I’m in Defence aswell(RAAF) and have had to sort out similar problems. The advice given so far is all good. I will just add one thing though. Take advantage of the fact that your receiving rent assistance. I live in Canberra and if I had to pay the REAL rate of rent in this City I could never afford to buy IP’s.[]
I personally am not buying in the area I live in because of the rules regarding rental assistance. I would avoid the renovation/flip strategy unless you have a lot of experience and hands on.
Good luck.
You will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!
Dear Ronulas, Surely people moving into a town of
three thousand population could afford to buy
their own house.Can’t be too affluent if they can’t borrow $80k for a corrigated iron (tin) shed.Possibly a ‘lean too”,perhaps!!!!.
Hi Bruce,
I did not say that the people living and working in country towns were affluent, just hard working. Not everyone has the education, luck, or whatever it takes to make it into a corporate type job in the big smoke.
These people just fall into thier jobs. Can you tell me that anyone going to school sees them selves digging holes or waitressing for a career or being on the dole? I don’t think so. People are taught in school, to work hard not smart.
The people living in these towns no matter how affulent they are still need a place to live. Most don’t even consider that they might be able to buy a house for themselves. So they just keep doing what they have always done, buy their luxouries now and …..Rent.
The thought of borrowing $80k is still pretty scary for most people. Plus you have to save for a deposit and have a good income. There is large percentage of people who fall into one of these categories.
The same argument you use also applies to Sydney dwellers. Why arn’t the people renting your houses buying their own? Not affluent enough?
The difference between your plan and mine Bruce is that we are aiming for a different market. I aim for the market I know. Poor hard working people. They need to live somewhere and any one of them could do what we are doing if they educated themselves and came into contact with the right people eg the people on this forum.
I guess the point I’m making Bruce is that you don’t have to knock people so hard. Don’t be-little the single mum or country lad because of their circumstances. They are working hard enough just to get by.
Thanks
You will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!
I was not even going to bother responding to your post but can’t help myself.
Your comments only make me feel better about my own level of knowledge when it comes to PI.
quote:
The same goes for these country towns, most of your tenants are unmarried mothers.Grovelling so you won’t increase the the rent.(They might offer
to cut the increase out).Some of the posts I’ve read tonight are on this theme.Country towns are only where dead beats rent.Unmarried mothers, drugies, unemployed who just won’t work.If they really wanted a job they would be in the cities.
Want a headache? invest in reginal towns.
Me! I’ll stick to the city, THE ONLY CITY,Sydney.
I’m not sure what country towns you are looking at but my IP is in regional Victoria and I have never in 3 years, rented to to any of the sort of people you have described.
I think you are generalising in the extreme. Do you honestly believe in a town of say 3000 people that they are all single mums, smoking dope?
Who owns and works in the shops, farms, public service. Who run’s the schools, builds the roads.
I think that if you want to talk about hard work then perhaps you should work in a country area for a while and then you might understand what hard work realy is.
I’m sort of glad that you think that Sydney is the ONLY City to invest in. That keeps you well away from from the hard working people who feed you every day. I would hate to have you as my landlord if you have this sort of discriminatory attitude.
Your comments are as welcome as anyone else’s here but if you want people to read and respond to them perhaps you might try to not offend so many people in only your second post to this forum.
Have a good day.
You will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!
What reasons did the agents give for the property not renting. Are they valid? eg is the rent too high? By the tone of your post you don’t think so. If there is no obvious reasons then just advertise in local shop windows or drop some flyers in letter box’s and your property should rent no probs.
On the other hand if there is some reason why your property is not renting eg too dark, then you may need to spend some time and money improving the disposition of the place.
also,
I have had no experience at this but there are some other posts that suggest adding some incentives to prospective tennants. eg set up electrical goods deal or something of that nature.
Anything that will make your property stand out from the others.
OK – Here I go. Been employed in the Royal Australian Air Force for about 13 yrs. Specificly within the I.T. and communications area.
Great Job but it will never make me rich so I want out sometime in the near future.
Thanks
The whole idea of IO is not to pay the priciple. You pay the price for IO loans ie Higher interest rate, fees ect. I would not treat a IO loan like a P&I loan for that reason.
I am assuming that your IO loan is for an IP. If that is the case then there is no point in paying it off early for whatever reason. You can only claim deductions on the Interest component so don’t reduce the amount of money that you are paying and claiming that interest on!!
quote:
wouldn’t I be better off making extra payments on the loan within the 5 year period so that when it did convert to P&I the principal would have been already reduced thus lower repayments.
As mentioned in previous post, the interest only loan can be extended in most cases so I would not convert to P&I for as long as possible.
Secondly, I’m not sure about this but just because you might pay of some of the priciple does not mean that you will have lower repayments. I have been ahead of my payment schedual for years but now one has offered to reduce my payments.
Thirdly, if you have some spare money to do this them I would be putting that aside to invest into another property.
I would reduce the debt first. Paying of bad debt is liberating but is sometimes hard to swallow because you feel like you have nothing to show for it and I know it is very tempting to want to put the money into something that will make you money, but at the same time you lose alot of the money you make too bad debt interst ect which takes the shine of the investment.
Besides, if you pay the debt’s of first then banks/lending institutions will look alot more favourably at you and lend you the money anyway. Using other peoples money is always alot more fun than your own. Remember debt that makes you money is not bad, but debt that costs you money is bad.
Good Luck.
P.S. I’m in Canberra (Isabella Plains) as well if you ever want to talk IP’s.
My name is Ron. I’m 31 yo married to Lydia We have 4 children. Have been in the IP business for about 5 years without realising it. We bought our little house in Country Victoria and renovated a bit. I’m in Defence as a Network/Systems IT Manager. We were posted to Canberra which is where we are now. House has been rented now for about two years.No problems.It never occured to me that someone else was paying for my investment and that I could duplicate that as many times as I liked. Thick Huh!!![:0)]
My wife has been brain bashing me with the idea of IP’s for years but I was too locked into the idea of security and no debt.[xx(] Only because I’m sick of working did I really think about a different way of living and after attending Robert Kiyosaki’s Get Rich Seminar has set my brain on fire. []
I am now spending most of my time surfing forums like this for ideas to increase my investment knowledge.
Thanks for listening.
This may come from the far left and I don’t know your situation but here is my two cents anyway.
Please correct me gently if anyone disagrees.
Why buy a piece of realestate at that sort of cost for such small returns? With the properties I am looking at the house/land with tenant or not as you please will cost anywhere between $30 000 – $85 000. That is not much down as deposit. You have anywhere between $120-$160 a week rent. You could buy two or possible three properties for the sort of money you are going to invest.
You mentioned that your strategy is positive cash flow so capital gain is not realy an issue.
I just don’t understand why as a newbie you would want to spend so much on one investment?
Do as Robert Kiosaki say’s, START SMALL and work up to it.
The town only has 3000 people? Be careful. Not a lot of people to ensure constant rental. Because its so cheap you can probably get away with it for a while but is still lost income.
What does the town offer? Why do people live there. Is it an ageing population or is there some local industry?
These are the questions I would be asking. I’ve seen some pretty cheap potential IP’s like the one you are talking about in rural Victoria but sometimes there is a reason why they are so cheap.
Because most people are used to seeing properties selling for $100 000+ they are really overjoyed when a cheap property like that comes up. But don’t be duped. These places are usually in the middle of nowhere going nowhere either. Don’t let the cheap price fool you.