Forum Replies Created
Interestingly this is the first time I have noticed so many ‘selling’ posts and threads around here. Perhaps it is as a result of Steve’s recent book or newsletter, or perhaps it is because this forum is a good way of guaging (sp?) the property market. I wonder if we are at the stage of a few more now ‘thinking of selling’ then in the future there will be more people ‘thinking of selling’ and others actually selling. The more that sell at once the lower the prices will drop. So in a way if you want to sell do it now and be ahead of the pack. save your money to buy back later when everyone wants to sell but there are few buyers.
let the debate commence….
joy to the world
Acey, ” Steve’s books & PR keep a good supply of interested would-be investors flooding in & there’s a good core of regulars who keep the questions answered.”
– well said.
“Steve’s books” being the original draw-card. Yes, I would agree that “would-be investors” might out-number the investors here judging from the amount of ‘where are the CF+ve properties?’ posts. Also agree about the good core of regulars.I’ve been here since 2000 members, and what is it up to now? 40, ooo? That’s a lot of newbies. Some crash on, make a lot of noise, get banned or burn out, and disappear. That’s life. I’m still here cause it’s not just a phase with me, this +ve CF investing – it’s the way that property investing becomes ‘affordable’ and accessible to all (me!) rather than exclusively with people on high incomes who can ‘afford’ to negative gear. Yeah, yeah, feel free to call me a devotee or sycophant or whatever, if it makes you feel happy/safe/secure/superior/better. At your service.
It is logical to me that people that are ‘not into’ Steve’s methods, never will be, have never read his books or been to his seminars, nor are likely to in the future, are into negative gearing or whatever – might not feel that supported around here because the focus and drawcard has been Steve and his theories – Steve being an investor who has ‘never done a negatively geared deal’.
Sure, those people might get into debates and feel that this forum is skewed towards +ve CF. And so be it.
It is possible that those people will feel much more comfortable on Somerset forums, and so be it. I for one will wish them well. Had a look around and it seems nice in there too but really, how many forums does one have time for? So perhaps I am hoping that this place will chill out a bit and some of the people who felt they didn’t fit in here will find a home where they are happy. Be that somerset or wherever.
I have a sneaking suspicion that some people who will leave will end up behaving at Somerset exactly like they do here, and end up with exactly the same result as they got here. The universe, the world, this forum, that forum – reflects back at you what you put out.
Ponder this if you are the person who finds themselves saying ‘it’s not me, it’s THEM!” on a regular basis!
cheers-
Minijoy to the world
“Those serious about charity NEVER talk about it.”
I hear ya cause then are you giving for giving’s sake or cause you wanna show off?
But then again I never considered, remembered we were supposed to, or had it occur to me to give ten percent away to the community until I read the One minute millionaire recently.
So I am glad that the book ‘talked about it’.
In a funny sort of way wealth creation is linked to the ability to give. Ask a poor person to give ten percent to a charity and they will tell you they can’t afford it. Their spending is 100 percent of what they earn, they are broke.However the irony is that if the person learned to live on 90 percent in order to give 10 away they would then realise they could actually live on 70 percent and invest the rest for a compounding return. Then they would become rich, giving an ever-increasing amount to charity.!
ah, musings late at night…
joy to the world
yack! hi!
diet coke…
yum
joy to the world
Acey, I would offer that you join our mailing list. So NOt!! to sell you deals in nz – Gahd knows we can’t keep up with demand as it is, – but just so that you would perhaps have a better understanding of what we do and how we do it. like the specifics. To show you how above board, legally compliant and legit it is, to see the work we do behind the scenes in presentation, information supplied, research, etc – just to ‘check it out’ before you knock it.
Do your ‘due diligence’ on us, in other words.
Perhaps your answer is that you couldn’t be bothered as you have already dismissed it out of hand, and so be it, but – the offer is there.“how can this be illegal or under handed”
There are as many ways to break the law as there are laws, I guess. I can’t speak for anyone else in the whole world. I can only speak for myself. So I have to rebut sweeping statement that by implication include me, even if I can’t defend anyone else – I’m not in control of the actions of anyone but myself.oh hi!!
The philosophy of Bling, by minimogul
my definition of bling bling (for the purposes of my previous posts) is when the wearer ostentatiously wants you to know it’s designer – for reasons of wanting to show their status or wealth on the outside. Bling bling basically means anything where the expense is obvious. i.e. anything designer with the logo showing, as well as diamonds, gold teeth, furs, etc.
