Cameron Bird

You mean the guys on the back cover of the API magazine that seem to deal with ‘off the shelf’ property investments?

Their figures just seem to deal with best case investing scenarios and are only positively geared after depreciation and tax advantages (assuming you’re in the top bracket).

If you want to buy something that is of poor construction quality that is already over-priced then go ahead, but if you’re into property for the long haul you’ll have to do better than paying guys like these $5000 to find you deals that are everywhere anyway.

They’re probably not much different from many of the other groups around who are selling developer stock. They have been around for a fair while, which is a point in their favour. I have heard that they are a bit choosy about what developers they deal with. Cameron Bird would sell quite often to existing clients, so they would be careful about burning them.
I bought a furnished holiday unit in Port Macquarie through them. Yep, very lazy of me. I exchanged at $330K off the plan and the bank valued it on settlement in June last year at $460K. The gain was due to the property boom up there, not my cleverness – I did no research at all before buying. My main reason for buying the place was to have somewhere to take the kids for holidays, so it was a lifestyle decision more than anything else.
Depreciation this year is $14,000. So yes, depreciation helped the purchase stack up.
The quality of the building is excellent – and believe me, I’ve seen some shockers. Cameron Bird had nothing to do with the build quality. That was down to the developer and the builder.
Scott

Tax Depreciation Schedules
Australia wide service
1300 660033
[email protected]
http://www.depreciator.com.au

Good question. I think if I was going to take the lazy way out again and was prepared to pay someone to find a property for me (which is what we really do when we use these sort of guys) I wouldn’t hesitate to use them. They were pretty painless to deal with. Of course, other people may have had a bad experience.
The sales pack they put together on the property I bought was pretty good. It ran to about 70 pages and included lots of information about the area including future council plans and demographic predictions. There was information on the developer and builder, too.
All these marketers say they get property wholesale for their clients, but I don’t know whether many people fall for that line.
Some developers give their whole stock to these sort of groups as opposed to using local agents.
As I said, I got lucky and rode the boom in Port Macquarie by accident. I know CB are selling properties in Cairns right now. I don’t know much about the market up there and the days of getting lucky with a property punt are gone for the time being.
Scott

Tax Depreciation Schedules
Australia wide service
1300 660033
[email protected]
http://www.depreciator.com.au

This post was 4 years ago and suddenly someone made a very postive comment on CB