Hi All,

I just wanted to point out that the law is the same in SA as it is in QLD, and i think you would find it is pretty similar right across the country. Its called the Trade Practices Act. Also, this law does not allow for intention. Meaning, if an agent unintentionally makes a statement, that causes you financial loss as a result of that statement, they are still liable. So dont let them feign ignorance. Whether they knew or not, ignorance is irrelevant.
So, if you think that perhaps you might have been wronged by the advice of an agent, call a property lawyer!
Trade Practices Act affects alot of people, so think about lenders, insurance salespeople, lawyers, accountants etc, they all have a fiduciary duty to look after your best interests.
Hands up who has a horror story of an agent? I know alot of people do, and it shouldnt be that way. The law says they are not allowed to mislead at all, yet how many who do? I know that in the town i grew up in, every single agent there was dodgy, and they were not acting with the clients best interests at all. Dodgy dodgy dodgy!! So what to do when dealing with agents? Ask direct questions, and if you believe it sounds too good to be true, write it down!! They arent allowed to lie at all not even indirectly. Remember that!!

Dazzling,

Obviously, you are so not alone here. I also have a parner not really interested in investing. it is my passion, and me constantly dragging him on.
my problem is, he is the high income earner between us, and yet when i tell him he cant spend his own money on rubbish, he gets a little cross, but once he calms down, he realises i am right, and he does want to own lotsa property, he just doesnt like going without.
He also has a passion for greyhound racing. I have told him, when we acquire another 3 properties, he can buy a greyhound. I see that as fair, because it is luck wether that greyhound makes him money or not, but it has been proven that real estate will eventually make you money (in theory anyway!) So, find out what is her passion, and sorry to sound harsh, but use it against her to get her support. Eventually, it will sink in. Be patient. I wish i could learn patience.
Most of all, remember why you married her in the first place. dont try to change her to be as excited about investing as you are, because you are different people, but you can learn alot from each other.
You can teach her to be smarter with her money, but she might be able to teach you how to have fun outside of property.
but tell her, that if she wants to love you and support you, she needs to be interested in the things you care about. Just as much as you maybe take an interest in the things she cares about? Im assuming here anyway.

Good luck with it all, maybe your wife can talk to my fiance, and they can laugh with each other about their respective partners going on and on and on and on and on and on about property!!!! I feel sorry for him sometimes when im yakking on about a deal im excited about, i know im boring him, but i cant help myself. At least he pretends to listen!!![laughing]

Hi All,

Im 20, and i have two properties. Both are in a coastal town great for CG. One is a house, which we used to live in, but is now being rented out +CF thanks to a good purchase price, and the other one is a very negatively geared unit, which will offset a high income.
I plan on buying four more properties this year, and from then on, i want to acquire at least 6 a year. [lmao]
Sound optimistic? Good. It should. If thats one thing i can recommend to others, is that you should set your goals impossibly high, so that say for example, i only end up buying 4 or 5 next year, hey thats still a fair accomplishment. What is the point in setting goals that are easy to obtain? There is no challenge in that.
Here are my tips:[thumbsup2]
PASSION will go a long way. Everyone in and related to this industry will love you for it and will help you more, because trust me, starting out, you will need all the help you can get!
EDUCATION you can never learn too much, and you will NEVER learn it all. There have been times (because im young) that i think i do know it all, and then i learn something new and realise that i may be 99 yrs old, and still never know it all.
GOALS set good goals and put them somewhere you see them every day so you subconsciously make active steps to achieve them. Sounds simple, but it can be quite hard to write them. Read Napoleon Hill’s, Think and Grow Rich. Classic.[medieval]
LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES When you are first starting out, dont be afraid to make mistakes. The lucky thing about being young, is that if you do stuff up really bad, and lose everything, hey your young, just start again. I made soooo many mistakes the first time round, and yes i did lose about 30k, but the good thing is, while it was an expensive way to learn, i learnt the hard way, and i will never make those mistakes again.[crying]
ASK QUESTIONS talk to everybody! [specs]There may be people who seem so unassuming, but who are so knowledgable on the subject. Which moves me onto the next tip:
NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING
Dont assume that that man over there driving that beat up ford, wearing grubby overalls has no money, or is stupid, what on earth is he doing at the auction blah blah, he may just be perfect for your next JV, or may help you in some way! Dont judge people. Ill tell you a story… a friend of mine, went to an open house one day, and there was no one in there but him, he was dressed not daggily, but casual, and the agent hands him a black and white brochure, and says “If your going to buy it, ill give you a colour one”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what the?[grrr]
This friend of mine actually has the capacity to buy this place, but the agent lost out on a sale for sure because he assumed my friend couldnt afford it. he walked out of that door quick smart!
FIND A GOOD ACCOUNTANT make sure you find a ‘property’ accountant, not a shares accountant. I went to my ex accountant, and asked him how and what sort of structure we could set up for buying lost of CF+ properties, to protect them. I knew we had to do some sort of trust, i just didnt know what. He laughed and said why the hell would you want to buy those? Your just paying more tax! I was like get a clue, i would prefer to be earning money and paying tax, than not earning money and claiming for a loss?! What a moron![laughing]
Thats all i can think of for now, good luck everyone, i hope to post some good brags in the future when ive done really well.
P.S. Im quitting my day job at 25 to be a full time property reno-er and developer. Thats my end goal and ill do anything to make it![suave3]