I didn’t feel that the Versace tracksuit in question was bling bling because it was not obviously logo’d and therefore subtle, a quality or a feeling of luxury observable only to the wearer and (perhaps) the odd person in the rag trade who can spot the difference in quality between the versace and (say) the nike version, logos notwithstanding… and the friend who says ‘you look GREAT!’ but couldn’t put their finger on why.
Re op shopping, I definitely went through that phase, vintage this and that, recycled, all of the above – it was necessarily cheap at the time (when I was a student) and now to be quite honest I can’t do it, it’s the smell that gets me. Smells like the combined essences of 100 harrassed and overworked government employees without deodorant on and wearing nylon on a hot and muggy day with no aircon….God be praised, there are more sanitary but still economically viable alternatives (factory outlet stores, Kmart, target, best and less!
joy to the world
Walked through Darlinghurst today, Yep. talk about Area In Transition. reminds me of the difference between St Kilda now, and 7 years ago.
It is Happening. Kookai (brand new megastore) next to Bar Coluzzi (character/cockroach-ridden-take-your-pick-which, been-there-as-old-as-the-hills.)I can just f-e-e-e-l the Bar Coluzzi’s being squeezed out to make room for the new Nike Flagship store (or similar.) Then I think it will be time for William St to become a shopping-mile…hmmm.
But where will Kings’ Cross move to??
Yeah, Double Bay, I reckon it’s the new Paddington. Paddington seems more like an extension of the city these days. Double Bay has the village atmosphere that Paddington has down at five-ways end, but the Oxford St area doesn’t really have it any more. Becoming more ‘urban’, more blocks of flats going up, less houses, etc
Like what happened to Chapel St. used to be edgy, but now it’s just manufactured mass market chain-stores. edgy is ‘off chapel’. It will be the same in paddington. In fact there are plenty of streets off oxford where little boutiques and cafes are starting to go in. i.e. south dowling st, william st paddo, and some other ones up nearer queen st endAlpina if you are planning on having kids at all go for Paddo over Darlinghurst or Surry Hills. Quite good schools in Paddo and Woollahra.
joy to the world
yeah buy another one. They do wear out. The Ali G trick could no doubt work but who has time to wait for it to dry, even with the hairdryer – only to still have the possibility it didn’t work. False economy…
You could either buy a cheap second hand one or a state of the art funky one. In fact buy a lovely ergonomically designed one.
In the meantime as a workaround just highlight the text you want to delete and use the menu command to delete. If that’s not possible on your system then don’t yell at me cause I’m a Mac boffin!
cheers-
Minijoy to the world
hi supa,
re: finance, no you shouldn’t have to go there to sort pre-approval though it might take a few weeks. If it’s quicker well that’s awesome. We recommend clients get preapproval first. you will be dealing with a NZ lender most probably but for example the link for finance at this very site is a joint venture between aus. and NZ brokers, a lot of the form filling is done at this end. some of our clients have used these guys to get preapprovals sorted. we don’t have any kickback or anything. also there are many other NZ-friendly brokers floating around, have a little looksee around the place
re: power of attorney, that’s between you and your solicitor to organise. you may or may not need it. during your pre-approval process you will find out if you need it or not, it’s usually to do with finance rather than purchase itself. as far as I know you don’t need power of attorney to buy properties, you can do it all by fax. we have a special fax clause in our contracts as standard. we definitely have several solicitors we recommend that have proven to be on to it and reasonably priced but you are welcome to use whoever you want. we recommend a NZ lawyer not an australian one for nz purchases.
re check out the market – yeah that’s basically the leverage in a nutshell is our knowledge of the market.
You may or may not end up using a bird dog or you might like to go over yourself and check it out. whichever way you go make sure you do your homework as the less question marks you have about everything from rental demand, the neighbours, the rental manager, the condition of the house, the area, the street, who’s going to fix it if it goes wrong and how much, etc etc etc the more likely that it will work out for you.
hey scottB, re: “added value to maintain a long term cf.” yeah – I didn’t have much capital to start off with so I chose to buy a dunger at the bottom of the bottom of the market. and do it up as compared to buying an already done up one the yields were going to be heaps better. basically you pay top dollar for the ‘nothing to do’ properties and the more problems you solve the more you can make. however if you have more money than time then just purchase them at a premium from someone who has done the work. So i did it the reno way because that is how come mine ended up 20 percent plus yields on purchase price. plus I was trying to create equity for myself to get started. It worked.! I am particularly proud of my second reno where I didn’t lift a finger except to make phone calls. that’s my kind of reno.
joy to the worlddepreciator! Hi!
