Hi again Mermaids

I forgot to add:
~ Go to http://www.navra.com.au Click “Articles” in the dropdown menu and read every single one of them extensively. “Rental Reality” and “Dollar Cost Trading” are particularly good, as well as his stuff on “Living On Equity” both from his website articles and his recent, extensive, long, brilliant somersoft posts.
~ You can find Peter Spann’s site at http://www.freemanfox.com.au (with or without the au?)

Cheers
Greg

Frankly, MERMAIDS, I LOVE what you’ve done. OF COURSE there was a smarter way, but you’ve got your 1st 2 IP’s and you’ve got us! [biggrin][biggrin] So where’s the stress?

When Niki & I were newbies, there was SFA advice /books out there. Now you’ve got a veritable banquet of battle-tested strategies and fellow forumites to choose from.

Whatever you do, hang onto your 1st 2 IP’s if you can:
1. As a memento of where your heads were at when you first started in this game (be like Scrooge McDuck who framed his 1st dollar he ever earned)
2. Because transaction costs are prohibitive, you’ve already absorbed these, and ocean views will always rise (yes, even the remote ones). The only question is when, right?

As someone who’s been around awhile, I can tell you that both here and on http://www.somersoft.com.au you can get quality advice from a lot of highly experienced investors who exhibit variety and a healthy mix of diverse investing styles.

“Lust for property” is what this game’s all about. Look at proven strategies which help you BALANCE your portfolio. To that end I’d like to recommend:
1. You divide your time equally between http://www.somersoft.com.au and this forum
2. Do Searches on both Somersoft and here under the following people, and read their posts /literature /websites EXHAUSTIVELY / EXTENSIVELY:
~ Peter Spann (His 2 absolute MUST READS from your nearest bookshop: “Wealth Magic” and “How to Build a $10 Million Property Portfolio in 10 Years”). In particular, look for his chapter in the latter book where he outlines how he uses Median House Price statistics over the past 10 years to inform him of WHICH city suburbs to buy into and WHEN.
~ Steve Navra (“Living Off Equity”, “Dollar Cost trading”, “Rental Reality” and Navra Invest). Seriously consider going to Navra’s and Spann’s seminars.
~ Michael Yardney, who says “I never sell anything”, and he’s got genuinely prime holdings.

Don’t follow the doomers and gloomers; just set in place a variety of hedges (Steve Navra will show you how to do that)

Having progressed from being a passive to a pro-active investor (I make deals happen through sub-dividing, development, and “doing things differently”), here’s how I keep my 17 brick IP’s at virtually 100% occupancy over the past 20 years:
~ In the good times, I charge market rents and ENJOY!
~ In the lean times, I drop my rents 5% – 15% below the market, just to get a tenant in there asap. Better to have SOMETHING coming in than nothing, right?

I’ve only self-managed once, and it was a big, big mistake. Use quality PM’s. I tell them “I’m an experienced investor with a considerable portfolio, and not too many things phase me in this game (so don’t worry about how I’ll react if you ring up with bad news).”

Hope this helps.

Greg

Hi Jul

I assume you’re in a strong position with the bank, as they’re happy to lend you money. But they won’t do what you want, so at the very least you have to threaten to leave them.

However, the only way you can do this is to get WRITTEN QUOTES from at least one other competitor. Banks scoff at verbal threats, and only respond when you put one of their competitor’s letterheads on the table, making you a:
~ Written offer…
~ …of a Specific Product
~ …at Specific Terms (interest rate,
term of loan etc)

Any of the above Brokers can help you arrange this, or you can do it yourself. Personally, my substantial portfolio has been built with the assistance of +CF savvy broker, and if you don’t know one of these, maybe it’s time you introduced yourself. It has to do with:
a) Educating yourself into a higher level of negotiating skills with banks
b) Valuing the skills these people have, and being comfortable having the banks pay them a modest commission for rewriting your business
c) Extending your NETWORK /building your +CF team.

That’s my personal opinion and experience, but if you prefer to do it yourself, here’s how:
1. Ring your current bank manager, and ask him to fax or mail you a written Payout Figure on ALL your loans
2. Go to another bank and ask them to give you a written quote to take over the whole portfolio you hold with the “offending” bank.
3. When you receive the written offer, fax it to your current bank and ask them whether they’re prepared to BETTER your other.

Please be aware that the BOLDER customers, with the BIGGER PORTFOLIOS are on far more favourable terms and interest rates than average investors. Sounds like it’s about time you started to EXPECT (you don’t have to demand) to be put onto a higher level of service.

For my money, I’d be PMing one of the brokers who answered you above. Take your pick, they all qualify as +CF savvy.

Cheers
Greg

Hi Terry

Awesome site, mate. Thanx!! I cruised it thoroughly, and added it to my Favourites.

Cheers
Greg

Awesome, g7!! A mere $70,000,000!! I broke out into a belly laugh, and then thought: “Why not? Do they have any more like that one?” So I surfed your site and had lots of fun.

Cheers
Greg

Hi Tina
I’ve only just come on board, but read the whole thread. As someone who’s been around awhile, I’d like to second everything Martin said above. I’d also add that you’re getting quality advice from a lot of highly experienced investors who exhibit variety and a healthy mix of diverse investing styles.

