As far as I know the only company that will do a building insurance policy for a house which is going to be on sold using an Instalment Contract is Australian Unity. And the broker who got this policy set up by Australian Unity is Money Matters Financial Services in Melbourne. The person to talk to there is Thad Bednarski (03) 9571 5700.
They also cover malicious damage by the wrappees. The policy premium is 40% higher than your standard building policy and even though people have been trying to get that reduced, no luck yet.
I don’t know of anybody selling a policy to cover non payment of Instalments.
I hope this helps.
Cheers, Paul
PS. We pay the “normal” premium when we buy the property and then get levied the extra 40% when we send Thad the details of the wrappees.
So far we have sold 5 homes using vendor finance Instalment contracts, i.e. Wraps. All in NSW. Two of the 5 received the FHOG. One couple paid us a $3,000 deposit and the other couple paid $1,000.
I’d suggest you have a chat with Tony Cordato. I believe he should be able to give you the correct info.
Andre, sorry I can’t help you much with your finance question. However, Algenon I can help you with what the FIRB has to say about Lease/Options to non-residents.
If a lease for a residential property is less than 5 years (including any possible extensions), FIRB approval is not required for that lease. If longer than 5 years then it is required.
The FIRB also suggest that when writing up the Option you include wording which only allows the Option to be excercised if the Option holder is granted permanent residence prior to the expiry of the Option.
Thanks for that. I was a broker up until awhile ago and still do the odd application.
What I’ve heard is that a lot of lenders have real problems refinancing clients out of an Instalment Contract. I’ve also heard that a few or a couple (I’m not sure) don’t have a problem with this. I’m looking for those few so that I don’t have to waist my time with the others.
I’m not sure if I’m able to mention a thread on another website but here goes anyway. The couple that are featured in the latest issue of API, post regularly in another forum under the name “quiggles”. They have written a very informative series of posts about their U.S. investing experiences at: http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18101
I noticed you’re based in NSW. A lawyer that does a lot of work on Lease/Options and Instalment Contracts in NSW is Tony Cordato. His phone number is (02) 8297 5600. His web sit is: http://www.businesslawyer.com.au
There are 3 wrap friendly lawyers listed for WA on the Vendor Finance (Wraps) Association of Australia website. On the “Wrap Specialist” page. The Association’s website can be found at: http://www.financewraps.asn.au
We have done what you might call “traditional” wraps but not via H&L packages so I’ll stay out of that part of the conversation.
Just a quick point on “wraps” in S.A. Selling real estate via an Instalment Contract (normally called a “wrap”) in S.A. is illegal. However don’t let this put you off. You can use the lease/option strategy in S.A. quite legally.
I can think of 3 options. There probably are more.
1. When I was a mortgage broker we had access to a lender who would supply loans to 105%, 110% and 115% of valuation. You have to be perceived as a very “solid” risk by the lender to get one of these. That usually boils down to a great employment history (among other things). The interest rate is usually up to a couple of percent above the norm.
2. Purchase a property from somebody who supplies vendor (seller) finance using what is called an “Instalment Sales Contract”. With these you can usually “get in” for a deposit as low as $1,000. You won’t get the FHOG so we’ll discount that. I know suppliers of this type of finance who “sell” their money from as low as 6.2% all the way up to 9%.
3. Another form of vendor (seller) financing is the “Lease/Option”. Here you lease a property for anywhere from 1 year to 30 years. At the same time you buy an “option” from the seller to purchase the property for a fixed price at anytime up until the expiry of the option. A lot of suppliers of lease/options also credit a portion of your rent towards your deposit. Thereby allowing you to build your deposit while actually occupying your future home and , at the same time, benefitting from any capital gain over and above your agreed option (strike) price. Once again, I’ve seen people “get into” a lease/option agreement for as little as $1,000.
This web site has some great information on both lease/options and Wraps (Instalment Sales Contracts). I’d suggest you do a search and read about both. Also, contact a good mortgage broker and check out if the 105%, 110% and 115% mortgages are still available.
If you are looking for software to manage your clients’ loans then I’d agree 100% with Scott, i.e. Loan Alert is the best around.
