Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison

Jen

Cam

You left out a very important word:

you said:
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.

you should have said:
. The green house is on the immediate left of the white house.

’cause otherwise the answer can also be:
The Dane in the yellow house, who drinks tea and smokes dunhill.

Jen

I think the bottom has to well and truly be close to falling out of Ipswich. We own an IP (and lived) a couple of suburbs from there and in about ’98 you could buy a “decent-ish” 3br for about 60k and the returns where good. Ipswich (and there are some nice parts) is in general pretty low end-ish stuff – my son was born in the Ipswich Hospital – I was the only one over 30, most were school aged and the only one married (not passing judgements) but it does have its problems with youth and crime. Having said that if someone offered me that same nice 3br in Ipswich for 60k now would I buy it – you bet!

Jen

“…Would this add value to the knowledge needed to make property investing, leasing, etc more productive ?”

Excellent question Arty

I’m re-reading Rich Dad at the moment and Robert says “it is not gambling if you know what you’re doing. It is gambling if you’re just throwing money into a deal and praying. The idea in anything is to use your technical knowledge, wisdom and love of the game to cut the odds down to lower the risk. Of course, there is always a risk. It is financial intelligence that improves the odds. Thus, what is risky for one person is less risky to someone else. That is the primary reason I constantly encourage people to invest more in their financial education than in the stock, real estate or other markets. The smarter you are, the better chance you have of beating the odds.”

I have a favourite saying I use in training all the time: “what you don’t know you don’t go looking for” oh and another favourite… “if you need to visit the rest rooms, please make sure you come back” – I’ve got to get out more []

Jen

Hi Graeme

for those out of towners:… Coronet Bay is down towards Phillip Island – I guess its sort of down and to the right (my husband LOVES those driving directions!), (never could figure out that whole North, South thing), but it is as the name suggests on the beach (not much of a beach tho – went diving there years ago and anyone who knows that area and dives, knows its not a place to dive), quite town – there’s really only a couple of shops on the main highway and I don’t know if they are more Grantville than Coronet Bay. Grantville has blocks of land still for sale I think they’re about 10k each – don’t bother looking tho, they’re hidden by tea trees and wayyyyyy off the beaten track.

Not much down there, was a giant outdoor park – Swagmans Hat, but the owners lost it and it was resold (owners 0 / bank 1 / new owners -0) I don’t even know if it is open any more?? Down the road there is a …. can’t think of it, and we always laugh when we drive past, its like an aquarium come emu park with a giant worm out the front, but that is probably more Bass. Mainly farming area, lots and lots of cows, nice veiws of green hills, someone has diversified and gone into the deer farming industry on the main highway too.

Hope that was some help… finally where’s it heading and 55 pct? I don’t think it will ever go backwards, being on the water is generally a safe bet, my guess on the 55pct increase is that they’ve only just caught up to the surrounding areas – but don’t take my word for it – one looked up and saw the bars, the other looked up and saw the stars…

Jen

Hi Sabina

My advice is to use the net to get an idea of what you’d like buy – look at what you get for your dollar (compare areas) and then hit the pavement.

Here’s an example: we decided on an area to target during the week, spent copious amounts of time online comparing dollar for property, available rentals etc etc… on the weekend we drove to “the area” and although the majority of houses were available online, a lot were not – an up and coming auction for a 50k house with good potential all round.

It’s not sit on your hands type of work, you really need to get out there and work hard, call agents, visit areas, buy books, learn, fall down (get back up again) fall down some more (up again!) and then finally all the hard work pays off.

Good luck.

Jen

For me it is a comfort level – I grew up in middle… well, low to middle average Australia – never had anything designer – clothes from Kmart and went to public schools (read crappy!) and mum and dad rented most of the time, until they finally got a house (got a divorce) and then had to sell it. So for me it is a security thing and being able to give our children the best we can. So my motivation is namely my children, our son attends a private school and we’ve just booked our daughter in, so perhaps I should add that having the money for the school fees is a BIG motivation.

Jen

Luckyone – taht was a gerat raed!

not sure who (I think Edward De Bono) writes about HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO READ IN UPPER CASE, THAT WE ARE TAUGHT FROM AN EARLY AGE TO READ IN lower case and that, we from about the age (of about nine) don’t actually read but that we do in fact just recognise words – (which is much along the lines of what you wrote), HE ALSO GOES ON TO SAY THAT UPPER CASE WORDS ARE DIFFICULT TO READ AS WE GENERALLY ONLY LIKE TO LOOK AT THE LOWER PART OF THE LETTERS; A GOOD TEST TO EXPLAIN THIS CLEARER is to cover up half of the letters (be they UPPER or lower) with a piece of paper and you will clearly be able to still recognise most of the words in lowercase, however will have little to no chance with the UPPER CASE ONES.

Jen

Hi Aussierouge

1. indigo
2. astrid
3. Zoe
4. molly
5. samantha
6. hannah

I think they are all lovely names, having just given birth 6 weeks ago… I have been through the whole name thing over and over and over… I have a beautiful baby girl Alyssa Jordyn, so my advice is probably what you’ve heard lots of times…

1. make sure that you can’t make a word out of her initials eg: Fran Ashley Thomas – ‘cause the whole FAT thing isn’t very flattering, also make sure your last name and the first initial don’t make a word… poor Peter Eanus.
2. make sure her name doesn’t rhyme with anything, we loved the name Hunter for our son, but just couldn’t bear the thought of the taunting on that one
3. finally when your little angel is born, you’re just going to look at her and know – you’ll know what her name is, we ummed and arrrh’d between Alyssa and Alexandra, but when she was born it was easy – let me rephrase that – (it hurt like the clappers)… when she was born – she just was… Alyssa.

Good Luck and have fun (oh, and cherish these last few quite, peaceful nights!)

Hi! We lived in Brisbane for 5 years and have moved back to Melbourne. We own an IP there about 20k’s out (towards Ipswich). I know how hard this is when you have no idea – we are looking at Tasmania at the moment and don’t know where to start!…

So I thought I would give you a Brisbane to Melbourne comparison (you then can get at least a gauge of what the surrounding suburbs are):

Hamilton area is like Toorak (on the river – big houses)
Milton area is like Footscray some industrial and some housing (hilly, older style)
Cooparoo area is Waverley – 10 years ago (nice standard average homes)
Kedron area is like Glen Iris (nice houses, larger blocks)
The Gap area is like Warrandyte (very treey, older houses)
New Farm area is like Prahran
Eagle Farm area is like Caulfield (has “the” racecourse)
Ipswich area is like Geelong (a separate and smaller city)
Raby Bay is really upmarket million dollar mansions and beach front properties

Hope this helps – or at least points you in a direction.