my two cents worth would be to hang on to the IP for as long as possible…

Hi cuteyoungchic,

these are all the people who fervently believe that the sky is falling when it comes to property – whether it be property they don't own, or property they do. People have been shouting out the decline of property as an asset class for a very long time now, and good property will always remain to be good property.

I'm not spruiking property at the moment, but I'm not sitting here wondering how I'm going to sleep at night

how about all the doom and gloomers offload all your property to the rest of us, go spend the proceeds on conspicuous consumption for a little while, then come back to the property market in 12-18 months time, and tell us all your tales of woe about how hard it is to crack the property market.

Research and data out there will provide you with discounts or premiums to advertised price, even down to the suburb.

In non-auction market conditions, I've never put a bid in at the asking price.

Bozena – what is your household income???

PPOR – $1600 fortnight on a mortgage of $508,000 – worth $600,000
IP 1 – $1100 a month on an I/O loan, rented out for $300/week – mortgage currently at $207,000 – worth $350,000

My profile with mortgages and repayment amounts are remarkably similar to yours – arguably worse than yours, and while I'm not saying I'm driving around in a Ferrari drinking Champagne every night, we're both feeling pretty good this early on; I've been in worse financial situations

I work full time and my wife is studying for her PhD, and therefore is restricted to working 15 hours a week over and above her PhD. We probably earn about $115,000 per year before tax. I utilise every tax deduction legally available to me…

The difference seems to be the state of our debt – our credit card balance is $1800

I have a real thirst for Ballarat in the next 12 months – just bought a place in Melbourne 8 weeks ago, so I need to cool my spurs for a little bit

If you're looking at Ballarat potentially, keep as all in the loop – hopefully you like what you see…I've been looking at about 25-30 properties around Ballarat and surrounds, advertised for around the $190,000 to $225,000, and watching them sell/not sell, almost half have sold for less than $200,000, which is where I want my next mortage to be as well…

JacM, I have heard you need at least $100-$120K in an SMSF for scale purposes…a couple of reasons:

1. Ongoing and upfront costs as a % would be prohibitive, if you had say, $50K in your SMSF. The setting up of the best structures, and costs associated with ensuring compliance with the ATO can run into the thousands every year.

2. SMSFs require 30% and above for a deposit to purchase properties on by using their SMSF. If you had $75K in an SMSF and you could only purchase an investment worth $225K (approx) plus buying costs.

With the Melbourne Cup on tomorrow, I don't think there will be any chance on an adverse announcement.

Conflicting data, especially over the last 5 days will put a neutral stance on it.

Good chance December though….they go on holidays January, unless there's some terrible data locally and/or globally around Xmas time.

Sonysal…who's the Property Manager? That is a disgrace.

Landlord Insurance doesn't cover non-payment of rent does it? Just Accidental and Malicious damage???

Inflation is 3.1% at the moment….not the 6-7% inflation that was previously quoted.