Thanks everyone for your advice on accountants. I certainly need a good one to reduce my tax bill. E-tax gave me a bill of about $950 but I’m sure a decent accountant can lower that amount.
What’s happening this Saturday? I’m afraid I haven’t read anything on this forum about a meeting in Canberra. Can’t go anyway, unfortunately I’ll be in Sydney visiting the folks. Hope it works out well for everyone though.
Every contract I have signed with a PM lately includes a half weeks rent as the ‘re-letting’ fee. ie when the tenant signs another lease.
Is it me, or is it just in Canberra that this appears to be the norm now?
Cheers
Mel
Hey Mel,
I notice you are from Canberra. Do you have an accountant here that you can recommend at all. I haven’t done my taxes as yet and know I am goign to owe some money so want to minimise it as much as possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Luckyone
Well, sorry guys certainly don’t want to say anything that’s inaccurate on this forum. It was just what my broker said and I had no reason to believe otherwise. I thought I had read something about it on the ato’s website, but was unable to find the reference I was looking for yesterday afternoon or this morning. I will post it if I ever do manage to find anything that back’s up what my broker told me.
Simon,
It would only be if you were to claim the tax deductions along the way for the extra interest that you have incurred on your PPOR borrowing for your IP. I was actually told this by my mortgage broker so have assumed it to be correct. I will have a look for the legislation. I remember reading it on the ato’s website a while ago. I’ll post it here when I find it.
Luckyone
Can someone please tell me what would happen tax wise if you were to take on the idea of Brett’s of mowing the lawn for an extra $5 per week. Does this mean that if you have bought the lawnmower solely for the reason of mowing this lawn that it would become a tax deduction? Also, would the trailer that you would need to tow it there (potentially if you have a sedan like myself) would that be tax deductible too?
If you use the available equity in your IP you can claim the extra interest as a tax deduction as you are buying an income-producing asset.
If you use the available equity in your PPOR you can also claim the amount of interest above and beyond the interest you already pay, however it then makes your home liable for CGT if you ever sell it. It will only be liable for that extra part that you have borrowed, however in my book it’s not worth it. You would already have to pay CGT on your investment property so I believe you would be better off taking the money out of that one.
Hi Andrew,
If you are interested in shares, it might be worth your while to look at managed funds. This way you can diversify what you buy without having to manage the day-to-day business side of managing shares.
If you look at Money Magazine, they list the top performing managed funds each month and also have an eye on a fund section where they look into one fund in great detail.
Of course though, shares in general are a lot more riskier than putting your money into a bank.
Cheryl,
In my opinion yo would be best off doing what Simon has said and buy a place with the 20% deposit so that you avoid LMI. However, I would only buy a property worth less than $150,000. That way, you can buy potentially 4 of these properties (deposit of $30,000 each + room for expenses). That way you are minimising your exposure to risk in case you were to lose a tenant.
For example, if you have one property renting for $500 per week and you lose that tenant, then you are $500 our of pocket for each week you go without a tenant.
However, if you have 5 properties each renting for $100 a week. You still have a total rental income of $500 per week, however if you were to lose a tenant you will only be out of pocket by $100 for each week you are without a tenant.
I think that makes much more sense than buying one expensive property.
My parents used to own a small 4 bedroom house on a large block in Gordon. They originally bought it in 1987ish for $70,000 and sold it 4 years ago for $500,000. I know that the guy who bought it from them rented it out immediately for $500 per week. That’s a 5.2% return but that was before the real boom hit. I believe that same house is now worth more like $650,000. Their’s been good capital gains in that area, but if you are thinking of renovating, extending or bulldozing the house to build units, you’re better off looking elsewhere. Ku-ring-gai council are really stringent in what they will approve. The poor guy who purchased my parent’s house bought it as he owned one of the adjoining houses and wanted to redevelop. He put in the submission of the plans before he had even settled on my parent’s house. He is still waiting for an answer …
Personally, I don’t know why these people are complaining. Fine they may have a tough time moving home, but that’s one of the things you face when you rent a home rather than buy one.
I know it sounds harsh, but I say tough luck to them! Personally, I wouldn’t evict people right before Christmas, but maybe this investor just couldn’t wait for some reason of his/her own.
Hi Taxman,
My understanding is that you can make any place you own your principal place of residence for 6 years whether or not you have ever lived in it. Not sure though how this would work if you were renting the place out. Can you still claim tax deductions for the interest you are paying on the loan if it is not later going to be subject to CGT?
Luckyone
Here in freezing Canberra we have the luxury of not having long lines in the Revenue Office as the office is so small that noone really seems to know its there. Luckily for me, it’s right across the road from my work. Would have gone there earlier had I known that was the appropriate place to make the changes.
Thanks for your advice,
Luckyone
Hi Cam,
Thanks for that link. I’ll be looking into it more. Do you happen to know if it’s the same as the American version which seems to indicate that you need to play it over the net?
Luckyone
I hope you realise how totally dishonest that is. The grant is given to people to help them buy a place of their own. I believe that you should live in it for at least some amount of time. I believe the official minimum stay is 1 year. My husband and I stayed in ours for 14 months to cover this rule.
If you don’t stay that long, the Government can take the money off you. What would you do then?
We have a contract in place that specifies that if a new tenant is found 1 weeks rent is to be paid by us for the cost associated with finding a tenant. For re-signing of a lease by the same tenant, this costs us half a weeks rent. We tried to negotiate this down but the property manager wouldn’t negotiate on that part, but we managed to get rid of or downgrade some other costs instead.
I would speak to them about this and say that since they are only re-signing an existing tenant that you believe the cost is less to them and hence you should be paying less for that service.
I don’t know who would be managing the car space as yet. I haven’t looked that far into it. Just rang the agent to find out the figures for body corporate and rent and things. Didn’t even occur to me that it would have to be managed. I’ll have to look into that one.
Hello,
I have one with Westpac that’s IO and that’s at 90%. I think you should try to renegotiate. Say you’ll take you’re business elsewhere if they don’t let you make it IO. Worth a try, you don’t actually have to go through with it.
Our last bank offered to meet all of Westpac’s features to keep our business but their service was so crappy that we decided it would be worth paying the extra mortgage insurance just to get away from them. Sometimes it’s worth changing banks if you’re not happy with what they are offering you.