Hi Everyone,

I am self employed & so lucky enough to not worry about the outcome of all this. However, I do try to keep up to date & like Foundation have tried to read all that I can obtain on the topic. I frequently debate the idea with family members which ends up heated & getting us nowhere.

I suppose the question I have is, everyone is saying how it is going to effect the unions but what has the union done for you lately & are the worth it???

Don’t forget I am not in one so I am unaware of all the benefits but I have spoken to people that work on building sites who have had jobs shut down thanks to the union. Are they working for or against??? Could this be alot of hype on there part to get members???

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Hi Everyone,

I will try & clear up the GST question for you. When buying a commercial property with a lease, the lease can be seen as carrying on a business in that you are the landlord deriving a “business” type income. There is no GST on businesses being sold as a going concern however, in order to continue the business of deriving rent you require all the tools (in this case the property) which then makes the property GST exempt.

With regards to the GST on the rent, it doesn’t matter whether your tenant is registered or not. GST will be charged by the landlord to the tenant if the landlord is registered. You as landlord will need to be registered only when you receive in excess of $50,000pa.

So in your circumstances Anita, you will be deriving $13,000pa (given you have no other commercial properties) which is below the $50,000 & are entitled to a GST exemption on purchase so save yourself the headaches of a BAS & don’t register.

Hope this helps. Oh & by the way, make sure you investigate the property properly as this return is low compared to the commercial properties I have also.

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Hi All,

We live about an hour south of Sydney & we started in invest interstate. We could not handle the distance in trying to manage the property & so reigning our properties in to within a hour travelling time.

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Nasty situation… My first thoughts are to kill the valuer.

Maybe put in the offer anyway, although the vendor knows what the valuer has said does not mean they will change too much & might just be happy to take the money & run.

Good luck

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Ben,

I am going through this at the moment but we are now both in agreement to sell. I asked my solictor the same questions. Basically, you can’t engage a real estate agent to start marketing the property without all parties signatures on the sales agreement.

I have requested a sales contract be drawn up by my solictor, however the property can’t be sold until all parties sign the contract. If it is forced & one party refuses to sign the contract for sale it goes to court. My solicitor advised that the court will probably declare that if you can’t buy the other party out then the property goes to auction & too bad, whatever price you get you get.

The cost of going to court & the auction fees will obviously put you in a worse position so I was relying on my solictor to basically kick the other party in the pants & make them wake up to themselves regarding the offer that is on the table.

Good luck & I hope it all pans out for you. These types of situations can be stressful. I have learnt one thing though, & that is I will not go into partnership to purchase a property again.

Kim

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Jonesy,

Firstly, I would have to find out just how risky option two is. What I mean is, what is the average number of weeks it would rent out for at the higher rate. If on average this would still give a negative result, I personally would be looking to sell while it is still your PPoR avoiding the CGT.

I would then put the extra money into your new PPoR reducing your non deductible home loan & look for the next positively geared investment.

Kim

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Just a quick note too, you actually can’t get landlords insurance on commercial property.

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

Hi Dr X,

I am proud to say that by no later than Christmas we will have my husband as a full time property investor. We started playing in the property market on, ready for this, Sept 11 2001. Very weird I know but thankfully we are doing well unlike the tragedy in USA.

We are both currently running our own businesses as well as doing property development. It has come to a stage where we needed to reassess & decide where we wanted to be in the future & we decided to spend more time in property. As a result, we are selling all his business equipment etc, so that he can concentrate on the property side. Hopefully, in a few more years I will be with him but I am enjoying what I do for now.

So, to answer what we do, currently it is property developing with profits being used on the next development or deposits on +cf properties. We want to move into the renos and subdivisions area such as dual occ etc. which he will now have the time to explore for us.

Kim[thumbsupanim]

Courage is not acting without fear but acting despite your fear.

I agree with Endless Summer.

No amount of money can replace a potentially broken family life or the damage to your children. Start talking to agents…

Good luck

Kim

The most I have ever done is put a holding deposit without having finance approved. But as this indicates, a holding deposit is just that, if I choose not to go ahead it is refunded to me in full.

You should not sign a contract without finance, like Dr X has already warned.