Australia is a diverse land that is home to a wide range of fascinating natural landmarks and iconic destinations. It is a multicultural nation that is warm and accepting of people from all over the world.
It also charges expats/non residents 38%-45% LTCG tax on property…..makes it a non starter for consideration now as far as im concerned.
We haven’t sold our Sydney IP’s…….but we haven’t bought any more either since they removed the 50% LTCG tax discount for expats either.
Property in the USA is cheaper because they have more tier2 cities.
I’ve said it before multiple times until its just as cool to live in Nowra, Orange, Port Macquarie as it is Sydney, housing=expensive in Australia.
This said regarding property taxes……you have to remember property taxes in USA is different to council rates in Australia.
Its is the main format that USA cities fund police/municipal services/schools etc.
For example I live in a modest apartment building here in Brooklyn Heights, New York. We have 6 apartments in our building (our apartment is the largest at 2br/2bth 160m2 – the other 5 are 1br or studios).
Our buildings annual budget is $60kpa and over half of that goes to city taxes (eg $30k). The other $30k covers everything else eg heat/water/gas/repairs/building insurance etc etc
So for my wife and I our portion of the monthly bill is a little over $2k a month or $24k a year.
Its high and we also have a city income tax bill of 3%pa of wages/salary etc but that $24k a year pays for everything that the city provides eg police/schools etc and we are ok with that…..lol though wish it was lower etc etc but it does make it expensive as a property investor to actually make a ROI on investments over here once you take property taxes into consideration (as a matter of interest our federal is 19% and state 6% + the city 3%).
Basically a good rule of thumb is city taxes is around 1% of the property value per annum (eg our apartment is worth about US$2.4m). Some cities charge more (a lot more eg 3%) some charge less.
I hope that answers your question on property taxes and why they are high.
This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by DeanCollins.
Yes I bought a brick (well I bought it for my nephew to try and open his eyes about who delayed gratification works etc and makes money while you sleep).
What do you want to know?
You buy….you collect rent. If you decide you want to sell….you sell on their platform (they take a cut) and you get the cash (hopefully with a LTCG).
Loans that are a Fannie or Freddie 30 year fixed can still not have pre-payment penalty
Likewise a Freddie or Fannie loan from any of the major banks should still be non-recourse.
Non-recourse means you can walk away from the loan by giving up the property in a short sale and not owe anymore, obviously you lose your equity but most loans in the USA are limited to the value of the property (unlike Australia…..where the banks have you on the hook for everything they are short after sales/expenses).
We’ve refinanced for lower rates twice over the last 8 years since we first purchased for lower rates (and once to acquire the apartment downstairs to do a combination). Apart from about 9 months when we first did the 2012 duplex combination we’ve paid extra every month with no penalties (around about $1-2k extra a month) with no pre-payment penalties with either Chase/Wells or BOA.
Anyway not really important, just never understood why USA banks allowed 30 year fixed loans you can pre-pay as much as you want.
This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by DeanCollins.
Yes Amanda from Elan Legal handled everything we needed as far as conveyancing remotely.
No we didn’t need to visit Australia.
Stewart Noble from MyLoanExpert was the mortgage broker we used for our last purchase in Dec 2016 which was financed through Westpac (the Narwee apartment I mentioned in 2015 above was through St George) and apart from needing to have the local consulate here in NYC authenticate our ID in person when we signed the mortgage documents, everything else was handled via email/phone.
I’m not sure what Amanda at Elan Legal charges for conveyancing for remote clients as we’ve bought a number of properties with her over the last few years but she charges us $1800 (that’s what we started with a while back and she’s always kept it the same for us).
Obviously this wont work for everyone but as we only buy strata units in suburbs I know well it saves us money not having to fly back each year.
Interesting, I always assumed it was tax driven……. :)
Don’t get me wrong no one would be upset about winding up the fund, considering how awesome the returns have been based on the $A move. I’m sure some people would be happy with selling the assets and returning funds ahead of time.
I always thought it had to have something to do with securitization.
This said…..who did you borrow 30 year fixed where you had a fee for pre-payment?
We originally were with Citi, then Chase and now BOA…..when we refinanced the first 2 no penalty for prepayment (and nothing in the BOA docs as far as I know…..).
We were with Citi and Chase about 3-4 years each so not sure if maybe we did it in less than 12 months etc…may have been a fee….?
Hi Ethan, I agree, especially when the most recent legislation update allows for Skype in agm’s etc….to have Clisdells insisting that they have an Australian postal address…..
Terry, its a screwup as the word “Australian” should have been removed in the last round of reviews.
1 in 20 Australians currently live/work overseas….and by pure numbers a number of these are probably landlords like ourselves who face this issue and the blind insistence of strata managers that they are only willing to send letters to Australian postal addresses.
We had rising damp in one of our IP’s about 8 years ago. We hired a professional company to come in remove the plaster from floor height to about 5ft up, they then inject silicon into the walls, then replastered after about 3 weeks then repainted.
Looks great and solved all the problems.
As for the person who said knock down the building….are you on drugs>?
As for selling it and passing it on to the next owner….? why your sales costs are going to be more than the costs of the repair (even though you’ll make a profit and brag to your friends how well you did).
This said…..how do you have rising damp with stumps? damp appears in properties with ground level walls……suggest you get some professional quotes.
is it just that “banks are govt insured” and “finance companies are not”? or is there something else that differs?
eg
“Finance companies raise funds using debentures and unsecured notes, from retail investors” and deposits sound pretty much the same apart from the Govt guarantee (which doesn’t really matter much if you are the borrower :)
nope….yields in property just plain suck here (though this is my PPOR), because NY City sees property as a cash cow (which is why a lot of people are commuting from bedroom suburbs like NJ and CT etc (think Gosford etc)
You will just end up paying entry and exit costs twice.
Firstly, are you getting market rent?
Secondly, are there any small and cheap renovations you can to do the property to increase the rent? (dishwasher/new paint etc)
Thirdly, if I knew what you know now at 22……I’d be ecstatic, you are way way way ahead of the curve, chill and bask in the knowledge that you are on your way and way way ahead of your peers. In 20 to 30 years from now you’ll look back and realize this was a smart move.
What you are doing about offset etc is smart, so keep doing it and wait patiently until you can afford your next place.