Forum Replies Created
My dad brought us out from Wales in 1966 and he was chief plumber on West Glamorgan council. His pride wouldnt let him do the 4 year apprenticeship here he then needed to get an aussie plumbers licence. He regretted it till the day he died 7 years ago.
Now with what someone posted about taking a year to get qualified. With the average plumber now 50 and a lot starting to look toward retirement, a good stable family plumber would never be short of work on a really good income. Get your qualifications, come to Coffs Harbour and make a mint!!!
Service in country towns is non-existent. Asked a landscaper to cut down 2 trees, he said see you monday and that was 2 1/2 years ago. A plumber said Ill be there tuesday, thursday 2 weeks later he rings and says yeah i meant to get over there last week, do you still want me to come? One electrician was asked to put in 2 new circuits for air conditioning and did only one circuit at a rediculous price, I then got another guy to do it properly which took another 3 weeks to get done.
Start to get the drift??
Beautiful coastal country towns are getting bigger and if you bite the bullet and get certified then you can basically write your own ticket.
Whatever you do, good luck
DD
I own a house on Vineyard street in one mile and its got dual access from the back on Darcy Lane near the river. Since the bridge from Ippy got redeveloped a few years ago there hasnt been too much happening there except the odd infill house on a vacant block now and then.
The good thing is that in 2003 I bought this for $95k and its now worth $225k with a $215k rent. Currently we owe $152k on it so its a 7% return for us. Bathroom needs a redo as most houses in the area were quickly built and have some maintainence to do. The values will continue to rise as the area is expanding in jobs and infrastructure. Three years ago they got rid of all of the weatherboard houses inside the airbase and made higher density dwellings for the influx of bodies they expected. By 2010 they will have not 3500 jobs there but 8500 jobs there with several infantry and airforce divisions relocationg there.
The airospace precinct included Boing which does all of its repair and mantainence work on the base too, as well as several other aerospace companies. Rosewood to the north of Amberley is going thru a bit of a boom as well with 3 new developements underway between Rosewood and Waloon. (Ihave a house in Rosewood too) so i do my homework well and keep up to date.
Hope this helps
DD
Well guys here they are!!!!
Peter Lang & Associates, Maria DeFrancesco 9363 2377 Fax 02 9362 3146 Suite 610 Eastpoint Tower 180 Ocean Street, PO Box 85 Edgecliff 2027
Very property savvy people there. Say you are referrals from Dave Thomas who has used them for 5 years. Very nice tax returns.
DD
Richard is right about small units being a worry from most lenders, but both the NAB and Comm Bank have recently loaned on 38sqm one bedroom units in Woodridge Qld. This area is having another surge as Im sure Richard will confirm so Im just wondering if hornsby area is currently getting cap gains or is still flat like other parts of sydney.
As you want to invest, why not look at other options, other states and even 2 or three smaller properties in differing locations.
Just a thought.
DD
Yeah its an australia wide trend that tradies, due to many older guys looking to retire soon are being very selective about what they do and when as there is such a demand for them now. With no apprenticeships being offered or encouraged by the government its easy to see who will pay the price for their shortsightedness……us.
We also have Tassie and Qld properties and its the same everywhere. We have a job now 18 months since we gave it to the repair guy and its still not done. He even said its about 2 months away last month so thats how hard it is now. With a lot of baby boomers retiring soon, its a case of get as much done soon as these guys are getting busier and their prices are rising too.
Anyway, enough rambling for me so good luck with the guys. They were good when I used them so fingers crossed all is still as good.
Happy hunting.
DD
Had a client who bought a property with a rental guarantee a few years ago in Sudney. Not only couldnt they get a tenant but they also had to sue the developer to try to get their guaranteed income off him. Often there are clauses and they favour the developer squeezing out of paying any of the guarantees.
Both Terry and Richard are right in that they only offer a guarantee to spruke buyers. If they offer a guarantee, why do they need to?? Wont it rent at that level on its own merits? Anytime I see one like this now I suggest to my clients that other options could better suit their needs. There is usually good reasons why the offer is there for the guarantee and yes long leases are negative past the 2 year mark. The first as stated above and the second is that unless the lease has a CPI clause in place you cannot increase rents during the lease period. A lot can happen in 2 years and one thing could be several interest rates as we have just gone through. Imagine the impost on your pocket should you have to wear these increased payments yourself.
Keep looking, there are other options out there.
