How many houses do you buy from agents per month?  How many does a buyers agent buy?  There is your answer.  Agents know buyers agents buy lots of property, albeit on behalf of their clients.  So of course they are going to receive the call before you do, because they are in a position to move more sales than you are.

Getting insurance is a bit of a pain – search "rooming house" and "boarding house" on this forum to read more on that.

You'd need to charge an "all in" fee that covers water, electricity, internet etc.  As such you might need to take measures such as arranging for the hot water to magically stop after the shower has been running for 4mins to prevent the residents from running up the bills.

"By the room" accommodation is always in high demand in major cities (ie for medium-stay tourists) and near universities.  You'd want to move relevant furniture in/out as each new tennant arrives/departs.  Eg a student might want a desk in the room, but a professional might prefer a 2 seater dining table.
 
Something to be a bit careful of is what you provide as a "kitchen".  As I understand it, if you put a sink and a microwave and a barfridge in the room, that'll be fine.  But  you may run into strife if you actually put an oven+hotplates in the room, as then it is actually defined as a separate residence (and no doubt council will bill rates accordingly).  Steer clear of having separate letterboxes at the exterior of the property for the same reason.

Have a think about how you'd handle cleaning in the communal areas (eg the bathrooms).  It's unlikely each person would do their fair share (or any cleaning at all) so perhaps build the cost of an occasional cleaner into the rental rates.

I do not see how this would be the responsibility of your previous employer. Do you still have the letter from your accountant that you gave your previous employer?  If so, why can't you give that to your new employer?

A quick phonecall to a mainstream builder such as Metricon or Pioneer to enquire the build cost of one of their spec townhouses in your area would tell you.  $500k sounds well out of order to me.  Max $300k.

Richard Taylor who participates heavily on this forum.  His userid is Qlds007.  Details below

Richard Taylor
Residential & Commercial Mortgage Broker. Ph: 07 3720 1888
[email protected].

If however you knew of a plot of land that was cheap as chips and eligible for rezoning to industrial, commercial, or from say semi rural to fully-blown residential 1, now that's another story. 

More info required… wages, value of brick cottage, debt remaining on cottage, amount of liquid cash savings you have

The thing you must understand about negative gearing is that you aim to deliberately make a loss.  A loss is a loss, even when a tax refund refunds PART of the loss. 

If you can afford to pay $219k for a property, do it.  But do it in the following manner:
– put down a 20% deposit and the stamp duty
– get the bank to pay the rest (you'll need a job of some kind (McDs?) to illustrate ability to cope with the "loan"
– park your money in an offset account. this will mean you will pay zero interest.
– when you finish studying and get a better job, pull some money out of the offset account and use it as a deposit for property number 2.  You will be able to do this in an instant.  Whereas if you had paid cash for property number 1, you will have to muck around trying to get a bank to refinance.

Alternatively, just pay cash and be done with it.  Worry about the rest when you finish studying.  Being IN property is far better than NOT being IN property.  But remember, this house in particular is not the only house on the planet available at that price.  There will be better deals out there where the rental return is higher for the price you paid for the house.  Or better still, maybe the rental return is just normal, but the backyard is massive.  Big enough to accommodate another house a bit later on…

Further to what Kaz said; you could put down say a 20% deposit, and get a bank to pay the rest, and then park all the rest of your money in an offset account to hold off the interest on the loan.  then when you are ready to buy again, just pull that cash straight out and spend it on another I.P.

There is nothing special about this deal.  It is just another house.  In fact it is worse than nothing special.  There doesn't appear to be anything you can do to add value.  The reno is done, the block is a bit small to build in the backyard, or to subdivide.  There are better deals out there.