Forum Replies Created
Legend has it that colonel sanders (guy that created KFC) was on the pension at 65, and decided it was not enough money, and he went out pitching his idea of fried chicken and got rejected an enormous amount of times (imagine the people that said no to him, theyd be kicking themselves!) He finally got a yes and went on to become a very rich man at the age of 65.
Also, my parents just bought their very first property at the ages of 39 and 46. Thanks to my persistant nagging that they needed to stop renting! Your never too old or young to start. Dont let that be a wall to your success. As everyone else has said, read read read, and get out there and chat to as many agents as possible, and see as many properties as possible. You will soon pick it all up.
Good luck, the only thing stopping you is your mindset! [crying]CBA has an account called the netbank saver account. It gets you 5.65, the difference between this and all the other accounts, is on other accounts, you generally need to leave your money there, and you only get interest on money above a certain amount. With this account, you get interest on any amount above $1000. Until your 25 that is, once you turn 25, its on balances over 5000, but youve still got years to worry about that!
You get paid interest monthly too, and you can take your money at any time, no hassles, the only thing is, like its name, it only works over the internet, you dont go into the branch for anything, expcept to set it up and put money in.hey,
i was in a similar position myself, still kind of am actually, but you should hold on to it. Im assuming that if you sold, you would make a loss, plus selling is not a fun experience unless were in a boom!
Maybe if your certain that you wouldnt make a loss on one of them, just sell one of them to ease your burden. But only if your sure you wont make a loss. that loss could set back your goals much further.
As someone said to me when i asked for similar advice, property is a long term asset. If you can hold onto it, you will realise your gains eventually, and it wil be worth it.Maybe to ease things up a bit, you should look at some creative investing. Speak to dr. x she will inform you about lease options or wrapping. Maybe do that to one of them, or try flipping some properties to make some cash to inject into the properties to ease the repayments.
I know its tough, but your much better holding onto them if you can.
Good luckHi,
It is very important to have it all on paper, and for every party to know all their rights. You know the ‘horror tenants’ stories you hear on the news? These happen because it wasnt managed properly. Manage your investment well, no matter who is living in your property, even if it is your mother or your sister. Get it in writing!
Im not sure of all states, but if you go the residentials tenancies area in your state, they have free information booklets that will tell you a fair bit.
There will be some sort of residential tenancy office in your state.
Do a google search, theres heaps of info on the net.
Good luck,Skye Taylor
Taywell Investments
Build Your Property PortfolioThe author to richest man in babylon is george s clason.
i would recommend all of kiyosakis books, and dolf de roos books, and richest man in babylon, and think and grow rich. These will help your mentality hugely. These books are worth their cost 10x over, and if you have a good accountant, you can claim them on your tax return!
read as much as you can, it is the cheapest form of learning, and also, you might be interested in our young at heart investors club. We are starting up a club for people new to investing, with the aims of meeting around once a month, to exchange ideas, and help each other. email me if you want more information, at this stage its free to join if your willing to contribute.
Learn as much as you can, read lots and lots of books, and believe in yourself. Your mind is your most powerful tool, as anyone successful will tell you, its not about how much money you have, its about what you believe you can achieve. Most successful people started out with nothing and no schooling, and they worked hard to make their life everything they dreamed it could be. have faith in yourself![thumbsup2]hey phorsha,
i understand there can be a bit of fear when buying interstate, fear of the unknown, perhaps you want to think about using a buyers agent until you get to know certain areas? They will provide you with all the information everyone has suggested, and more, enabling you to make a better informed decision.
I know a good one if your interested!
Otherwise, just make sure you research as much as possible, you can never have enough.
Good luck!There are alot of things you can do on a chea budget. your best bet is to make friends with tradespeople! Alot of them will quite happily work for cash provided theyre paid on time. Pay them the moment the job is done, and youll have a handy friend on call!
Simple things that we have done with our renos are replacing fittings.
We painted our kicthen cupboards (which were mission brown) and added modern handles which we picked up from ebay. we needed 30 handles all up throughout the house, and i got these for $1 each! They retail in stores for about $6 each – thats a saving of $150! Be creative, ebay has lot to offer, go to garage sales and auctions, you might just find a gem, we picked up a new bathroom vanity at a house clearing auction for about $300 off the price, and it transformed the bathroom!
We have replaced, taps (about $25 each) door handles ($10 each) light fittings (DIY $30 each) curtains, mirrors in bathrooms, toilets ($130 each was our cheapest, and it cost us about $20 for a tradie to put it in) And of course, paint the whole place on the inside and outside if you can. A new coat of paint is cheap and does wonders.
Also, make the place look good out front – See another forum on here titled sexy up front. first impressions are everything.All that said thoough, if you dont have the patience to do an excellent job, dont do it. It becomes very clear when you rush a job it looks terrible! If you dont have any skills in this department, find someone that does.
