It’s just a case of coming to an agreement with the owner. We have done this with a couple of properties. We’ve put new kitchens, floorboards etc. in them before settlement with the agreeance of the current owner, and had them rented out by the settlement date.

It’s definately worthwhile if you can negotiate it.

Cheers,
Karen[biggrin]

Hi there,

Can’t help you too much, but no, Fantastic Furniture is certainly not crap for a holiday house. When I first moved out on my own, my house was fully furnished with Fantastic Furniture. This was many years ago, and we have only just replaced the last of it (entertainment unit and coffee table).

I’d certainly consider purchasing from…[Read more]

25 is a bit late for me. I’d need to go back to 20. If I was 20 again, I wouldn’t have got married!!! I would have spent the money I had on an investment property instead of buying a house with my husband (which we subsequently sold anyway). 25 was when I actually woke up, and started investing in property. Now I’m pretty damn happy, just…[Read more]

Hi Ali G,

As you can see from the previous responses, many people have gone through the same thing. We generally don’t talk about our investing to many people at all, just our parents really. Even though they would never consider doing anything like we are, they are very supportive and want us to do well.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t extend to…[Read more]

Hey Ali G,

Well, we didn’t read any books or anything. I figured by the time I’d finished reading a book we could have finished the house/unit anyway.

We just got in there and did it. My husband is not a tradesman, but he’ll give anything a go. The only thing he realises he’s not so good at is tiling floors, so he does try to avoid that (walls…[Read more]

We use both St George and Bendigo Bank. We have found both to be excellent on the borrowing money side of things. I think one of the main reasons we haven’t had any problems with St George is because we have an excellent bank manager who understands what we’re trying to do and will go that extra mile to try and get what we need. If you can find…[Read more]

We actually enjoy renovating. We have done it with nearly all of our properties. If you choose the property well, then a reno shouldn’t be anything more than cosmetic. We do all of the work ourselves, (apart from electrical) and love doing it. It takes us between 1-3 weeks to complete (after work and on weekends), and each time has enabled us…[Read more]

I personally will be keeping a close eye on Tassie, in particular around Hobart. I know the “boom” is pretty much over, but Tassie and Hobart in particular has just been thrown into the spotlight with the Danish royal wedding coming up. I reckon tourism in Tassie is going to flourish (more), and this in turn may just create some more investment…[Read more]

My first property was a PPOR bought when I was 21 and just about to be married.

We only bought a house because we had been brought up to think that renting was bad, and you should buy your own home ASAP.

We bought in an area we didn’t really want to live in, but was all that we could afford. Could have bought a unit where we wanted to, but…[Read more]

Our first investment property is a 3br house in Castle Hill, Sydney. Bought in 1997 for $202,000 and rented out for $285 a week.

We still have it. Last valuation was $460,000 some months ago and it rents for $380 a week, but the rent is about to go up $10 a week.

Cheers,
Karen

Kay,

Thanks very much for those sites. Fantastic information.[thumbsup2]

Cheers,
Karen

We have bought 1 property sight unseen and had no problems whatsoever. Same advice as most of the other posters here, however I probably would not recommend doing it for the 1st couple of IP’s. But that’s just me. It was good to have a bit of experience first.

Cheers,
Karen[]

Alexander2 – If we only did small improvements, it probably wouldn’t be worth getting re-valued so quickly as we are looking for enough to get a deposit on another one. Having said that, a paint job and general tidy up to a place in pretty poor condition can really up the value if it’s in the right area.

Georgisj – That is exactly what we do.…[Read more]

We buy and then renovate our properties. The property is valued by the lender when the loan is approved, we renovate and have it revalued within about 4 weeks and use the equity gained to buy another one. The lenders we use have no problems in revaluing so soon.

We tend to do fairly comprehensive renos. We spend about $10,000 and do the whole…[Read more]

Sometimes I wonder about people who pay heaps in rent. Why not just buy a place. Well, that’s what friends of mine eventually did.

They paid (for 5 years) $530 per week. Not even a particularly nice house. Finally they decided they should buy a house to live in. They had to sell a block of land they owned to do it. Their repayments are…[Read more]

Rugbyfan,

They’re in Forwood Avenue. All big blocks. Smallest is still over 900sqm. None of them are real flat, and a couple are pretty odd shapes (a creek runs straight through one of them).

I can tell you, if I was the owner I wouldn’t be all that impressed with the work done by the agent. Pretty poor auction all round really.

Cheers,
Karen[]

Rugbyfan,

Yep, they’re the ones. That’s our street. Damn shame too. Used to be lovely bush there, but, can’t stand in the way of development, I suppose.

Cheers,
Karen[]

There were 7 blocks of land at the end of our street that went up for auction on the weekend. We are in Sydney, and our suburb doesn’t often have any land for sale, so this was quite unique. The land has been getting cleared, roads built etc. for the past year. This time last year the RE’s were telling people that they would probably go for…[Read more]

Up until recently, all of our IP’s were in Sydney, where we live. However, since I have given up work we decided we would make our next few cash flow positive, therefore our latest one is in Queensland, and we will probably continue to buy in regional areas for a couple of years.

Cheers,
Karen[]

I think it depends on the person whether it’s a waste of time or not.

I certainly won’t speak for myself. I left school in Yr 10, and had no intention of going to Uni, but my husband went to Uni and did Business Law. He lasted about 2 years before he dropped out. He got himself a job in a spare parts shop serving at the counter. Not exactly…[Read more]