I put the click together stuff down all through the kitchen in an apartment. I had been told it would swell up if I got it wet, so I left an offcut in a sink full of water for 24 hours with no apparent effect. I had the accoustic foam down but still had complaints from below, so I have since had to put some rugs down as well.The body corporate…[Read more]

This is interesting. I hope we get some more posts on this.My view would be that if you were already an investor, making taxable income from buying and selling property, then a business trip purely to look at potential property, backed up with evidence in the form of appointments with agents etc would be deductable.If however you were just…[Read more]

I would hang on if at all possible. The underlying economy in Perth is still strong and Vic Park is a great spot. I sold a unit in West Perth a year ago as it had gone from making me $50 a month to casting me $50 a month. I could have sold it now for $60,000 more but gave it up for $600.Such is life and these experiences all go towards making…[Read more]

Try Caz Van Der Put at Centrepoint Realty in East Perth. She looks after some properties for me and has been excellent.

Oh and try renting a car without a credit card…..

It's true that the poor work for their money, and the rich have their money work for them. Credit cards are great if used wisely. Mine has a 17% interest, but a great frequent flyer program.Wait until the day a bill is due then pay on a credit card. Wait until the day the credit card is due then pay it off in full. The difference is amazing, but…[Read more]

It depends how involved in property investing you want to be. I had one for a few years as I was away a lot. As the capital growth depends on any increase in rental, I sold it when I had more time and I wanted property that I could affect the income yeild and capital growth of, by improvements, etcI sold it and made a profit, but mainly because…[Read more]

With 65% of pollies owning negatively geared investment property, I can't see them all voting to remove the tax breaks. The last time they tried it was a disaster and took years to recover.The above post is correct – remove the tax breaks, the investors get out of the market, resulting in far more people looking to the government to house them.…[Read more]

Three years ago I got Granite Transformations to do the bench tops in a unit of mine. The cost was double that of new laminate and half that of proper granite. It still looks like new and was well worth it. It has been a rental for the last two years and being able to put hot pans on it and cut on it makes it a sensible option. For not much extra…[Read more]

Mainly for asset protection. It depends how much you are worth and whether you are in an occupation where you have a high risk of being sued for your personal assets. It's a huge subject, but if you buy the Australian Property Investor magazine, there is a section at the back where all sorts of books on the subject are available.

It all depends on how you spend your dollars. You can spend $5k or $25K on a kitchen or bathroom and not see much difference between the two results. If you buy tiles and taps from the auctions, get the cookware from a seconds shop, (still with warranty, maybe just a damaged box) and do a lot of the work yourself, you will be surprised how much…[Read more]

I went to an interesting talk by Brad Sugars , whose strategy was to buy a few low growth, positive cash flow properties and then use the income on these to fund the loss on a negativly geared, high growth property. Set the whole thing up through a trust structure to be self supporting, then go and start again.Personally, I have a mixture of both…[Read more]

I didn't mean it is good if you are in the same situation, I meant to say I feel better that I am not the only one.

Up until I married three years ago I was buying two properties a year. Since then I have bought none. I have a shelf full of books on property investing and wealth management and I tried to get my wife to tead "Rich Dad Poor Dad" but she wasn't interested.To her our best investment has been the $35000 4WD that she just had to have. At the moment i…[Read more]

Just go and read a couple of books which go down  the negative gearing route rather than positive gearing route to even things up and then make up your mind. Jan Somers is good has written some good ones.  Whilst you are getting such good growth and if you have a high tax bill I have to agree that you don't have much to be too unhappy about.

Personally I read every book on property investing I can get my hands on, whenever it was written. Another I would recommend is "Building Wealth Storey by Storey" by Jan Somers. She collected a range of stories from all sorts of people and also a couple of horror stories. It's good to see just how many different ways there are to go about creating…[Read more]

This has been a great topic. How about a post from Steve McKnight?MePPOR Bought $465 Value $900IP Bought $110 Value $400IP Bought $103 Value $280IP Bought $310 Value $600Pretty much cash positive now..

I went back and read Steve's books again and they are very much of their time, and the market Steve was talking about in "0-130 properties in 3.5 years" is very different to the market today. Also the market in a small mining town would be completely different to say Perth, where a cash positive property would be very hard to find off the shelf,…[Read more]

Like anything in life, everything is up for negotiation. You would have to try and find out how motivated the vendor was. It might be that you are buying the first 10 in a big development and the developer needs the sales in order to get the finance. On the other hand the developer may be getting so many cash offers for his properties he would not…[Read more]

The reality is that if you want to buy a property in WA you will be borrowing over $500k. There are a lot who say the resourse boom is over, but if you work in the north west you will already know from the ammount of projects planned up there that there are years left in it.Karratha is still a good place to have property. Just try to get a hotel…[Read more]