It depends on the concrete situation, but also where the meters are going to be positioned.  If they have to go in rear courtyards that the water-meter-reading person cannot get to, then you have to get a radio-controlled meter.  They are about $310 and a regular non-radio-controlled is a little cheaper.  Then you have to pay plumber labour to split the lines.  You would have to ask your plumber to get a visual on the situation and give you an idea of the amount of effort and materials he/she thinks will be involved.

Hi Jessica

The build prices, the sell prices, and the land size required will depend on the suburb.  This is because in some towns, labour costs more than others.  Sell prices will be impacted by affordability.  Minimum block sizes council will allow in a subdivision will depend on the council.  That considered, perhaps pop into your council, smile nicely, indicate what you're hoping to do, admit you don't know anything about block size requirements and so forth, and ask if someone from the planning department could spare you 10mins to give you a few guidelines to help you point your thought processes in the right direction.  The other thing to do at this early stage is get on http://www.realestate.com.au and literally look to see what homes are for sale, and what they costs.  Compare cost of "dated" property to new property.  This will help you understand the stock available in the area, the ballpark sell prices, and thus help you understand what the benchmark is in the area.

Already renovated one of them.  Will renovate the other 3 in due course

As an alternative to refinancing, you could instead simply take out a second mortgage against one of the existing properties when you go to buy your next property.  Richard can explain in more detail if you're not across this method.

One option is to transfer a couple of them into a SMSF(Self-Managed Super Fund)…..  you would of course need to do the numbers to see if it was worth it.  The transfer would trigger a CGT event and also require a stamp duty payment due to change of ownership.  One in the SMSF the income would be tax-free at retirement, and taxed at 15% until that time.  Check the relevant state revenue pages for information on how land tax would be handled within a SMSF.

As Richard implies, putting the rent up is essential.  If you don't, you will never pay the property off.  Ultimately the tenant will find that there is no point trying to move since there is nothing cheaper available in the town anyway, and there is hassle and cost associated with moving.  There is nothing wrong with putting the rent up such that it matches what similar properties in the area are renting for.

Each year your bills go up in price (insurance, council rates, water rates, tradespeople fees and in some cases, mortgage interest…) so that cost needs to be passed onto the tenant.  If a tenant complains that the rent doesn't go down if mortgage interest goes down, a tidy way of explaining why is to point out that you cannot put the rent up mid-lease, and yet the mortgage interest rate can indeed go up mid lease, and you have to wait till the end of the lease year before you can do anything about it.  So to balance out the rocky ride, things are handled simply by putting the rent up by a small increment each year.

I've got a block of units mostly tenanted by lower-income single guys, and they have been very clear in communicating that they are perfectly happy with their brown 70s kitchens.  To them a sparkling new kitchen is not priority.  The most important things to them are peace and quiet, relatively-affordable rent, and most importantly, feeling secure in the knowledge that the landlord is taking care of them and won't kick them out in the cold with 2 seconds notice.  It is very easy to build that trust.  My mum bakes cupcakes which I take along any time I have to go over there to attend to anything.  Their units are always referred to as their homes, and they are always greeted with a smile and a handshake.  These guys pay on time everytime, and give me absolutely no trouble whatsoever.  Quite the opposite – they help out with gardening on the grounds and so forth.  Understand who your tenants are and what their needs are and it is easy to have long-term tenants.  And to find out what their needs are, just ask!  I'll keep these boys as tenants for ages, and slowly renovate the units one by one as they leave later on due to changes in life circumstance.  This works for me as I am a stress-head.  I would absolutely hate having a high turnover.  I would lose too much sleep.  I need boring stability.

No worries.  The process is now so routine for the solicitors they forget to mention to the buy that they are handling this for us!

Huh?  Sorry, cannot understand your post.  Can you explain a bit more clearly?

Why would you want slow capital growth?  You'd be better off buying a smaller dwelling (such as a unit) in an area that is more proen to experience good growth.

If you have capital growth, then in a couple of years you'll have enough equity to use as a deposit for a second place.  And so on and so forth.  Buy into something with little or no capital growth and firstly you will not be able to do that, and secondly if you need to offload (sell) the place to trade it for something else in a town that HAS experienced good growth, you will find that since prices in the bad town haven't kept up pace with the good town, the trade-in won't work so well.

Ballarat VIC.  Something close to the hospital.