There is no shortage of supply in Coomera. Some friends of mine were developing there before the GFC. Guess what they have not progressed that far. As I said Brisbane is a solid and much safer market to invest in.

Again I think it depends on where you are. I was in America a few months ago and I met with a developer in San Antonio Texas and asked him what were the greatest challenges and he stated housing blocks.

Now I said this is Texas plenty of land but he pointed out that there was a shortage of building blocks, because the banks will not fund land subdivision. The building companies will not do it because they do not have the funds in place to carry the subdivisions on their books.

States like Texas are very interesting, virtual no fall in prices since the GST they have the strongest jobs growth in America and a lot of people are moving to cities like San Antonio and Dallas. This is creating more demand in these sectors.

I think it sounds like a great idea. Where you need to do due diligence is with the builder you use do not go with the cheapest  but look at whether it is a fixed price quote or not. Also ask for customers that have been happy with their work.

When you look at a suburb i Australia and look at the growth history over a period of around 10 years that will provide a reasonably accurate figure in terms of what the average growth has been and what you should expect over the next decade.

In terms of America it is important to understand that what caused the problem was non recourse lending, what this means is that the loan was only based on the property and it made it hard to go after the borrower. Mortgage brokers in the US were lending to anyone who put there hand up regardless of whether the borrower could afford the loan or not. You see in Australia if a mortgage broker has a client that refinances in the first 12 months they have to pay back the commission. This did not apply in the US so naturally it artificially lifted prices and when the finance started to unravel prices naturally came crashing down.

In Australia this does not apply the nearest example here was what happened in outer areas with the first homebuyers grant, prices were lifted and when the grants came off so did the prices. So if you look at an area over at least 10 years then it should in most cases even out.

Hi Luke

I could not agree with Jacqui more. If you look at inner city areas and look at the growth over 10 years it should give you an indication as to how the suburb should perform over the long term.

I will just add that it is important to look at short term figures you know market falls by 5%, normally referring to the last three months. Keep in mind that medium prices are based on what has sod in a given period so if you have a couple of new developments it may should that values are up. However it does not mean everything has gne up thas why long term sales figures are much better.

You should always make sure that all clauses are included in the contract. Frankly it was not up to the agent to not put the clauses up. There job is to put up the offer as you request.

Jacqui is right if you have any doubts get your solicitor to check the contract twice. I am sure that he or she would have insisted that the clauses have been included. If you have signed knowing that the clauses you wanted were not on the contract then there is not much you can do.

My view is if you are staring off rather than buy a first home I would rent and buy an investment property.

Firstly when you buy an investment you can take 80% of the projected rent into the servicing of the loan, in other words you can buy a better property than you could afford to live in.

Often you can also afford to rent a property that you could not afford to buy. So this way you get to live in a better area and invest your money in a better property as well. 

Although not everything is about money their is no doubt that financially it makes a lot more sense to buy an investment and rent yourself.

Always interesting Stratum came before strata. The main difference is that Strata you are buying an apartment or townhouse where you are buying the whole thing that can also include that land around the unit, where stratum you are buying the space between the walls. So clearly strata was an improvement. 

You can only seek legal advice I would also suggest you talk to the bank. Rarely do banks want to take properties back especially when the values are not there. My experience is if you are in trouble ask the bank for a deal, they will often comply

This is why doing your due diligence is so important before you buy. If the only advice or due diligence is the agent or marketing company the you are playing with a loaded gun.

The whole purpose of a self managed super fund is to buy properties with the highest level of capital growth because at the end of the day it is the only way to build the value of a self managed fund. Generally a more expensive property will produce a higher level of capital growth. 

Cash flow alone will not help in a self managed super fund and really for these funds capital growth is essensial