It does and I appreciate you taking the time to post.  I am so determined to make a success of this when I am ready to go for it.  A good friend of mine died yesterday at 38 years old and I am a 36 year old FIFO worker. Those two elements alone are enough to drive me to ensure that I get it right, get myself financially independent and start to truly live the life I want to be living, spending quality time with my family whenever we want to rather than missing birthdays etc etc.  I'll make mistakes along the way like I;m sure everyone has but I'll learn from them and get it right with experience.

Thanks again

Hi Benny. Thanks for your feedback.  

The figures you are looking at are the profit and loss figures based on a repayment mortgage and interest only mortgage.  Very feasable for these figures to be on +ve and one -ve as the payments for the two different mortgages would of course be very different. The "outgoing" figures you are referring to are in the column to the left and these are simply the total outgoings based on repayment and interest only rather than any profit or loss.

The depreciation figures you are looking at are based on my using BMT calculation tool online with a $300k property I think it was built in 2000.  The figure is what I expect I would get back based on the minimum figure they gave me on that property, I took that figure, divided it by 100 then multiplied it by my tax rate which I think is 38%.  ( I am a high earner and a colleague tells me this is my rate)  The initial figure was about $8000 I think.

The LMI has two places to record it and this is an error on mine.  You have seen an empty box that I had forgotten Ihad in there. LMI is in ther and it is on the left hand side.  I add the LMI, the stamp duty and the deposit together to get total outlay and use that figure against capital gain and profit to give me my cash on cash return figure.

It has some very pretty colours too in the flesh.. lol   but the imprtant thing I am trying to work out here basically is, am I missing something when I am calculating my cash flow forcast on specific properties.  It seems I can find quite a few using my spreadsheet that are negatively geared until I add the depreciation schedule after which they become positive.  I have heard many many times that although they do exist, cash flow properties are very hard to find so I am sure that with my in-experience I would not find them as easily as I have been which makes me certain that I must have mis calculated something.  I am happy to email it out to people to have it picked through.  

Someone on here once did that and reconstructed it putting in some great stuff, but the problem with that was that I didn't understand how the figures were calculated so therefore could not verify them and that meant I could only go on trust that they were correct.  I did ask for them to be explained and questioned a couple of other things in the spreadsheet similar but I feel I may have offended the guy by asking at all as I got no response from him after that.

I see that in the first link above, inflation has been factored in which is something I hadn't thought about and of course, any investment needs to beat inflation at the very least or you are actually losing money.

   Thanks for that. Lets see if this wprks then.  It looks like it didn't allow the formulas to come over as well so it will be simply for looking at rather than playing with I think.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar-bWgqS5OBDdHFtZUQ1ck5wSkEtcTRINkh1ejRWMlE&usp=sharing

Ok so that didn't display as I wanted it to.  I'll try again here.  …..

Its not going well, anyone know how to get it here for display?

Brilliant and thanks for the advice.

I would like to know how much I can expect to get back.  I think I'm right in saying that if the building is post 1985 I would be able to claim section 43 ( the building itself) so the value of schedule would be higher.  I have used a calculator from BMT and they said that if the property was around 2007 and valued at $300,000 I would expect to get about $6000-$7000 in the first year, but to clarify something else, that's not what I actually get in my pocket is it.  What I get in my pocket is a value of tax at my marginal rate based on that figure.  I am in the high tax bracket so the $7000 would come off my earning as a loss and as I will have already paid tax on that I would see the value of the tax I will have paid of $7000 as a rebate. So if I am at 40% I would receive 40% of the $7000 as a rebate, so a rebate of $2800?

How do I fid out the age of a property being sold online?  I have emailed a few of the agents selling the properties to ask for this information and I get little response.  Is there a better way?

Thanks again

Paul

Ok, I'll try to answer these questions.

What is the size of the unit?

The advert doesn't say but it looks tiny from the picture

What are the body corp fees like?

I cant see anything about that and its also not a term I am familiar with.

What factors will drive future growth in the area?

