Hi,
Michael 888 – do you have any further details regarding bootcamp/your experience?

I'm currently planning for 2009 and am considering doing Carly Crutchfield's course.

I have been to the intro seminar but was not sold on the night…

Thank you Aureliana for your feedback. That is really helpful as i am "expecting" personal mentoring whether it be from her team or from her – i expect 24 hour response time hahah ..

Has anyone bought the Martin Ayles blueprint and done Carly as well to compare?

Be interesting to hear any feedback!

Vicky

Hi Swany,
Great initiative – my two bits and bobs:
1. Before doing anything – call up the town planner in the area and ask about doing a granny flat – they will either 1 direct you to the their Development Control Plan and say read it (and decipher it yourself) or they may be helpful and say what you need to do and what sort of approvals you might need. To find your council go to google- enter your suburn and type council and call up their number – this is the fastest/cheapest way to find out if it's even allowed to set up a granny flat before you get started.
2. Find out in your area if anyone else has a grannyflat – that might help you with precedence with council approval. How do you find out? Either by checking out realestate.com.au to see if there are any houses for sale with granny flats in the area.
3. Decide if they're going to have a separate entry and whether you'll have a fence from the first house to separate to the grannyflat (and factor that into your costs) example – if a fence costs $2000 to put up, how long/how much rent will it take to cover the rent?

Hope this helps (even the slightest!)

VStar!

Hi Hi,
I went to the Melb seminar AND have the reno toolkit.
First things first – did you know that the reno toolkit is out of stock? The new version is coming out around December this year so i'd wait if i was you.
Basic Rundown of both:
Toolkit (the important bits) are: The reno control spreadsheet and the dvd case studies.
The reno control spreadsheet is a spreadsheet that allows you to go through every single room in the house and from top to bottom and note what needs to be changed, how many of each (for example light switches x 4 – input price for 1 light switch and it will calculate it all). Technically – if you're quite a detailed person and good with excel – then you don't need this BUT if your'e not – it's quite handy.
What  i found in value is really the DVD case studies. Dean and David go through 4 properties and talk about what they bought it for then go through room by room what they're going to do and then how much roughly what their reno's cost if that helps. It gives you ideas on what can be done – what you're not going to get your money back on and what are "great" returns on renos.

Seminar:
So in the renotoolkit you get a booklet about how to quickly work out  by numbers whether or not a property is going to return any profit. In the seminar this is fleshed out very well. They go through those calculations and more.
They go through 3 examples from memory on renovations they did – what they did and what they didn't do and how much they spent.
The real value i found is actually (from the advertisment) is the "templates" that they gave. It goes through thoroughly what you must know prior to purchasing the property – if you haven't filled out those templates – then technically you could be buying on "best case scenario" rather than buying on "worse case scenario – that still yields a profit".
These templates have allowed "after the seminar" with no hand holding and instead use these as a guide for a good renovation buy.

If you are to consider renovations as your strategy – then i would consider going to the seminar. The people that went varied – some had not done it before, some were builders that knew how to renovate but didn't have a systematic approach that hence went overtime and "lost" money so it doesn't really matter what stage you're at – it was still a good overall introduction for someone who's just starting and needs to get it right.

To date – having used their templates and after going to their seminar- i've looked at over 25 properties and think i may be on to one. But had i not had these templates – i might have just bought something just cause it "sort of could" make money which can be quite dangerous and that's why people lose money.

Another thing that i learnt which is really important is that – Dean & Elise STILL have problems with trades people. I think that imagined that everything for them is perfect from all their experience but it's not that way – it's just that they have the systems in place to make sure that when problems occur they have the processes in place to solve them quickly and still be on budget.

On another topic and sorry to drag you away from the propertyinvesting.com website – there's also renokings.com.au – who's strategy came from doing renos. I was considering going to this and this is for people who need the more practical and visual hands on approach – http://renos.com.au/best-and-worst/ – this is where they take 40 people on a bus and go around to Brisbane and look at 25 houses with different scenarios and tell you what has been done exactly to "fix up/renovate" the place.

So to end off (and i know it's quite a long post), if you're serious about renovations as a strategy and that it can work in the areas you're looking for do the figures course (Dean & Elise) which is very important to know you're making $$$ and then go for the bus tour to see how it's done.

Hope this helps.

Let me know if you need any further information (PM if you like).

Good luck with everything.

Vicky

Hi Kenton,
Are you by any chance considering selling your renotool box? Sorry your profile is not set up to receive Private Messages!

Thanks

HI Matt,
Just to point out something else – if it was that easy then everyone would be financially free! You have to keep persisting cause one day you'll get there!

You're probably about to have a huge breakthrough because you're so fustrated and enough is enough and then you'll have a stroke of brilliance.

Don't give up – you and your family deserve better!

Good luck

Hi,
I haven't done a subdivision but also love to here the end results of subdivisions. Please let us know how you go.
In the meantime check out this post:
https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forums/property-investing/help-needed/4323451?highlight=subdivision%2Ccosts
They're based in Brisbane but they posted their costs – maybe this will help you.

Hope this helps! If not i hope someone else can help out!

hahaha i did manage to find this link which is always great as something free:
http://www.propertyhorizons.co.uk/total_self_confidence_in_seven_days.pdf

HI Mooki,
What do you want to get out of it and how much do you want to spend?
What about R.E.S.U.L.T.S? The one run by Steve (owner of this website in case you didn't know) or http://www.sourcewealth.com?
I joined sourcewealth Momentum Program in January this year – $7k and my partner is starting with RESULTS this year (june 2008). Both have different strategies and both have their pros and cons – depends what you're really looking for.

Email me if you have any more detailed questions!
Good Luck

Hi there,
A few questions:
1. Wow!!! Where did you get a $450k apartment with no debt??? Congrats!!!
2. What would be the repayments on the $300k place be? What i'm trying to get at there is could you buy the $300k (say for eg) and rent that out and rent somewhere else that is cheaper then the repayments for the $300k place?

Just a thought!
Sounds like you're on to a raging start!!! Congrats