BUYING…SIGHT UNSEEN

Hi Russ,

Maybe those investors needed to make two extra phone calls – local police and city offices.

An independent second opinion would have been useful – it gets back to the old adage the cheapest properties are usually in the worst part of town.

Derek
[email protected]

Read my comments? Think I can help you? PM or email me.

Well, the thing is, people need to do RESEARCH! Blind Freddy would know that those areas are dodgy. A few internet checks, a bit of asking around on somersoft or on here… or doing a search on these forums… and you’d KNOW the problems. Any checking I do includes crime checks, checks for social problems, unemployment rates etc etc. I would quite happily buy a property in double bay, sydney, for example, without seeing it- sheesh, it dpends on where you’re buying into.

Russ, you were on here before saying eastern staters know nothing about WA. But many of us have done LOTS of checking on areas around geraldton. That’s why we don’t buy there :o) Info about social problems doesn’t surprise me. But I don’t have to go there to know that. If you go to the search engine on here, there are probably 20 or more references to those areas, and why reinvent the wheel? If property investors say those areas suck, then it’s good enough for me.

kay henry

There is an agent i use that refuses to sell site unseen with some properties. He dont want them coming back to him 6 months later demanding a tenant.

Regards Bear

POSITVE CASHFLOW properties and Joint Ventures available!
For the BEST deals register via E-mail [email protected]
DONT MISS OUT!!!!!

I have no qualms about buying a property without actually visiting it first, but I think you need an increased level of other types of due diligence. I’d certainly want plenty of pictures and the advice of several people with expert knowledge (particular that of someone I can trust). Assuming you can trust them, building inspectors (for example) would have a much more valuable opinion of the property than I would anyway and, so far, I’ve found them to be quite reliable. Of course, a trustworthy spotter can be very valuable too.

Matt

I’m reading the new Margaret Lomas book at the moment and she actually recommends to buy a property sight unseen!
SHe even advices you should not even see photo’s of the property!!
She says that it is enough to do a lot of research (like Kay mentioned) and go from there. This way you won’t get emotionally involved.

I dunno…
Not sure if I ever would or wouldn’t. I am a bit reluctant, but on the other hand, I am certainly getting sick and tired of going from a to b and all the other letters of the alphabet without results.
It’s very tempting to use a good spotter. We are just thinking about it at the moment and have to discuss it some more.

No pictures of the property Cel??? No way! Pictures let me know if I can love it or not! And if there’s no love, there’s no purchase [inlove]

I did actually buy an IP without a pic, but I saw some pics a month later of another one in the same condition, so I had something to hold onto. [blush2] I think buying an IP (we ARE spending a lot of $$$ after all, even on cheapy CF+ ones) is a bit like agreeing to marry someone without knowing what they look like. I wanna know my IP is attractive, otherwise how can I sleep with it? hehe.

Pics rock. Having said that… virtual tours add about 10sq metres to the visuals of a property. The place, when one sees it, can appear positively anorexic compared to the cam shots.

kay henry

So many points arise:

1. My experience:

I spent 2wks there in Sept 2003 where I picked up a 2br b/t duplex in Bluff Pt (already with tenant). The price and rental would be similar to a house in Rangeway/Spalding. All the PMs and my own reserch revealed that Bluff Pt was a popular area and had low vacancies. And 7 min walk from the beach couldn’t be a bad thing! Feedback from locals on Spalding and Rangeway was damning, though there were some OK pockets there.

Before I went I knew about Rangeway & Spalding. My initial thoughs were Beachlands & Beresford, but Beachlands is mainly older houses and Bereford had many flats/units. Though a little further away from the CBD Bluff Point is mainly houses (mostly owner occ), has cap growth potential and the right property came up at the right price.

2. Rangeway.

I haven’t seen Karloo or Utakarra but I went on a walking tour through Rangeway. I walked along Rifle Range Rd, then to the shops and behind there.

Rifle Range Rd was asbestos houses. Brought back childhood memories for me. Maybe they’d offend some garden-watering city dweller types. Yes the places could have done with some work, but not quite a war zone.

There were some nice looking streets behind the shops (eg Tuart St). The brick/tile houses reminded me of parts of Safety Bay, though the gardents weren’t as consistently good. Not bad, though I didn’t go there at night to listen for any yelling or screaming as I had already bought elsewhere.

Rangeway Shops – unattractive, but I have seen worse. The security screens were most offputting. Can’t remember how much graffiti and vandalism was there, but I reckon the Bluff Point Shops (which everyone says is a nice area) aren’t that much better and need work (apart from the lack of security screens).

Russ – which parts of Rangeway did you look at?

Now if you really want to find some real grotholes, try touring the asbestos hovels of Kalgoorlie Boulder!

3. Merits of various towns.

Kay is right that a small amount of research would unearth the problem areas of Geraldton. But before dismissing all of Geraldton as a ‘bad investment’. I’d go one step further and isolate the problem a bit more rather than giving the whole city a miss. There are some good areas of Geraldton that I think will make excellent investments. Other people seem to think so and there’s hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into the town. Failing to ascertain the extent of could mean missing out on opportunities because of what happens in a few suburbs.

3. Buying sight unseen. I like her books, but I think Margaret Lomas is dead wrong on this.

Maybe some women are susceptible to being driven by emotional things (eg colours of the bathroom tiles) but I have sufficient faith in myself not to be swayed by trivia.

Russ is 100% right that the quality of neighbouring properties is important. If you subscribe to the ‘worst house best street’ theory, a Rangeway-style house in Bluff Point, Tarcoola or Beachlands might have been be a better buy.

An informed spotter can help, but there are always things that you think of later. Eg:

a. Just saying that there’s a corner shop there is no good if it closed down last week or is only open 2 days a week. b. Similarly a post in the ground saying ‘bus stop’ is not much use if there’s only two buses a day.
c. How many old cars are there in frontyards?
d. Are streetlights broken?
e. If living in the area would you let your kids walk barefoot to the local deli (risk of glass on pavement)?
f. What do local shopkeepers think of area?
g. Length of grass in lawns (to spot rental properties)
h. How much mesh and bars over shop windows?
i. Are street signs bent?
j. Empty shops in area?
k. Are curtins actually sheets in windows?
l. Timber over smashed windows in houses?
m. Sit outside shops and watch type of people entering
n. Is playground equip in parks vandalised?
o. Stray dogs?
p. Range of magazines in local deli
q. Houses look cared for?

Basically you need to get down and dirty, talk to the locals, walk the streets at night, get the timetables, inspect the shops, etc. Do far more than an agent (or even a spotter) would do.

Also by visiting you can see the potential for a property much more than from photos. Eg, is the space at the side big enough to fit a car through? If so it could form a driveway for a second house at the rear.

Regards, Peter

Peterp,

That’s a really good post- thankyou :o)

In a geographical area such as Geraldton, there will be good and less good areas in which to buy. I think one is buying into trouble if one buys asbestos- you’re right! And some of the better areas have been raked over by investors by now. One strategy I have is not to buy in areas that are HUGELY known by investors- ie Ipswich, Gero, etc. I figure what hasn’t been bought up so far, might not have been bought up for a reason

The relative geographic isolation also bothers me a bit.

Russ- best of luck with what you’re doing. You’ve obvoiusly got a real passion for it! [thumbsupanim]

kay henry