Probably not too out of the ordinary – there may have been a sweetheart deal with a strata manager who was appointed or there may be legit reasons like high expenditure on insurances, concierge, lift, pool, air conditioned lobbies or major maintenance items which have cropped up. Then again, some good Sydney buildings have levies exceeding $5k/qtr (but you are talking prime locations with everything laid on).

unfortunately you’ll be liable for cgt & possibly gst on the ‘newly created parcel of land’.

All that glitters is not gold.

see if you can find out who she is now working for. In nsw all Realestate Agents are registered with fair trading office and their place of employment is also shown.

FHOG requires that you actually live in the property sometime in the 1st 12 months.

There have been several prosecutions for falsification of claims.

I'd also add a 'real contact number' both for place of employment (front desk/reception) and for all other contacts (sure voip might get you a phone number which diverts to a mobile but that would be downright deceptive).

For a little more insight into my comments: http://www.reao.com.au/forum/blog.php

If you have discovered the vendor's motivations to sell eg divorce, property settlement from estate, keeping bank off their back etc then it is a good start. You will need to determine whether they are then sufficiently motivated to sell prior to auction – an agent must present any offer to the vendor regardless of method of sale.

In some instances the vendor may be able to hold out until auction, esp if there are plenty of interested parties however they may wish to sell asap so there is no harm in trying – if you don't ask, you'll never know. If you do make a pre-auction offer, it will need to be subject to the same conditions as per the auction ie unconditional/no cooling off period as the vendor will not take the property off the market if it is not an unconditional offer.

more like banks are overexposed to residential, however will increase that by taking on presold residential developments (go figure) but have little confidence in commercial markets and are very underweight in this area by historical averages.

a CMA is only a computer modelled analysis. The buyers Agent’s CMA is no more than an appraisal dressed up as a worthwhile exercise, unlike a valuation it holds no water. The computer models recent sales data and provides a sale range, physical inspection guides the Agent’s guesstimate but backs up/validates their figure.

RP Data & APM both provide CMA’s as part of their subscription services.

Land zoned for worship or special purposes is becoming more valuable as it is becoming harder for such organisations to find suitably zoned land at an affordable price. The special uses zone is extremely restrictive as to the uses to which the land can be put and may take years to achieve an effective rezoning.