Hi Yasmina,

I know what you mean by work, work and more work.
I made my life a little bit easier by changing to a LOC. I don’t have to worry about finding money every time a big bill comes in, and I can pay off my credit card in time as well. But one must make sure they stay savvy with this type of loan.

I have left my story in the “Tell Tale” part of the forum. There’s alot of stuff that I haven’t mentioned in it, like I got all my tax back except $800 and this year I’m getting an extra $150 a week in my pay because of depriciation.

I still will have to work hard for a few more years yet. But at least now I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

My answer to your question Yasmina is.

You have a pot of gold in your equity, use it now to leverage your wealth into the next stage and buy 2 or 3 more properties. If you do this, then by the time you get to my age you should be very well off. Jan Somers has a terrific video about this that you can get from the libary.

Hope this helps..

Hello Steve.
Thank you for haveing this forum available for all of us to use. I have lots of things that I want to discuss with other investors and this is a great way of doing just that. Thanks.

I have three things that I’d like to hear your thoughts on, and they are

1. Useing Mortgage insurance as a means to make your deposit go further. For instance buy 5 properties instead of 3 or buy in a better area.

2. I use Debt collectors instead of Landlord Insurance. Have you looked into this ?

3.Buying in area’s that you know like the back of your hand and can easily spot a good buy. I just bought a three bedroom house and the agent selling the property for the interstate vendor had only photograghed have the house and makeing it look like a little box. I picked it up for 168,000 while simalar houses on the same street are going for 205,000. 210,000.

Thanks again. John.

Hi Don and Liz,
Re: Barclay Debt Collectors
No I haven’t made a claim with Barclay, but they have sent out letters of demand to tenants which works very effectively.

When I first started in proprty investing (which was only a few years ago) I couldn’t beleave that we are all insuring our tenants. It should be them taking out insurance incase they can’t meet their obligations or they damage some bodies property.

Barclay relize this and make the tenant accountable for all the damage, loss of rent, even cleaning up after they leave.

They have two levels of cover. One is they pay you straight away at a cost of $198. and the other cheaper plan is they pay you when the money is retrived at a cost of $44. NO EXCESS, NO WAITING.

It’s inportant to remember that if you decide to have this instead of Landlords protection, make sure you still have public liability insurance. Particuly with Strarta Titles as the Body Corporate Insurance DOES NOT cover Public Liability Insurance in you lot area.

Web site http://www.barclay.com.au

Have a look, it’s a good site as well.

Books, Books and more Books, and a couple seminars, is the key to get into property investing. I’m a baker on a low to medium income with two teenage kids, And I own 7 properties. I have about 45 books on the subject of property investing and most of them I bought from second hand shops like Saint Vinies and Life line and paid only 50c. to $2.00 each. It’s alot to do with “mind set”. Get your self I the right frame of mind and think positive. Also the “Australian Property Investor” is a great mag.
If somebody offered you a great job, but there was a catch. I can’t pay you straight away and I can’t tell you how much, but when I do it will be a huge amount of money. Would you take the job? That’s what investing is like. [biggrin]