My vote is also to go and look for yourself in the first instance.

You can get no better feel for the area than investing time on the ground, but more importantly, you will need to locate and engage a team of locals to make life happen for you when you are not around. For example, you will most likely need a local solicitor, accountant, rental manager, etc. Doing this remotely is difficult.

Think carefully about investing overseas. My experience is that it is harder then investing where you live, and the extra complexity doesn't always equate to the higher returns.

For example, those who bought in the US when the dollar was at (say) 1AUD:US0.72 will be hurting badly now. Work through this…

A property was bought for US$70,000.  Assuming this was fully financed from AUD, the equivalent amount needed in AUD to close (ignoring closing costs) would be AUD97,222.

Assume now that the exchange rate is 1AUD:US0.84.

To sell the same property (ignoring all costs) and get back your AUD97,222 you would need to get US$81,666. This is a 16% return needed to break even.

In summary, my point is that it is important to borrow in $FX, otherwise you run the risk of being a quasi FX trader rather than a property investor.

Cheers,

Hi TB1,

My first suggestion would be to check with council.  Some 'open' areas under houses (esp. in regional Qld) are that way because of flooding issues and cannot be 'occupied' as such.

Often, in older days when there was no air con, houses were built up to take advantage of the breeze to cool the house. You see this with the old queenslander style homes.

Aside from the council, in theory there shouldn't be an issue provided the cost makes it worthwhile relative to the extra rent, you gain the required permits (beware parking issues), and you carefully think through the issues of having people upstairs and downstairs and how that impacts on the liveability of the dwelling.

Please report back on your findings once you have been to council and/or a town planner.

Cheers,

Hi Jade_C,

Thanks for your post and I'm sorry to hear that you are having troubles. Certainly, it sounds like it is time to find a new PM, and one good way to find a new one is to ring around and see who is happy to help you with your problem.

I am not an expert in NSW rental law, but some quick research here in Vic reveals that a tenant is liable for water useage. I would imagine then that most leases would be worded such that the rent is first applied against outstanding expenses and then applied to discharging the rental due.

If, upon termination of the lease, there is a shortfall on the rent collected or on expense reimbursement then I would try to recover that from the bond. Failing that you could try to sue the tenant, but the cost and stress of doing that is unlikely to be worth the hassle.

Keep looking for the solution though and don't allow things to pad out. Be pro-active.

Bye,

Hi Terry,

Yikes!  Sounds… itchy.

Perhaps a call to the local pest person would be wise.  Perhaps s/he can give you some 'professional' bug advice.

Also, are you sure you bombed correctly?

Cheers,

Hi Chris,

I am asked a similar question quite a lot.

Personally, I prefer the idea of selling up and using equity to get started on the premise that you buy back in using pofits later.

With careful planning and the right training I am use that you could do well.

Indeed, the way I began was to rent and use the money that would otherwise have been eaten up in a home equity to invest with.

I hope it works as well for you as it has for me.

All the best,

Coming soon… but not a forum but an entire new section.

Stay tuned.

Hi C2,

Thanks for your input.

For what it is worth, we upgraded the server, but the problem was not at that end – it was the database functionality on the site, and especially the forums. Snitz, for all its good points, was simply not designed for the amount of use we were generating on it.

I agree about the testing, which is why the current site is being developed behind the scenes.

Finally, I have probably answered more of the same questions as anyone else in Australian real estate education. However, while it can be testing from time to time, I’m here to help and I always am mindful that while I may have answered the question many times before, the person asking for help may be doing so for the first time.

This site is not designed to be an exclusive. I for one would like to help anyone interested in learning how real estate can fast track returns.

On that note – if anyone would like to be on the beta testing team for the new site then please send me a PM.

Thanks,

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback.

There are a number of points to be made, and I’ll attempt to make a few of them here:

1. Forum functionality.

The simple fact is that this site has far more users than any other, so many in fact, that we recently had to completely reengineer the site in response to the speed becoming so slow.

An executive decision was made to leave Snitz – the forum software that we had used for many years in favour of another version that could facilitate multiple users easily.

We can do all that was previously done with Snitz – and more – however it takes time to customise the new software to our exact needs.

2. Major redevelopment

Furthermore, another decision was made that involves some degree of short term pain. Back in January I commissioned a major revision to the site that will mean that much of the site as it is now will change.

The outworkings of this are that the look / feel / functionality of these forums is temporary – a step if you like in a new direction but much less than the finished product.

3. Workflow

It’s a shame that what you see does not reflect at this point the extensive amount of work done behind the scenes. Nevertheless, rather than just tarting up the site, we made the decision to fix it once and for all (nearly there) and then make cosmetic upgrades (starting soon).

4. Sign In

I was frustrated with the need to sign in everytime I came back to the site too. This has been fixed so that when you log in now, you should not need to log back in again unless you don’t visit the site for (I think) it is 8 days or so.

5. Always Upgrading

Despite what I have written above, in response to the feedback I have asked David (Goldie) to go back and take a look at the Snitz forum and replicate the Active Topics functionality that it seems so many people were used to.

6. Number of Users

These figures can be misleading because the science to count the number of people on the site is inaccurate. This is not my area of expertise, but when I quizzed Goldie about it he mentioned something about session times. I will find out more and get back to you.

Once again though, at least in the short term, the decision was made to improve the speed first, and to add increased functionality over time.

All the best,

Thanks for the post. Your comment about people talking you out of deals is well made.

Investing is about taking a calculated risk. The risk part comes down to a worst case scenario financial loss, the calculated part pertains to your investing skill and expertise.

There is no certainty in investing. People will rarely tell you it is a good deal but will be quick to point out why it won’t make money. Of course, comments made are usually an extension of emotion rather than speaking from experience.

Well done.