Thanks for touching base with us to let us know how it panned out Jenny   Good result.  It did seem odd the utility company was trying to bully her into paying an account held in someone else's name.

1) Legal ownership takes place at settlement, but obligation takes place after the cooling period is over and all special conditions (such as finance) are satisfied.

2) In VIC, stamp duty is payable at settlement.

3) If you put "Joe Bloggs and/or nominee" as the buyer on the contract of sale, you don't have to worry about the precise name or names until close to settlement.  (Joe Bloggs should be replaced with your name).

Cooling off period is a fixed period of time as per real estate law.  There is no cooling off period for the vendor but there is for the buyer.  I believe it is 3 days.

4) Deposit is indeed negotiable.

5) In VIC the both of you would pay stamp duty.  I am not 100% sure about other states.  That said, if you had and/or nominee on the contract of sale the situation might be slightly different.  I am sure someone more in the know about such things will comment.

Now here is my opinion;

I don't think it is a particularly good idea to put something under contract if you will not be eligible for finance for another 7 months.  While you might get agreement on a long settlement, the vendor is not going to let you mess about trying to get a bank loan for 7 months.  They'll give you around 4 weeks max.  So in a nutshell I don't see the vendor agreeing to a 7mth finance clause which means you could not buy the property under your current plan.

Spoiled for choice hey!

Sometimes one property can mix multiple strategies (such as reno and also subdivision).  Sometimes just one strategy.  You can't necessarily use all strategies in every deal.  No need to get upset because this is so.

Much of the current sentiment is to go for positive cashflow.  Why hope for capital growth with a negatively geared property and then whine that the capital growth takes way longer than you thought.

Apart from that, it will come down to your risk profile and personal preference.  Some people are happy to invest in locations with high yields in high risk locations.  I would stress too much and have a heartattack, so I've gone for a different strategy. 

Personally I want a bit of everything.  I want good yields, low vacancy AND capital growth.  Personally I go for properties that have proven historic growth and pointers to more of it in the immediate future.  I am happy for such a property to be slightly negatively geared, but for no more than about a year.  I then expect it to stand on its own two feet so I can go shopping again.  But ideally I like things I can immediately add value to and thus shoving them into positive cashflow terrain.

I work in the banking industry and I am never asked to produce evidence that I attended uni.  Actually that is a lie… I was asked once and I laughed and said I had no clue where that piece of paper was now, with all its irrelevance so many years down the track.  While I did indeed go to uni, I did not study subjects directly related to my current profession and frankly nobody cares.  Once you've been out of uni for 2 years or more, nobody cares about seeing the bit of paper any more.  It's the experience that counts. 

While going to uni to make forward movement in life is better than doing nothing, it is not always the case it is the best idea for every person.  Plenty of tradies out there that did apprenticeships and became minted before they turned 30 by investing in real estate, and opening their own businesses and hiring others to do the hard yakka.

House.  Gives you more options.  And for the person living in it, you hear less of what the neighbours are up to, which is good

Remember that once you render, you'll have to commit to painting on a regular basis to keep the place looking tidy.  For this reason, I opt not to render my buy and holds.  I'd happily do it for something I was going to sell.

Hi there,

What did you intend to do with the block?  Have you had a chat to council and a local draftsperson about whether your plans would be possible?  Have you had a chat to some builders to understand how much your construction would cost?  And a mortgage broker to understand if you could get finance for such a construction and at what interest rate?

The results of such investigations might show you why it's been on the market a while.  It might cost too much to build on the block to make it worthwhile.

Agree completely with this comment

Agreed Wolfey… the surefire way to not move forward is to do nothing at all

I think the stats pages at the rear of The Australian Property Investor Magazine can tell you where to look