Hi all,

Thanks for the responses. Jamie, we’re just looking at our options at the moment. Main reasons being:

– Recent bank valuation came in WAY under market value.. I understand the valuation will be conservative but this valuation was way off.
– We want to see if we can get a better deal than what we have now through St George.

Jamie, I’ll get in touch with you over the next few days.

Cheers

G’day gibbo1,

The loans are crossed. I’ll have to check to see whether the loan is portable or not. We’re looking at spending no more than $450k on the new PPOR and will need to borrow additional funds. I spoke to a broker a few months ago and he was going to speak to the bank to see if we could retain the $100k or so at the existing rate… might have to give him a call. Thanks again.

Hi John,

Thanks for the detailed response! 

The amount owing on the PPOR is $109k, the remainder of our loans to the bank are the mortgage for the IP and a personal loan (taken out to do renovations on the properties).  Our main goal at the moment is to move into a larger home while keeping the current IP (it's prime marina-front real estate which is 1 street from the beach in Glenelg North in South Australia).  The reason we want to move into a larger home is more of a lifestyle choice, not really investment driven.  We like to entertain, have dinner parties, barbeques etc, but our current property is too small for that.  We also have regular guests visiting from interstate so the extra space would come in really handy.  Another reason is that we are planning to get married soon and have children very soon after.

I have considered renting and getting a nicer property, but the rental market in Sydney at the moment is crazy.  To rent a similar property, we'd be looking at a bare minimum of $500/week which I would rather go to a mortgage.  I'm not a finance person though so I don't know which option would work out better for us.  The investor loan you mentioned sounds interesting, I'll have to research that a bit!! 

We don't have a deposit saved (we have an offset account tied to the loan for the PPOR but the savings aren't much).  I guess we're after creative ways of financing so we don't have to expose our current properties to more risk.  We also have the option of using equity from one of my parents' properties if need be.

The new property we would like to get will hopefully be an actual home with land and not a unit or apartment.  This way once there is some equity in it we can look at extending it or knocking it down and rebuilding.

Cheers!

User Name: sme
Location: NSW
AUS
Age: 25
Marital Status: married
Gender: Male
Occupation: electrician
Total Posts: 5

[jerry]

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the late update. Good news is the electrician came through and paid for the damages. The kitchen renos were finished a while back, and we’re happy with the results [strum]

Here are the pics I promised:

Before

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/8048/kitchenbeforepm4.jpg

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/1903/kitchenbefore2vo7.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2806/kitchenbefore3ah4.jpg

After [mario]

http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/9281/kitchenafter2yu3.jpg

http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3801/kitchenafter2gg1.jpg

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/379/kitchenafter3xk5.jpg

Hi everyone,
Well.. what a long day today has been. This is what has happened since the plumber accidentally struck the electrical wiring:

– In the morning, he called his sparky to come out and fix the job (out of his own pocket). Sparky couldn’t make it til about 1pm.. ended up coming at 3pm to have a look, left, came back at 5pm to do the repair.. left about 30 mins ago Very nice and understanding bloke..
– Plumber finished up at around 4pm..
– The extra nice and friendly plumber offered to render the walls tomorrow.. he even went out and bought cement to do the work.
– The EXTREMELY nice plumber even loaned me his jack hammer to remove all of the damaged tiles.
– The nice electrician who came to fix the plumber’s mishap kindly offered us his skip which he has in front of his house at the moment for us to dump our BRAND NEW broken tiles into!

So even though we’ve had some major headaches, the two tradespeople who helped us out today have made things so much better. There are some really nice tradespeople out there (please note my rant was just about the dodgey electrician :p).

My girlfriend and I have decided that even though we’re extra tight on cash now due to the extra expenses.. we’ll be paying the electrician bill for the plumber. Accidents happen, and these guys have helped us out so much today we can’t thank them enough!

Cheers everyone, I’ll be sure to post photos once everything’s done

Of course it was. Would you pay for something without knowing the price?

So you don’t think ruining a new tiling job isn’t dodgey? If you think making a mess is what tradesmen are paid to do then I hope you never do any work for any of the members on here… or for anyone actually.

Sorry Mr Experienced, but how many normal everyday people out there do you know that are experts in getting kitchens renovated? For your information, he came and gave me the quote for the work BEFORE the tiles were laid. And you’d have to be an idiot not to be able to tell the difference between newly laid+grouted tiles and old ones. And evem if the tiles were old it doesn’t give him a green light to go and create a mess on them.

Sorry to seem rude and pointing out the obvious, but you’re an idiot. You’re saying YOU would take ME to court? On what grounds?

Well who else is to blame in this instance? Ever heard of plastic drop sheets? Did you even look at the photos?

The least you could’ve said was that what he did was wrong and that it was unfortunate. Instead you came in here being all high and mighty saying I should’ve known better.. Well sorry! My girlfriend and I are only in our 20’s and we don’t know better yet. That’s why we got ‘professional qualified tradesmen’ to come and see what needed to be done, provide us with a quote and perform the job.

But that’s all a bit much to ask from a tradesman from your point of view isn’t it?