I have been in touch with the local council regarding this and as yet they have not got back to me but looking on their website it seems they have plans to increase the overall look of the place in the next 20 years and will continue to carry out the improvement works that they have been doing for the last 10 years.  They are to replace an old bridge in town with a better one which will increase traffic flow around the city and are spending money improving the shopping areas and road networks but is this any different to most towns.  I have yet to see anything that is significant in driving growth in the near future.  I know a lot of people who live in nearby Perth who are amazed at what can be bought in the area and its my belief that as this knowledge spreads over time, with the new rail links and freeway that was recently installed, demand in the area will grow.  It may be the case though that the amount of property recently built in the area would ruin any increase in house prices.  I am no expert here yet….

* Close to schools? * Shops? * Public transport?  Yes to all the above.  A good location in the town for access to everything

* Contact council for any public notice proposed developments in the suburb?  Have done with no response yet.

By income do you mean CF+?  Yes, that's what I mean.  I'll address goals and see if I am looking for the right thing.

1. Will this move me towards my goal in the short term?

2. Will this move me towards my goal in the long term?

3. Will I still be able to continue investing after buying this property, or will this limit future investments?

4. Is this a level of risk I am comfortable taking? Yes, I am deliberately looking in the lower end of the market because if I make mistakes and don't get it right the first time, I don't want them to be hugely costly ones.  I can afford this place if it was empty and also if the interest rates go up so I have a good buffer to make mistakes. That said I don't want to make any if I can help it.  That brings me on to my goals…

Goals.  My short, mid and long term goals are as follows.  

Short,    I want to learn what makes a successful property investment and have taken a step to buy my first real property investment from scratch within one year and have a property tenanted within that time armed with a good team around me.  I would like to also find a mentor in this time to help me through the process.  When I say my first real property, I should maybe point out that I have one already but although I had turning it into an IP in mind when I bought it, its primary purpose was a home for my new family.  That was ten years ago now and we moved away from it to come to Australia.  The house is in the UK.  It is now tenanted and has been for a year.  Its going well so far but I know that I could have done it better.  I am looking to purchase another house for my family now we are living here in Oz and then also buy an IP from scratch deliberately, solely as an IP so that's a different view point altogether and I acknowledge this.

Mid.  I want to have a portfolio which produces and income for me that throws off passive income so I can pay off my own home at a rapid rate.  I want to be able to relax and know that I have achieved at least that level of a $400k house paid off within ten years.  I can overpay with my own money but I would like some assistance from property investing, or any other investing for that matter.  I'll be happy with having just 5 or so properties giving say $40 per month net as even just that will make a big difference to the mortgage and help me towards my long term goal.

Long.   I want to have paid off the house and set up a portfolio that will provide enough passive income that I can call it a day at work and just run my own small company doing what I love which is playing with my boat.  I want to go traveling with my wife and be able to go for an infinite time not governed by money.  I want a property in Florida as we love the place and I would like to be able to go live there for six month of the year if we decided to.  I am happy for this Florida house to be a rental for holiday makers while we are not there but my wife and I are nuts about Disney, Universal and the whole Florida experience, NASA etc so this is a big goal for me.  I met someone who was traveling around in a caravan with his wife at aged 50 odd and he said that all he needs is $3000 a month to carry on dong that forever.  That sounds great to me, just traveling around the country or even the world meeting people and seeing everything.  So in short I would like financial freedom as my long term goal and I put a timeframe of 20 years on this as I am 35 years old now.

So with all of this in mind, how would I be looking to structure my portfolio.  Even knowing what I want to achieve doesn't make clear what type of investment would be right for my.  I need money to achieve my goals but in what form?  Help needed here I think.

Hi Ariann

I’m saving like crazy at the moment for a deposit so I’m not ready to pay for anything but I don’t think that’s what you are saying. I’d like to hear anything you have to say which would help me. I can highly recommend napoleon hill audio from audible.

I am currently downloading about 30 hours of podcasts using an ipod app for free called rssradio. Not listened to anything from it yet as I’m still getting through the Napoleon hill audio.

I’m not overly familiar with dropbox yet. I have an account but I’ve not had the reason to use it as yet.

Thats really the problem Jamie.  Where I am I cant watch you tube because I will chew through the data on my phone really quickly.  I can get MP3's on the company laptop using their internet but I could use some advise where to find some good stuff.

Thanks for your point of view Luke.  I'll look into those area's too.  I hadn't thought about the amount of new stock being built and although there looks to be a lot of development in the area, your right there is also a lot of new housing.  The places you mention are still close enough to be able to tweak myself.