Yes I mean building insurance.  It actually needs to be house and contents insurance of course…. with enough contents cover to insure not only your furniture, clothes, personal effects etc, but also things like the carpets and curtains.  They are contents, apparently… not part of the building.  Ask the insurance company to explain what things are not part of the "building" to be sure.  The last insurer I spoke to enlightened me that concrete and driveways and fences were covered under the building, but the gardens were not covered at all.  Being an IP i thought well.  If I have to redo the gardens, I'll ponder laying a concrete garden instead of plants!

I can't imagine you'd have a problem getting insurance, I just think this "subject to" clause is a nice get out of jail free card.  What is the measure of "insurance satisfactory to the buyer" anyway.  There is no measure.  Wink wink.  I've used the clause on a purchase of a block of units, and was starting to get jittery about how hard it was to get insurance for blocks of units that were not under a strata title arrangement.  I thought oh wow, maybe I'll just have to use that clause after all!  But it all worked out, so all ok.  But equally, I could have pulled the deal simply because I didn't feel like buying the property any more, simply by saying "oh, sorry, it's terribly unfortunate, I just couldn't find insurance that was satisfactory to ME".

Remember to put a timeline on your subject to clauses.  eg "subject to ME finding satisfactory insurance to ME within 14 days"…. "subject to finding 80% finance with CBA within 21 days" etc etc.

Why would you want to pay extra on an interest only loan?  Simply put any extra money in the offset account, which reduces the amount on which interest is paid, and therefore achieves the same thing.

Subject to….

– Results of building, pest and asbestos inspections being satisfactory to the buyer.  (Cost of inspections to be worn by buyer).

– Buyer being able to secure insurance that is satisfactory to the buyer

– Finance.  But not just "subject to finance".  Be explicit.  For example, "subject to 80% Residential Investment Property Finance by Commonwealth Bank of Australia".

– Vacant possession (meaning if there are tenants living in it, they have to be out by time of settlement).

I'm still on the fence about what to do about it.  The memory of how hard and traumatic it was just to get a phone line and internet connected with Telstra is still so vivid, I don't know that I have the energy to do it again too soon as a result of a move!

Actually it could be deductible.  Read this:

https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forums/property-investing/help-needed/4335481

But when were they strata titled?

Maybe give your water company a call and find out if they are aware of the separate titles.  One of my water companies likes to apply a service charge per dwelling, regardless of whether it is stata-d or not.

I was sure that a requirement of strata-titling was splitting all service meters…

Hang on… these units are all on separate titles, yes?  Aren't they required to have separate water meters?

The reason they don't want to do it is that the cost of getting water meters installed is far greater than the water usage charge itself.  for example:

The cost of getting a radio-controlled water meter (needed if the water pipes are in the rear yards which are inacessible to the water-meter-reading-staffperson… so they instead stand in the street and somehow read it remotely) is currently about $300.  Then of course you have to pay a plumber to come and install it, make an ammendment to the pipe and so forth.  So you won't get out of it for less than at the very least, $400. 

The cost of water usage in a unit is about $25 a quarter.  So it'd take you four years just to get your money back, before you start making any savings.

You'll probably want to narrow down your suburb list a bit before you go to an agent.  For example, you might say "South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne" rather than "a property somewhere in Australia".

If you are wanting to do some renovations, you probably need to consider properties that are either in reasonable regular commuting distance of where you live, or you will need to be prepared to take some time off work to go to the property to renovate it, or outsource to a builder.

Taking a look at the rear pages of the Australian Property Investor magazine you'll find lots of stats.  In particular, you will be interested in capital growth, vacancy rates, and rental yields.  You will probably want something that has, over the last decade, performed well.  But at the same time, you would hopefully acquire a property just before its suburb booms.  You can do this by figuring out which suburbs had very high capital growth during the last 1-3 years, then get out a map and see what the ugly sister suburbs next door are that have yet to become beautiful swans.

What kind of business is it that you are running?  I wonder if you can acquire some property through the business as opposed to in your own names.