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Palmerston has changed a fair bit since 1992. I have lived there since 1984. We went through the palmerslum phase which started to change after about 1995. Although alot of the old local still like to call it palmerslum.
Gunn is a delfin developed suburub, build around an escarpment. Its other name is the chase. Better quality housing in the suburub due to delfin standards, alhtough the houses are squeezed together.
Driver and Gray are one of the 4 original suburbs. Grays has a worse reputation than driver. Although there are some good areas in both. Driver and Gray are made up of alot of housing commission/ex-housing commission, although they both have there private areas.
I think personnally Driver is a better suburb than Gray. Gunn is probably better out of the three.
CGU provide building, contents and also land lord protection insurance.
I have found this cheaper than purchasing the land lord protection insurance from my property managers. I have saved nearly $200 a go each time.
I believe land lord protection insurance is a good idea, particuarily the loss of rent option.
I have used Cridlands in the past. They are not bad. Everything went pretty smoothly.
I have been using Homestead Realty for about 6 months now. I have a really good property manager who also has a property of her own. I have found that if the property managers have investment properties of their own they are more effective at their job, as they understanding what you are going through.
I currently have a couple of properties with another rental company and I am about to shift them over to Homestead also.
I have lived in Darwin for nearly 28 years. I have been investing in the Darwin market since 1998. The market did nothing really for most of those years. It has really started to move in Darwin in about the last 15 months. I am not personally looking to invest in any more property in Darwin. I think that the prices have shifted to far. I still keep an active eye on the market, however at the present moment everything I look at does even cover the interest payments.
I am also concerned about the large number of apartment blocks that are being built in the darwin cbd. There has been talk about southern investors buying off the plan. I do not feel that this large number can continue long term, unless we have a significant population boost to the Territory.
I am personally looking elsewhere. Yes returns are still better than probably most of the places down south eg. some properties are yielding 6.5% still, however this does not cover the interest as mentioned previously. I also feel that there may not be much more capital growth instore, unless things change. The market has remained steady price wise since about Feb 04.
