C for "Circa"???? I think it's Latin for 'around' 

I.e. you see a date on a historical home as "Circa 1830" meaning it's so old no firm building date is known but that is the date it was built around.

Ausdmx,

Have you been to Dubai?? i would take a trip out there to see the city for urself before you make any financial decisions.

I wouldnt buy in Dubai.

I had to put in a claim for loss of rent and tenant damage through Commonwealth bank landlord insurance.

I was glad i called in for the assessor. the property was 5 hours from home and if i kept it under 5 grand that would mean i would have to handle the repairs personally.

if u use an assessor they would want to see a lease as well, so if its self managed im not sure that would be ok in the eyes of the insurance???

hmmm in my case the agent was an ass, he promised me there was only “a couppelofgrand” damage, turned out to be just under 8….

well loss of rent seems to be only paid up until the repairs are predicted to be finished. in my case repairs were predicted to be 4 weeks, they took 6 so i was only paid for 4 weeks.

another thing i was not happy about was the fact that they REPAIRED and not replaced $33 bunnings internal hollow doors. although they had just been installed new 5 months before when the tenant had just moved in…. but anyway…

u pay insurance, so use em for what they do! dont try to scrape in the repairs just to not get an assessor, the repair job should be done and done right, perhaps there is more of a chance of this happening when an assessor is involved as they watch over the repairs for your case personally, and its he or she that you answer to when the job is done or if you have complaints about the work.

hope that helps…

jason

I was in Dubai just last week….

I personally think Dubai property will crash and burn very soon… i wish i could fully make you understand how fast they are putting up sky scrapers there.

one development underway will have 40 (yes 40) hi rise apartment towers as well as business centres and the usual shopping facilities.

this one development is said to be able to house 120-150 thousand people.

the popoulation of dubai is a little over 1 million, yet i assure you there are over 100 sky scrapers being built that is meant to be mostly residential…. how can a city build to such an extent assuming that its population will instantly double or tripple within a few years.

the only problem is…. well when i was there the place where people would generally congregate were EMPTY! shopping centres, the undercover souk development next to the huge sail looking hotel. all full of nice fancy shops full of nice fancy products with shop workers standing around all day staring at the odd tourist who wishes to escape the heat for a while.

The situation in dubai is like giving a child 100 dollars to play with.. they will go out and buy 100 mars bars, even though they only need 2 to satisfy their hunger.

Dubai has some filthy rich kids with nothing better to do than build sky scrapers for fun, and they are going up…

hundreds at a time, honest there are whole suburbs of sky scrapers being build right now…

dubai gets only 10%of its income from oil as well… what will happen when it runs out???? i think they are just hoping that enough huge multi-nationals invest enough there to maintain it as a business centre….

40% of dubai’s income is from tourism, so keep that in mind.

cheers!

Jason

Hey Rick,

Reading over your post, i was thinking of asking the a few of the same questions down the track..

I have lived in a share house (19 rooms) in the eastern suburbs of sydney for just over 2 months now and really enjoy it, in fact i will consider looking into buying my own in the near future depending on how the market is going and my own circumstances… ill answer some of your questions based on my observations so far..

How do we manage the place ?

Get a retired person / couple to live there rent free and keep an eye on the place, collect rent, show new ppl around etc etc

how do we collect rent ?

see above

how do we get the people to clean up after them selfs ?

depends on where your talking about, common areas like tv room and hallways are cleaned by the care taker or a tennant for a reduction in rent, the kitchen i find is usually looked after by the ppl there as they soon get grumpy and tell the person off who eats and soesnt clean up after themselves, also a limit on cutlery and utensils forces ppl to keeps things clean..

how do we deal with a trouble maker ?

hmmm depends on what it is, screen potential tennants, my place is 75% girls (yay) they seem to cause less problems apparently… choose ppl who are at uni, working or both, or ppl who are going to be around for a while, they usually try their best to stay in 1 spot, so they generally behave.

how do we deal with people wanting to be up all night ?

Well, just make sue the TV room has a door, ask ppl to limit their noise after a certain hr (make this well known as a condition of entry so to speak)

how do we deal with conflict between people that dont see eye to eye ?

U dont, one will leave, the rooms are usually cheap and people wont be bothered hanging round in conflict… or perhaps rotate one of the tennants to another room away from the other person when one becomes vacant..

insurance ?

buggered if i know lol

Hope that helps

Jason

Ok ill giv it a shot,

As far as i knew, A HWC (Hot Water System)??? is not a capital expense, however what its classed as may be changed depending on the time is replaced.

eg, if u buy a place, and the system was on the way out, and u knew that this was the case, and u wanted to change it b4 it was rented, then the cost would be added to the purchase cost and not claimable as an expense…

however, if the place was rented, with the system working, and u needed to change it after several months, then it would be classed as a repair that is tax deductable over several years. that is if its over $300. if its less then u may be able to claim it in one hit.

This is going off the top of my head with no looking up, thus the vagueness of my reply.

Jason