“Lust for property” is what it’s all about, then looking at proven strategies which help you BALANCE your portfolio. To that end I’d like to recommend:
1. You divide your time equally between http://www.somersoft.com.au and this forum
2. Do Searches on both Somersoft and here under the following people, and read their posts /literature /websites EXTENSIVELY:
~ Peter Spann (His 2 absolute MUST READS from your nearest bookshop: “Wealth Magic” and “How to Build a $10 Million Property Portfolio in 10 Years”)
~ Steve Navra (“Living Off Equity”, “Dollar Cost trading” and Navra Invest). Seriously consider going to Navra’s and Spann’s seminars.
~ Michael Yardney

Here’s a couple of posts taken from Somersoft which show why:
#5
30-07-2004, 09:49 PM
thefirstbruce
Member
Top 100 Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Mooloolaba, Qld
Posts: 315
Be careful, See Change. When an investment idea hits the forums en masse, then you just missed the ramp and are now on the plateau… Anyone know their economic cycles well enough to guess what the next big thing after resources will be? I’m confused….. Following are the clock hours and corresponding economic conditions….
12 top of boom
1 rates up
2 shares down
3 commodity down
4 moneytight
5 property down
6 recession
7 rates down
8 shares up
9 commodity up
10 easy money
11 property up
Does anyone have any comments about these seasonal share market trends…. Noted by a reputable Aussie share advisor…..
Jan-state of market at end of Jan predicts the rest of the year 9/10 times.
Feb- downward correction- considered bad month for market
Mar- march and april better
Apr-
May- minor peak in May
Jun- nasty month, good time to buy.
Jul- rally- one of the best months for market 6/7 yrs.
Aug-
Sept- early sept often sees market peak
Oct- often some gains – but can be huge swings
Nov- seasonal low late nov- early dec
Dec- Santa Claus market- about week before chrissy- prices rise from here till Jan. 37/43 years pre 1998…if doesn’t happen, the following year is dicey. Wall St gained 1.5% in last 7 trading days of Dec

Aceyducey
Originally Posted by thefirstbruce
Be careful sc. When an investment idea hits the forums en masse, then you just missed the ramp and are now on the plateau…
Actually, from experience, that isn’t true. Posts in this forum (Somersoft) generally are leading the market. PI (www.propertyinvesting.com) tends to be behind the market. I compare the discussions on the two to help pinpoint where the market is

Acey Ducey’s a stirrer, but really knows his stuff. My tip: You need both forums.

Cheers
Greg
PS: If you MUST sell (I wouldn’t, unless you were going headlong into NZ with Mini and USA with Westan: take them both up on their offers), I like the “sell 1, buy 4 new ones” each year. Brilliant!!

Hi Gorden

I love your perspective re the need for regional towns to develop a class of merchant bankers and wealthy professionals before premium RE prices are achieved. There’s a lot of good advice in that comment.

It’s a good rule of thumb to help explain why one current Gladstone vendor will struggle to realise the $1,600,000 asking price for his house on the mountain with ocean views to die for (even though I know he’s spent $1,200,000 developing it). Overcapitalised? Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. My take on it, like you Gordon, is that it’s a hard ask to sell a $1.6 Million house in a town like Gladstone. But making money out of more creative RE investing in Gladstone’s a very different issue. Crikey mate, even though it’s an industrial city it’s still on the ocean, with awesome beaches and harbour plus a burgeoning resources sector which will only keep expanding.

Just for the record, the RE agent I recommended above is a person I’d never met until she became my Property Manager. She has done an EXCELLENT job with a former tenant who broke every window in our IP then proceeded to punch his fists through every gyprock sheet in the house. Purely as a result of Eileen’s efforts, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that I’m now receiving monthly cheques for $100 from the Gladstone Magistrates Court from the mongrel tenant who I’m told will be going to gaol if he stops paying. Apparently he’s had run ins with the magistrate before on other issues, and I’m benefiting because he’s so well known up there.

That’s the 1st reason I trust Eileen from LJH.

The 2nd reason is that she gave my wife and I very unbiased advice re the fact that in her opinion, we’d been sold a ‘croc’ and could have bought better than I did (note, we bought this in our Former Lives as typical passive RE investing mugs).

Cheers
Greg

Love it! I’m chuckling away at the same time as Copy / Pasting it to my friends. [biggrin][biggrin]
Cheers
Greg

Hi Richter

Go to http://www.somersoft.com.au

Then do a Search by playing with different combinations of keywords such as:
~ Gladstone
~ due diligence
~ statistics
~ demographics
plus any others you can think of.

Gladstone’s in a bit of a lull at the moment, because one of the larger companies TEMPORARILY pulled out their massive workforce and moved them to Darwin (they’ll be back in a few months).

But many on this forum feel Gladstone’s a sleeping giant. Its Harbour rivals Sydney Harbour, and that’s saying something!! Go for quality stock. Many pundits say Boyne Island’s the place, but I prefer the beach at Tannum Sands.[biggrin][cap] Expensive, but as long as you get good stock, you should be on a winner.

If you get serious, ring LJ Hooker and ask to speak to Eileen Woodward. She’s my PM, and as someone with a reasonably large portfolio, she’s a GREAT PMgr. Tell her Greg F recommended you call her, and he said: “Give this person the same straight talkin’ advice you gave Greg and Niki about their brick IP.” She’ll know what you mean. PM and ring me if you want a bit more specifics.

Cheers
Greg

I assume your google search will throw up the local council’s website. This is always my 1st port of call (but only the first). I just type in the name of the town / suburb, then the keywords “council”. If this doesn’t work, I click my Back button and add the word “shire”

Good luck
Greg