Cheers Maurice (and also glad my question the other week helped someone else! ).

Thanks for the explanation Alistair, I too am interested to understand the nuts & bolts of finance for development projects. Adding to the discussion already can you (and/or others) confirm if my understanding is correct (many thanks in advance).   With commercial finance through the banks there are two basic options: either borrowing up to 80%…[Read more]

Cheers for the clarification Terry. I have also picked up my copy of "turst magic" and am re-reading it to help me. Thanks again! 

I have no development experience so others may correct me here – but I think I understand your question. After talking with some commercial lenders (just from the Big 4) they need a project to show a 15 – 20% profit margin (so profit margin = profit / (total expenses)) before they will lend to it (other factors will of course affect things but…[Read more]

Do you have any credit cards, store cards, personal loans, car loans, etc that could be paid off with your $60k savings? No store cards, no personal loans, no car loans and only 1 credit card with a $1,000 limit (current balance = $0 ). I will look into a reno for one of the properties (it's an older unit and would therefore benifit as you say by…[Read more]

Hi Mike,Very much appreciated the prompt reply and the report. It's going to help a lot

Thx guys, I never thought about putting the cash into an offset account.! thanks again.

Thanks everyone for your throughts, much appreciated.. jsut one comment:
duckster.. you said it would be hard to see how this would work since the property market is not booming, can you explain the senario how it works when the market is booming.

cheers
jxf

Thanks Terryw and Mortgage Hunter. Your explanations have cleared things up a lot! My main hesitation with what I understood about IO loans was the idea that after the interest was paid (in a short term say 5years) you had to pay up the lump sum of the principal. Your comment that there are loans that can be interest only for a period of time…[Read more]

G’day all

I am also interested in finding out what these Interest Only loans are all about.

Simon (Mortgage Hunter) I go back to your example of your parent’s place.
So they paid interest only (hence their mortgage payments were smaller each month) and now they still owe the initial borrowed sum of $47,000. Will this sum then be paid out…[Read more]