Hi Pleiades,Thanks very much for that! That certainly gives me hope!I was looking on the eastern side of melbourne. The only real requirement for me would be to 'live' in an area in Melbourne where there are many asian convenient stores and such not too far away. The place would really be for my mother, and I think it would be good for her to live…[Read more]

Mmm… Very interesting to hear you're doing the same thing!! It's not as expensive as I was expecting. i was thinking down the lines of $10,000+ to build a trust structure with companies/trustees. Excuse my ignorance but PPOR…???Yeah that's what I thought too, but I figured if I sold my house in Brisbane, I'd lose all my $245k of equity!! And…[Read more]

number 8,Thanks for your advice. I read Steve McKnights book, which talks about building a trust structure, with trustees and companies. It talks about a law, which says a company is not responsible for the director's debt, and the director is not responsible for company debt. Because of this, he can use his financial borrowing power as a…[Read more]

Shane,Yeah that's true. But if my borrowing power is $400k (which I haven't calculated exactly but I assume it's around there), and I've already borrowed $185k, that leaves me the ability to borrow $215k more. Assuming I am putting in a 20% desposit for a $400k house, that means technically I should be able to purchase a maximum of 3 more houses.…[Read more]

Well, the impression I got from some of my initial readings and learning was that it is important to voluntarily pay your principal at all times because it reduces your interest significantly, and shortens the life of your mortgage exponentially as well. As I mentioned, I have $185k owing, and I refinanced the house with another bank, which the…[Read more]

Hi Richard,Thank you for your reply. I don't fully understand the purpose/benefit in your suggestions! Realestate is farely new to me, so you'll have to help me out with abbreviations and yeah… Why only pay the interest? 100% offset account? Basically I have turned my mother's savings account into our offset account, and i have a separate…[Read more]

Hi Richard,The house was bought under my mother's name over 5 years ago. Because of this, we went with a private finance company, who we thought we weren't getting the best service from. She initially paid interest only, but about 2 years ago, started to pay both interest and principal. Now that I have graduated uni and got myself a job, I have…[Read more]

Hi Andrew,Sorry, I must have misinterpretted what I was trying to say. I bought the house for $210,000, and got a 95% loan at the time. Now the total of the loan has gone down to $185,000, but the house was actually refinanced a month ago, whereby the value of the house was deemed to be $430,000. So that's what I meant when I said the house is now…[Read more]

Paul,Thank you for your input!Yeah I am definately going to see accountants and planners before doing anyting with my money. And I will definately ask around in this forum for good financial planners. Especially after all the news articles with commission based planners and so forth.I have read Steve McKnights book on Vendor Financing, but because…[Read more]

Sonya,That's a great idea. It's so difficult to try buy a place at another state when you can't stay there for very long!!I went there for 5 days last month and loved the place. But renting will be a great option to suss the place out, and seek the right suburbs. As for friends and family, I'm not too worried about that right now. I just want to…[Read more]