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In some parts of Brisbane the owners also pay the water bill.
Man, this thread should be re-named Scam Central. Entertaining, though.
Following the rules of investing in things you understand, the pro fishermen in my family have been investing in marina berths for years. Mainly Port Lincoln and Glenelg, SA, and some place in QLD. They only ever plunk down abalones, I mean, cash, and the capital growth has been quite extraordinary. I can ask their opinions on the current market if you like – there may be a softening in the market aligned with the upscale boat sale market.
Average utility bills for average house in Houston over US$330.
Regarding the Mississippi SRAP mess: guess Mr Graveling, spruiker extraordinaire, came a cropper.
First of all you can't apply for anything in that program if you don't have a USA Social Security number.
Second, you have to have a credit score of 580 (USA).
Third, the rents are capped by the HUD and MDALotsa fraud going on around this program.
Info about Moiety Titles (thanks for bringing it up Flyingsolo – I've never heard of it before).
From the Law Handbook (South Australia) – revised January 2009:
"Finance institutions sometimes do not offer loans for properties offering moiety titles as security. A moiety title, typically covering maisonettes or attached cottages, means that the person owns a share of the whole of the land and leases a defined portion of the land for himself or herself from the other owner or owners."UglyJoe –
It was the professors who predicted that the USA housing market would fall, not the investors. Not the analysts. Not the journalists. Not the real estate agents.
The investors got burned.
I was heavily invested in USA REITS (trusts which invest in real estate) and read Robert Shiller's book Irrational Exuberance in 2006. The next day I got out of every real estate fund. It turned out to be the top of the real estate cycle. I'm forever grateful to the professor.
My partner said that Professor Shiller was a nincompoop and stayed in REITS and the stock market. He's lost 70%.
These things take time to work through. Shiller's predictions were laughed at for 5 years. Then the bubble burst and he was proven correct.
Here is the reason I think that prices are moving downwards:
I set some parameters on realestate dot com dot au and domain so that properties under a certain price in certain suburbs around Australia would lob into my email inbox automatically as soon as they were listed.
For about a year I'd get about 1 notification every couple of months. A few months ago I started getting notifications of about 1 every couple of weeks. Now I am getting about 6 every week. Some of them are being relisted at a lower price.
A Robert Allen student? This wouldn't be the crooked Robert G Allen from the USA would it? Who went bankrupt in the 1990's sometime while living in Santa Fe? Loves telling people how to get rich while ripping them off? No, surely people wouldn't be so stupid as to fall for that…
Hi Tony,
I think that for some of us the negativity in the media which many people in RE think is imaginary is, in fact, a reality.We sold property in California, bought and sold in Victoria and everything was going fine when whoosh! there go the jobs. Not only the jobs but a prospect of another mortgage, and dramatically depleted investments because of the financial crisis.
So here we are in our 50's, no prospect of work, sitting on cash, no debts, renting, and trying to figure out what to do. For us, we have to use this time to work hard at educating ourselves about every aspect of RE we can. We are trying to work out what vendor financing is here in Australia, what the risks are, where the best prospects for capital appreciation are; Should we continue renting and buy an IP? ; Should we just wait for the retirement money in the USA to be released in a couple of years? etc, etc.
I think that those investors who came to you from QLD and Vic are probably like us – wanting to know as much as possible about RE so that they are ready to jump in when they can.The other thing which is interesting to us is the similiarity between what was said in the USA before the RE slump there and what is being said now in Australia. There seems to be a disbelief that things could get really bad. Maybe the situation really is different and that everything will just choof along on its merry upward swing as before, but I feel a great sense of deja vu.
One example: "there isn't enough housing in Australia for all the people wanting houses". Same thing was said in the USA. And yet , in the US, on every street that we lived on and our friends lived on, there was at least one empty house. Since moving back to Australia in various rentals and our own home, the same thing….always at least one empty house in the street. Total up all the empty houses in Australia and it's a heck of a lot.I also question the actual statistics of the numbers of houses in Australia being "needed", and who is compiling the figures and what their motivation is. If the numbers are accurate, so be it, but if they are wrong, then we are in a very large bubble about to burst. I hope so, because then what is not affordable to us will become so.
Anyway, Tony, that's just a couple of things to think about what's going on in the heads of some of us would-be investors.
I lived in the USA until recently for 25 years. I do not believe the rent that Mr Vacuum says he is getting. In a nice neighbourhood in Detroit with completely new appliances and floors and air con they are getting $1000 a MONTH. The article makes no sense and is just a plant. Just think about it. If you could afford to pay $4000 in rent why not buy the property outright?
Detroit is one of the worst hit areas for housing and people have owned property there for decades without it appreciating.His deals may come back to bite him. The banks are offloading problem properties. There are really strict laws in the USA and if his tenants encounter radon, asbestos, unsafe water through old pipes, foundation cracks, termites, aluminium wiring, toxic mould or lead paint the cost to repair this would be astronomical, and he'd be sued by his tenants on top of it.
And then there's the myriad of taxes and fees which Mr Vacuum blithely waved off … banks, lawyers,county, city, state……
And, oh my, "lower quality" Detroit houses? Falling down wood houses in neighbourhoods with a population of 3 dogs 4 burnt out cars and 12 drug dealers.
If any Aussies think they should buy property in the USA they should do some heavy duty research.
May I suggest a couple of things from the point of view of being a tenant? We are ex-home owners and investors and on the sidelines doing the wait thing. This forum is helping us tremendously so thank you everyone.
1. Taking advice from rental agents that you should only go with 6 month leases. We are good tenants, but don't even bother to look at a property if it has a 6 month lease. You'd have to be desperate, and lower quality tenant, to go with a 6 month.
2. Having an agent who seems to work hard for you, but actually treats the tenants like vermin.
Case in point – (just 1 example in a sea of blunders) front door lock failed on way to important job interview. House fairly open to busy street. Had to cancel interview and wait for 2 days for a locksmith who was always "just 5 minutes away".
I guess the poor old first IP buyers of this particular place will never know why their tenants don't renew their leases.
Lesson: analyse the language of the agent regarding tenants. What comes out of their mouths is also what tenants hear.