Good luck, email me if you need further help. If you wanted to send me through pictures of the original house, id be more than happy to recommend what you should do to it in a cost effective way.
Congrats on your first home! Hold on to that feeling of buying your first home, it doesnt last long![thumbsup2]
Hey,
Hate to be rude, but it seems like your friend is blowing wind up your a$$. My guess about why she blew you off the next day is because she realised how much she exaggerated. Unless she is on an extremely high income, im talking upwards of 100k a year, there is not much benefit in holding negatively geared property. If your on a high income, yes there is some tax advantages, but its not going to be the type of plan that will put you into retirement. I’ll give some figures, my partner and i are considered to be in the high tax bracket, so we have two negatively geared properties, which we renovated both in the last financial year to claim. I’ll tell you right now the difference between our tax returns from when we did own the property, and when we didnt, was only 3k. While that money helps, its certainly nothing compared to the money that was put out.
I guess it depends on your aim… If you want to buy property to make some tax claims then buy all means buy negatively geared investment property. If you are wanting to become financially free, or to set up a good retirement for yourself, then run as far away from that firend as you can! Buy cashflow positive properties.Personally, i would much prefer to be paying tax as it means ive made a profit, rather than claiming for losses i have made, which means i lost money! Thats what your friend is doing, she is merely claiming for losses she made. Which way do you want to go?[blink]
Hi Sarah,
I’ll tell you about my deal, and Joshua knows about this one as he did the finance for it!!
I had rung an agent to speak to him about one property which i saw had been on the market a while, and i offered a low price for it. Agent said the vendor wasnt prepared to negotiate on that one, but he did have a block of land he was prepared to negotiate on, but only if he could have a fast settlement – divorce. He had only just listed the land, it was listed for 90,000, but the agent said the vendor would take under 85k. I know the area well, and it was located on one of the best streets in town, so i knew straight up that unless there was soil problems, this was undervalued. Then the agent even came out and told me that the council valuation (which is always low) was valued at 113k!!! The agent had a written offer 20 mins later on his fax machine, and the contract signed the next day. This was key. After that, the agent received so many calls because it was so cheap! I was able to secure it at a good price because i was able to act fast, and i could meet the settlement the vendor was after. I still was able to have all my conditions too, as the vendor was happy at getting out so fast.
I see alot of undervalued properties, and if i had buyers for all of them, i would be making offers on all of the properties i find! I was fortunate enough to know someone who wanted to get into property no money down. Seeing as there was 29k equity, no money was needed to finance this deal, it covered the deposit to the bank and all closing costs, and there was equity still left over.
The only time the owner reached into their pocket was for the $1000 deposit to the agent. That was it. And it was Investor Finance that sorted out the deal, they were very good in making sure it went through.$1000 to make $29,000?
Possible to do if you are ready to take action, be brave enough to be honest with the agent, and not be worried about them not liking you ( i guarantee if you make low offers they probably wont be friendly) but this is business so dont stress about it. You also need to be able to understand the sort of clauses you can put in your contracts/offers so that if the deal turns out to be dud, you can always pull out of the deal. I had three exit options on my contract for this one, so that if the valuation didnt come back at 113k, i was able to cancel the contract. This allows you also to make low offers on properties, to see if they get accepted. What hapens if you got three accepted, but only had the finance for one? You need exit strategies. Read up on clauses you can put in contracts, safe in the knowledge you wont get yourself into trouble by defaulting on contracts. Or hire a buyers agent to do all the work for you if this seems too daunting. I know a good one if you decide to go down that path.
Read read read all you can, learn how agents work, then put them to your advantage. As Steve said once, he rings up agents and asks them if they have problem properties. He then goes about trying to find a solution for them, and makes money on the side to create that win/win scenario. Find your motivated sellers, and find out why they are selling, see if you can help them in any way. I heard of one guy who was willing to sell wholesale price but he wanted his credit cards paid out, which werent much, still resulting in profit for the buyers. Anything can be written into a contract!
Anything is possible if you believe it is.
Get out there and make some enemies with agents!!![biggrin]to bear,
i just wanted to tell you to be careful about claiming business expenses.
I dont know about other states, but in my state, you have to be a registered agent to ‘carry on in the business of real estate, frequently trading’. This means you have to go do numerous very expensive courses. About 10k worth here in my state, just to fulfil a legal obligation.
You cant be operating a ‘business’ without being accredited. I know your not saying your operating a business, but if your claiming expenses in a business sense in your tax, then what are you doing? Do you know what i mean? The eventual drama if you are caught is just not worth losing what youve already built up. Its not a risk worth taking for the benefit of a few tax deductions.That said, i claimed about $700 on all the books i bought last financial year, i think it was as said before, as self education. I know i was also able to claim all of it because i manage my own properties. I dont whether you do, but this helps to claim alot of things. I claimed everything in my office, my computer, fax, printer, desk, and chair!
