Glenn,

Send me a PM and I’ll give you a great accountant in Perth.

Mosqui

The owner has to trust the PM. otherwise they should not work together. The PM should be able to make some decisions, as sometimes they do not have the time to consult everything with the owner.

I think that the financial advisers another kind of salesman, which is a very tough job and very difficult for people to understand it. I usually don’t like any of them, specially real estate agents as I have seen them saying so many lies to very innocent people that make me sick. On the other hand I have meet some valuable people in that area, but I think that they are very few and this is the main reason people don’t trust them.
Also with financial advise the big problem is that you always have a risk, it’s impossible to predict what is going to happen (specially now) with the economy, even if you have 10 MBA and all the studies you can imagine, economy is not something you can study like maths or many other science, it’s all about experience and trying to predict things that could happen.
What I think we need is financial education from the schools, the biggest mistake people make is expending more than they earn, it very simple, but many people don’t get it. Then they go to the banks for help and they don’t understand the value of the money until they get charged with all the fees which I agree they are usually to high, but if people is a bit smarter they can live using the free accounts, paying the full amount on the credit cards and only taking mortgages for houses, that usually is a good investment.
So in this environment the financial advisors could work a lot better and people will understand the value of the advise. And all the banks would have to work a lot harder to get profits

Sorry if I went out of the topic, I just get very frustrated when people make very bad decisions and then blame others, and even more when they get rip off just for not reading forums like this before making decisions.

Hope this helps

Mosqui

Engelo,

I have to agree that the situation is getting worse, I don’t think the rents are going to go up soon, but I think some people have been a bit aggressive with you.
On the other hand you are young, so you can take higher risk than many people and this is what some people have to realise. Investing in property in this world environment is very risky as they are many other types of investments, so you just listen to everyone and try to work out how much risk you want to take. When you do your maths for any investment, try to get the worse case and put some negative factor as well because you will always find some additional expenses.
Don’t stop investing, try to diversify and move forward, listen to everyone, even the negative comments as sometimes being too positive is not good either.
The world economy is a big mess, but no one knows what is going to happen, as now USA is not anymore the biggest economy and the asian countries (like China and India) are big economies and very unpredictable. I sick of listen to economist all around the world with different ideas and the reality is that they do not know what is going to happen; it is not a science, so they base all the predictions on theories that may not work in this modern era.
We can stop everything and wait until the world economy gets fixed, I live in a country with 1000% inflation, prices were changing from the morning to the evening, and still alive )

For my first home I didn’t like brokers, so I went to all the banks and done my own research. Then I moved house and my wife and a friend convinced me to use a recommended broker. I wasn’t very happy and after a few meetings I liked the idea, so the outcome was very positive. Then I bought an IP and he did all the paperwork, I only contacted him with the realestate and they organised everything, I just sat at home and signed the pages I needed to by email. Great experience.
I’m in Perth

My small contribution

Mosqui

I can’t open it either, it’s not just you

What about Android? iphone is not the only smartphone out there. My wife has the Galaxy S and has a few interesting features you don’t get on the iphone.

I think this is not a real fair comment. You can not compare Ravensthorpe (where all this happened) with Karratha and Port Hedland. This is a clear difference with a mining town and a future mining town. The Ravensthorpe mine never worked. I can only talk for WA because is where I have all my experience and the pilbara and mid west is full of mines which will be here for many years. Two weeks ago BHP announced that they are investing 7 billions in WA, so Port Hedland has construction for the next 5 years and operations for another 10 to 15 easy. Karratha has Rio Tinto, Woodside, Dampier Salt and Burrup Fertalizers, so if all these industries go down, don’t worry because all Australia stops anyway. I think it’s fair to say that the risk on the north of WA is very low and the returns are very high, very uncommon, but real. I have a house in Karratha and looking into my second IP in Port Hedland at the moment. Also the people up there go for work, so the houses are usually kept pretty well.
I was also looking into the Qld mining towns, very interesting as the properties are a lot cheaper.

This is my point of view.
Happy investing to everyone

Mosqui

I think this thread is still very interesting for many people. Please keep posting to see how your account goes.
thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Thanks Steve and Judith, this is very valuable information for people on the other side of the globe.