What I’m curious about is what gets you three stars. It seems to be number of posts, but 100 isn’t enough. Somewhere near 110 seems to be the cut-off.

Of course stars only measure quantity, not quality ; )

Peter

Jane – what about paying more than the required payments for the first 5 years so at the end of that time you have a fair amount of equity and a lower outstanding amount.

Then in 5 years time if you find repayments hard going at 10% interest, you could refinance, but for the smaller, remaining amount, so reduce the size of the payments. Of…[Read more]

Margaret Lomas recommends it provided you get building & pest inspectors, etc to look at it for you. She argues that if you look at a place your emotions get carried away.

But there are lots of other matters that an inspection report won’t reveal (eg habits of neighbours, whether the street is too busy to back out of, general quality of area etc)…[Read more]

To respond to Sooshie, here’s the key messages I got from the books on my shelf:

Wakelin’s ‘Streets Ahead’: Go for capital growth by buying quality inner city properties

Fitgerald’s ‘7 steps to wealth’: Go for capital growth by buying inner-city properties with a large land component

Somers (various books): Property investing can work at any…[Read more]

Hi Chris77:

‘I’ve produced a spreadsheet showing population numbers and growth in all 10k+ WA towns. Post your email address and I’ll send it to you’

Yes please! My email address is vk3ye@qsl.net

I’m not too worried about the Geraldton population stats showing a 0.5% decline, which is misleading due to local government boundaries, and is t…[Read more]

Erika wrote:

‘I cant beleive the number of people on this site that dont have a budget!!!!!’

I can. A detailed budget is only one means to give you control over your own finances.

Though a line by line budget works for some people, I’ve so far managed without it. And I consider I run a fairly tight ship on a very ordinary salary.

My recipe…[Read more]

This post won’t be as long as the last (I promise, I promise!!!) but thought I might have a go at Chris’ very good question about whether it’s possible to do well in country towns where the population is declining.

Though some might attain Tasmania-style investor driven capital growth, I would not rely on this.

Instead the only reason I would…[Read more]

Chris – An excellent question : ) that I hope others with more experience than me can answer.

I don’t know the answer, but I’d be wary about investing in areas showing long-term population decline, such as agricultural areas where the trend has been nothing but down for 40 years. On the other hand yields can be fantastic, and there may even be…[Read more]

Lifestyle wrote:

‘How ever people seem to be making money just purchasing land’

Not possible unless they can get someone to rent the land from them, eg agist horses or farmers wanting extra land for more crops.

However if you’re willing to bet that prices will go up, or you are able to get the land rezones, you might make money when you…[Read more]

Hi Cookster: I’m fairly new at all this myself, but I’m finding out that there are three very important factors. These are:

1. Education
2. Capital available
3. Determination and the will to do it

3 is absolutely necessary. 1 and 2 are partially replaceable by one another. For instance if you have $500k cash, you don’t need to know much to…[Read more]

Chris – yes there will always be booms and busts and anyone who says otherwise is underestimating human emotions of fear and greed.

But I look at it this way. The human population is not falling. Housing is a basic necessity (about number 2 or 3). Thus people will sacrifice almost everything to get a roof over their head. So provided that it…[Read more]

Try CGU. Approx $400 for the lot for a small property.

Peter

Hi Chris – My suggestion is get a week or so off work in about a month’s time.

Book (and pay for) a return Prospector train ticket to Kalgoorlie for that week. Now you’ve got a deadline to meet and work towards!

In the next month spend every spare moment researching Kalgoorlie. Find out all you can about the place. Population trends, rents,…[Read more]

Anita Bell’s ‘Your Investment Property’ has a good checklist.

In my opinion you need two checklists. One for various towns you’re considering investing in and then once you’ve made this decision, one for each individual property you want to look at.

The individual property list would start with some simple sums to gauge the investment…[Read more]

BDM wrote:

‘For example, here in Melbourne (and also any other capital city around the country), as a gross generalisation, rents go up over time roughly in line with property prices.’

If that was correct, rents would be unaffordable to many and there’d still be cashflow positive properties in our major capital cities. Yet yields at the moment…[Read more]

Hi Long: I can’t speak for Steve, but my answer to your questions would be:

1. Buying in rapidly rising market

Getting a 10.4% yield on good quality property is tough when the market is hot. In most areas to do it you’d have to do something special, eg make it a boarding house. If you refuse to buy under a particular (fairly high) yield level…[Read more]

Definitely Perth : )

Photo taken from south – South Perth area.

Steph- you’re spot on re identifying the skyscrapers. Melbourne has heaps more -ve geared apartment skyscrapers, which sort of doesn’t match the contents of the book!

Peter (visiting Perth soon returning to Melb)

freby: gotta ask, why do you want to minimise tax?

Taxes bring schools, hospitals, public transport and other good things that make things civilised and add value to your IP (if it’s well-located).

If you’re paying lots of tax, it must mean you’re earning lots of money, which is a good thing, is it not?!

Peter

Well he would say that as he’s premier!

Think of all the extra stamp duty his govt will collect if hordes of eastern states investors descend on WA ; )

Peter

For a beginner who wants something that does not recommend stupid things (eg quitting your job when you’ll need it to help get finance) I suggest Noel Whittaker’s ‘Making Money Made Simple’. It was a best seller and you often see them at garage sales, school fetes, etc for a couple of bucks.

Anything by Paul Clitheroe is also good, even though I…[Read more]