Mackar,I don't think we'll see a boom anytime soon but I do believe Australia will ride this global downturn out much better than most.I believe:- that the US, UK and continental Europe will suffer pretty strong downturns / recessions- that BRICs and other emerging markets are decoupled enough from the US to continue to grow but at a slower pace-…[Read more]

Both will happen … a correction in house prices and a corresponding decline in interest rates. Typical cycle. The key question really is how long and how deep and for a large degree that will depend on what unemployment does. I think the BRICs and other emerging markets will slow in growth but continue to grow, that will slow demand for…[Read more]

crashy wrote:
… I talked to a guy who had $3m worth of property leading into the early 90's recession.  he explained how things slowly got worse for him, cashflow drying up day by day even though he sold property (in a falling market) quickly, finally ending up $500k in debt with no properties left.I wonder how many people here realise just…[Read more]

Well… Rudd does speak fluent Mandarin, doesn't he? Back onto topic, I found the following article on housing prices quite interesting: http://www.realestate.com.au/doc/review/july08/housing-prices.htm

ummester wrote:

ErikH wrote:
Ormeau – I'm with crashy, your post is out of place and actually pretty low on facts and sound reasoning. One of the biggest empires of all times, the Roman Empire, did not fall apart due to depletion of local resources, but their decline was much more related to a decline in morals and increasing greed and c…[Read more]

In Australia and most if not all other western countries too many people expect too much too early in their life i.e. a nice big house, a fancy car, the latest electronic gadgets, overseas holidays etc. and all that without putting in many years of hard work and saving. The years of easy credit has made people believe that it's their god given…[Read more]

Story makes me sick, truly sad. It does highlight how easily people part with their very heard earned cash without doing any due diligence. There is obviously still not enough education going to stop people from making these kinds of mistakes. 

Scamp, true, but the interesting point about the current (global) inflation debate is whether the inflation can actually be effectively influenced by reserve bank rates – some believe firmly that the current global inflation is due to high energy and food prices which are due to accelereated demand/growth in emerging markets and that therefore…[Read more]

We're B and about to cross into C.For me it is all numbers — just not number of properties, but indeed as marc said it's the combintaion of cashflow and networth which in due time will give us the financial freedom we are looking for.I think the question "how many have you got" has some merit in that there is a common phenomena in just about…[Read more]

I'm no believer in ultimate Doom & Gloom, but some good point's have been raised above and it's interesting to see that the mood of the discussion is heating up so much! If as bulls we are getting too upset with posts from the bears, maybe we haven't got our backsides covered just in case the bears are right, i.e. maybe we're not setup to ride out…[Read more]

Ormeau – I'm with crashy, your post is out of place and actually pretty low on facts and sound reasoning. One of the biggest empires of all times, the Roman Empire, did not fall apart due to depletion of local resources, but their decline was much more related to a decline in morals and increasing greed and corruption. I found "Empire of Debt" a…[Read more]

Carol, before you head off in any direction do a bit of research / reading on investing principles, i.e.:(1) do you want your investments to generate an income on a monthly basis or do you want capital growth or some combintaion of the two. And how much income or growth do you want? A combination is often (but not always) the best in that you get…[Read more]

First of all, get another accountant who does know something about NZ tax. I would expect that there would be a tax treaty between the two countries so you would not be paying tax on the same income twice. We are overseas investors and all income from property in AU is indeed taxable, but you also still get the usual deductions i.e. interest,…[Read more]

Scamp… I actually live in a third world country, have been for the last 6 years and the US most certainly isn't one whatever we might think of their financial mess. Making statements like that undermines your credibility hugely which is a shame as I was enjoying your bearish posts – I don't always agree with them, but they challenge my thinking…[Read more]

A good property manager will do eveything he needs to do – that's what you pay them for. If you have to get too involved you're waisting your money, hire another pm. If you want to be an active investor, why not be active in researching a next property or adding value to your existing property and leave the pm to do what you pay him to do? I…[Read more]

Mel, make sure you get to see actual income / expense statements from the current owner. I looked at a few retirement properties in SE QLD and by the time all the management fees, rates, body corporates etc. where included (don't forget your tenants usually get 3 meals a day included in the rent) the cashflow was only just positive and simply too…[Read more]

Karen,I only had a very brief look at the US market but decided I had my hands full with what I was doing in Oz so took a step back without doing a great amount of research. I did notice though that the scene is full of dodgy operators who try and flip vacant property in not so nice areas of the US and they often aim at foreign investors. Be very…[Read more]

Looked at the site and their stock quite a few times, but never used them. I did find though that often, by good searching/googling you can find the same (kind of) properties in http://www.realestate.com.au or other sites and the you save yourself 2% commission… most of the stock is pretty standard positive cashflow type anyway e.g. student…[Read more]

Scamp wrote:
Erik, You realize that the real-estate in Japan has been crashing for decades already ?Are you ready to invest your money into something that will keep going down every year , costs you a LOT of money per month ( negative gearing ) and on top of that have 10% inflation ?Everything looked similar in Japan 20 years ago to Australia…[Read more]

I have a couple of foreign currency loans in place and pay <4% interest, what you need to keep in mind is:- most banks only lend in the currency you earn and typically up to 70%-75%, some to 80% if the loan is big enough and St George goes up to 100% if you provide additional security e.g. an investment portfolio- you can get loans in curencies…[Read more]