Generally that is correct. In most cases they will only have control if you signed a long term sole agency agreement. This is unlikely. The only reason a property will not rent out comes down to price. I suggest you look at other properties in the area and see what there asking rents are like compared to yours.

Personally  I would not touch student accommodation they are a third rate investment. You get no capital growth in fact if anything the values go backwards. Also there are lots of student accommodation being built at present and with numbers being down on student as well I would expect the rents to fall as well

Stay away from this type of investment they are duds in my opinion 

I think the problem is that it will be impossible for a retailer in many cases paying high rent and staff wages and commission to compete with someone with an online business.

No matter how far they lower interest rates, this will not change.

Rent to buy is a great concept and is becoming very popular in the United States at present because finance is still very hard to obtain. I know one guy who has done over 2000 vendor finance deals since 1996.

Its not a bad way for Australians to get into the US market. Because you can help locals become home owners

It is a good strategy both Vendor finance and rent to own but naturally there will always be people that want to take advantage of people.

That,s why due diligence is always important

The way to look at this is you are not only going to be able to charge more rent but it will also make it easier to rent out and you will be able to select a better tenant.  

One thing that always amazes me with investors is they dont want to solve problems if it involves money. If you add an airconditioner it adds some value but as the rental markets tightens and it will, if you have 10 tenants with a choice of 20 properties and 5 have airconditioners which ones do you think will be let first.

About 6 years ago one of my properties had the hot water service stop working. Yep both tenants and owners like that. What I did was replace the hot water service with an endless unit. As my tenants had kids they could not have been happier. So what happened was I turned a negative result into a positive one. The tenants remained for another 3 years until I eventually sold the property. So lets not forget that in many cases tenants are as fussy as owners and if we can keep them happy and make then think of your investment as their home you will have a happy tenant and a great investment.

Some of the experts believe there will be a big correction. That's why I believe property is a better and safer investment. If shares do fall people may put more money into property again.

Hi Royce

Yes you are in a strong position and you may wish to reduce the tax you are paying and look to buy high growth property. I agree it does not make sense to you to buy a home to live in. These days I would advise most people starting out to rent and buy investments because home ownership does not make financial sense. If you buy a home to live in it does nothing to reduce your tax and you have the burden of carrying the full loan.

By investing it gives you the opportunity of buying in another location that may provide stronger capital growth. I think investing  gives you a lot more options

Stamp duty is different in every state, for instance the stamp duty on established property is the most expensive in Australia. However if you buy an off the plan property the stamp duty is only based on the land value, so it is possible to buy a $500,000 property and only pay a few thousand in stamp duty. Now if you buy the same property anywhere else in Australia you will pay stamp duty on the full contract price. 

I agree site down with a good broker because frankly if you have $150,000 saved and are saving $10,000 a month you are clearly on a good salary. So what you should be doing is buying property with strong capital growth. My feeling is you could buy in a better area than Newcastle.

You also need to consider what sort of strategy you want to do. For instance do you have the time to renovate or develop a site. These are the things you need to consider carefully. Once you have worked through those things you can then look at where you are going to buy.