Well, I’m surprised by all this campaining on telly about private schools getting more govt funding than public schools. I thought that private schools were called that because they had nothing to do with the Government. I thought they were self funded (which is why you have to pay to go there) or at worst the churches behind them funded the…[Read more]

Hi Teresa,
If you want to find out approximately how much mortgage insurance go and have a look at http://www.yourmortgage.com.au/calculators. It will give you a pretty good indication of how much it will cost you.

Thanks,
Luckyone

I believe that the results of the MAP program are going to be in Steve’s new book.

Thanks,
Luckyone

Hi Gatsby,
I’m really surprised that they could get away with that! My husband and I used a deposit bond for our first property as we needed to sell a couple of things to get the deposit together. We only got a deposit bond for 6 months as that was when the unit was meant to be completed. It ended up actually taking a full year. When it was…[Read more]

Hi Tass,

I would definitely advise combining the mortgages into one. This will make tax time very difficult for you. You will need to work out every year which portion of the interest applies to your ppor and which applies to the ip. Believe me it’s a pain in the bum!

Also, it would probably end up making you be able to borrow less not more…[Read more]

Thanks George, I’ll check all that out.

Thanks,
Luckyone

Have you tried going for a low-doc loan. They seem to not care as much about where your income is from.

Thanks,
Luckyone

That’s a good idea too. Thanks Simon! I just want to be able to go in with a plan of what to say.

Thanks,
Luckyone

Cool, thanks for that. I will look into threatening to leave, might have to get a valuation done first to make sure we won’t have to pay mortgage insurance though.

Thanks for all your advice.

Thanks,
Luckyone

Is it really worth close to $5,000? Just seems an awful lot of money. What do they actually do for you?

Thanks,
Luckyone

Is it really worth close to $5,000? Just seems an awful lot of money. What do they actually do for you?

Thanks,
Luckyone

Hey Jo,
Didn’t you have any landlord’s insurance at all?
Luckyone

Thanks,
Luckyone

Aren’t you worried that Rosebery is a small mining town which relies heavily on employment by the mine for economic stability?

Thanks,
Luckyone

If you can afford to pay P&I it’s definitely a better way to go as you are constantly building up equity in your property. However, if you have a PPOR debt as well, you may not want to pay P&I on your investment property as the interest on your PPOR is not tax deductible. You might be better paying extra money off your PPOR…[Read more]

Hi Helen,
Somersoft is very good value. They’re are a lot more topics than PI and more people seem to go to that one, but I don’t particularly like the way it’s set out. Definitely worth checking out though.

Haven’t been to John Burley’s discussion groups, so I can’t comment on that one.

Thanks,
Luckyone

Weston,
Maybe you should have a look at a place more like http://www.skyauction.com where you can bid for hotels in other countries. It’s all in $US I believe, but it sounds good. There was a 10 night cruise the other day on it that only had 2 hours left to go that was at $800 at the time, and that was for two people. I don’t know how good this site…[Read more]

Hi,
I don’t agree with the other’s definition of a townhouse. I currently live in (and own) a place classed as a townhouse. It is only a single storey place with no adjoining walls. The only thing that is true to what has already been said is that it does have a small block of land and we do pay body corporate fees. I think it is basically…[Read more]

As far as I know you can’t claim on an IP unless it is at market rates. This is especially prevalent if you are renting to relative. The tax office looks very harshly on this.

Thanks,
Luckyone

Exactly Kay, that’s why I was so upset. I didn’t understand why my parents wouldn’t lend me the money when I had always had a good track of saving up for things that I wanted to buy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t show the bank what I had saved as my records were too old by the time I went to apply for the loan. They wanted records of the past 6…[Read more]

Marc,
I would be careful in helping out your daughter when you haven’t helped out your other two. Why you ask?

Well, I moved out of home at 17 to attend university. My parents agreed to help me until I could find a part-time job by giving me $100 a week to pay rent and eat.

This lasted for the first year, in the second year I found a part-time…[Read more]