Hi Xenia,

I agree with having something short and punchy! But then again, how about incorporating two names i.e Mena & Golding Pty Ltd, so it seems as if you have been around forever. i dont know, its just a general impression i have that the two last names, makes it sound established.
Investment Central…
Maximena… [laughing] or Maxixenia – people wuld have fun pronouncing it!
Supermena…… (get it?? ha ha as in superman?)
Prodigy Investments…
Ainex Property…

Send me an email when you have decided on one, so if i havent heard from you, i am going to keep trying to come up with something!!!

Wow… I just read the last three posts on the first page.
Guess what guys? Cash flow off the shelf is still out there? How do i know? Because i am a researcher for a buyers agency that specializes in returns above 9%. here is something even more amazing, i send them through deals every week. There are still deals going strong out there, and i am finding them from the comfort of my office. I do agree with the first few posters, it is a good idea to get out there, and talk to people, but remember, you have two ears, and one mouth, so make sure you listen more than you talk.
Im sorry, but people make me so cross when they say CF+ doesnt exist. [grrr] I am making healthy profits by finding these deals all the time, i have the facts to tell you they exist. It just means you need to take a risk. If you arent prepared to take higher risks for the higher gain, then stick with the negative gearing. Because you are getting more money for your property, of course there is going to be more risk than if you had bought in a capital city for example, but you have to constantly monitor your returns and the areas, and have back up plans to offset those risks, and you will be fine. To the people whinging that no one will give you any help – what sort of help do you want? locations? heres a clue… i have spent many hours researching, chatting to agents all around the country, paying massive phone bills because of this, and i spend many late nights on the internet (so remember that to the guy who said they dont exist on the net, i get the majority of my properties off realestate.com), and generally put in alot of hours, why would i give away that information for free? If your not after locations, then what more info do you need, considering you have said you read all the books etc?
Do you know they dont teach geography at school anymore? Im 20, and never learnt geography, so i have worked really hard to understand this country. I bought maps of all the states, and they are pinned up on my office walls. Want to know how i have done it? I picked one state, and i am researching every town. Every single little town. This involves reading and calling agents. I cross each town off if i find it is not going to be feasible, and write notes next to it, if i have heard of future infrastructure and such, so they may be good in the future. Im only up to the start of my second state, but hey i could tell you lots about every little town i did research in that particular state!! It does take time, i have been doing this since december of last year, while working full time, but if your not patient, then your in the wrong industry.
Perhaps that might help the newbie investors. Learn all you can about your country, read newspapers, and research all you can. ANd dont be afraid to take a risk. As long as you know what the risks are, and how you can rectify any problems that may arise.
Best thing you can do is obtain more knowledge, at the end of the day, it keeps your brain active, and it may open it up to more opportunites. ever heard people say, oh they got lucky? And then there is a saying, i found i got luckier the harder i worked? These people just saw more opportunites, its not luck, just open eyes.[blink]

Elka,
My fiancee is a home loans lender for a popular bank, and we have structured our loans all the same way. Make sure she gets the honeymoon rate first up, and ensure the rate is still good after. You can save alot of interest taking the honeymoon rate first up. Then we left them at variable rates, only because with fixed rates, the loan itself it pretty much fixed. You generally cant make extra reapyments, redraw, or anything like that, it can be quite restricting. What she should do, is budget for the repayment if it was one whole percent higher, that way if interest rates do go up, she has a back up plan. If she can budget for that, and still afford it, she should make the extra repayments too, because that will allow to fall back on it if they do rise. They will only rise by half a percent, according to the financial review anyway, so thats a good way of having a back up plan.
Any questions, we would be happy to help.

