G’day folks,
Thought I’d give a quick introduction, a bit of background and some information on my current situation before I begin to ask some questions. Also wanted to say how glad I am that I stumbled upon this fantastic site, it looks to be a great resource for all those interested in property investing!
So my name’s Rob and I’m a 26 year old from Melbourne. I’m a Park Ranger and currently make around $49,000 per annum with the potential to earn an extra couple of thousand dollars depending on the fire season. By early next year I should have gone up a salary classification level or two and should be earning around $59,000 per annum. I am considering a career change and am looking at possible applying for the Melbourne Fire Brigade at some stage next year, if I am successful in that I should be making a little more money.
The only debt that I currently possess is my HECS debt or whatever it’s called these days, which is around $20,000. I own Land Cruiser, motorcycle and boat, which are probably worth $30,000 combined and I owe nothing on these. I also have $5,000 term deposit and approximately $14,000 owed to me by a family member; I should have access to this in the next month or so.
Unfortunately my aunty, who I was very close to, passed away last September. Fortunately for my sister and I though, she left her St Kilda East two bedroom apartment to us. I currently live in it and over the last couple of months have put down new floating floors in the living areas, carpet in the bedrooms, vinyl in the kitchen and have repainted the whole place. We recently had the apartment valued at $480-500,000 in its current condition and plan to get a few more valuations in the next couple of weeks.
My Father recently subdivided his property in Riddells Creek and is giving my sister and I a block to share. This block was valued at between $340-$360,000 earlier in the year. The original plan was that my Father would sell this block, after his other three blocks sold, pay the CGT and then just give us the remaining money. That way he wouldn’t CGT upon gifting us the block and we wouldn’t have to also pay CGT upon sale of the block. Now my sister and I are also considering the possibility of building a nice house on the property and then selling it…
My sister and I have a very good relationship and like the idea of investing together. Obviously we’d have to discuss this further to work out the future implications for the both of us if we follow this joint investment strategy and also work out a suitable exit strategy for any place we own together. My sister is currently in her final year of a PhD, works part time and also owns a two bedroom apartment in Essendon. I am yet to own a property so would still be eligible for the first home buyers grant, however I don’t believe I would be eligible for this if I was to buy with my sister? So anyway my sister and I now have to work out what we want to do and what our plans are for the future…
We had thought to sell the St Kilda East apartment and then upgrade to a property in the low to high $700,000 range somewhere in the inner city region. The plan was I’d live in it and get someone in to rent the other bedroom/s. However I believe we will no longer do this. We both feel that we may be better off holding off this type of purchase until both of us are more settled and know what we plan to do in the next five to ten years. Now we’re leaning towards holding onto the apartment, I’d still continue to live in it and get someone to rent the other room to pay my sister, and using the equity to get a loan or loans to purchase a joint investment property or even investment properties.
I’m still very much an investment newbie; I’m currently reading some of Steve’s books and plan to take out a subscription to the Australian Property Investment magazine. I will continue to read up and trawl this site to try and obtain some knowledge and build an understanding of property investing and all that goes with it. I guess you could say my aim in this is allow myself to make a start in property investment which would hopefully lead me to some financial security later in life…
So for now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to hear some of your thoughts and opinions and would like to know what you’d do if you were in my situation?
Your assistance would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to spending a fair bit of time on this forum and learning all that I can from it…
Cheers and kind regards,
Rob
Sorry to hear about your aunt – I would start by investigating the tax status of this property. It is probably CGT exempt, but you should check. You both may be able to move into this place briefly and then out again and then rent it without affecting the CGT status for up to 6 years.
I think you will find your father will be assessed on the transfer of the block at market rates for CGT and stamp duty too. So you may want to check this. You may be able to build on this block and sell and may be able to do it CGT free too if you intend it as your main residence. GST may apply on the sale though.
It can be hard with two separate people owning one property – you can get a LOC on it initially and then use this as deposits for the next purchases, but later on you may want to increase the LOC when she doesn't or vice versa etc. So it may be wise to consider the sale of your aunties property now and then invest separately.
Terryw | Structuring Lawyers Pty Ltd / Loan Structuring Pty Ltd
http://www.Structuring.com.au
Email MeLawyer, Mortgage Broker and Tax Advisor (Sydney based but advising Aust wide) http://www.Structuring.com.au
Thanks for the reply Terryw. In response to your points:
I believe we are CGT exempt for two years from the date probate went through and we obtained the property. Thanks for the tip on both of us moving in and not affecting the CGT status for up to six years, I already live in there and have done for the past six months but I'll let my sister know and we can organise it that way if we do end up renting it out..
My father will pay CGT on sale of the block, not sure on the stamp suty side of things though. The plan was he would just sell it in his name, pay the duties/tax and then give us the money, saving him paying duties and then us. We were also thinking about doing the building and selling in my fathers name too to once again hopefully skip the double duty. Would probably also try and get him to make it his PPOR for a while before sale to try and obtain the reduced CGT. Not sure if all this is possible however, so I need to look into it more..
I understand there would be difficulties with my sister and I owning investment properties together. However as we are both pretty much on the same page and have similar goals in mind, I'd figured the positives would out weigh the negatives. As we're just looking into our options and don't plan to do anything in the immediate future, we've got time to more thoroughly explore our options and work out if it is the right way for us to go…
Cheers and thanks again for your advice mate
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. If you don't have an account, you can register here.