If you are looking for Accounting Software to do the books for your wrap business then I don’t think there is any specific software available. We use MYOB but we found that the finances of a wrapping business do not fit the “normal” mould within MYOB. Another friend who is a wrapper uses Quick Books and has the same problem. The problem is that most of your software entries end up having to be done as “journal” entries and this isn’t an intuitive process for non book keeping types.
Our solution was to hire a MYOB specialist book keeper to get MYOB up and running for us. And we still use her once every couple of months to get the “books” up to date.
With the Vendor Finance (Wraps) Association in its current “interesting” state, do you think it will be possible for them to be asked to comment on the draft paper?
I’d hate to see the Association sidelined completely as I think it just may be possible to rebuild it into something very worthwhile in the future.
If the wrappee just “up and left”, i.e. did a runner and could no longer be found, then they would be in default and the property would probably revert back to the wrapper.
This is not hard and fast as you may have clauses in your contract which endevour to give defaulting wrappees their accumulated equity back (after expenses). This idea of returning accumulated equity to wrappees seems to be relatively new but IMHO will grow in strength as wrappers see that a mechanism like this does help to protect wrappers from the “tabloid” media repots we are subject to from time to time.
If you as the wrapper did get the property back, it’s absolutely up to you as to whether you would turn it into a buy and hold, i.e. rent it or wrap it again.
Yes that’s pretty much the idea. You just set up a 12 month lease with a 12 month option. You then set their lease payment at a level which makes the property cashflow positive for you (including rates, insurance, etc), plus a weekly amount which will be your client’s rent credit. As you say, if they are able to cope with this for 12 months you can roll them over into a 3 year lease option and possibly later an instalment contract.
I believe both Steve and Rick SUGGEST that houses are better than units because people who buy units tend to be more transient. That is, a lot of people buy a unit because they can’t afford a house but they are still aiming for a house in the future. This is obviously not a hard and fast rule but if you are looking at doing long term wraps then clients who buy a house from you may be more likely to stay in that house for the long term.
I would be very careful here before I just put it down to poor cash flow management skills and head off to try to consolidate their debts into a loan with a lower interest rate.
It is usual for wrappees to be paying more for their installment payments they they usually pay in rent. If they are having problems now, how are they going to handle the higher instalment repayments?
Also, if you are using an installment contract and not a lease option, you are effectively providing credit to your clients. As a provider of credit, it is your duty to satisfy yourself that your clients have every chance of making all the payments necessary under your credit contract. Unfortunatley you now have information that shows that your clients may not be able to handle their future repayments and this information could possibly be used against you in a future court action which may try to set aside your contract as “unconcionable”. Not a nice place to be!
At best, I might let them rent the place for 12 months, with an attached 12 month savings plan or maybe a 12 month option. Both arrangements would allow for some form of rent credit from each weeks rental payment, to go towards their future deposit on the property.
I live in a free standing house so please check the following with a good insurance broker.
The structure of you apartment block, i.e. the building, is usually covered by building insurance which is purchased by the Strata Title Committee (or Manager). Your only input to this is the “say” you have as an apartment owner and therefore a Strata Committee member.
You are then left with the responsibility of getting “Contents” insurance for the “stuff” in your apartment. This “Contents” policy will normally cover you against loss of the contents of your apartment, caused by fire, theft and other “defined” occurrences.
I’d just like to completely agree with the advice offered by Lucifer_au. Steve’s home page has an add for Steve’s Wrap Kit for $695!! In my view this Kit or Rick’s Wrap Pack are essential reading before getting into this business. And the benefit of both these resources is they lead you step by step into building your business. Good luck for the future.
Couldn’t agree with you more. Any suggestions from the NSW “vendor financiers” for a time and a place for the first NSW meeting? My personal preference is sometime in Feb.
Taking a leaf out of Felicity’s book, I propose Tony Cordato as NSW’s first guest speaker. I’ll wait a couple of days before contacting Tony to make sure people don’t have a problem with this.
Also I don’t want to be seen as stepping on any toes here so if Jack Dempsey or Rick want to slide in here and take over the organising of this meeting, please just say the word.
Re the location. We have quite a number of people in Sydney and quite a few in Newcastle and elsewhere. My 2 cents worth for the location of the first meeting is somewhere on the Central Coast (half way).