I was in Hervey Bay last year and personally would not buy an IP there. Walking around town there are a mountain of large vacant blocks with old for sale signs up. Many (if not most) of these blocks are DA approved for townhouse/apartment developments so you would have to wonder if the area was such a great spot for development then why are these…[Read more]

Hi Sundance,I agree that waiting untill you know everything before investing will mean you never invest as you will never know anything. so making a purchase and acting while you can is good, but only if you get the right advice.E.g. If you dont know everything abvout correctly structuring loans, then get a well qualified and experienced mortgage…[Read more]

call Jamie rather, not cann!!

Hi Beebob- may i suggest you call Jamie for a chat. Some bank people dont have a clue when it comes to investment loans, and to be fair some are very skilled at this type of loans.If you cann Jamie however, you can be assured that he is knowledgable and skilled at setting up investment loans correctly and can save you lots in the long term.Cheers,Luke

I love sports- I play football (Australian Rules of course, that's all we know in Perth!!) and hit the gym a few times per week. Also enjoy riding to work some mornings and jogging when I feel enthusiastic.Travel as well, but not as much as I would like. Hopefully I can make some beans out of property and start doing that a bit more!Cheers,Luke

Sorry I forgot to add- if it is a multistory concrete/masonry building then a pest inspection is not really warrented as there wont be any termites, and you caould ask residents and owners of other units if there are any problems with ants, cockroaches etc.Cheers,Luke

Hi Cathy- it depends on what your risk tolerance is and what you can assess and survey by yourself.I personally would do my own survey on an apartment block to look for defects and the like as I have done this work before and I dont think it is that difficult for most people, You can also do a strata search and look for any repairs or defects that…[Read more]

KeyStrategies wrote:

luke86 wrote:
Hi Ballerina- just curious as to how you got your investment out- did you purchase the property in a trust, loan the money to the trust and then take out an LOC in the trusts name to repay the loan toi yourself? Or did you purchase in your own name and find a way around refinancing?I am working though ways to…[Read more]

Hi Emma- a builder would be able to give you a good estimate. The cost depends on whether you are building the house on a slab or on piers- if it is on piers than it probably wouldnt matter a great deal but if it is on a slab then you will need to excavate, fill and build a retaining wall.One thing to be careful of is that building height limits…[Read more]

Ballerina wrote:
Hi CrustyProperties in question are three new townhouses, developed by us. old house demolished, three new ones built. Rental yield achieved: 5.7%, thanks to horrible low valuation. Location: Brisbane inner suburb. Rented out for $440/week and $470/week. Metropole's rental estimate was $380-$400. We got our investment out (by…[Read more]

And also for the sake of discussion AALI- have you checked with a planner that yoyu can fit 5 units onto a 1000m2 block? Allowing for 25% circulation (which is hard to predict without studying the site) then you would be left with 150m2 per unit. Fitting a 21.5 square townhouse (200m2) might be pretty tight, and would need quite a high density zo…[Read more]

If you have never built before, then a project manager will be a good idea. It may sound expensive but surely it would be much cheaper than trying to manage a $1m+ contract without knowing what you are doing and making horrible mistakes.Also as mattnz suggested, $1500/m2 sounds like a pretty accurate estimate for two story townhouses that have…[Read more]

NHG- I think what Derek was saying about emotional attachment was that you would need to be prepared to treat the property like a business and forget any 'humanity' issues- i.e. if the Mum stopped paying rent, then you would need to be able to stay emotionally detatched and evict the poor old lady onto the street even if she has no where to go. If…[Read more]

To be honest, I can't see how you can build anything for $800-$900 per square meter (asusming we are talking about building something from scratch including connecting services such as water/power/sewer etc). This is cheaper per square meter than building a 4 bedroom house, and based on economy of scale you would expect to pay more per square…[Read more]

Hi Terry- Do you need to tell the Land Titles Office (or whatever it is called) what your PPOR is so they can work out whether you need to pay land tax? So if you tell them what your PPOR is, does the ATO have access to this information when it comes time for CGT?Cheers,Luke

Hi Chris- you can only claim 1 PPOR at any one time. So if you move into a new PPOR, your old PPOR is no longer covered by the CGT exemption. Hoever you don't have to decide which one to call you PPOR until you sell so you can decide which one to call your PPOR when it comes time to sell to get the best tax outcome.If you could claim more than one…[Read more]

The most common and usually most suitable structure is to hold the properties in a discretionary trust witha corporate trustee. You can have the beneficiries named as any future spouse and future children, as well as your mother.You could also have your cousins, uncle and aunt named as secondary beneficiaries but I would be reluctant to do this at…[Read more]

Yes, I have subscribed too. It doesnt seem like a bad program but will see how it goes and whether it runs out of interesting things to say. Michael Yardney has lots of audio programs too- if you go to his website http://www.propetryupdate.com.au you can usually sign up for some free programs and he emails you new ones every few months.I like listening…[Read more]

Yep I would call your solicitor quick smart. Just because you do not produce a Section 32 doesnt mean that the contract is void- if you haven't even attempted to get one then that would give you no grounds to try to cancel the sale. Also from the purchasors perspective the settlement date on the contract is correct- it was written in the contract…[Read more]

That is extremely cheap. If you can build for that price then you are doing very very well. does that include all services connections, bathrooms, and building from scatch? And are you building yourself or using a builder?I would expect to pay about $1500 – $1650  / m2 if you are using a registered builder. 60m2 is not a very economical size to b…[Read more]