Property investment company

Hi,

My partner and myself had a property investment company come to our home and took us through the general basics of property investment, they then organised to have us go to their office in the city for an obligation free meeting to see if we would be financially able to invest in property

I attended a meeting with the company in Melbourne last week, I believe I may have made a terrible mistake.

My partner and myself attended a 4 hour meeting where 2 guys went over our financial situation. They then proceeded to tell us about their company, what they do and show us things we can claim on tax etc.

Then they took us through what they could do for us by sourcing out a few properties (only new properties and only within 15km's of the CBD) and will get back to us in a few weeks once they have sourced out properties. They said the properties would be in low vacancy rate areas, then go to town planning to see if any major developments are happening in the area.

Once they have done that they take us out to the properties and we select one, they then handle the conveyancing (not the mortgage brokeing, or at least that hasn't been mentioned yet). They then cover landlord insurance for the first year. They also gave advise on our other finances like consolidating credit cards, car loans etc.

Now here's where it gets embarrassing for me.

At the end of this meeting, they asked us if we wanted to join and they would get straight to work. My partner and myself were quite excited by the whole thing so we agreed to sign up. The cost to sign up was $1000 up front and then another payment of $4000 in 45 days which they said we could claim on tax and could also have that amount put in to the loan when we purchase the home.

After reading the contract we both signed up.

Initially on reading the contract I took the understanding that the $1000 was just a deposit and if we walked out on the deal that we would lose that. But after reading over it again it looks as though we have to pay the remaining sum regardless of whether we go through with anything.

After reading the contract over a few times I started to get a little nervous, so I Googled 'property investment companies' and 'property investment scams'.

For 3 days straight I have been reading over scams, what to look out for, property companies selling houses for well over their value to increase commisions etc.

Fair to say I haven't slept properly for 3 days, please understand I know I may have made a terrible mistake which will cost me a fair sum of money and I have learnt a massive lesson.

What I want to ask is,

What do I do from here?

Are any of these companies not dodgy?

Should I go and look at the homes they selected, choose one, then get it independantly valuated before commiting to buy?

If it actually is a decent price, do we go ahead?

If it is over priced do we cut our losses at 5K and run?

Should we cut our losses now and run?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance for any help, I just don't know what to do. I would name the company but I don't know the legal side of naming companies on forums.

Thanks again