She's the 2 bob variety.

If a broker doesn't understand property investing how can they advise on the product and the way to set it up to buy an investment property?

Like all teams there's Grand Final winners and Wooden Spooners. Your team need to be experts in property investing and preferably investors themselves. It's the golden rule when picking your team. An accountant who specialises in estate management won't cut it. A solicitor that specialises in family law won't cut it.

There's players and then there's 'players'. Your guys need to know property with their eyes shut.

Professional skills often overlap and then there's just knowledge and experience from being in the game. When you talk to your broker they can often see problems that while not necessarily their pervue they can alert you to potential problems, give you an overview and give you an agenda to discuss with your appropriate expert team member.

If you talk to investors here with multiple properties they will tell you that an expert team is the essential foundation component to achieving success. It's not a guarantee but it substantially reduces the risk.

Latest Q3 figures don't bode well.

Japanese Q3 Growth Tumbles As Abenomics Cracks Following Slide In Consumption And Exports

Bucket loads of QE and a half gutted currency aren't moving this economy in the right direction.

When you're in a race to the bottom all you get is a pile up.

"Frustrated" Liquidity Addicts Demand Moar From BOJ As Nikkei Rally Stalls, Abenomics Founders And "Hope Fades"

A bigger problem is that suddenly hope is fading: "The chief Asian investment officer at one major global asset manager says foreign investors are getting increasingly “antsy” with the apparent lack of progress. “Personally, I wouldn’t be a major buyer of Japan,” he says. "If you buy now you are still buying on hope."

It's all going so well….. who'd a thunk it… $75B/mth in the worlds 3rd largest economy and QE that makes the FED look half hearted don't seem to be enough to shock this baby into life. Moar on the way I'm guessing.

Get your popcorn this is gonna be one helluva show.

There's a site search box at top right. Put in 'defense'… theres' 3000 threads on the subject.

Two things you absolutely need to do before you jump.

You need to develop an investors mind set. Your not buying fast red cars, fashion label clothing or cuddly puppies. Your buying little boxes on blocks of dirt that people want to pay you to live in.

You also need to have, at the very least, a basic understanding of the game and its rules.

At this point you have neither. While you develop those two things, mindset and knowledge you should be putting together your 'team'. You need an accountant, mortgage broker and solicitor. They are your go-to guys. You don't finalise decisions before consulting with them.

Get those things right and you've set the foundations for a potentially successful venture into property investing.

My first preference for bedrooms is carpet then wood followed closely by cork. Ceramic tiles never.

For kitchens I’d almost always go sealed ceramic tiles.

+10 Jac's… I despair when I see newbies with these negatively geared hold and hope strategies. Even worse when their horizons only extend out past a few suburbs because that is the limit of their comfort zone.

Cannon fodder for the market.

You can make a case against any flooring type. They all have their pro's and cons. For bedrooms you can get feet for furniture to minimise timber/cork flooring damage. The big advantage is that cork is easily repaired by the DIY guy rather than a tradie. I've seen cork flooring in schools, commercial buildings, retail shops and many older homes. For toughness and reparability I'll take cork over a floating timber floor system any day.

Cork kitchen/bathroom floor tiles used to be the poor mans flooring many years ago. I've seen stuff that's 40 years old and still as good as the day it was laid.

Below is a recycled cork kitchen counter top… You can cut and chop stuff on this one!!

The reality is that modern cork composites are designed for the job. Choose accordingly.

Wages are rising at last!!

TEPCO Doubles Hazard Pay For Fukushima Workers

• Reuters reports, hazard pay for the thousands of workers on short-term contracts will be increased from 10,000 yen ($100) to 20,000 yen a day,

My guess is that Fuk workers will invariably contribute to the declining population meme in coming years. All for $200/day