are they expensive?  Do you think they saved you money or just time or both?

agree with all the above.  My 2 bobs worth is find out from the pest inspector what species the termites are.  Some of them eat houses to dust, others just make little trails and seldom go very far above ground level.  They are everywhere (except Tassie) and so finding them is not neccessarily terrible, it all depends on the degree of damage they have caused, and sometimes knowing the species helps.  However on that house you should get a pest/building inspection then if they are present but have not damaged it too much, get a couple of quotes to fix the problem and either insist on them being pretreated by vendor or make an offer at reduced price. given that you will have to spend to treat and repair damaged bits.  Personally I would get as much off the price as possible and use it as a bargaining tool.(so long as your inspection doesn't say it is about to fall down)

Tassie-partly because like the place and it gave an excuse to visit, but mainly due to high rental return (8%) and continuing with the concept of diversification by buying in different states (as experts like margaret lomas et al suggest)

This is the best site I have found for all your information/calculations/discussions relating to anything green.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/

I have put solar panels and a solar HWS up on our house in a similar climate to what you describe (central NSW).  Would recommend the evacuated tube option for HWS.  Sorry never heard of your "gas fired power station type of setup for households to provide electricity" unless you meant gas boosted solar HWS.

That's good.  Learned something.  Trouble is none of my doors rattle.  All they do is get stuck every time it rains too much.  But there'll be a drought for sure, and then they'll be good again.

Taminda stands for TAMworth INDustrial Area.  There are a few houses there but they would be zoned commercial/industrial I would think (would have to check with Tamworth Regional Council)-67555555. 

West Tamworth is a very old established area, v nice place to buy/live.  There is an area there that is being planned to be zoned as a "Heritage Area", meaning that to preserve the 'feel' of the area, certain developments would not be permitted.  What effect that has on what you can do to existing properties I don't know, and also what effect that has on prices is anyone's guess.  West Tamworth also has a very good rental yield, if you look up a recent table of rental yields (around 6.5%), and so it is more likely to be CF+.

"Best" areas in terms of where you would want to live are East Tamworth (oldest) and some parts of South near the Longyard golfcourse (newest up-market area).  Worst place to live would be Coledale.  How this translates to investments is anyone's guess, because a lower priced IP in a "bad area" may do much better long term than an expensive place in a "nice" bit of town, or vice versa.  Personally I'd suggest West becuase it is neutral as an area and certainly has a very established pleasant feel to it, without the higher prices of East or the break-ins and vandalism of Coledale.

Good luck.  Let me know if you find something and I'll do a drive-by for you or take some photos. 
Where are you?  Perhaps we can exchange area information?  PM me if you like.

Having bought from my parents all I would say is make sure you get a valuation done to prevent any angst/conflict  this may cause with your siblings, if you have any, down the track when the subject of inheritance comes up.  Your relationship with family is worth more than houses, in my view, but both are completely possible with forward planning to keep things clear with siblings.

Other than that, all we did was use a common solicitor to keep legal expenses down (and bargained with him beforehand) but we still had all the searches/valuation done.  Parents assisted with financial arrangements to keep banks out of it.  We still had to pay stamp duty. 

Good ;luck, sounds like a good deal.

I'm glad I read this thread.

 Suddenly yesterday there were heaps more displayed threads than I was used to and I thought there must have been something on the news that I missed regarding property investing, or perhaps closure/collapse of another property investing forum website to get this apparent sudden influx of more people and their questions. 

This will be a challenge to try and keep up with so many concurrent threads!  Good questions, thought provoking and a bit addictive.