Good Luck and happy hunting.
DD
Nice to see some 1955ers with the rent yourself to invest better strategy looking to move forward. Being a 1962er Im not far behind you timewise and my wife and I are a bit further on in the investor journey, but have always said that if we needed to start again we would rent, and all of the difference between the rent and what we would have to pay in mortgage to live in the same area would be put towards developing a property portfolio.
As you have a house you own with oodles of equity, I would rent it out, rent yourself, and get as many investments with the equity that god and the banks would allow. Let them grow for a few years and then review. If some werent performing I would either reno to get a better return or sell. With several properties you would have some carry forward losses each year and this would neatly offset against your cap gains incurred from the sale(s).
Then based on your travels and maturing tasts, decide in which part of the globe you wish to live. Maybe some of the profits could be put into super(upto $50k/yr without penalty under the new super tax laws), and in the last year before retiring this is one small strategy I would use. Then the following year all of the money in super could be withdrawn as a lump sum or as a pension without any penalties whatsoever.
Hope this sparks a few thoughts.
DD
We had a tenant recently who fell down the stairs, she then said she was thinking of suing due to the stairs not being safe, so we had them assessed and guess what, they were fine. Then she said she was injured and could we carpet the stairs for her so she could feel better, so we got a quote just to keep her happy, we said we would think about installing the carpet down the track. Not happy with this she insisted we repaint the top rail if the stairs to add some grip to it to "stop her sweaty hands slipping". She then said she was unsure if she was going to sue us for the fall she had or not. Even though she admitted to the rental manager that it was her "silly fault" that she fell down.
So I was up there doing a reno on another of our properties and got a mate of mine who was up there with me to lightly sad the rail and paint it to keep her quiet. Then 6 weeks later when we didnt renew her lease its "why, what did I do??". Needless to say I now have a new tenant and an additional $10/wk to boot.
DD
Wow to have such a fine criteria that it "has to generate exactly $40.00/wk after costs" I wish you good luck. It is too hard for me to find these things easily and with so many sources for property and advisers and new properties out there with not much more than 6.5% return these days in good growth areas, I think you are a bit too unrealistic and are seeking the holy grail.
Please let me know if you find these properties, I will be pleasantly surprised.
DD
Get a building and pest reports on all properties, get full internal pics from the agent showing anywork needing to be done, get the agent to arrange a couple of quotes and bingo, no need to visit the place anywhere in australia. Now if you are a nervous investor that needs to touch and feel a place then by all means make the trip, but if you get good property managers who take pics on two of their 4 inspections during the year as standard, forward these on to you with comments, have qutes already done on anything they suggest needs doing, then why visit??
Its all a business and the less tactile touchy feely you get about the place the better and more professional will be your treating of the property as an asset and not the tenants house.
It may seem a little cold but we do give tenants that look after the place movie tickets or gardening vouchers depending on the property each year. This reinforces their pride in looking after the place and is a good way to reduce default notices as we found, with only one out of 18 tenants needing a notice rather than 5 the previous year.
Be creative, buy where you have done your research, but most of all, do something!!!!
Good Luck and Happy Hunting
DD
Gee wiz guys, it seems I go away for about a year and the first time I look at the website again you are bagging buyers agents, birddogs whatever you like to call us for offering time poor people a way to source investments without putting in the time and reinventing the wheel.
Xenia,
It is in my personal opinion, always those that are frustrated with an inflexible system they personally have to work under, that lash out on those like myself who offer an effective solution for a small sector of the market that prefer guidance in obtaining an investment property.
Take a deep breath. It is not illegal to offer a referral service to anything anywhere as long as you dont offer "financial advice" in the process. Information is a valuable resource and should be available to everyone. Some people are time poor and pay others to source the information they need.By presenting a property listing to a client I am in fact referring them to a possible property and agent they could otherwise have missed. To work on their instructions and negotiate the purchase price with the agent, is acting as their representative and go between, for clients not familiar with the processes in the states they wish to buy, this is saving them both time and inconvenience during this process.
Who amongst you would bag the reno kings for giving advice on buying an entry level property and doing it up for better cashflow return or a quick sale?? Gee I dont think Ive seen it stated that they are agents, but as they use agents and solicitors in the process and they personally derive a fee for their find/reno/sell strategy they market, why havent we seen that court case yet?Having contacts for building and pest reports that discount is value adding to the basic service, as is sourcing for them a solicitor in each case.
