Having bought five properties in three years, I can strongly recommend BellMac Settlements.  Fantastic service and very competitive price-wise.  And their receptionist Rose is lovely too!  Contact number is (08) 9407 9226. 

Sorry, I should've said I used water to soak the wallpaper!  Whoops.

We did things a bit differently to shanematt's process.

When we bought our home, we borrowed up to the absolute maximum we could.  It was in late 2006, when the Perth property market was still booming like there was no tomorrow.  We knew that if we didn't buy a house at that point, that we'd probably miss the boat altogether. 

Anyhow, due to a combination of an increase in equity in our home of about 100K over a nine month period, as well as both of us getting promoted, both our equity and income were sufficient for us to buy not one, but two investment properties, just under a year later.

Two years later, we have four investment properties and we're very happy with the way things have gone for us.  All purchases have been based on the equity in our properties continuing to increase, with the income side of things primarily serviced by the rental return.  Our newest acquisition is +vly geared, the others aren't, but close to it.

TIP

Always look up when you're viewing a property.  Inside, this can reveal things like sagging ceilings and bad peeling in places like the bathroom; outside, it will tell you if the gutters etc look like they need work (whether this is repainting or replacement).

TIP

Feel the fear and do it anyway.  Most people are naysayers, and out of the goodness of their hearts, try to discourage you from getting into property investment.  However, most people retire to live on their super, a pension, or combination of the two.  You don't want to be like most people!!  As long as your decisions are informed ones, you'll be in the right ballpark for the kind of retirement most people need to win Lotto to have.

Hi Ajay,

There are disadvantages, certainly.  Off the top of my head, they include:

• decreased capital growth compared to houses;
• regular strata fees (normally every quarter);
• the occasional 'special levy' when the common areas need to be improved (eg. repainting gutters);
• generally higher tenant turnover;
• other tenant-related issues, such as noise from adjoining units, which can upset your tenants; and
• restrictions on what you can do with respect to renovations – you'll need approval from the council of owners to install a/c, for example, as it impinges on common property.

That said, there are advantages as well.  We've always invested in units, as they're cheaper to get into, and so are a good starting point.  Gardens aren't a problem, as the council of owners organises maintenance in common areas.  Also they're generally easy to tenant, as they're cheaper than houses to rent.

We've done this – we have two units in Osborne Park, WA.  For those of you not familiar with it, it's a suburb which in the past was mainly commercial.  It still has a lot of warehouses, retail outlets etc in it, but it's so close to the Perth CBD, and surrounded by much more expensive suburbs, that we could see it was worth investing in.  Due to its proximity to Perth, its good public transport, etc, it's easy to rent out units there.  However, we bought one of the units in a very dodgy group that has extremely poor strata management, which we now wish we hadn't.  That was our poor choice though, nothing to do with the merits of the area!

I agree with voyager's comments – these were the reasons we chose to buy in Osborne Park.

We've always used Rick Hart Seconds – not sure if Rick Hart is a national franchise or not though!  We paid something like $800 for an oven/cooktop/rangehood combo, three months ago.  We couldn't find anywhere that came close to matching it.

Basically, anywhere that sell seconds is a great place to start.  Good luck!!