Hi Carlio

Welcome aboard.

The first step is education yourself – read widely. This forum is a good source of free information – there's also a thread which recommends certain books.

When you're ready to go, surround yourself with experts that know their stuff – a decent finance person, accountant and a buyers agent if buying interstate.

In terms of using your own cash to fund deposits – it's generally best to use equity as it's tax deductible. But your options here may be limited early on – unless you can manufacture some equity in your first property by adding value through renovations or buying in an area that increases in value.

Best of luck.

Cheers

Jamie

Hi there

It's hard to comment on why they are only offering such a low LVR – are you PAYG employees or self employed?

What's the location of the property and what type of property is it?

Different banks have different policies so while one bank may restrict you to a 70% LVR – another may go higher.

A decent broker will advise.

Cheers

Jamie

Depending on the circumstances, I don't see a problem with fixing some or all of a loan at present – particularly if the loan is securing a set and forget type IP that the owner doesn't intend on selling or releasing equity from (which isn't necessarily an issue with fixed loans) during the fixed period.

I've personally locked in a couple of fixed rates against a couple of IPs recently.

Cheers

Jamie

You don't necessarily have to pay a premium – Adelaide's one year fixed start at 5.29% with a full offset.

Cheers

Jamie

Depends on which loan the offset is linked to.

I'd link it to the variable – there's not many lenders that allow for a full offset against a fixed loan.

Make sure that $50k is enough – if you think you can save more than this during the fixed period than I'd look to increase the variable portion.

Is this property an IP or PPOR?

Cheers

Jamie

Nice analogy as always

Which city are you in Neil, you need to speak to a good accountant.

Cheers

Jamie

You need to assess whether it's got the attributes to make a good investment.

What's the market like for selling at the moment in your area? If things are moving slowly and prices are being discounted by a fair bit than I'd consider holding until the market improves.

As mentioned above, have a valuation carried out on the property so you can accurately determine your CGT costs if/when you sell.

Cheers

Jamie

Fixing loans doesn't usually hurt servicing – it can actually improve it because the bank may use a lower assessment rate (ie. the inflated rate that they apply to your repayments to see if you can still meet your liability in the event that rates go up).

There's a lot to consider before fixing though.

Cheers

Jamie

Hi there

If you do a search on this forum and others you should be able to find a heap of info about them.

Cheers

Jamie

Hi Matt

The extra $20 can't hurt – and I assume it's only an example because if we're talking about $20 being a deal breaker in terms of your borrowing capacity then it might not be worth pursuing.

Different lenders have different ways of working out your borrowing capacity – some use 100% of rental income while the majority use somewhere between 75% to 80%

Cheers

Jamie