My one piece of advice is go and stand around at a property at all hours, especially sleeping hours.

I lived in two units that were around the corner from eachother in London, both very busy roads. I always thought noise didn’t bother me, great trade off for convenience, and I am never home sleeping at peak hour. In the first unit, you could hear the traffic but it wasn’t too bad, and with TV or music on, you couldn’t really hear it, and it died off after 8pm anyway. Also the traffic was so bad, the noise was less because they travelled so slowly.

I thought unit two would be similar. Although it was on a really major road, I figured traffic would die off after 8 or 9pm and wouldn’t get going in the morning until after 6.30 or 7am.

HOW WRONG I WAS!

Big trucks loved to use the road in the middle of the night, at 2am, 3am, and because there was no other traffic they would hurl down the road.

I hated that place! Couldn’t sleep! Had to use ear plugs and could still hear the bloody trucks! Luckily we only lived there for 2 months but even then I wanted to cry every night!

So check the noise between 10pm and 7am!!

HC

I have just moved from the UK, where 0% for 6-9 month c/c deals have been common for a few years. Yes they are great for people with large c/c debt, but plenty of diligent people are getting them, and using the cash to either pay down their home loans, or even just putting it in the bank to gain the interest. I know of people who have up to GBP40-50k on their 0% cards, so are making a couple of grand a year in interest.

The UK is much more free and easy about approving credit cards mind you.

And you must be VERY careful to pay off the card before the 6 month deal runs out, otherwise you revert back to the high interest rate and lose all profit.

It works like this:

Get card A – interest rate as low as poss.
Cash advance to the limit.

Get card B, which is a 0% deal, balance transfer the $10k from Card A to Card B. Close Card A.

A few weeks before the 6 month period is up, apply for Card C, which also has a 0% deal. Balance transfer the $10k from Card B to Card C.

It might not be huge amounts of profit, but it also doesn’t take much effort, just vigilance.

The credit card discussion board on http://www.fool.co.uk often has threads on this topic.

HC

Most of my friends (I’m 30)spent everything they earned on travel and drinking until they were in their late 20s and had done enough of it. However by then they are earning pretty decent money – most between $70 and $100k – so once a decision is made to buckle down it doesn’t more than a year or two to save a house deposit.

I don’t know anyone who have ever bought a brand new car (or a 2nd hand one for more than $8k), except maybe the odd doctor, but they knew they’d be earning the huge bucks by the time they were 30ish.

And although some are married, none have babies.

The first home has usually a 2 bed unit/townhoue around $250k (for the singles), or a house for up to $350-$400k (for the couples) – less if they bought in 2001 rather than 2004! Repayments are not too hard to make on a take home salary of $1k plus per week.

Most earn a lot more than their parents, so I don’t know any that got a gift for a deposit (other than their university education!)

I’ve purchased 3 properties in Qld by only viewing digital photos, as I am living in the UK.

Each time my dad went to look at the property, and he is a builder so good at looking at practical things, but I would equally be happy having a friend with good common sense go and view as well.

I did know each of the areas very well as I had lived there for 10 years. I don’t think I would buy anywhere I didn’t have some knowledge of in this way.

It just depends on much risk you can tolerate really.

On the practical side,

– I negotiated prices over the phone and all agents were happy to call my UK mobile.
– Contracts were sent and signed by fax no problem.
– The first mortgage (I was an FTB) was time-consuming as the lender wouldn’t work by fax so documents had to be posted (5 days each way). And one got lost in the post. I’ve now registered my mother as power of attorney so she signed 2nd and 3rd mortgages. If you are in Australia this wouldn’t be an issue though.
– A key (but this applies to all purchases really)
is to have a good solicitor and bank manager. Service from my first solicitor was very poor, he didn’t provide information when he should have, I had to spend quite a lot of time chasing him up around settlement day – all which was very frustrating. My bank manager however provides fantastic service, goes out of his way for me and makes everything easy. My new solicitor is the same – fantastic. So my 2nd and 3rd purchases were very easy. Both of them I have never spoken to, only communicated by email.

– In a way I think not seeing the property is good as you focus on the basics – price, location, number of rooms, land size etc and are not swayed by changeable things like ugly kitchen cabinets, pink paint jobs etc. This enables a fast decision as you are less emotional about it.

Hope this helps – Ariane

I am no property guru, own 2 IPs and about to buy a block of land. However I have lived in London, UK for the past 5 years, a property market which had fast growth and has now ‘peaked’ and here’s some observations.

Over the past 4-5 years prices rose at least 20% per annum. The price rises gave homeowners lots of equity, which they used to buy IPs. The first homebuyers were madly borrowing and buying as the media said ‘get on the ladder, buy now, if you don’t you’ll never own a property’. Parents released equity in their homes to provide their offpsring with deposits. Other first homebuyers got loans of 5-6 times their annual salary. I think the media played a huge part in encouraging people to buy (along with poor stockmarket returns for the investors etc) Price rises were a ripple effect, starting with the good suburbs, bad suburbs closer to catch on, good suburbs then slowed, now bad suburbs are slowing a year later.

Early 2002 the media started saying ‘the property market has peaked, prices will drop’. First home buyers are well and truly priced out of London unless Mum & Dad help a lot. People stopped panicking, sales slowed.

To date the only type of housing which has actually fallen in price is luxury housing in very posh suburbs for 1-2 million plus. (Note this is of course a generalisation, but a reasonable one) Prices being asked for now are up to 10% less of last years prices.

Prices of normal family houses, and 1-2 bed units have not dropped. They have certainly slowed dramatically. Price rises this year will be 5-10% in London max. But they haven’t dropped. Part of this I guess is because interest rates are so low everyone can afford their mortgage comfortably, could be a different situation if interest rates go up.

Prices in other major cities, and desirable holiday type areas though (which had previously not risen to the same extent as London), are now rising more – 15% plus pa. Of course the media *predicted* this. I reckon the media plays a huge part in causing it though.

Anyway no advice, just some observations. To me it looks like London last year = Sydney this year.

IMHO the only area that has properties at that price and a train station (essential!) is Beenleigh.

If you are not familiar with Brisbane, I would recommend looking at a map of the rail network, make a list of the stations, then search on realestate.com.au on those names. Try http://www.transinfo.com.au for the rail map

In the next 20 years being within a 5-8 min walk of a train station will become more valuable in Brisbane as population and road traffic continues to increase.

Choc