Hi there rogue. Another thing you may want to consider is going to the seminars that R/E agents and investment companies run. These are usually free and you can bet your bottom dollar they will try and steer you the way of negative geared properties. I’m not for or against neg props. but the reason I suggest you try these seminars is to just find out some free info and get your creative juices flowing. Just my opinion, but DONT sign anything, just let them know you are gathering info, and will contact them if you are interested. As everyone else has said, read as much as you can and keep visiting this site.
Take care
Marty

Hi Joff. Fantastic to see you caring for your family. As other people have said, it is always a struggle when you first take on a mortgage. Always has been, always will be. Doesn’t seem fair that someone should have to move a bit further out from their family, but that is what most of us do. I bought my first house in Sydney in an area I said I never wanted to move to, and guess what, I’m still there. Yes, things improve with wage rises etc but it will always be hard to buy that first house. Once again, I commend you for “doing your sister’s worrying”
Regards
Marty

Hi there Chandara. I attended a 3 day seminar that Spanny hosted a few years back. He’s very good at what he does but now that I also am a bit wiser, I wish I’d put the couple of grand I spent on a loan or towards another deposit. Nothing against Peter Spann, as I said he’s very good and motivational and at the time I probably needed the motivation to kick start me, but feel that there is so many “property experts” making money from these type of seminars. I’m sure you’ll have a good time. Let us know how you went and what your opinion was
regards
Marty

Brendan, how about this. Sell your mother and reduce some debt or put your mother in the unit. Just kidding. I too would try hard to hang on to both properties because if your hunch is right it sounds like both could great CG. As advised by others, definately shop around for your finance. All the best.
Marty

Be very careful about signing anything. I have heard of people buying under the circumstances you described and finding out much later that what they bought was grossly overpriced and it took years for the property to reach what they paid.[!] Try and do your own research, or at least ring some local real estate agents in the area where you are to be shown and ask them prices etc. TREAD VERY CAREFULLY.
Best of luck
Marty

Ditto. I would definately pay off the PPOR first.Just be careful of possible fees converting from P&I to I/O on your investment loans. I had a question re P&I and I/O myself but my situation is different to yours.
Regards
Marty[]

Must be my turn. First of all, GREAT IDEA Leigh.Have only recently discovered this site, (it is fantastic). Where do you start? My name is Marty, I’m 39, very happily married (to Karen) and have a 16 year old son (Jake) who is my life. We live in Sydney, but hope to move to Qld somewhere down the track. My life was turned around and upside down approx 7 years ago when I was involved in a motorbike accident and suffered back, neck and shoulder problems which have prevented me from working since then, although I still live in hope of returning to some form of work some day (any offers???). Not long after my acciddent my daughter passed away due to a terminal condition she had. So as you can imagine, life was fairly miserable for sometime afterwards. We managed to keep going (had no choice) as I firmly believe in “kick or be kicked”. It was somewhere around this time that I started getting interested in “some sort of property investment” idea that would help provide for us later on in years. We owned our PPOR so there was equity there, so we went and bought our first IP (negatively geared). It’s now been 5 years since we bought our first and we have added another 6 IP’s to our portfolio, some are negatively geared and some are “neutral” or on the verge of positve. Because I have the time, I do most of the research and phoning around etc involved with our IP’s. We basically believe in buy and hold, although in the future we’d like to sell our PPOR, reduce some debt and possibly even move into one of the IP’s in Qld. Sure, I’ve probably made mistakes with finance structures and cross-collateralising etc along the way which has cost me, but you learn real quick when you have to pay.We still hope to buy more IP’s but they are getting “harder to get” so to speak, but who knows. I’ll be happy when I can get us into a position where we have $1000 coming in from passive income (hopefully in about 5-6 yrs). Anyway guys, thats about it from me for now, so till next time, take care. Sorry, before I go, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who contributes to this forum, because I believe that every bit of info that gets out there helps someone.
Cheers
Marty