Hi Steve and team

The speed of the site is definitely astronomically better now, and as the boys have pointed out, the script errors have gone. 

I never thought the badges were necessary.  I think it is plenty to see how many posts someone has made as it gives some insight into how much experience they might have (or at least how long they have been exposing themselves to property investing knowledge via forums ).

Loving the rejig, and aware of how much work is involved in even the most minor of tweak.  Well done team!

Some councils charge separate rates on un-strata'd units (that's right, a set of rates per unit) regardless of whether they are strata'd or not.  Same deal with the Water providers.

The tenant is on a fixed term lease which does not expire until August.  It's all well and good for tenants to cry poor mid lease, but rest assured they will never call you voluntarily mid lease and say hey you know what, I see on the news interest rates went up, and I feel sorry for you, so I tell you what, I'll pay a higher rent, effective immediately.  The purpose of a fixed rent is to enable the tenant to budget.  And you as the landlord do not necessarily put the rent down the second interest rates go down, because sometimes you need a buffer if the interest rates go up again.  Additionally, perhaps you are locked into a fixed interest rate anyway.

As such they are obliged to honour their agreement.  If they choose to default, the following income streams are available to you:

1.  Keeping their bond

2.  Claiming rental default on your insurance (presuming you have appropriate landlord insurance)

3.  VCAT or equivalent

A bit before 60 days prior to the lease expiry, you'd be talking to your property manager about whether you'd like to offer a new lease term to the tenant, and if so at what price.  You would take into account the property manager's advice (which should be backed up with reasons) coupled with your own knowledge.  If indeed at that time the rental market is slow and prices have gone down, you will almost certainly need to put the rent down.  $100 a week is a huge incentive for someone to move house.  Unless there is something super special that your property is offering, you're in the mosh pit with the other landlords, offering your product to the market.

In summary, if it were me, no way in heck I would be putting the rent down mid lease.  Unless I was in a real spot and had invested in a town where there was no other way I could get a new tenant at the end of the lease.

Agree with the above posts – it takes quite a bit of time to find appropriate suburbs, and even more to learn the suburb inside out. 

You need to invest a lot of time in being dead certain of the demand for different dwelling types (eg 1 bedroom units vs 3 bedroom houses), the demand for different streets, and the demand for different construction types (eg brick, vs weatherboard, vs fibro).

If you are going to take on your own research it's really an all-in thing.  Lots of time needs to go into spending every Saturday going through as many open for inspections as you can, and every other day researching from afar.  The dilemma is understanding the market and getting into it before the time for buying into your proposed target suburb is no longer ripe.

Work backwards – work out what your end goal is and by when this must happen.  This will help you understand how much time you have to allocate to the cause.  Might be an idea to weigh up the cost of spending all your time on this, and how much petrol and such you'll spend racing around, versus the cost of hiring a professional to assist you.

I might be missing something, but I don't think the numbers work on this project. You would have to spend $160k to build, you've spent a fair portion of $50k on the subdivision (I'm guessing $25k+) and more on the interest on the borrowings…. only to sell at around $200k.  Not worth pursuing really…

Apologies if I'm missing something?

Just to throw it into the mix, I've had my plumber ask whether I need the gutters cleaned when I've sent him out on other chores.  I know I could have the gardener do it also.  If the gardener has a ladder and a hose, it's in play. 

How small is the savings pile?

Any idea how much you have in super?  Worth finding out.  You can create your own SMSF (Self Managed Super Fund) and use it as deposits to buy property  

It needs a window and a minimum ceiling height…

Logically you need to be able to fit at least a single bed, a bedside table and either a chest of drawers or wardrobe.  If all you can fit is a chest of drawers you could get away with calling it a baby's room, since there is no real need to hang their clothing.That said, you'd probably need space for a change table for the baby.

Sorry Y-Stress but your idea of setting up one SMSF per property does not save people money.  It actually costs people more money.  As Qlds007 has already pointed out, land tax pales in comparison to the annual fees associated with running a SMSF.  ASIC does not offer discounts.  You cannot avoid annual ASIC costs, and you cannot avoid the requirement for annual accounting and audit, which has associated fees. 

Let's say someone aspires to have three identical properties in Super.  Let's say each one has a land value of $100k.

Scenario 1:  One SMSF.  This SMSF has three properties in it… each one held inside a bare trust.  Total Land Value : $300k.

Annual ASIC fee, SMSF : $43

Annual ASIC fee, Bare Trust 1 : $230

Annual ASIC fee, Bare Trust 2 : $230

Annual ASIC fee, Bare Trust 3 : $230

Annual Accounting and Audit : $660 (depending on how good your record keeping is, how complex your SMSF tax return is and what your accountant charges)

Land Tax : $375

Total annual costs : $1108.

Scenario 2:  Three SMSFs.  Each has one house, with its own bare trust.  Land value of each house is $100k which is below the land tax threshold.  Each SMSF must do a tax return and audit each year.

Annual ASIC fee, SMSF 1 : $43

Annual ASIC fee, SMSF 2 : $43

Annual ASIC fee, SMSF 3 : $43

Annual ASIC fee, Bare Trust 1 : $230

Annual ASIC fee, Bare Trust 2 : $230

Annual ASIC fee, Bare Trust 3 : $230

Annual Accounting and Audit, SMSF 1 : $660

Annual Accounting and Audit, SMSF 2 : $660

Annual Accounting and Audit, SMSF 3 : $660

Land Tax : $0 (because the tax-free threshold in VIC is $250k of land value)

Total annual costs : $2799

These are the associated fees I have seen based on running my SMSF.   As can be seen by the total costs figures, it makes absolutely no sense opening a new SMSF per property.  It costs more.  It also creates more paperwork and admin.  It should further be noted that if someone's record-keeping skills are not great, the annual accounting and audit fee gets bigger, and thus the total cost of running three smsfs rather than one becomes substantially bigger.

Hi there

Which state is the property located in?