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Hi Fredo
We are active investors living in Cairns. Property is doing very well here. Would be very interested in a JV for development of a block in Cairns into units/townhouses.
Actually have been investigating a couple of sites that may be very suitable.
We are not professional developers (yet!) but have good contacts with building designers/architects, surveyors, town planners and experience with council locally.
Let me know if you would like to discuss further, email: [email protected]1. Family Trusts can be easily set up by your accountant. It is a good vehicle to hold property in as it separates you from your investment portfolio. Also you can distribute profits to the beneficiaries (you and your family members) and reduce overall tax payable. We use a corporate trustee. I am director of the company as this is needed for me to get loans for the trust. The disadvantage is that any losses are trapped in the trust and can’t be written off against your personal income – this can be a real bummer if you are running negative.
2. Go have a chat to your council about getting approval for the downstairs. Probably a good idea to have a written description/photos available to present to them so they can justify sending someone out to have a look and do the measurements.
3. The QBE insurance covers house and contents. Does not cover our tenants contents. Also has liability/indeminity.
We live in Cairns and own a couple of sharehouses. One we live in upstairs and rent downstairs. The house is actually owned in the name of our family trust. We rent upstairs from the trust. This helps with tax issues. Downstairs we have five tenants. There is RTA form on their website for short term rental which we use for each tenant. We don’t collect bonds but could do so if we wanted. Our discussion with council is that up to and including 5 tenants is not a business, but above that number should be registered as a boarding house. The properties we own are either zoned commercial or Residential 3 (high density living). To be honest, our discussions with council and anecdotal evidence with researching other sharehouses in Cairns found that people do not really follow the classifications in Cairns. There are a dime a dozen sharehouses that are not legal height. Our properties are legal height because we don’t want to have issues with revaluation. Also you may have difficulty with insurance. Even with a legal height property insurance is difficult and expensive. The normal mainstream insurers would not take our business. We found an underwriter called QBE that was willing to insure us with five tenants downstairs but it is pretty expensive , about $1500 annual.
Have a talk with council. My latest discussion with a builder said it was the ventilation and light to the downstairs that was more important, not strictly the height. At 2.25m you are pretty close and if it is well lit and ventilated you may get council to approve it. Make sure you keep your paperwork if you ever get revalued though!Hi Naomi,
Would be very interested in discussing our current project with you. It is the renovation of a beautiful Queenslander in Cairns.
More than happy to provide advice for you on buying/renovating/selling.
cheersRyzak
