Hi Ray,

Let me see if I can start answering some of the questions for you & I am sure the others will fill in the gaps for me.

Q1/ Guarantors are becoming more common these days as property prices rise & first home owners struggle to break into the market. Mum & Dad guarantors are coming back to help out. With regards to your wife being…[Read more]

Lisa, good on you! I am too frightened to attack the auction scene so no stories here I am sorry.

Hi Maximus,

Q1/ Yes you can claim two lots of insurance in one financial year. The ATO allows you to claim the expense when you pay it so long as you are not prepaying years in advance

Q2/ I am not sure if I completely understand this question. Do you mean that the equity in one property is enough to support the loan & thus you are releasing the…[Read more]

CONGRATULATIONS!!![thumbsupanim] Paying off bad debt always feels good, now wait & see what a growing property portfolio feels like.

Dazzling & Wayne I would love to agree with the both of you but I am sure I am not alone when I say sometimes the grief you get in return is just not worth fighting against. I have lost friends (at least I thought they were friends) because of how well I have done with property. Jealousy is a big & powerful beast!!! I am sure if I met any of the…[Read more]

Most of the real estate agents I seem to speak to do not have investment properties. They seem to over analyse the market on a daily basis & are too scared to get in themselves. I just had a REA call me yesterday to tell me about a great block of land that I could develop & clear about $70K profit. If that is right, why is he calling me & not…[Read more]

Stargazer, try mapping out where you want to go & be in the next year, next 5 yrs etc until retirement. I always find by listing what it is I want to have achieved motivates me to get up & keep going. Be confident in yourself & know you have done this before & can do it again. Goodluck.

Company tax rate is always 30% so this may be an option however if you are in the top tax bracket. Just need to do a comparison first.

These ideas for how to respond are fantastic. My husband is going to do the property investing for us fulltime as soon as we can sell his business. We are both self employed & trying to run both businesses & stay on top of what we are doing with our properties & developments, it is becoming too hard. So we decided to sell the business that is not…[Read more]

Dazzling, Congratulations on a great outcome. With regards to your question about opinions, I would be thinking about two things. Firstly, in your initial posts you said things were a bit shabby & run down. Have these items been fixed with the forklift or could there potentially be some large repairs upcoming? Secondly, if the property is now all…[Read more]

MJ, no it is avoiding because whoever held it at 31 Dec pays the tax so I paid a little interest for not settling before but I was in front in the end because I didn’t have the land tax bill – ha ha

Geez Dazzling did you fluke that settlement time or what??? In NSW it is levied on property held at midnight on 31st Dec. I have forced settlements for land into January just to avoid the nasty thing.

Oh I am hearing you loud & clear. My sister called me the other night & asked whether I had any motivational books. I said “Sure, where do you want to start” & her reponse was “None of your b@#$it property books though”. I stopped & thought here we go again. I asked what is wrong with my property books & trying to get ahead & her response was “I…[Read more]

They have just started a website that covers the Canberra & South Coast areas of NSW called allhomes.com.au Check that out, it is quite interesting because it also gives block sizes etc

Simon, I found this example on the ATO website on how to work out the CG. Sorry it is so long.

Example
Part exemption

The facts are the same as in the previous example except that Frank rented out the house from 26 October 2000 – the date of settlement of the purchase contract – until 2 March 2002.

Frank makes a capital gain of $30,000 o…[Read more]

Hey Simon. Is that right about locking in the CG. I thought your gain was apportioned over the time rented vs time PPOR less 50% discount of course. I didn’t think a valuation would be considered by ATO because obviously this value could be influenced!!

VL, if the land has been cut &/or filled, then a retaining wall may be required. It just depends on how big the cut &/or fill are and whether you can just smooth off. Don’t forget the retaining walls are normally on boundaries so your neighbour is going to want you to attend to it ASAP so that a fence can be erected. Unfortunately it is one of…[Read more]

Hi Ben, it is feasible to move out of your PPOR & rent it. However, running the figures means you will be worse off. Why? Well if a $400,000 home rents for $300/wk & you use the equity out of the first to buy the second you will have the following –

Property value = $800,000
Loans = $550,000
Interest = $740/wk (assuming 7%pa)
Rent received =…[Read more]

You’ve got it[biggrin]

Don’t forget the $170K represents your DEPOSITS available. Once you locate the property to buy, you can use it to obtain the rest of the money. Okay, that sounded confusing even to me…

If you purchased another $400K property and borrowed $320K (80% LVR), you would only need to access $80K of that $170K you have. Which…[Read more]

One of the things you also need to consider is how handy you are & how many hours you have available to the new home. A house & land package isn’t going to do a retaining wall, the associated drainage, back filling, gardens, garden edging & the list goes on….