Hi LouieFin's Mum

Whatever you choose to do, remember:

– You don't have to do it "now" just because someone else says so

– If you are trying to build wealth through property investment, listen to others that have actually achieved what you are trying to achieve.  No point following the advice of people that have not.

– Yes you can purchase a property on your own.  There are bucketloads of them on the real estate websites.  Anyone can run out and offer to buy a property.  The results of course may differ depending on whether the property was purchased at the right price, is able to attract a tenant, has infrastructure to support long-term capital growth etc. 

It depends on your available of time, confidence and knowledge.  If you don't have time to do your research, you may not have sufficient knowledge to buy into an area that will serve you well long term (or indeed you may overpay due to lack of knowledge of the area).  Some people also lack confidence in the negotiation phase and prefer it to be handled for them by a professional.

Either way, it's exciting times!  You've obviously spent enough time reading and pondering to decide that property is to be your investment pathway, which is huge progress.  Exciting progress is ahead!!

If you intend to develop the site, be sure to use a mortgage broker that has secured finance for others for similar sites several times over.  This is not the time to have novices on the team.

There's a few things to say about The Docklands other than that it is a giant wind tunnel.  Nothing quite like stepping outside on what was supposed to be a nice day only to find yourself cowering against the cold of the wind.

The first is that there are a loooooot of apartments there.  What this means is that at any given time, if you want to either sell or rent your apartment, you are not the only person trying to do so.  This creates a nasty situation called competition.  So your potential buyers/tenants have a lot of product to choose from – and most of it all looks the same anyhow.  So in order to get someone to pay more attention to  your property, you have to do something.  Such as discount your product.  Not ideal since you are in this business to try and make money, not lose money.

Next thing is, there is no shortage of folks that have found themselves crying over spilt milk having invested in the Docklands, and found their property to have lost value, and not by a small amount.  Taking one example of a property whose sales history I just looked at: in the space of less than 18 months it plummetted in value by almost $100k in less than 18 months.  Perhaps it is more appropriate to say it was overpriced in the first place rather than that it dropped in value.  Overpriced and failed to rise in value to to the many many more of the same sorts of apartments flooding onto the market that it had to compete with.

Take care if you are intending to invest in such a thing.  You are not immune from losing money just because you are in a group of some kind.  If you've all joined a group to jointly acquire one particular property, it gets even better – each and every one of you will be jointly and entirely responsible for the whole mortgage – not just your portion.  When you try and buy your second investment property, that is going to sting because as far as the bank is concerned, you have the responsibility of a whopping great mortgage and not just a portion of it.

Also take care about attempting to refinance (ie in an attempt to pull out equity for use on a deposit with your next acquisition) within the same bank that currently holds the mortgage over your property.  It wouldn't be very nice if the bank said oh, we've sent the valuer to your property, and we deem it to have dropped in value.  Wouldn't be very nice to hear this at all.  Wouldn't be very nice if they said they needed you to "top up" your deposit to get it to the agreed LVR on the loan.  Imagine a drop in value of $100k that resulted in the bank requesting you somehow find $20k to top up your deposit.

Coming back to discounting – 5-10% off in exchange for you bringing a bunch of other buyers to the table is not a particularly generous discount.

In closing I will say there is a very big difference between the listed price and the sale price.  The listed price is just someone’s hope of what their property will sell for.  It is not the reality of what it will actually sell for.  Be sure to look at actual sales price history.

Just be sure to set the structures and finances up correct from the start or your aspirations to grow your portfolio can come to a grinding halt. 

Contact one of the gun mortgage brokers on these forums such as Terryw (who already replied in this thread), Qlds007 or Jamie M

Hi there

You mentioned "I eventually want to build a duplex and move into one side which is why I wanted to keep my new PPOR as an I/O loan."

Just wondering why you want to do this?  Is it because you want a relative to live next door to you or something like that?  If not, the goal shouldn't be "to live in one half of a duplex" it should be "to live in a property that you enjoy living in and which is near the facilities you require, and which also leaves you in the best financial position".  If that means you live in a small freestanding 2bedroom house and all your IPs are also freestanding houses then so be it.

The one thing you cannot repair is location. 

What are all these other boxes that it ticks?

There will always be peaks and troughs over the years.  Ask yourself : if my tenants were unemployed, would they still be able to afford the rent on my property?  If not, then I guess your property would be exposed to risk during the troughs. 

Hi Cal

I saw your post the other day and was scratching my head a bit trying to understand why your strategy wasn't as follows:  "Make money". 

Deciding on the property type and then praying it fits with your goals is a bit like saying right-oh, I'm going to eat some Coco-Pops, and pray to the heavens they contains vitamin C because that's the nutrient I need right now.  You want to do it the other way around.  You say right, I need vitamin C.  You find out what kind of foods have vitamin C and you set about locating such foods.  Same deal with property investing.  You define your end goal and then figure out what type of properties will get you there.

As has already been mentioned, if the hoped-for capital growth doesn't happen in the timeframe you are hoping for, you want to be clear on what that would mean for your financial position and how it would affect the progress of your goals.

You've got yourself a great salary there – choose wisely and make it count.  Get it right and your life will look very different a few years from now.  Get it wrong and, well, let's just remember it's quite unlikely there will be a pension when we're old, so getting it wrong is just not an option.  It's extremely important to set yourself up a funding base for your twilight years.

You need to squint those eyes of yours and think hard.  Direct your cash only into things that will take you forward.  A bit like an episode of The Voice, but for property investing.  You're waiting not to hear a nice singing voice, but to see a property with numbers that stack up.  When you see something that has numbers that make sense, you smash that red button hard and welcome the beautiful-numbers-property onto your team.  Such properties are not always pretty and shiny.  Quite often they are just ugly and sturdy trojans.  But they do their job.  They earn money, which is the whole point of the exercise.

Hope this helps!  (Proudly sponsored by Coco-Pops). 

Jamie!!! Awesome news! So pleased for you Congratulations

Oh my this is the cutest thread ever!  I love it that there is absolutely no text i the body of your post.

What's wrong??  How can we help?  Shall we assume the smart part of your brain has realised you ought to invest in property but the emotional part of you that listens to uneducated folks in the community panics sometimes?