Block size

If the only tips your financial planner gave you was to buy property and to make it new build then he clearly isn’t much of a help in real estate is he?

I don’t believe people should buy new or build themselves unless they understand what they are doing and why. Building is time consuming and expensive and risky unless you totally know and trust the builder. Not saying it cant work just that it adds a layer of risk.

Buying established property is far safer for 4/5 people.

Before you even decide on new vs old you should decide WHY you are doing this – you have said its for retirement. TICK. Second decide what your long term goals are. You said 10-20 yrs that is a big difference lets narrow that down to a more concrete number. Once you done that you should decide on what income you want to be generating and how property fits into that. Remember property has costs like insurance, rates etc so your gross rental figure is not what will be left each yr when you are living on it. Once you know the desired income then you work out roughly how many properties you will need generating x amount of rent each. This will guide your purchasing strategy, whether it is new builds, renovations, buy and hold, etc etc.

The extra thinking and education at this end will save you years of pain later, so stick with it.

Whilst I understand from the planners perspective the basic numbers crunched make a ‘newer’ property appear to be the best option due to depreciation – in reality you need to weigh up the fundamentals of a new build vs older property for future growth, yield etc. Never buy an investment property for depreciations sake – it’s icing on the cake and shouldn’t be treated as anything else.