August 2006 we purchased a rundown war service home with a DA in place in the old state housing part of Ashburton VIC (IE: south of High St between the railway and Warrigal Rd) for $465000. The idiot valuer from Commonwealth Bank said we paid too much! Challenged them and got it revalued to the purchase price.Two weekends ago beautifully…[Read more]

We are about to conclude a purchase of a DA approved site with a view to build a pair of townhouses in Ashburton VIC.

During the process of financing it, the finance broker was bemoaning his business’ fate because he says that bank valuations are all coming in low at the moment. It seems that with the interest rate rises and more on the way, the…[Read more]

We are in Victoria and 3 years ago we bought a block in Perth, and then engaged a builder to build on it. 3 trips only:
– first to select a design and sign up
– second to see the slab down and measured it up to ensure it complied with plans (past experience showed that this is the most critical part where any problems are often expensive or…[Read more]

Where are you located? Some states have bodies you can appeal to. EG: in Victoria if the council drags the chain you have the right to go to VCAT.

Having said that, I usually find working with the council is your best bet. Book a meeting between you, your architect, and the council. Set the agenda as finding out what their issues are that are…[Read more]

G’day Commodore

Thanks for the question.

The direct answer to your direct question is identical offers with the only difference being deposit terms, as the vendor, take the better deposit.

I don’t disagree with anything you said. Vendors set their terms either on what the market will bear, what their agent’s convince them, or some other…[Read more]

Hear hear ozsparky.

What you describe is what I termed the “developers premium”.

It doesn’t always work. That is when lifex’s proposition kicks in.

However odds are in your favour going down the build road instead of the one year old road. The caveat is to research first.

What is the population of the town where this house is located?

Most lenders will not give you better than a 70-80% LVR if the town has less than 10,000 people in it.

Touchy touchy lifex.

Very sensible!

Shop for your finance. There are now lenders for commercial property that will do LVRs better than 70%. The other bummer about commercial is that lenders would reassess the loan every couple of years. There are now lenders who won’t do the review. Finally, it is often hard to get interest only on commercial properties. A couple of lenders are now…[Read more]

I have to be somewhat contrarian here. Statements like “widely accepted” tends to stop people rechecking the fundamentals of a deal at a point in time.

There is a thing called the “developers premium” that comes into play when building versus buying a 1-2 year old property. We built new homes and sold them for greater profits than buying a 1-2…[Read more]

Real Estate agents are driven by self interest. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. For them, the best outcome is large deposit, no conditions, and short settlements. Given that they work on small percentages to calculate the commission, they aren’t even that much worried about how much it sells for! EG: At 2% commission the difference between…[Read more]

Disappointing that Kitty has not acknowledged the responses so far.

Still there Kitty? What’s happening?

This can get very tricky.

The only fair value for the property is what the market will pay.

Licensed valuers are usually conservative in their assessment to what the “true” price is to avoid malpractice suits. So I wouldn’t recommend that as a solution.

You could put it to a public auction and have your relatives bid against the open market.…[Read more]

IMHO taking control of your investing affairs, including Super, is ALLWAYS a good idea.

Unfortunately, in its effort to protect average joes from themselves, government legislation and regulation enshrines mediocrity in the results possible by traditional “safe” investments. Worse is, if you read and believe books like Prophecy by Robert…[Read more]

Go to http://www.clearyhoare.com.au and get their contact details. Ask them about JVs with a self managed super fund (SMSF).

What you are trying to do only works with SMSF and there are strict rules.

WRT the question about the financing. We operate a financing strategy where we took out an initial three separate mortgages on three different properties. We then manage the investment time cycle so we are buying the next property as we are selling the reno’d property. With the right clauses in contract of sale you are able to pick the date of…[Read more]

Here is our story.

We started off in Victoria where we live back in 2000. We watched it race away so cashed out and moved our focus to Brisbane. We bought and renovated up there and watched QLD race away. Again we cashed out and then moved our focus to Perth in 2003.

Having watched Victoria and Queensland get caught in a wave of hype and making…[Read more]

You post says Homebuyers Centre which I think is a WA builder. Am I right?

Regardless of which state you are in, you need to read your original contract carefully.

If you changed stuff after the contract signing, they usually give you a variation order that details the change, the cost, and get you to sign.

If not, check your contract for each…[Read more]

We drive a matched pair of Holden VXII Calais’.

Identical colour, drive train, etc.

Bought them on a runout for the model change from VX to VZ and used the proceeds of a creative vehicle financing deal to fund the deposit on an IP.