need a few opinion from you guys and gals

I’ll save the wink and point the finger for you. No GPS required.

So what would my advice be to a young fella with a young family who’s reasonably comfortable at the mo. There was an old american guy, 90’s I think who recently died. He was something of an investor legend over there. Prior to dropping off the perch, his last interview I think, he was asked what his secrete to success was and the most valuable thing he’d learnt over the years.

Simple he said, “patience”

Given the way the global economy is heading and the fact I think the lunatics may well be running the asylum, crunch time may well be just around the corner. Jez I’m not even confident we can make it to Xmas without a meltdown. We’ll know more after this month if Italy refinances successfully or not.

I’m a “plan for worst hope for the best” kinda guy so I would go defensive. Maybe get rid of the com prop and down size the mortgage a little and poke some into precious metal (buy physical) and keep a little cash on hand then wait.

If you look around these forums you’ll find the more astute investors have been doing this for more than a year now. They’ve rebalanced their portfolios and deleveraged down to more sustainable levels. They’ve kept the best performing and best positioned properties. A lot of the downside in the current market is attributed to investors getting out or rejigging.

My gut feeling is that residential won’t be a flyer once the dust settles. It’s going to take a while (possible decades) for markets to recover but that’s not to say there won’t be some very good buying opportunities. I think in the coming years you’re going to see longer investment timelines than are currently the norm. In fact we may revert to a more traditional conservative investment philosophy similar to that which existed prior to the boom years.

I consider understanding global macro, and to a lesser extent, micro trends essential to your toolkit to prevent being blindsided by national or even state economic/financial interference. A lot of the more aggressive investors here will get nailed quite badly in the coming correction because the either don’t understand or worse simply don’t care about external factors than can affect them. Many right these off as simply negatives that must be ignored in able to stick to the “stay positive” mantra of hard core property investing.

But if you still have a masochistic PI urge then I would probably look to go commercial. I definitely wouldn’t look at industrial or retail. If I was buying commercial I would want something with an existing long term tenant. For example in my area a large ind block sold with Coates Hire as the tenant. They had a long term lease of 10yrs with right of renewal for another 10.

Anyway you get the picture.

Patience!!!

Cheers Jack
PS: I like your front page. Up there with the best I’ve seen

     Also agreed get another accountant,     effectively you will need to to earn about  30% more to have the same amount of money left in your pocket to pay the  for the IP,     than  you will if you pay off the PPOR.