Francois,

If you go to http://www.residex.com.au/index.php you can type your property addresses into a free “prediction” / property performance tester thing. It might be useless or might not be. It will tell you what Residex thinks the property will be worth in 5 years time. You can go to their FAQ’s to see how they get their predictions on CG. They also have pricey prediction reports that you can pay for, but this little predictor is interesting anyway. You type in details and it sends you an email immediately with the results.

kay henry

Stainless steel/euro appliances were once fairly unique in architect-designed units- now they are all built that way. It’s one of the first things I check out when looking at a place- what are the kitchen appliances like? I think if you go to a kitchen place now, you’ll see they have taken over the white upright oven. epends upon afordability- overcapitalisation is always an issue, but if you can afford it, I’d go for the euro or euro-style appliances.

With floorboards, as others have mentioned, they can have hygience advantages. They are also very “euro”. One of hte advantages of older houses is they have floorboards- seems it would be a shame to waste them. New places also have floating floorboards- they too, look smashing.

An alternative is tiles- built in most new houses now instead of carpet. A really good alternative, if you can afford it, and it’s something new to Australia, is heated floors. Some new apartments in sydney now have heated floors and the rentability of these places can’t be underestimated. A colleague of mine was looking for a place to rent in sydney and would have paid anything for a place with heated floors. They got snapped up immediately.

kay henry

Depends on where you’re viewing from, Marc… I find your comments to be very mainstream.

There were some comments someone made earlier about doing what the experts do. Whatever happened to “success comes from doing things differently”? Or “think outside the square”? Are we to do things the same as others? Or do things differently? I think a lot of it is about marketing. Some gurus will say they learned and emulated the experts… some will say they did the opposite of what everyone else was doing. It’s just persuasive marketing.

I still think a book of a few hundred pages by a guru, MUST, by length itself, provide more to a reader, than a few hour seminar. Even if the seminar is 8 hours, or a weekend, how can it provide more info than a few hundred page book that takes a few days to read? I think books are great, and provide great value. I can’t help but think people attend (high priced) seminars to see the guru himself (or herself) and feel that something else will be provided when seeing the person perform. What do people get from the seminar they can’t get from the book? I seriously want to know this- the price differential ($30 com[pared to many thousands of dollars doesn’t seem to make sense. I would have thought that “making money work FOR you” would apply to spending it on education as well as on purchases. Again, we are told “you make money when you buy”- wouldn’t this apply to educational expenses also?).

Wezwaz, for a 30k seminar, I would expect the following:

* you standing between TWO red cars, not merely next to one (these could be hired from a hire car place no doubt)

* you telling us you don’t need to be with us- that you command great speaking fees, and that you are just doing this out of hte goodness of your heart (in fact, I’d like to be treated with such contempt as an audience member, that you actually walk out half way through, to show us how important you are).

* I’d like DOUBLE (at least) the amount of “secrets” that other gurus supply. If you are finding it hard to come up with secrets, there are probably some secrets you can plagiarise from others if you shift them around a bit (for example “TEAM” [Time, Effort, Action, Method] could easily become “MATE” or even MEAT or TAME!)

* Don’t worry about spelling things correctly when you put stuff up on a white board- you won’t have time (or mite or item) to do this… I remember watching a guru writing up how to be “SUCCESFULL”- hehe- fuuuuuunny! Remember, success comes from doing things differently!

I’ll pay you the 30k. Oh, ad can you call it the “Diamond Club” or the “Winners’ Forum”- it’d make me feel better :o) Actually, if it is called the Academy, it would be nice… you can’t call it a “University” though- you have to have legislation to do that- a pity

kay henry

Yes, Bondy did appear rather not at his best. He still did his jail term though. What gets me is that there are SO many ill people in jail, and the rich seek to use their mental health as an out, whereas the poor can’t do this to such an extent. I am not referring to the ones who are deemed “insane” (they go to a criminal psychiatric hospital anyway). I mean the ones who are ill and can seek to avoid going to prison. There are so many people inside prisons that self-harm and are spending much of their time in the psych wards within the jail. Jail could make anyone unwell, I think- depsite their mental health that they went in with. I think with Rivkin, the authorities have removed the socio-economic equation, and have decided he was “responsible” enough to have committed a crime with his knowledge.. but not “repsonsible” enough to be able to continue acting as a financial adviser.

I think Rivkin is probably hugely unwell, and I think the consequences (jail, deregistering of his licence) won’t help… but if he’s “sane” enough to have cosen criminal activity, then he had to do the time.

