Hi Patrick,

Have you considered investing in Calamvale – a much nicer surburb with a lot of first home buyers and people looking to rent in the area. It's up and coming.

Cheers,
Susie

Dolphins Fixed Fee Property Services
http://www.dolphinsproperty.com.au/

This blog post below has some really good and no non-sense tips:
http://www.propertyportfoliospecialist.com/2010/09/investment-common-sense/

http://www.propertyportfoliospecialist.com/2010/09/guaranteed-rental-income/

nstead of giving a discount, many developers nowadays choose to provide a guaranteed rental scheme to prospective investors. The idea is that when you settle a property, you don’t worry about finding tenants to help you pay the mortgage, as the developer will cover the rent for a period of one year (or up to a few years) should your property becomes vacant. The most popular offer seems to be a ‘first tenant guarantee’ where the developer is obligated to pay you weekly rent at market value if your property is still not tenanted a few weeks after the settlement.

Sounds like a fantastic deal but you need to be mindful. With every property investment, remember to always look at the big picture than the small incentives. In many cases, the developer may have simply increased the price of the property to cover the cost of guaranteed rental payments. So when you’re offered such guarantee, make sure that you’re not buying an overpriced property in the first instance. Before you get too excited and start to have a false sense of security, make some enquires first with your local estate agents and letting agents. You need to find out A). what type of property is selling well in the area and at what price, and . what kind of property is in demand from potential tenants and how much they’re willing to pay. Internet research and the service of a chartered surveyor may be beneficial as well. However, bear in mind that survey values are not always accurate and that you will only know the true value of your property when you try to sell it…

Full article at: http://www.propertyportfoliospecialist.com/2010/09/guaranteed-rental-income/

By the way, P, with your current financial situation…have you considered buying a property off-the-plan at all?
Here is blog post on this…wisely invested, an off-the-plan investment can help you get into the market but without too much financial commitment/burden for now.

http://www.propertyportfoliospecialist.com/2010/08/why-invest-in-off-the-plan-properties/

Most people have heard of the saying that the most three important things about real estate are location, location and location. For investment, there are also three things that matter the most – diversification, diversification and diversification. There is simply no magic rule of buying only one type of real estate to get rich, such as land or commercial premise. The reality is that with properties, there are markets within markets in terms of both property type and location, and each market has its own ups & downs and return potential etc. The question is not do you take money out of apartments and put it into land & houses, or the reserve. It should never be a ‘either/or’ scenario. If possible, try aiming to build multi-state portfolios of houses and apartments over the long term. 

Please visit my blog for more info on property investment:
http://propertyportfoliospecialist.com

For investment purposes, you have to be a permanent resident or Australian citizen to purchase a residential property. The requirements have been made very clear by the FIRB. See the blog post below:

http://propertyportfoliospecialist.com/2010/08/foreign-investor/

What about inner-city apartments in Australian capital cities?

I'd share this blog post with you:

http://propertyportfoliospecialist.com/2010/08/the-rise-of-the-apartments/

Cheers!