Keep in mind the benefit of buying her out (rather than selling and then buying somewhere else) is going to be you will be saving sales costs (eg agent fees) AND the cost of stamp duty buying somewhere else.

The real question is…..seeing she is your ex do you think you can actually agree on a price…..

If you can then offer her 50% of this…[Read more]

wow that’s just nuts !!

wonder what all their staff are thinking about now……I’d be looking for a new job as the workload is going to fall dramatically.

St George increase investor fixe term rates last week.

5 years is now 5.59%

Still a pretty good deal to allow you to sleep at night for the next 5 years……but based on China……I don’t think rates are going up to 2% in 2016 like the USA reserve bank originally bullishly planned.

Basically we are in an extended period of low interest rates.

Hi Jacqui,

15 years for rental shortfall is way way too long.

Even with the current “muddling” rental increases in Sydney last year of only 3.5%pa your example of $150pw shortfall on a 600k property renting at $460pw the increase would be $16 pw this year.

I good years where rent is racing up, it should be closer to double that.

Eg you should…[Read more]

Hi Jacqui,

That’s the beauty of compound interest….eg over time ALL investment properties should cover their costs eg initial sales price is “fixed in time” and rents keep going up…….

Hi Phil,

it isn’t “unfavourable for taxes” and you are right its what the loan is use “for” not what the loan is “against” that determines its tax treatment.

it is a problem however that they don’t offer an “offset loan” because if you pay down then “withdraw” for non taxable purposes…..yu end up with messy accounting, fortunately for us we…[Read more]

we didn’t end up going with them but yes reputable and seemed to offer great rates.
TimothyJ@mortgagehouse.com.au was the guy we were talking to.

In Sydney we pay 5% of rent (+0.5% gst) + 1 weeks for a new tenant, On one of my investments I’ve paid $40 for a lease fee to “re-up” an existing tenant and let them know this would be the last time I’d be paying for a new lease to be drawn up and it needs to be taken out of the 5% otherwise I’d be moving my property to another agency.

I’ve also…[Read more]

Dean do you fund all deposits with earned cash or do you ever refinance? If you plan on refinancing to generate more deposits then having 2-4 yrs of no growth will definitely put the breaks on the purchasing plan. You can have your cake and eat it too if you are willing to move the location of purchases around a bit to beat the ripple or invest…[Read more]

Dean do you fund all deposits with earned cash or do you ever refinance? If you plan on refinancing to generate more deposits then having 2-4 yrs of no growth will definitely put the breaks on the purchasing plan. You can have your cake and eat it too if you are willing to move the location of purchases around a bit to beat the ripple or invest…[Read more]

Hi Corey,
That’s because I’m a long term investor buying one property every year and holding for the long term. I dont care if prices go up or down for the next few years (to be honest I don’t care where prices go until I start to sell in 15 years…..and even then only plan to be selling slowly over time).

BTW seeing no one has answered my only advice is try and bid early with a low price (eg 60% of what you think it will go for) and ALWAYS bid with irregular numbers

eg $435,000 and then 518,000 and then 542,000 eg try to get the auction out of jumping 20k/50k/100k lots etc. A good auctioneer will reject your bid and say only 50k increments at…[Read more]

grabbing popcorn and subscribing to this……interested in what peoples thoughts/advice is.

I don’t know where you get the figure of 6.5% for Sydney……we only pay 5% to our agents (+0.5% gst).

Hi OzBoy74,

My wife and I are here in New York and have a portfolio loan through St George for IP’s in Sydney, I don’t know the exact US$:$A conversion rate they used but they have something similar, they also wont lend more than 70% LVR.

The weird part is that because of the change in currency since last year serviceability didn’t come up as an…[Read more]

we pay the water for our two investment properties in Sydney (and I think that there is something in the NSW rental rules that says you cant pass this on to tenants – feel free to correct me if this is wrong).