limits are used to calculate serviceability, not the balances. So even if you pay them…[Read more]

Hi,I'm really interested in the answer to this question, and put together my investment plan a year ago hoping it would be the case. I did expect that the growth rate would be limited by the amount of equity though. All the banks I've ever used always needed me to kick in something, eg a 10%-20% deposit. So I could only expect to add new…[Read more]

Hi,There's a reasonably good discussion of this in one of Margaret Lomas' books (can't remember which one). However, need to ask them how many staff they have, and how many properties. Then you do some division to work out how much time that leaves to give your property the attention that it needs.I find that whoever I select, I need to spend the…[Read more]