Catnkezz wrote:

Hi everyone, we too had a call from Reventon, again they said buy new house and land over near Geelong. It all seemed too easy, the one stop shop so to speak. The advisor kept saying that they invest in everything from established properties, gold, cash but did push new house and land package. We did agree to speak with there money man and were asked to prepare any questions we have, so next week we are meeting, NO MONEY will be handed over just yet. Rep seemed honest enough we will see what happens next week!
Cheers Catnkezz

This company sounds similar to an experience I had. Too easy and too good to be true. Please do not sign anything. The only person who has the best intentions for your money is you. They WILL be making money off you at your expense. Get educated and find your own investment

I was told they could get me a positive property no problems but first we want to fix any leaks you have in your income and that is by saving tax etc we were guided towards an off the plan place in melbourne. It appealed to me as we were nervous doing this our first time. This is what they sold us with..they had all the right people and made it all simple for us.

though it is not the exact company we were illustrated this too “There are more benefits for the client if they invest in new property or off the plan. These benefits include more tax deductions, depreciation, reduced stamp duty, less fees, less maintenance, increases chances of finding tenants, and increases client confidence. Therefore we don’t recommend secondhand property as there are far more benefits to be had when investing in new property.”

reduced stamp duty turned out to be 20k off a 410k apartment. We signed the contract before securing finance we were told they would ‘hold our hand every step of the way’ so we trusted what processes they had for us. When we had trouble securing finance with a lender we were locked in to this contract. We are so lucky we scraped by. At first we were told a 95% lend would be fine with our combined high income this was not true, banks saw this as a risky investment and it was under the value we paid for- we paid 410k but is worth 388!. We had no help once we signed the contract we had trouble getting in contact with the company. We ended up having to come up with an extra 80k to fill the gap of what we could borrow. plus the 20k stamp duty. Our apartment sat without tenants for 6 months.. all the other competition against all the other apartments that were off the plan sold it makes sense but never crossed our minds at the time.
We lost money, sleep, hair and confidence. We have just come out ok now after a HUGE learning lesson. It’s embarrassing our first time purchasing but it would be an even more expensive lesson if we didn’t learn anything and grow from it.

This is just my personal experience and just thought i would share this incase I can help prevent anyone going through what I did with ‘off the plan’ and these businesses that sell them.

all the best and if you have any qs about my experience please ask, happy to help :)

• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by  Isabel.

Hey! I am a NZer looking to invest in New Zealand soon also. Welcome :)

Hi

I am by no means experienced but I can at least pass on what I have learnt from buying my first property investment in a 1 bedroom apartment. I had trouble securing finance and had to come up with the difference the bank wouldn’t loan. It is in a prime location BUT I have had huge trouble getting it tenanted this is because I’m competing against all the other apartments in the block. You need to have something different and desirable in your apartment or else you will be competing with other owners this has pushed the rent right down.
If I knew what I did not then I think I would have invested a lot differently. I’m thinking of creative solutions to change the situation or possibly sell. Good luck :)