Can you explain to me what constitutes a walk-up?
sorry to be so ‘not knowing of the jargon’ – I’m from NZ you see….joy to the world
OOOH shaun!!
I have a wicked link for you then,
a cellular biologist, totally legit, used to teach medicine at a US University, soooo fascinating – !!!!!!
Also do you read the quantum physics stuff like the turning point ????
I went to a lecture with Bruce on his recent visit to australia and the guy is a total genius at the cutting edge of discoveries that could literally change the world (well, the newtonian model of medicine, anyway!) and for anyone who’s a ‘believer’ in anything from Antony Robbins stuff to God, we already knew that anyway and we’re exciting that science seems to be catching up. slo-o-oo==wly…..
“Dr. Bruce Lipton is a former medical school professor (University of Wisconsin) and research scientist (Stanford University School of Medicine). His experiments, examining in great detail the molecular mechanisms by which cells process information, have revealed that genes do not in fact control our behavior, instead, genes are turned on and off by influences outside the cell. These influences include our perceptions and beliefs. He shows that our beliefs‹true or false, positive or negative‹affect genetic activity and actually alter our genetic code. Dr. Lipton∂s profoundly hopeful work, being hailed as one of the major breakthroughs in the New Sciences, shows how we can retrain our consciousness to create healthy beliefs, and by doing so create a profoundly positive effect on our bodies and our lives.”
cheers-
Minijoy to the world
as long as it’s not broken hill I say go for it!
joy to the world
as long as it’s not broken hill I say go for it!
“good capital growth is something that in the main is restricted to capital cities and large regional centres or coastal cities and towns.”
wrong I think, (firstly because I have experienced annual capital gain of 50 percent – that’s twice the rate of Manly sydney at the top of the boom – in towns of 8000 or less!!!) or rather red herring. capital growth is related to growth in *demand* not size of town or proximity to the coast, although those two things often go together with cities and coastal towns, it’s not the *reason* for CG.
for example, apartments in cities. OK the city is expanding but apartments are going down in value because of oversupply, lack of land content, high strata fees, sloppy building standards, being so trendy that they date quickly, etc. so therefore decline in demand. then again a small town nowhere near the coast which is getting a major factory plant in, properties will go through the roof as the *demand* manifests and people will want housing.
so if buying for capital gains look for *demand* growth in the future.
Yes I agree.
however all other things being equal, the amount you would spend to tidy a place up should capitalise the same way into increased rent. Such as spending 5k doing a place up should add another ten bucks a week to the rent. Spending 10k should add another 20 bucks a week to the rent.
For example mine in NZ. I had to spend 9k on one and I got it up from vacant and previously rented for 95, to 115 a week now. That’s $20 a week more for a 9 k spend so 11.5 return on the reno. and purchase in the first place was based on purchase price vs 95 per week as is. So it was CF+ve both before and after the reno. But a much ‘safer’ investment after and more likely to perform as desired.
My second property I spent 14k on including new bathroom but the rent went up from 100 p.w to 130 per week. so it was worth it there too. Again, the CF+ve-ness before the reno and after wasn’t actually that different, but the chances of it lasting many years as a cash cow went way up.!!
not to mention that I added value.And on the second one I didn’t lift a finger except to make phone calls. So it can be done and yes it is still worth it, but yes, some of the (NZ, cheap, CF+ve) properties need a bit of maintenance. Luckily the 50’s and 60’s houses as a lot of the cheaper +ve ones are were solidly built and can be renovated reasonably cheaply – I mean you don’t need to put smeg appliances in them or anything!
Making it work is about what you need to calculate when you buy based on your builder’s report and the estimated cost to repair. I could walk through a house now and tell you how much $$$ it would cost to get it up to scratch, it doesn’t take long to figure out a ballpark figure once you have done a reno or two.
also worth discussing with a rental manager the maximum price that could be achieved and tell them your plans. they could guide you as to what is a popular feature for that market. It might be anything from heating to fencing to garden sheds for firewood etc. Actually on that note one tenant said ‘I really like the place but it doesn’t have a shed or garage for bikes (it just had a carport and a verandah.) so I told the tenant if she was willing to pay an extra $5 bucks a week I would put up a shed. The shed cost $500 bucks for a kitset one and including a proper concrete pad underneath etc so it will last and not rust out. return on shed – 50 percent per annum, i.e. free shed in 2 years! All those kind of little things do affect the bottom line. Steve would say ‘money follows management’.
