I think NRAS is like any government schemes. The developers get the first biggest bite of the cherry and if they chose to sell you can bet that the price you pay has a premium for the NRAS allocation.  We are trying to get a number of our new properties being built next year onto nras because of the benefits. That's not to say it is not ineffective buying off a larger development. I have a mate who is having built a brand new 3 bed 3 bath in a new subdivision in Adelaide and his net rental return (after the Nras 20 percent deduction on market rental and subsequent tax offset and cash back) gives him a net return of over $100 a week. (not including deprecation)

And so it should his house is going to be of the first couple of houses in this new subdivision and most likely wont see much growth for at least the first 5 years whilst the rest of the development is completed but i expect the next 5 years after that will be quite profitable for him once the subdivision matures.

I personally don't think polished concrete would look or function that well in a unit. For starters, usually a polished concrete floor (not always, but most of the time) has stones thrown on top and tinting put into when it Is being laid, so that when it gets polished up it. Gives it that sparkly, interesting look.

also it is leveled to finer scale then normal concrete. Which you might find is the case with the concrete underneath your carpet. It could require a lot of concrete Sanding.

you also would have issues of access getting the machines up to the second story unless you have a lift. 

from a cost to value add perspective. Concrete in a unit would come across a bit cold and clinically, timber flooring and carpet are much softer in a smaller area. Your replacement cost for timber, laminate and especially carpet is going to be less then polishing the concrete 

Sounds pretty standard. Unless you wish to go back to the PM and negotiate for example he's only been in the property 6 months (signed for a year) you paid the 2 weeks letting fee at the beginning. Perhaps you could negotiate a payment as a prorata of the time he has been gone ie rent $500.

 Your 1 year renewal would of been $500. But you could say to the manager look $250 because he's been in there 6 months or I go to another agency. And make sure you don't get charged advertising (putting on Internet). 

Unless i completely missed everything and you are in fact renting somewhere different. With 2 investment properties

Just reading it my first thought is

why do you have a mortgage on the property that you are living in ? and why do you have no mortgage on the investment property ?

I think you should swap your loans around because as catalyst was talking about there is non deductible debt. and dedeuctible debt 

That means that the interest you are paying on your current PPOR (Principle place of residence) is Non tax deductible against your current incomes and rental income of the other property…

I would ask the financial planner if only for this one piece of advice. That you should take out a mortgage against the investment property. and you should repay your homeloan debt on your current PPOR.

You would save thousands in tax, depending on the values and how much debt you have on your current 2 year old ppor in brighton it could be 10s of thousands.

That is that case in New Zealand, following that,  a lot of their legislation is similar to ours it could very well be the case.

Rental insurance should cover you if you wish to make a claim on a vacating Tennant. Just list the property up for rent as soon as you can and if the guy is leaving he shouldn't mine if you have open inspections on whilst he is still living there. Annoying though about the lack of communication surely he knew he was being relocated a bit sooner.  But they are doing a service to our country and all you can do is try to minimize your lost time in lieu of rent. 

My experiences with financial advisors is that you wouldn't ask them for advice on property related issues or solutions unless they are a property investor with a decent portfolio or have been in the past . Just like I wouldn't ask my accountant or solicitor or conveyancer or my builder on what I should do with property. Unless they are involved as a property investor themselves and that means owning multiple properties not just 1 or 2.

If you sit down and actually look at the material that's study in level 1,2,3 etc of financial courses that give a person the qualification of financial advisor. It's very broad and limited. That's not to say that there are some exceptional advisors out there. But the majority are trained on a generic syllabus that promotes shares or managed funds or another investment that offers commissions. Financial advisors get very limited commissions (if any) from a property transaction so you can see that they could have a conflict of interest between investment pathways.

– mortgage broker is your best bet for discussing offset accounts. Which are pretty basic and most loans (should ) come set up with them or the option to have one.

My thoughts are similar to yours Jamie. The majority of financial advisors are sales persons

My biggest problem is to remain profitable in property developing is that I have to put in non complying development applications in to council and then have to spend thousands more hiring consultants just to prove the council wrong when they should just make it a lot easier and acknowledge that overall in Australia dwelling size and private backyards have decreased in size since the standard 1/4 acre block was around.  

And I'd say the biggest problem that general investors are facing today is that as a whole (due to media, the Internet, renovating shows on tv, a near unlimited supply of resources on any topic you can think of) I believe the investing population is generally become more intelligent which means more competition thus higher prices on good properties and less margin. 

Take the fact that now days EVERYone knows that if you can get a property that pays for itself/ pays you a net return, even if it has debt, it is good debt. Otherwise known as positive cashflow. 

20 years ago. That was less well known then today. Technology is increasing the efficiency of every bodies investing. Real estate.com search is a prime example. 20 years ago. Could you search low to high of properties in your area. Could you compare as well these days having access to RP data and other websites that record sold prices. You can now look on apple maps, google maps. Measure distances of backyards of block sizes from you iphone or tablet, you don't have to visit a site a hour away to see if you could subdivide it. 

Council development plans are all freely available on the Internet. 

To stay ahead of the general investing pack you have to now be able to do the maths on a property asap as next week if you leave it it'll be under contract. 

20 years ago. That wasn't possible. 

The short answer to your question is No. You won't save money on tax really by using a bond not much anyway. 

– a deposit bond is given on behalf of either cash or equity .

In this case As a first home buyer. If you were to get a deposit bond from a bank.

lets say you have 40k in cash. 

They assume your cash as security (a promise that your deposit bond is actually worth 40k) the bank then charge you a percentage fee. Sometimes it's a percentage some times it's a set fee say $400. 

They give you a piece of paper saying its worth 40k and when you purchase a property the agent takes this. Your deposit money is then redeemable by him on settlement. 

This type of arrangement only really works well if you are negotiating long settlements. Ie 6 months or a year whereby having your cash in a offset account say if you had a existing loan would be saving you 5% a year. Whilst a once off set fee for a deposit bond for a year might be less then the cost savings made by having the money in the offset account. 

Keep it simple. Save a minimum of 10-25 % of the value of your first home before purchasing it . If you can save 15% – the LMI costs under 90% of the properties value can make a significant difference. And as usual no LMI (lenders mortgage insurance) on purchasers at 80% LVR (loan to value ratio) house worth 500k loan at 400k would be a 80% LVR. (except for self employed borrowers) 

Record auction prices and clearance rates might have something to do with the record low interest rates we are experiencing in the last 25 years