Having a working relationship with agents for the preparation of documents and arranging management after settlement means we are always covered by both licenced real estate agents and solicitors where the deals are taking place means we are effectively streamlining this process from start to finish and meeting all of the requirements for property sales in each case.
Rather than saying its wrong and illegal, each state should have a comprehensive set of rules regarding all services relating to property. When ASIC approached me a year ago regarding operating as a buyers agent, they said "you are not a licenced real estate agent how do you justify recieving a fee for your services?"
My reply was that as to operate in each state where laws are different, you would need to be a registered agent in every state of Australia and this is totally impractical, as each state is self regulating with different governing bodies concerning property and as yet there is not a national body that allows and regulates these activities totally, the only legal way to cover this situation is to become a qualified financial planner under the ASIC guidelines, who is then able to offer advice and recommendations regarding all asset classes including direct property.
I do not offer my services as a financial planner per say, and recommend that you see your own financial planner or accountant to review your personal circumstances and implement a full investment strategy, but due to having a Dip Financial Services(Financial Planning), it is NOT illegal for me to advise people on any one asset class alone, specifically direct property purchase, which is what I do. As I work in only one area of financial planning, all of my clients seek finance and mortgage advice seperately and independently of what I offer. I merely present unique property opportunities which they choose to action on as they see fit.
On explaining this to the gentleman from ASIC I spoke to, he was satisfied by my response and left it at that. No further action or notification has been recieved after this phone discussion regarding the legality of my services.
So you advising of one case in SA where a judge commented on may be accurate, but could you please explain why this case was in court in the first place? What went wrong? Who did the wrong thing in the purchase process and who felt a court resolution was warranted. Taking one comment out of context means that you are influencing others not to use a service that in most cases is valuable and convienient. I'm not saying that every buyers agent or birddog is honest, as I wouldnt expect you to believe that all politicians have our best interests at heart either.
I am concerned however that without qualifying and explaining the case your comment refers to specifically, is not fully informing people who can then only make decisions on these available services with less than half of the story.
In any case we are all adults and need to base our own investment decisions on our own best judgement, after reviewing ALL of the available information. The better informed, the better the decisions.
So Happy Hunting all, and good investing.
DD
HI here is the company we used a few years ago for repairs in the Perth South region, hope this helps.
Roofworks WA Craig Harvey + John 0419 589 691, 08 9331 8669
DD
Hi Stuart, wow very indepth info there, thank you. It is always good to get a clear perspective from someone else in the same industry on how they do things.
What I do as a buyers Agent is slightly different. I believe a buyers agent should have a fixed fee for property sourcing. This is based on doing the best job possible for the client, the buyer.
If it is a percentage fee then it is based on the highest possible price for the property and the buyers agent has no duty of care to push for the tightest deal for the buyer as he/she obtains higher payment or commission for doing a worse job of negotiating.
With most general buyers agents they say they will reinvent the wheel and do all the research everywhere in brizzy to find your property for you. I believe that to be 100% committed to only 3 or 4 select areas allows you to better define what suits an investor for return and cap gains.
The Logan Central area through to Beenleigh, Ipswich and surrounds and Gladstone, Rockhampton and Cairns are the areas I have personally “trodden the ground” and sourced properties for my clients. Dealing mainly with entry level properties and unit blocks occassionally, I find that with less time to spend outside my select areas on research and demograohics and infrastructure, I would be very comfotable in doing a specific sourcing job as I know these areas extensively.
I charge a flat fee of only $3k +GST per deal and feel that this is quite fair and reasonable for the work performed. This goes against the grain for most as they would expect a much higher fee. I find that a lot of my clients require a lot of hand holding through the process and that having a team of building and pest inspectors, solicitors and rental managers that all discount for my clients is offering a package deal to time poor investors.
Based at Coffs Harbour all I have in overheads is minimal. I am a qualified financial planer and have just attended the REIQ Sales registration course late last year.
I have a small clientbase of regualr investors as well as first time buyers, mostly through referals. When I find a suitable property I email out the details including tenancies, rates and body corporate info and details of what repairs and renovations are required to achieve top rent. Then its up to my clients how we proceed.
A very clean and easy process, but again very different from most buyers agents.
Helping clients is all that its about.
Happy Hunting
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!Once in, cool or cozy is difficult to move or work arond without having scuba gear on. I recently did a reno on one of ours last year in Rosewood.
