If I have understoood what you are saying, your neighbour is already prevented from using the land in question because of other existing easements. If this is correct then alowing you to add yours is no loss to him. For him the easement itself should be of no consequence at all (provided you pay all associated costs).

Perhaps the easement is not the real issue here. Will it require digging up his trees/garden? Or is it possible that your neighbour is simply not keen on the sub-division? Or might he already know that you are considering offering him this “signing fee” and be holding out for that?

Regards
Sonja

LOL!

(But I somehow feel I’m misssing the point.)

Cheers
Sonja

OK so I read the next thread and now I get it. I like your sense of humour Gatsby!

Hi Niki,

Sorry to hear of your troubles and I hope that this is not your first and last post. I can imagine that you’d feel pretty down about your situation at the moment.

As your dad will tell you successful property investing (or successful learning of anything I believe) is a learning curve, you will make mistakes and things will just go wrong. Many of these lessons are very valuable (thousands of $$$ worth) so don’t just overlook them and give up. Use them to learn and achieve future success. No plan is fool-proof in my opinion, think “worst case scenario” and “exit strategy”.

I can’t over estimate the value of a good landlords insurance policy. Also a good property manager (especially if your properties are far away from you in the “back of Bourke”). If you don’t have these in place at the moment now would be an ideal time to organise it as it appears you have no immediate way out of this situation. A trip to interview property managers for your “back of Bourke” properties is tax deductible.

In the past few years there has been significant capital growth in ALL areas of Australia. If your original strategy was to buy and hold then refinancing and using the equity to get you through this rough patch is an idea that I like. By the way I do believe that these sort of things come in patches. For us, some years nothing goes wrong and we collect our rent with virtualy no expenses. Other years (like this one!) I dread the sound of my property manager’s voice on the phone and we ends up a cash flow negative year.

If your original strategy was to buy and sell to make profits not only from rental income but also from capital gains then not being able to sell is a big problem. Are the properties listed with local real estate agents? Have you taken the agent’s advice on what is a realistic selling price? I’m not sure how long you have held the properties but with the growth that has occured in the past few years perhaps you could even drop the price a little and still come out in front.

On the other hand perhaps you could sell the properties that are not delivering the expected returns and keep those that deserve to be kept. Use the profits to reduce you debt or reinvest in something more to your liking (this is what I would personally do). I am hoping that all of your properties are not in the same “back of Bourke” town otherwise you will have flooded the market by trying to sell them all at the same time. If this is the case, then perhaps selling off only a few at a time might be a better idea.

I am definitly no guru or book writer but these are my thoughts. I hope things improve for you and that you don’t give up on investing because of this experience. Despite the fact that things might look bad at the moment, you have achieved more that many people ever will in property investing. Don’t waste all those valuable lessons – revise your strategy based on your current situation and keep going!

Even if you don’t stick with the forum give us some feedback on this thread because we care and because we can also learn from your experience. If you do decide to stick around then hopefully you can learn from the experiences of others as well (heaps less painful and expensive)

I wish you the best of luck with it.

Cheers
Sonja

Look in the Yellow Pages under “Buildings – Relocatable & Transportable – Domestic”.

Also I have seen houses advertised in the classifieds for removal by developers/defence housing etc.

I recently secured the right to 3B/R house simply by offering to clear the land for the developer. I became aware that the developers who had bought the property were planning to demolish the house by asking questions at the garage/moving sale. The total costs involved would have been close to 45k. Unfortunatly I was gazumped on the land and now have nowhere to put the house.

I’m comming to realise that RE deals can fall through in more ways than I ever expected.

Cheers
Sonja

Hi Peter,

I have what you might call a passive interest in developing. No time, energy or $$$ right at the moment but would like to know a bit more for future reference. There seems to be an abundance of opportunities of you have the resources to follow through on the deal.

As I said earlier, your site caught my interest. I’m not sure about going into development at the moment, as IMO, the market is flattening out – but it is something I’ve started to look at (small scale anyway) for the future.

Thanks for your reply and it’s great to see you here. Didn’t know you had been watching…

Cheers
Sonja

Very interesting article Kay. There are a number of “gurus” that I wonder about. Very few pass this test!!!

Cheers
Sonja

Kay, just to be sure you don’t misunderstand me, IMO it sounds like you have a very strong and healthy set of boundaries in place. That has always been clear to me in reading your posts. I have come to respect you and what you have to say over the time that I’ve been around here.

Cheers
Sonja

PS Just in case… I know I have been a bit strong in stating my views in this thread – no disrespect was directed at anyone. I think you guys are all great.

Yep, same here. They have always sent me the originals. I’ve got to admit that I’ve taken a lot of this stuff for granted and never thought to ask what other people’s PMs do.

Sonja

In my opinion it is all about setting your own internal rules and knowing you own boundaries and then having enough faith in yourself to follow through on them regardless how challenging that may or may not be.

I don’t always find this easy. It is a big call for me but it is what I am aiming for.

As far as Jesus being crucified that is an entirly seperate issue. He made the choice to die for us then. Nothing is different today. It was always God’s plan. Jesus gave his life freely and with love, without bitterness and resentment towards us.

If you can give freely then relationships can be built and everyone can be better off. If you can not give freely then don’t give because it breeds resentment, bitterness and damages the people and relationships involved.

God values all of us highly. He also values relationships highly. Being christian is not about “helping” others to the point of your own detriment and the consequent detriment of human relationships. God has His own set of limits, rules and boundaries. If we aim to be like Him then so should we.

At this point I am going to say that this has the potential to be a never ending thread and I’m giong to retire here.

Although my religious beliefs have become entwined in the argument I hope my original point is still clear. I feel we all need to have internal and external limits or boundaries and the ability to live by them in order to achieve peace of mind and build strong relationships. I have shared the foundation for and source of my own boundaries and have decided that I will leave it at that.

Cheers
Sonja

I am unable to travel and look at some of the areas that interest me and it has nothing to do with money. It comes down to duty of care and family obligations. I’m not going to go into the long story of why – but for me one or two trips a year is the absolute maximum.

In one particular instance I found that a really helpful solicitor sourced people to carry out inspections for me. The actual legal secretary that I spoke to over the phone (I developed quite a raport with her) was more than willing to chat about the best and worst areas of town.

That said I’m not bold enough to buy without at least having a look at the area and knowing what streets/sides of the railway line/subrubs etc are just off limits for me on a personal level.

Not being able to travel even for an overnight visit really makes it hard and frustrating.

Cheers
Sonja