Ok mine is more a current harrowing story of trying to obtain finance.
Found studio unit which almost fits 11 sec rule. Solicitor says contract is fine. Sign subject to inspections and finance. Inspections come back fine. Use current broker to try and secure finance for this small deal. (This is after said broker stuns me by asking why I would…[Read more]

WOW! With a potential 6 incomes you should be able to do very well. I had trouble with the fact of how an ordinary person could do what Steve has done until I read he actually had 4 incomes (Dave, Steve and their wives) of which two (what I would imagine to be rather large incomes, being accountants) were purely dedicated to financing property. On…[Read more]

Just make sure you actually have the funds to cover all of the deposit in a bank account as you may otherwise find it hard to get a deposit bond. I was told by a not very friendly person that my idea of security wasn’t good enough and they wanted to see evidence of cash in the bank.

Even though negative geared property can save you tax money and thus you get $1700 (as per above example I think) back into your pocket, you are actually worse off. Every dollar you depreciate lowers the property value, so when you come to sell you pay higher capital gains tax.

Example.
Property purchase cost $100,000
Depreciating $5000 per annum…[Read more]

Or look a bit further afield. I just found something selling for less than $100k (advertised price), apparently rented out for $220 a week. And it’s not in a country town, but a city.
Haven’t spoken to agent to confirm if the ad is true yet (it’s after hours), but could be promising.

We’re currently considering what to do long term with out IPs which are thousands of kms away. Rentals are currently all with different agents and the one agent who has offered to manage all of them at a discounted rate (slightly better than other agents rates) appears to be adding more headaches rather than alleviating them. This agent currently…[Read more]

Sad but true, one of the people I work with told me he has to negatively gear because he pays too much tax.
Whilst it’s pityful that most people have such closed minds to think making a loss is a good thing, it’s good for people like us as that leaves the positively geared properties for us to buy. [:0)]

So there are two fees in QLD. Interesting. I have a few properties in the same QLD area. One of the agents up there has quoted me a “discounted” rate of 7.5%, provided I let them manage all of my properties in the area. Judging by what others are paying for management in the sunshine state I’m now thinking that is not such a good rate after all.…[Read more]

Three weeks to find out you were declined is way too long. I also tried Aussies recently and they would only offer 85% LVR which wasn’t what I was after at the time. Managed to find someone who was more than happy to lend 95% LVR (which is what I was after at the time).
I think a lot depends on whether or not the rental income is taken into…[Read more]

Only thing I would be wary of is that you can potentially loose your entire investment.
Say the buyer defaults on the primary mortgage, the bank/lender holding this mortgage has the right to reposess the property and sell it to recoup it’s investment. Anything left over goes to the person holding the second mortgage. If nothing is left over you…[Read more]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Unit is 26 square metres. Have already lost one unit thanks to nobody (including the broker) telling me about the size issue until it was too late. Had both of them in the one application, which went sour. [!]
Have an extension on this one until Thursday and it looks like CBA will pull through. []