Thanks for your interest and advice guys….food for thought.

byronet – answers: 1) small and not subdividable unfortunately; 2) since the purchase costs and interest repayments outweighed the likely sale price; 3) as per my option 1. Thanks for the other info – will look into it.

Torachan – I know…. I have no doubt that the land value will increase….but we have done some sums along the lines of your quoted increases per year, and if we held on to it for another, say 4 years, (40% increase) – even then it would cost us approx $90K in after tax $$ in interest repayments (and no income as vacant land). If we to build then and sell, with the crystal ball factor with likely construction cost increases, we would make approx $38K profit (gross). Hardly an attractive prospect now for the effort, let alone comparative value in 2008-2009 dollars!

If you were forking out $90K in interest rates would $38K profit sound attractive? As mentioned previously, the problem for us is knowing that we may be making 2 mistakes – ie buying in peak and selling in slump – and if not, then shelling out bucket-loads of interest. Bummer!!!

Thanks again. Pagey