He would say that someone else that had bought those same deals as me could have potentially had a nightmare with them because they didn’t ‘manage their investment’ the same way. Not meaning property management either, meaning, the decisions and choices you make, the information you get, the relationships you make, etc. A property manager (for example) can push your house harder than others on the market or work hard for you if you need a tenant, just because they like dealing with you and find you easy to work with and prompt, business like etc. All that kind of stuff goes in the mix and will determine whether when you ‘buy a CF+ve property in NZ’ it will work great for you just like in the text books, or not!
i.e. it’s up to you. And BTW when the landlords get the one they think is a lemon and give up saying it won’t work, just sell it – I want out – then guess who will put offers on them, buy them, and and sort them out? and unlock the CF+ve yields that were there all the time if only the landlord had had a clue what they were doing? people like me and my business partners and other people who are experienced investors in NZ and know what to do to make it work as desired.joy to the world
Like I said before Monopoly, if you actually read the book you will get the detailed explanation you are looking for about what was done and how and in what time frame and by whom and the other rules. Don’t keep asking and expecting Steve to re-write the book live just for you on every thread.
I don’t understand why people that aren’t into it are even here. surely their energy would be better spent trying to find like-minded people that are into what they are into and help them feel supported and empowered. This is all I am trying to do for the newbies that come here and say ‘where are the CF+ve properties’. I was in the same boat and found some and can help people get started and do the same.
Hi there! I am not an accountant, but my Dad is a NZ accountant and I have an Aus accountant who is also an investor as I am a resident here.
Re tax structure
My advice from my Aus accountant was not to start a structure until the cost of the structure is less than the tax saved (unless you don’t care so much about that and want asset protection.) In my case this is not yet. (4 properties.)so for me I am going to do that later. Possibly soon. Not a big deal in NZ in transferring/selling properties later as no stamp duty.
capital growth areas – like anywhere, they are in places where demand in the future is likely to be greater. I.e. look for places that are showing economic growth, population growth, or where a new project has just been announced i.e. new employers, developments, or large businesses
CF+ve and capital gains areas are not always in the same place. however as a rule most of NZ has shown strong capital gains over the last few years as it has been ‘discovered’ and was and still is undervalued on a global scale. Stay away from shitty small off the plan or second hand off the plan apartments though!
You can find CF+ve in CG areas however the yields don’t tend to be as high. However you can ‘create’ positive cashflow properties a la Steve’s new book
exchange rate-
yep. it fluctuates, that’s just the way it is. hedge by borrowing in NZ.joy to the world
Good on you! I just heard today from a local that Kiwibank are doing 90 percent finance loans for owner-occupiers. That was in a different town but perhaps it’s the same for Invercargill. Which means you could purchase for up to 100k. Luckily you live in a place with loads of opportunities. also I would definitely hook up with Westan. Perhaps you could even hang out and pick his brain in return for giving him a hand with something. Make up your own rules!
So with 10k you could possibly even get a home and income, or a duplex or a house with a twist (large piece of land which you can subdivide and sell off, create an extra bedroom, renovate, etc etc.) Basically if you are an apprentice builder you would be way ahead of the pack already in terms of being able to do a lot of stuff yourself and a whole lot better than most first time DIY types. Anyway your first property could either be something you just buy as an investment or something you buy to live in and improve and add value to (or income potential to) or whatever. anyway go for it!cheers-
Minijoy to the world
I agree. it’s thanks to these forums for SO many things for me. Especially when i couldn’t find a single real life friend to discuss all this stuff with, I found virtual friends on the same wavelength who have turned into real live friends, and even a business partner and a few clients. so yeah THANKS steve!
Monopoly – “Relax Mini, I am not out for blood, trust me, I hate the sight of the stuff!!!” glad to hear it. Peace then and to higher learning and the sharing of ideas on this fine steve-hosted forum.
cheers-
Minijoy to the world
Thanks! I do love writing and painting ‘word pictures’…
I just wrote my first screenplay this year (well cowrote, with some people who had actually written scripts before) and that was lots of fun too, especially when i got to be on the shoot watching it all come to life…and BTW property deals helped me get to that point too…so in a way Steve’s advice helped me get to an even better place than just owning properties…joy to the world
Monopoly, I think the main expense is the bandwidth you need for a site this size. This is actually someone’s private property that they are hosting.
Look, you do actually seem very interested in what Steve has to say. Do consider going to see him in person some time so you are not always starting threads off hearsay. Also it’s a great chance to meet some other forumites and maybe even learn something. Also if you actually bothered to read Steve’s book(s) I think you would gain a far greater understanding of where he is coming from. Once you got that, perhaps the frequency of vibe-killing posts from you might even start to decrease. I live in hope…