How to get started

Hi,

I currently work in the mining industry, earning about $70k per year. I’m perfectly happy to keep working for the next 5 years or so, but would like to have enough cashflow by then to be able to live without having to work (if I chose to – I may find a truly enjoyable job and work anyway!).

I’ve scored a pretty sweet roster, working 8 days on, 6 days off. This gives me plenty of time back in Perth to investigate my options!

What I am trying to work out though is how to get started in property – I have little debt but little savings, and no other property. Most of my money has been going into flying training – an incredibly expensive pursuit!

My current idea is to get a no-deposit home loan and buy an investment property. The catch with no-deposit homeloans is that they will only give it to you if you buy in capital cities or major regional areas – so I’m looking at Cairns. According to my sums there’s a fair few cheap (under $200k) apartments and townhouses that would only cost me about $65 a week (Rental payments – Body Corp fees – Management fees? – Rates – Loan payments) without considering any possible tax breaks.

A few questions then:
– Would the above plan be a decent option just to get started? ie to build up some kind of equity for use in future?
– Should units and townhouses be avoided, and if so why? I only ask because complete houses under $200k are non-existent in Perth and seem to be extremely rare in Brisbane/Cairns/etc.
– Do Body Corporates take care of finding and placing tenants, or do you still have to pay to get the property managed? I haven’t been able to get an answer yet from anywhere.
– How does this “not buying in your own name” thing work? I can only guess that it means creating a real estate corporation of some kind. But if thats the case, can you get no-deposit loans for property if this new corporation has no earnings and no assets (like mine would)?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. As I mentioned at the beginning, I have a secure well paying job I’m happy to stay in for the next few years, and for extra safety I’m not going to borrow to the maximum of what I’ve been offered – but I would like to know how to get the most for my $$$ considering I’m starting with nothing else.

Thanks,

Adam