Hi Wayne – your point about ‘antisnobbery’ made me smile. We have a 6 month old ute (bought new but paid cash) which I drive to work. Not really my choice of transport but we live on acreage and it’s very useful. I take rather a strange delight in parking next to a colleague who owns a flash Mercedes, is married to a lawyer and is rather ‘up herself’!

Similar experience in Townsville, NQ. We’ve recently had to drop the rent on a townhouse from $180 to $175 per week to attract a tenant.

However another one of our units has just been re-let for $150, up $10 on the previous lease so we’ve made up the loss on the first.

It’s a bit of a worry when properties are vacant for a couple of weeks. I guess it all comes down to risk-tolerance. Mine isn’t as good as my husbands – I’m too much of a worrier!

We use the following system:

After settlement on a property, we prepared a detailed list with all the important info:
Contract signing date and amount
Settlement date
Vendor’s details
Bank, legal fees, stamp duty etc.
Source of funds balanced against costs of purchase

We keep a manilla folder for daily mail relating to properties. We use Excel spreadsheets for each property to record all income and expenses.

Also use a big calendar for noting when a/cs are due and a ring binder for each property where everything is kept (for when the Auditor comes knocking!)

Our accountant is very happy with what we provide as it makes his job easier.

I’ve also prepared a detailed list for our 3 adult children of all the important info including where our Wills are kept, our assets, personal banker, solicitor, accountant etc.

We regard our investing as a home business so it’s important to handle things professionally.

My 2 cents worth!

Cheers
Shirley
From sunny Townsville where it is currently 37 degrees and bl….dy hot!

Can anyone advise when land tax applies in Qld and what the rates are or alternatively where I can go to find out? We have 6 rental properties but only two are houses with the remainder units.
Many thanks

Thought I’d pass on our ‘mortgagee sale’ experience. We recently purchased 13 acres of land with about 650 producing mango trees north of Ayr in Qld. A bank was mortgagee in possession and wanted $70k. The property had failed to sell at auction and had been on the market for ages – we offered $50k and the agent said the bank wouldn’t accept less than $60k. We said no but I had a feeling they’d come back which they did a few days later when they accepted our offer. With $10k of irrigation equipment included in the purchase price, a manager living on the property next door and a guaranteed return, it was a good buy and a diversification of our residential portfolio.

Our rental agent looks after everything but notifies us first and we have the final say on whether to proceed. If yours isn’t doing so, find another who offers a better service, especially if you aren’t in the same town as your rental properties.

Hi Teylu – we have a duplex and several units. I feel Duplexes are preferable as units involve Body Corporates fees. These fees are roughly the same as local government rates (at least where we are) – I really wonder why Body Corporate Admin fees are so high.

If you have a duplex you arrange building insurance yourself but I’d rather do that than pay Body Corporate fees – you feel like you’re more in control. Our duplex is pretty new and we haven’t had any maintenance problems.

The other benefit of a duplex is you own the land as well (or at least your bank does!).

As a price comparison, we recently had a small 3-bedroom house in Townsville repainted internally for $2,500. The price included cleaning the outside of the house and also painting guttering and edging outside. Thought it was a fairly good price at the time and we’re happy with the quality of the work. Suggest you get a few quotes/options.

You all seem extremely young (my husband and I are on the wrong side of 50). We’ve bought and sold houses over the years (usually because of transfers) and have only really gone into property investment this year. We’ve probably reached our limit with 4 units, a duplex, a house, a small mango farm, a 5 acre block plus our PPOR – all in regional Qld. We own our PPOR plus the 5 acre block and we’ve borrowed for the rest. We both have full-time jobs – I’d be bored if I didn’t work.

I wish we’d read some of the great investment books when we were in our 20s – we’d be in a far better position!

My advice is to get started as soon as you can and hold on to property for as long as you can.