Is that the loan that was in the Advertiser a few weeks back where the banks let a portion of the loan be interest free, but claim a percentage of the capital gains upon sale?? I think we all know who the real winners will be with this one.

Thanks for that Amanda, I didn't realise that so much can be depreciated. Thats great news.CheersTim

I have learnt the hard (well not really hard in the scheme of things but still very annoying!!) way about the pitfalls of xcollaterising.

Basically when we first started this property investing game a few years back when i was young and naieve we used our PPOR as security to buy our first IP. Few years later we had moved out of our PPOR and after…[Read more]

Hi all

My wife and I rent a modest 3 bed townhouse whilst we own 2 IPs (1 on market at mo). Our idea is that eventually we want to go back to owning/paying off our PPOR but for now we needed as much cash as possible to fulfil our investing goals. So the relatively hefty mortgage payments have been halved by replacing them with rent.

I too read…[Read more]

Thanks for all your replies!!! yes it is her passion and as her current job doesn’t provide the job satisfaction she would like, we thought we would look into making our hobby a bit more permanant.

It would also help out with our kiddies as well with more working from home etc etc. funnily enough it was me who got us into this real estate game…[Read more]

sorry forgot to add…..surely their is a better way to fund each new purchase than applying for brand new loan each time….the set up fees would be enormous and severely eat into any profit. What is the best way to set up the finances in this sort of scenario??

Cheers

what r everyone’s thoughts on front fences??? we have a waist high, steel mesh type fence that looks like the old housing trust style front fencing but it has wooden log poles every few metres….its probably more practical than pretty but not sure if we get rid of it that people may miss having a barrier between the road and the house..it also…[Read more]

Just bribe someone from the department of motor registration to get the full name and address….hehe [biggrin]

Some great ideas there!!! We were umming and aahhhing whether or not to paint the concrete, oil stained driveway but think we wil do it…Love the idea re planter boxes too, they look great

we had a tenant once whose rent came straight out of his centrelink pay….altho we never had any dramas with him and paying rent, from talking to our property manager it isnt as good as it sounds as the tenant can just call centrelink and cancel the direct debit (as mentioned in above post) without telling anyone…kind of takes the point away…[Read more]

We got a quote from a place here in SA that was $1700 for 1st month for fully furnished 3 bed house…included lots of little deisigner stuff and they come and set up, do the design thing and take the stuff away….we were going to put in some of our bits of oldish furniture and just hire a few bits here and there but it worked out that by the…[Read more]

Hi Dave

I have a pretty substantial Development checklist I can email thru to you if you like…I got it from a really good book I read and whacked it on a spreadsheet….PM me if you would like a copy.

Cheers

Tim

Hi Chris

Yeah mate if it doesnt cost you anything at all to keep it monitored (i.e taking into account discount from insurance) then keep it going. I always get really angry at insurance companies whenever I get an insurance policy as they always ask if the place has a monitored alarm because they are useless. Just a couple of questions that you…[Read more]

Hi all

I deal with alarms a lot in my line of work and for private premises i advise every single person that deals with them that they are quite possibly the biggest con since moses was a boy. Alarm monitoring companies are extremely dodgy and will do anything to get people hooked on ‘monitored’ contracts etc….please dont….in 6yrs in my…[Read more]

Hi mate

We just took our plans to builders in the area and basically said ‘how much to build this’ and then we got detailed quotes based on their inclusions etc. After that we just thrashed out a deal that cut out stuff in the quote we didnt need to come to an ending we were happy with. Must admit it helped a bloody lot that my father in law is…[Read more]

Hi all

There are heaps of these stories floating around but you do have to be a bit wary of the source of the news as quite a few of them are a load of bollocks…

case in point….old lady apparently sued Winnebago (big caravan with an engine things) because she put the van in cruise control mode, got out of the driver seat and went out the…[Read more]

Hi mate

I am definately no mortgage broker etc but if it helps at all I found out (and was confirmed by my broker) that possibly during the developments construction phase, the interest can be carried over til when the structure is complete (i.e u dont pay any of the installment payments during construction, just all payments u would have made…[Read more]

G’day guys

Well I thought I was young til i read some of the other replies!!! I am 24 and have had 2 IPs for a couple of years now. My wife and I are currently in the process of selling one of them to free up some cash flow to help me not freak out too much as we embark on our 1st 3 unit build when we knock down our other IP. Building should…[Read more]

Mate just a quick question re government payments for studying…do they still pay if you work full time???

I am a complete building numpty and would like to have some sort of clue what my father in law (who is a builder) is on about half the time. TAFE course sounds like a great way to go about it.

Cheers

Tim

Hi Guys

Best book by a mile on property developing that i have read(residential developing that is) would be ‘Australian Residential Property Development’ by Ron Forlee….Its only been out for a few months and I havent seen it in too many shops but its fantastic. Goes into all the nuts and bolts stuff, gives websites for all the external…[Read more]