Just something to think about…
I dont know all the details, but if your going to be saving 30k on the difference between a brand new property, and a 1-2 yr old property, go with the 1-2 yr old property. You’ll still get heaps of depreciation, which is why i assume most people buy new houses as investments. Keep the money in your pocket, and still get some back at tax time? Sounds good to me…
dont forget to get your lawyer to draw something up that states the agreement, what happens if any of you need to get out etc. how long the property will be kept, division of capital gains etc
It would be terrible to fall out with your friends over property, it doesnt matter how good friends you are, get it in writing every time!
This would also help if you decide not to go with the hybrid trust thing, because if you didnt do that, the loan would have to have all your names on it. How messy would that be if one of them didnt pay? the other three of you would be liable!This sounds like an awesome idea!
I think whoever said it was right, there needs to be some sort on online thing. Seeing as we are all from far reaching parts of the country, it is going to be very hard to network.
I have some ideas of how it could work, and i would love to organise this, but is there the interest for it? The biggest thing it would have for all you guys is a kind of chat room, and there would need to be a ‘director’ of sorts for each state, and it would be partly up to that person to choose dates, locations etc to meet. There could be a meeting group for each state, and then there could be notes posted on the site about what happened at that meeting for people who couldnt make it.
There needs to be a focal point from which the whole thing could operate from, and i would be happy to organise that, how do the rest of you feel?
[thumbsupanim]Hey,
Dont hate now, but my fiancee is actually a lender for a big bank, and their valuers always go inside the property.
But that doesnt always help, i recently did exactly what you did, reno on my property, got the valuer round so i would have more finance, but she valued it only 20k more! And thats after 18monthsfrom the last val, so she has really only allowed for the growth in the area, not even taken into account whats on the land or what it looks like.
There have been so many recent sales in the street, i know what its worth and its so far off the mark, but how do i complain when we work there?!
How do i know what its worth? Im also a non-practising qualified real estate agent, and i have acess to the street sales, and she is about 50k off, and that is being realistic.
Maybe dazzling is right, maybe they only take into account the land – in that case, we should all be getting hotvaluer to value all our properties if she says she takes into account the improvements!
This isnt my only experience either. We bought a unit specifically to renovate, had it valued before we did it as it was a condition of finance, and it came back at 160k. we spent a few thousand doing it up, and it looked spectacular, but she came back and valued it at 160k again! What the? so this deal was no good to us at all, and were now selling it to make a loss [crying]
My point here is that if a low valuation can happen to us, it can happen to anyone! It has definately made me rethink the purpose of renovating, unless you bought at an extremely good price going in, and increased the value that way, i truly believe that valuers only take into account the land value,not even recent street sales, because our valuer sure didnt!trish,
i may not have understood you properly, but i buy all my properties in my name with ‘and or nominees’ after it, so that if i decide to change the structure, i can do so before settlement without any hassle. Say for example, i sold it before settlement, then i would change from my name into the new owners name right before signing transfer papers.
If however, you meant, you wanted to change it into a structure, after settlement, then yes it is a headache waiting to happen. You have to pay stamp duty again, plus all these other costs. Its better left alone at that point.Wow, 2 yrs for approval, no wonder your over it!
You have come this far, why stop now? Your halfway over the hill, just roll on down, and cash in on your patience!
Wes,
Ive found private landlords easier to deal with than agents, as private landlords are not usually as clued up as a property manager should be.
They also are alot more relaxed.
All that said, this is a vague generalisation, i have heard horror stories about bad landlords, so for all those that are just waiting to correct me, i know, bad private landlords do exist!
Just remember, as a tenant, you hold the power. The law in every state is biased towards the tenant. Good for you, not so good for the owner.thanks lyndon, i may just take you up on that offer sometimes!
and im a certified non practising real estate agent, so if you need any advice when it comes to dealing with them, or with laws, ask me anytime!And good luck with the council, dazzling!
Thanks for all that so far! That helps, im not stumbling in the dark any more, i have glasses now!
it is located in a coastal town, and it is way up on a hill, so flooding is definately not a concern, but im worried that maybe it might be too sandy?
But people have been building here for years, there are not too many original homes in this town left! So it should be alright…I think it depends on the sort of house you are selling. You need to look at your target market, and think how they think.
If your target market is in the higher end, the luxury side of the market, or even if it is for a family, then it might be worth putting furniture in. Definately, it would improve your end sale price way more than what it cost you in the first place.
But if your target market is investors, and your in an area where yields or good, or people like to invest in as rentals, then leave it with no furniture. Investors dont need to see that stuff to determine whether they buy it or not.
Furniture is usually used to create emotion in the buyer to pay more money, therefore as investors dont buy on emotion, there would be no need.
I’ll say it again – know your target market!
Good luck!