I have to agree with Dr X,
I just completed my real estate course (so did she) to become a buyers agent, and after asking everyone in REISA, to conduct deals, flipping and due diligence, etc, you must work under an agency. And even then, in SA, the basic understanding is that you need to do Cert. 4 as well.

There isnt much legislation on it in SA as its relatively new in this state, but the new laws that should be coming in in a few months might change all that. I only know about this state and NSW though.

Good luck!

http://www.househunters.com.au

Even as a new investor, as Margaret Lomas once said, (she is a positive cashflow investor, in case you didnt know) if the deal adds up and you have weighed up all the risks, why do youhave to see it? What difference is viewing the property going to make, apart from emotionally? The reason i believe that most people feel a need to see the property before buying is that property is real, unlike shares or other forms of investing.
Say for example you were investing in shares… would you ask to see the company before investing in it? No you wouldnt, because its all abou the numbers.
if the deal adds up to be profiatble, i would say go for it. However, i am definately not saying you should go ahead and buy something from a town you havent thoroughly researched either. its all about doing your due diligence. Like someone else mentioned on this forum, try steves product, buyer beware, its a great product, and will help you research. Dont rely solely on this product though. When you think you have found an area that may be cash positive, do some research on google, or other such search engines. You may find a newspaper article on something bad happening in the town that the agents in the area are just not going to tell you about. If it is a big problem, walk away, if you can work out what the risks are, and have back up plans should something go wrong, then you have weighed up the risks, and you would know what to expect.
Again, another reason i wouldnt advocate insisting on seeing the property before signing the dotted line, is that positive properties are really rare these days, and do not last longer than 48 hours on the market most of the time. So if you need to fly out to an interstate possible property, not only could this turn out to be very expensive if the property is not what you thought it would be, but you could fly out there, only for it to come off the market while your on the plane over there! How do i know this? because i contract for a buyers agency who specialize in positive properties, and i have seen how fast these go. You need to have your research done on a town before you start looking for a suitable property. Because i can safely say, that you will not have time to do most of your due diligence once you have found the property, because they just dont stay on the market very long.
As someone else said too, for your first couple of properties, use a buyers agent. they will teach you all you need to know, and most importantly, there is less chance of things going wrong than if you had sourced it yourself. the company i work for actually organizes everything for you, so all you have to do is say yes i want that one, and they will take over the rest for you, which is a great help when you work full time!
Im sorry this is long, but all i can say is research research research. it sounds simple, but i made the mistake once of not researching thoroughly, and it has been my biggest mistake yet. Its easy to get carried away by the thought of a positive property.

I work for a buyers agency, i am a contractor looking for precisely these types of properties, and as everyone else says, that guy you spoke to should NOT be in real estate. This is obviously someone who has no idea what he is talking about.
I know they are out there, because i found a deal only yesterday morning. And i only spent about 3 hours on this one. You really do need to do the legwork on these types of properties though. I couldnt even tell you the amount of hours i spend researching and talking to ‘real’ real estate agents. The one i found yesterday was a bit of a fluke!! All the other ones ive found have been spending alot of hours researching each property and its area, and even then, it may not be a good deal so it feels like time wasted sometimes, and then you find a winner hiding, you just need to think outside the box and know where to look.
Also, a way for cashflow positive properties may be for you to look at wrap options. Not as many hours spent mining for properties! This is where you make it into a positive.
To all of you other posters who said they dont exist – do your research because they do!!
If you dont have the time, use a good buyers agency.
Email me if you would like details of a buyers agency specializing in cash flow positive properties.

hello all,
would also be keen to meet up as adelaide investor group. Sounds like a great idea! Am from Victor Harbor currently, but will be buying and living in adelaide in the next 12 months, so count me in!

If anyone is looking for positive geared buyers agents, email me, i know the best organisation that i plan on buying quite a few from in the next few years, they specialize in positive gearing or positive neutral. and isnt that what we all want? even if you cant buy now, email me so i can tell you more about it. great opportunities.

perhaps the investors from adelaide would like to set up a syndicate to buy many positive geared properties? At any rate, i think something should be organised so we can at least throw about ideas as a group.