Hehehe I once attended a seminar that advised against discussing property investment aspirations with friends and family. 

Perhaps try mentioning to your wife things like this:

Property goes up in value approx 10% a year.  Your salary does not.  So the market is rapidly pricing you out.  Get on the boat quick.

Look at the ageing population.  Do you genuinely believe there will be a pension for us when our generation is of retirement age?  Doubtful.  Either way, I'm assuming there will not be, and looking after myself.

Look at what happened to superfunds with the arrival of the GFC.  Not cool for people who are already retired and having to draw on the funds.  They don't have the luxury of waiting for the market to recover.

Basically, in my opinion, you can't afford NOT to buy property.  You don't have to buy mansions.  Just affordable stuff that you can find tenants for

Multiple Property Services – simply copying and pasting the same marketing pitch into threads on this forum is not helping to educate people.  Users of the forum have no beef at all with commercial operators pitching in their 10c worth, as long as it is informative and relevant to the original question at hand.  Take a look at the way Richard (as above) writes, and also Terry.  They make no secret of the fact they are in the industry with a service to sell, however they actually answer the question the original poster has asked.

I hope you don't take offence to my comment, but people are going to get sick of you pretty quick and ignore you altogether if this is the way you choose to participate on the forum.

ps this is a good read https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forums/getting-technical/finance/4325393

Correct. 

Obviously at some point, the bank expects you to pay them back for the original price of the house if you wish to keep it (otherwise you'd have to sell it to pay them back).  So if you never intended to sell the property, and let's say the property originally cost $200k, then you'd eventually want $200k in the offset, so you could give it to the bank and close matters off.

The general strategy these days seems to be to get a few properties, all interest only (as many as you can comfortably service without getting into strife if the interest rates go up a bit, or if you have no tenant for a while).  Let capital growth do it's thing, and at some point, sell a couple of properties to entirely pay out the loans on those you want to keep.   I’ve created a bit of an example below to give you a vague idea what people are up to.  Please realise the numbers are approximate.  It is a very very basic example just to help get your head around why people are doing the interest only loan thing.

So let’s say you buy the following properties:

House A : price $120,000
House B: price $150,000
House C: price $145,000
House price $300,000

After 10 years, you'd think they'd all double in value.  So resale prices would look like this:

House A : sellable for $240,000
House B : sellable for $300,000
House C : sellable for $290,000
House D : sellable for $600,000

Right.  So at the 10 year mark, your owings to the bank are a total of $715,000 (which is the total of the prices you purchased the properties for). 

Let's say you choose to sell Houses C and D. 

Here's how it would look, roughly:

House C you sell for $290k.  The real estate agent has to be paid say, 3% commission, which is $8,700.  Let's say your solicitor costs $1,000.  You've held the property for more than 12 months, so you get a capital gains tax (CGT) discount of 50%.  I believe the tax is then charged on the profit "above inflation".   I used this link to get a VERY BASIC IDEA OF the CGT payable if you were on an income of say $100k : http://www.yourmortgage.com.au/calculators/capital_gains_tax/ 

So we have: 

House C
Sale price; $290k
Minus agent commission of $8,700
Minus solicitor fee of $1,000
Minus what you owe the bank of $145,000 (original price of property)
Minus capital gains tax of $26,505
Leaves you with clear profit of $108,795 

House D
Sale price; $600,000
Minus agent commission of $18,000
Minus solicitor fee of $1,000
Minus what you owe the bank of $300,000
Minus capital gains tax of $57,230
Leaves you with a clear profit of $223,770 

So by selling Houses C and D, you have made a profit of $108,795 + $223,770 = $332,565

To completely pay the bank back for houses A and B, you only need $120k + $150k = $270k.  Conveniently, the profits you made from selling Houses C and D after 10 years of ownership means that you can do this, with a little cash to spare.  So you pay the bank bank and from that point forward, the rental return on Houses A and B  gives you an income towards a more comfortable retirement. 

Does this help?

My parents have lino which looks like floorboards.  It looks great, feels great underfoot, and gives the house a peaceful feel (because you can't hear everybody's footsteps )  If you're planning to cover your floorboards with rugs anyway, there probably isn't much difference, aesthetically, of whether the flooring that pops out under the edges is floorboards or lino.

Something to keep in mind is that if you ever do rent the property out, you might have a terrible time getting your tenants to step quietly on the floorboards.  Who could be bothered receiving constant complaints from the body corporate about your own tenants being noisy.  Too much hassle.  Carpet or Lino I say

No worries   Check back in with us if you'd like more ideas on titles

Hi dj_siek

Good on you for finding out the best means of minimising the noise.

I am a person who both owns property, and has rented in several different kinds of apartment buildings, so I have an understanding from both sides of the fence.  Try to remember that all that separates one person from their neighbours in an apartment building is a floor, ceiling or wall. 

Your  neighbours are going to hear some of your conversations.  They are going to hear your food processor when you are having a healthy early morning breakfast on Sunday when they are trying to sleep in.  They are going to hear some of your tv or stereo when they are wanting to get lost in watching their own choice of film for the evening.  Depending on the nature of the plumbing, they may hear every toilet flush in the middle of the night, or their walls might vibrate when your washing machine is on spin cycle.  Apartment living is stressful enough in terms of noise, without adding to it with floorboards.  While you might be doing all you can to minimise the noise, ask yourself if there will be any noise at all.  If you are honest with yourself, the likely answer is yes.  And it doesn't matter whether the people are awake just trying to have a peaceful conversation or trying to sleep while you are walking around on your floorboards.  It's tough enough living in such close quarters with others.  Why would you add to the tensions that will already exist in apartment life?  There's a reason floorboards aren't welcomed in apartment buildings.  Sorry matie, can't  say I support your desire to install them.

jac

Why would you sell it if it is in a high growth area and you'll have it paid off in 3 years?

Be aware by the way that once it is cash flow positive, you'll have to pay tax at 30c in every dollar, because you are not currently Australian resident for tax purposes.  So your investment income will be taxed in this manner.  It'd be about that time to either cop the tax on the chin, or buy an additional property to offset it.

If you haven't got one, you'd do well to get an offset account against your mortgage and put all extra cash in there instead of straight onto the mortgage.  It'll be easier to pull the money out if you need to (eg for a deposit on an additional property).

Apartments offer lower capital growth.  It is best to invest in something that sits on its own chunk of land – meaning a freestanding house, or a townhouse (ie something which shares one or two of its sides with a neighbouring property), or a unit (a single-storey flat that has no flats below it or above it).

Northcote is probably the most obvious choice for something close-ish to the city.  Depends if you want to live in it yourself later, and if so, what sort of property you want to live in.  Bentleigh is still affordable in your price bracket, and is quite close to the beach.

There is also the option of buying two cheaper properties.  So maybe a house in Werribee and a unit in Brunswick or Coburg.

Guaranteed returns are often dangerous, and  the return has already been added onto the purchase price.

You also need to be aware of stamp duty.  Here is a calculator;
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=calc&jar=StampDuty

You'd probably also spend somewhere between $1000 and $2000 on solicitor fees, building inspections etc.

If you are keen on building an extra dwelling at the rear of the property, or doing a large renovation or knock down and start again job, you could look at Sunshine or Altona

By the way you might have an annoying challenge with finance when you get here, simply because you haven't been working in a job here for 12 months straight.  Keep local and foreign tax returns on hand.  That should get you around that hurdle.

Perhaps buying it under a "Rent to Buy" situation.  Or with vendor finance…