Originally posted by christobell:
…he said there are twice as many sellers as buyers at the moment..Hmmm..what does that tell us.

It tells me that now is a great time to buy.

Hi,

I haven’t specifically asked council about moving a house there, but I know that one of the barge companies that advertises “large items” takes houses, which would be strange if council didn’t allow it. Oh and these barges are massive, so yes they would fit a house-moving truck (It’s not the same vessel that takes cars back and forth each…[Read more]

Thanks, I could never live there… I’m too much a city person. And yes it is up on a hill just a short walk to the water’s edge.

Yes anyone who hasn’t been to one of Michael’s seminars really should get along to his next one… it is extremely cheap/good value for a very enlightening and entertaining evening… I went along to the Brisbane one last year and I’ll be there again this year!

-Ian

I think anything involving extra bedrooms still needs council approval no matter how easy it is to physically build… This may be because of extra grey water/ sewerage etc. or even so they can make sure that the bedroom is of an appropriate size and ceiling height…

A friend of mine has a 3rd ‘bedroom’, but because the ceiling is literally only…[Read more]

I am actually surprised how few people seem to use fixed rate loans.. I have just signed up for a 3 year fixed rate of 6.55%.

It’s kinda funny that so many people seem to be worried about a rate rise… it’s like they’ve never heard of fixed rates.

Oops almost forgot about your first question:

– When 4 million baby boomers die over 15 years, who will be demanding their houses?

4 of the people who are currently in 5-person households (or 3 of the people who are currently in 4-person households etc) when everyone in the future decides they want to live by themselves.

Basically I think it comes down to two options: downsize, or move further from the city.

So people who are in an ‘average’ house in middle-ring suburbs now can buy places further away from the city.

People who are in an ‘average’ house in inner-city suburbs can buy a place in a middle-ring suburb…

Today’s ‘average’ houses will cease to exist…[Read more]

Wow! This is *exactly* the reason I want to get rich…

Once my net worth is $40m+ I’d happily pay 14 to spend two weeks there.

I can’t wait!

Hi!

I read it a couple of months ago and can barely remember a thing about it, other than I disagreed with just about everything he said

I think Olly is an advocate of “Timing the market” rather than “Time in the market”.

Sorry I can’t offer a more helpful review.

-Ian

FINALLY!

A post I agree with. This “median house” phenomenon is exactly the point I was about to bring up.

Prices cannot appreciate above inflation indefinitely.

Of course they can! If you are talking about a ‘house’ being a 3 br detached dwelling on 600sqm when everybody else in 50 years time is stuck in a high rise apartment, that property…[Read more]

At no stage did I ever say it was a poor effort, or anything similar. My point was that I hadn’t got that kind of mail in my letter box for months (maybe 12 or more), so I found it significant.

No, I thought just the fact that they are street-spamming in the first place means they’re running low on properties to list. Needless to say I didn’t call

I agree with PropertyGuru’s approach… If you work out how much the repayments would be under P&I, then every time you make an interest payment for your IO loan, put the difference into an offset account. This way it will be ‘costing’ you the same as a P&I loan each week/month, but the equity that you directly create will be much more easily…[Read more]

In my opinion, you’d be silly to spend 10’s or 100’s of thousands of dollars without first spending a few hundred dollars on building and pest inspections.

Personally, I prefer (fixed) interest only loans… but it would depend on the town… I’d only do it if the town were well established and not likely to shrink in size.

-Ian

Hi!

At what age did you start investing in property?
25 (I’m 26 now)

What difficulties did you have in doing this?
Trying to save a deposit while simultaneously clawing my way out of $25k in bad debt (still 10k to go, but i think putting spare cash into property is still best in the long run, rather than pay that down and have to save another…[Read more]

Is there something critically wrong with this particular suburb? I thought Sydney prices were supposed to be way higher than Brisbane…

For stamp duty, there are calculators on the Office of State Revenue’s website:

Try http://www.osr.qld.gov.au (or your state’s equivalent).

Hi! At first glance of your post I thought you could still get the FHOG in your name even if your partner has had property before, but now I’m not 100% certain Anyone?

annual rental income / purchase price * 100

So for a $100k property renting at $100/week ($5200/year) the yield is 5.2%