Definitely worth having a look at the place if you can.
I might be a bit biased because i have signed ( and pulled out during the cooling off period ) on 2 properties unseen in the last few months. Once I got the building inspection done, boy was I in for a nasty surprise each time… And this was after requesting more photos of the property, asking the agent ( a few times ) about the condition of the place, as well as getting a rental appraisal for the property before making my offer.
One building report mention that "demolition is optional" and it had the phase "major rework is required" appeared through out the whole report.Another place the agent told me that the previous owner has just finished the treatment of termites on the property and they have a certificate to show for it.After the building inspection, the builder called me up and said – he’s been in this business for over 15 yrs now and it’s one of the worse termite damage places he has seen and there were still live termites roaming around.
Don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of Margaret Lomas.But she might be using agents and inspectors which she trusts.I can understand her reasoning in a way because the cost of a building and pest inspection is pretty much the same your flight and accommodation.And I’m pretty sure a building and pest inspector guy would have a better idea of what wrong with a place than me.The only benefit I see of flying up there is that you can check out a few different properties during that one trip and decide on one before sending in the building and pest inspectors.
There are still some properties under 300K in the Ipswich area in brisbane but becareful of deals which seems too good to be true because it could indicate there's some problem with the property. As for Adelaide, places like Christies Beach are pretty good interms of location ( being next to a beach ) and value. Good luck with it.
I totally agree with the all guys here, maybe it's time to get a new PM.
I had a similar issue wtih my IP in mt warren park… Where my PM was withholding money for no apparent reason. And when I call up to question it, I was always told that its for some invoice which never turned up. After about 2 months of phoning them up I usually get the money back. I'm in the midst of changing to a new PM after the existing PM was quite rude to my then potential tenant amongs a list of other things.
At the end of the day, you are paying for a service and if you are not getting your money's worth then it's time to go elsewhere. You might want to give them one more go but if they still don't measure up then you might want to do something. There are alot of good PM out there !!!
i bought one of my properties through them a few years back and had a friend who bought a few through them. They offer a relatively worry free process. They even have someone to drive you around to show you the property. So it's good when you are starting out seeing that someone else does the looking for you pretty much.
But i have found their places to be heavy negatively geared and rely on depreciation. Alot of the time they seem to source their property directly from builders ( either new or renovated ones ) so the quality is generally pretty good. ( or at least no nasty surprises ) I'm no longer getting places through them cos I like to look at areas which generally aren't on their stock list…
I am using Ray white Beenleigh but I have had so many issues with them from the simplest things like – incorrect details on the lease agreement to having rent money withheld for no reason. I'm in the process of changing agent at the monent because of all this
Basically select the region you want to search on then hit continue. This will force another page with surburb selections to open. There is a keyword field near the bottom of that page. By putting the word “mortgagee” in the keyword field, any sales which the agent has advertised with the word “mortgagee” in the ad will be picked up….
it’s not a complete list as i have found that most agent doesn’t like to advertise that it’s a mortgagee sale up front…