How to know if the rental market in a area?

Hi,

Go to Aust Bureau of Statistics and look at the following;

Building approvals – indicating if there are any activity in a suburb

Income & Household exp – can give you an idea of how much they can pay for rent,

do a suburb search, Under 2011 Census Quick Stats, type the suburb, and you get a quick view of the avg rent. For example in Shellharbour in 2011, median weekly rent is $300.

Play around this website, bear in mind its 2011 stats.

I also look at the back pages of some of the investing magazines which has a list of suburbs by state and the rent, very useful.

Good luck

Christine

Hi and welcome aboard.

I think LMI can be great – it can be used to purchase more with less. Yes it comes at a cost – but it's a deductible expenses when purchasing an IP and it means you can use more of the banks money and less of your own. Also – if the property value goes up over time, that initial LMI cost will probably be insignificant later on.

You'll need to check vacancy rates in the area. Low vacancy generally means it's a desirable place to live and/or a shortage of rentals on the market. A high vacancy rate will usually mean an oversupply of rentals and/or it's not an area people want to live in. It's easy to find vacancy rates – you can usually find them online, in the back of investment magazines and you can chat with local property managers.

To get a tenant in as quickly as possible, try and get the seller to agree to allow you to advertise the property for rent prior to settlement. That way, you might be able to line a tenant up for settlement day.

Those reports are probably residex, RP data or something similar. That info is available to anyone – usually at a price. Most real estate professionals hold a subscription for these services and provide them for free to their clients. You can also buy them directly from the companies that produce them.

Cheers

Jamie