Who says the property investment game and the building development game are separate?First, to get any building development going you are going to be chasing the banks (or finance brokers) for money. They will want to see a reasonable asset base to lend against.Second .. a lot of developers build their properties … sell what they need to, and…[Read more]

scotty8911 wrote:
Thanks heaps guys for the reply's, its good to get some hands on advice from other people playing the game. One last question I have, is there a rough set of guidelines for doing your due diligence?

The answer is yes, look for value in the deal. Look for the ability to either place value or achieve value with the property. I…[Read more]

I'll be a little more explicit.Submit an offer with the agent .. and a separate set of conditions for what u need. Your requirements for 30days for building inspections and additionals is excess. At 30 days the vendor is expecting his contract to already be unconditional, in fact .. the contract should become unconditional in less than two weeks.…[Read more]

I've revised my thoughts on how you should submit it. Submit it as a page of conditions rather than within the contract. That way you can just refer to the submitted conditions attached. Make sure you cover all things you want included.However all the 30 days extra searching for Titles and Building Inspections is really extending safety for…[Read more]

Scott No Mates wrote:
Xdrew, it is generally the vendor's solicitor who prepares the contract of sale not the agent.

The  Contract of Sale document is a document provided by the state real estate licensing authority for the usage by solicitors and agents respectively. It is the agents responsibility for making sure the offer is represented…[Read more]

Intrigue wrote:
Below is what I am preparing to send to the agent…. thought and advise pleeeeaseI would like to submit a contractual offer for the sum of x for property located x The contract must include the chattels currently within the home (fridge, washing machine, air conditioning units, water tank, …………….) The contract must be subject to…[Read more]

Gmoney336 wrote:
Thanks for all your comments, I'm thinking of approaching the vendor directly and seeing if we can negotiate a private sale. It might be abit unethical but I'm having far to much trouble with this agent. Presuably due being on the market for so long it should be out of the 'exclusive period'

Actually Gmoney336 .. there is no…[Read more]

From my understanding of how contract law works, you are only obliged to offer any agreement subject to placement in the sales contract. If it states within the initial sales document for a building and/or pest inspection .. a time allowance is provided for such. Once the final terms of the sale are met, the contract becomes unconditional, in…[Read more]

First up, i'm assuming that you paid a 10% for your initial PPOR investment a deposit of 36k. Because you are feeling smug that you have 60k invested in your house .. which means as far as you are concerned you've SAVED the difference that being 24k. Its quite a substantial difference and you should feel pride in having achieved that savings and…[Read more]

People cant compare Japan to us, their crash was different. And the US crash is caused by a severe problem exacerbated by the 'housing affordability mob'.With Japan there were loans organised that were 90 year loans, deferring risk of actual final payment of the loans to your grandchildren or worse. This allowed people to borrow amounts that even…[Read more]

I tell everyone the same thing. At the moment you all should be prepping a little cash tin on the side, paying off extra on your loans and clearing your credit cards. I know that the last time around the only reason I picked up some of my deals was that I had money available WHEN NO-ONE ELSE DID. Ok .. also a good rep with the bank manager helped.…[Read more]

For any investors sake I'd prefer not to mention which suburb it is. Lets just say I'm aware of even worse. There was a period back in the early 80s where if a tenant in 3020 had a dispute with the landlord … he settled it by BURNING out the place.When i started looking at property in the late 80s there were still some of these masterpieces…[Read more]

I think what everyone realises at the moment is that we just piled a large load of money (March 2009) into 'saving' our economy. It doesnt matter that as a largely unaffected country .. we didnt need it. The flow-on effects for this will be a significant inflationary pressure once it spreads throughout the whole economy. And we are starting to see…[Read more]

You can have the mortgage registered on title, similar to the registered bank mortgage. A solicitor will draw this up for you, its a pretty standard piece of documentation.The important things to lay out in the documentation is the terms of the loan (what he will be paying), the conditions of the loan (how the loan was offered from the start), and…[Read more]

I think half of Steve's book should be looked at for how he did what he was going to do, rather than how many properties he dealt with. I have no doubt his figures on what he did were real and accumulative rather than summarial (a final total). But .. from reading his book, I went back to Wendouree in 2006 when the properties were 175k for a 3br…[Read more]

Keiko, tenant is your golden goose. Flatten him with rent increases and you wont get any golden eggs. Make sure your rents are competitive and fair, but in the end you shouldnt be looking at the rents as your main supplement for income. The tenant should always be paying within 15% of the current rent level, and 10% of the current rent level if…[Read more]

For ease of use, its probably best to write the loan up as an informal private family loan with formal documentation (prepared by a lawyer). I know you want to hand him a little bit of money and make him responsible for it as well. But too many undeclared loan arrangements cause family issues .. whether straight away .. or later on. The reason I…[Read more]

I've been watching too much CSI:Miami … I think if you check the age of the maggots you can probably work out which tenant is missing and for how long.I've been lucky .. i have seen most of the impossibles with rental property. The cupboard which opens to streaming cockroaches, the tenant with 9 cats who decides to leave them all behind .. in a…[Read more]

There are your two streams of thinking with paying off loans. And both are quite valid.The first is .. to get a loan at the maximum leverage possible and then try to get it down over time combining rental payments and owner contributions, reducing exposure to debt … increasing equity. The banks dont mind it either, as the more money you pay to…[Read more]

The majority of the advantages of purchasing an investment property lies in the ability to offset any interest payments and depreciation benefits against your existing income. So if you have a reasonable income, the correct approach is to get enough of a comfortable interest bill that you can afford, and use that to minimise your taxable income.…[Read more]