Many people with manic-depression are able to have a productive life (although no doubt made difficult by the illness) but I guess it’s not an excuse for criminal behaviour, unless that behavoiur occurred during a period of psychosis, and this wasn’t argued in Rivkin’s case- it was more discussed *after* he was found guilty.

kay henry

No kidding, geo- stupid cliche. I’m gonna change it. Remember when Elle McPherson said she only ever read anything she wrote herself? I thought that was hilarious at the time But let me change my words before I wax lyrical about great authors (ahhh, Elle- too funny!)

kay henry

Back on topic, and thanks, geo.

I restate that Rivkin probably had his licence taken from his because it was widely said (by his family publicly in the Australian Story or whatever it was) that Rivkin was making poor business decisions and that his illness was compromising his judgement considerably. I am not sure what the licensing requires, but a “fit state” is probably one of the criterion. Probably the best way to work out this puzzle, would be to check out the actual decision that was made, and see what was said about his ability to make fit and proper decisions. Anyone got a link to the actual decision by ASIC?

I can’t see that this topic has anything to do with how one sees poverty or wealth… Noone is questioning Dick Smith’s or Gerry Harvey’s ability to do their job. I think it was the particular circumstances of Rene Rivkin’s situation that determined the ruling- not that anyone was making decisions based upon criminality nor upon bringing down a tall poppy.

Geo, yeah, there’s been a lot of media publicity about Rivkin’s suicide attempt. He has not been a well man for a long period of time now.

kay henry

OK, here’s the article (or a very similar one) that I was referring to. It’s written in July 2003- possibly dated? But I doubt they have expanded their lending policies since then:

http://moneymanager.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/16/1058035041642.html

Not a bad read t see the relative lending policies.

kay henry

Mouse,

The way to do some objective research is to look up the news etc. I went to google.com, and then to the news section, and typed in Invercargill.

A few things I came up with:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/businessstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3585410&thesection=business&thesubsection=economy&thesecondsubsection=nz&thetickercode=

States Invergargill had 25.2% capital gain in the last year.

* An $8 million extension will be made to the Invercargill velodrome (a lot of news and excitement on this).

* A major Hollywood film is shortly to be filmed there, starting Anthony Hopkins

It’s only a few things, but gives a bit of an idea of some current stuff.

kay henry

Umm.. no, Wallflower, got no more “new black” references. I think it speaks for itself.

and calvin… ahhhh, what can i say to this:

“LOL
Thanx WallFlower, I got a good chuckle out of that, even if you had a go at a FELLOW forumite!”

Oh, you really got me on this one… the sophistication of this Forum really does my head in.

kay henry

calvin,

Seems like you’ve done ok. Sometimes anyone can try and make people feel stupid. RE’s, property investors- hehe. I wouldn’t worry about it. I do have a bit of a rule for me… if someone patronises me- a RE agent, for example, I won’t bother with the property. There’s too many properties around, and it’s too big a purchase, to feel bad about the person you’re dealing with. Interpersonal dealings with people, is crucial to me. If they act mean, they lose the sale with me- period.

Re your questions:

“My reason for asking you is to see if putting these clauses in is just another avenue to escape a purchase or whether they actually hold any water!? Should these things be done before the final price is agreed upon? When do you do your inspections? During negotiations, after, when ?”

When I have a BPI done, I guess I am thinking more about the structure of the building. That is what is going to cause me big trouble in the future. Any small cosmetic problem doesn;t hit me emotionally. It depends on what type of person you are. I’m not a perfectionist so I don’t worry about a tile being out of its grout or a pipe needing to be painted. I use the BPI as a tool to know about the house really. Unless the termites are playing in the house, I would just shoo them away with an axe.

You CAN negotiate a new price after a BPI- that’s legal. I have felt better deliberately NOT negotiating a new price after BPI- as I said, I already negotiated a price… and for no other reason, except that I was negotiating. So if you already got 10% of the price, or whatever, is that enough? Do you need to pull it down by another $360?

I do inspections after an offer and acceptance. I would see no point in doing them before, because someone else may offer and be accepted, and then I am wasting my money. O&A is my first step in the process, but I don;t do it unless I have asked several questions about the property beforehand. If I know the property well enough beforehand, sometimes I even don’t bother with the BPI.

This is what I’ve done:

Unit 1: No BPI as I knew the property really well- had beenseeking one in that location for a while.

Unit 2: Did a BPI- minor issues, nothing structural, did not renegotiate after BPI.

Unit 3: No BPI, but a BC paper search (this in itself cost me $300). I had known and kept an eye on that building for 3 years since it was built, so I knew it anyway).

Calvin, there’s no hard and fast rule on these things. You can offer a new lower price due to the BPI, but the owner can also say no, and sell it to someone else who doesn’t renegotiate. It’s up to you.

kay henry