Do you have any factors influencing which part of Adelaide you want to buy in? As in, are you needing a place near your place of employment etc. I know a bit about the North and North East but couldn’t offer any help for other regions.

Ruth

I know where you are coming from Alex. My partner isn’t overly interested in property, he wants us to use it as a means of early retirement but he doesn’t have the excitement or addiction (at some times) to searching for property and reading to learn about investing. In fact I bought 2 of our properties while he was away on fishing trips. I know if there were less fishing trips I’d have more properties but I also know I have to work with what I can and hope he catches on soon.

I am looking at investing with my sister as she too is super into property, don’t know whether to go that way or not though as I have endeavoured to always keep family and finance separate.

Cheers

Ruth

My mistakes, or at least those I’ll admit to
1. Giving up to early and not buying before we moved over seas
2. believing we couldn’t afford property when we moved to Perth in 2002 and then watching prices soar over the next 4 years
3. When we eventually bought, buying too quickly because we were living in a B&B after moving to a new town!
4. Not finding out about offset accounts until this year 3yrs after buying our first property – oh the interest we could have saved
5. Buying a property for purely emotional reasons!!!!!!!!

Thankfully now I am being more careful in doing due diligence and view my property purchases as commercial decisions. 2011 is the year of buying 2 cash flow positive properties and cementing some equity in one of our properties by paying the cash flow positive amount we are already earning onto the mortgage instead of squandering it

Cheers

Ruth

Definitely take care of termites in Albury. We get our places checked thoroughly each year – I don’t mean someone who takes a walk through and knocks on the walls (that is a strategy I have seen in inspections).

There are many scary parts in Albury – it helps that I lived in Minneapolis and Chicago before Albury!

Hume Hwy hardly bypasses Albury, it practically divides it!! Lived there until July this year. While the freeway development has impacted tourism ventures in Albury it isn’t as if it has impacted the city like happens when small towns are bypassed. Albury has considerable industry, its border position is a positive, it has a university – which is moving out to Thurgoona which will impact Central Albury prices. I have 3 properties in Albury which are either neutral or slightly positive atm. Prices are a bit flat in Albury at the moment. Albury is also a town that tends to have a few excommission houses for sale. I was at an auction earlier this year and saw 3 passed in at $80k each. They could have easily been done up, unfortunately I had only just bought a place so not in a position to buy another.

You’ve done a great job, a bit of inspiration for us all. The before and after photos of the kitchen blew me away, I scrolled through them a few times.

Would be really interested in seeing the figures if you are willing to share.

We rented for about 7 years as we moved around the world and then we bought about 4 years ago. As things tend to happen, we decided to move in July this year and are once again renting. I thought I would give you some idea of the factors that have influenced us

Location – we want to live in a certain area and house prices are so high it is cheaper to rent

Location – as in halfway between where my husband and I live

Number of bedrooms – we have 2 children and also a study is essential due to the type of work we do

Yard size – with 2 kids we wanted room for them to play

Air conditioning – lets face it temps in Summer in most of Aust are extreme and air conditioning that is effective is essential

Condition of property – has it been well looked after, has it got a reasonably modern kitchen and bathroom

Security – suburb, back yard, window locks, screen doors.

Now we are only representative of one group of renters as renting is a choice we make not a situation we are forced into. We own 3 properties and are looking for our 4th, at this point we would only stop renting if we moved into a house we were renovating.

Cheers

Ruth

Oh, and something else:

If you don't have enough cash stacked up to take a big loan for a house, or just not quite ready yet, read more into the stock market, study individual financial reports from the companies you're interested and buy wisely. Money made in the share market is a nice springboard into real estate. My Dad personally still prefers shares, but I'm going to play a bit of a game with him and go real estate instead!

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Exactly how we did it. We used a share portfolio for 5 years to add to the cash we had stashed away while working overseas. Lucky for us we got into the share market at a good time and then used our profits to buy our first property. Unfortunately we didn’t get good financial advice and we also used our profits from shares to buy our 2nd house. I think we could have done that better. But the important thing is to learn each time and not make the same mistake twice!

Cheers

Ruth