I thought yeah 2 days and ill be done with the bathroom reno. Big mistake. By 10 am each day it was 35 degrees C or hotter and it became unbearable to even start on the bathroom. Action needed to be taken and the old aluminium roof with a low pitch amplified the heat to be over 40 degrees. I needed it fixed asap. Drove to Bunnings and bought 6 packs of batts only got 4 up in the roof that day before loosing 5 kgs through sweat and nearly passing out. Seeing how much I had left to go I went back to Bunnings and bought another 6 packs.
Next moring the house that does free range eggs2 doors up had the best alarm. A rooster at 5 am while it was still cool. I got up and did the 8 packs left before 10 am. Sparkie turned up and did the ceiling fans in everyroom as well as double powerpoints throughout while I had a shower. They did the exhaust fans in the bathroom and kitchen ceilings last. So I then had 2 days to do the bathroom reno of tiles, tile paint, new shower and taps and a full paint in the bathroom.
Insulation and ceiling fans, all done in a couple of days and rented out to the first that saw it after that.
For your information though, I had gotten a quote to do batts about three months before but was unaware of the value of doing it until I stayed in the house. The quote from memory was about $2100 and the 12 x $42.00 packs cost me $504.00 plus my time for install.
Major cost saving. They were on sale as well so I got 3.5 rated bats.
All cool, all done. Hope this helps
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!Wow, there is a pine kichen company in North Ipswich that does kitchens to order as well.
The Pine Shop Kitchens
2 Lowry St Nth Ipswich 07 3812 3716
Merle 0417 615 144Another cheap one is Hoges Handy Supplies
7 Agnes Street Bundamba 07 3816 0566 Kitchens Vanities etc.So they are both western brizzy and not suitable unless you transport, but both worth a call. The second has ex demo kichens very cheaply to sell off from time to time.
With this forum seeming to be less of a forum and more of an advertising space all the time, it seems only fair to advertise everything here as the moderators seem to be well and truly asleep to this at the moment.
Use these good contacts and save money, just be aware that not all of the promotions in here are legitimately trying to just help others but more likely to spruke customers for a family member or associated business.
All of us need help finding trades and services from time to time. Maybe a dedicated tradies woth noting area should be setup so the forum doesnt loose its taste.
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!Wylie, IN WA a lot of corrugated asbestos was used for 40 years as a fencing material. This was a disaster as you would imaging kids in a backyard trying to jump fences breakig the fence and hitting it with soccerballs etc, the instances of asbestos related problems are now higher in WA than other states.
Super 6 was the NON asbestos fibrous material they use in WA to replace dodgy asbestos fencing. Sadly this looks the same as the old fencing so its a nightmare to determine if all or part of a fence(where repaired in one section) is all super 6 or still mainly asbestos.
We had 2 properties in perth but due to the crappy tenancy laws over there we sold those and have no regrets.
Happy Hunting
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!Yes moderators, do your job please. Another advertisement somehow evades your attention.
Peeved again
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!Yeah, advice on a specific subject is fine, we need to register our feelings of blatant advertising, where many of us have property related businesses and just contribute to others, not leach on the godwill on a furum like this. A couple of years ago, when I started posting in here, I said I was a buyers agent and a moderateor deleted my post.
How about a level playing ground here. I learnt very quickly what standards were expected and would like to see the moderators apply the same clearly defined standards here.
A little peeved
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!We all get bad tenants with a poverty attitude, yet being able to send their kids on $400 excursions to Canberra and having a $40k 4wd shiny in the driveway and not paying their $185/wk rent wears very thin.
We self managed this one for 6 months, flicked it to an agent who had had enough of the husbands posturing in 4 months, went to court and got them out.
After a bathroom paint and tile reno, new vanity and showerhead, we now get $210/wk with angel tenants.
Give it to an agent, their fee is sooooo worth it and is tax deductable. The SANF (sleep at night factor) to you is worth more than a few $$ each week. Give up a little control, and give yourself a little self respect, you deserve better of your time.
Good Luck
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!Richard is again right on the money as due to the scams several years ago in Qld their rules governing tenancy are a lot clearer and better defined than most.
Having recently done my sales registration course in brisbane, I can do nothing but agree with his assesment of this case. Get em out, claim the bond for wear and tear and find a new agent asap.
Its all good
DD
Buyers Agent (Dip Financial Services(FP)
Don’t sweat the small stuff,and it’s all small stuff!!
