If you replace the carpet and repaint, it is an improvement. As long as your property is on the rental market at the time of the improvement you will be able to claim depreciation expenses each year while rented for the deemed life span of the carpet and the deemed life of the paint job. This is because you are bringing the house up to a rentable…[Read more]

Your neighbors house returns the same rental yield as your house. yield = rent per week * 52 / price of house * 100 5.6% rental yield neighbor5.5% your house yieldSometimes a house can be lower in its selling price by being on the market for a long period of time. Sellers notice that your house hasn't sold and that you have lowered the price. It…[Read more]

What you need to consider is can you afford $3 a litre for petrol to drive into the CBD for work. These new suburbs do not have good public transport so if you buy in them you have to assess the likely hood of petrol increasing and what effect that will also have on your neighbours.   If all your neighbours are forced to sell all at the same time…[Read more]

I know where you are coming from. You can get a cover note for the insurance before settlement occurs.If you get landlords insurance it usually as a public liability insurance component to cover the incident where a trade person doing a quote trips over and is injured and decides to sue the owner.You do not want to do renovations until settlement…[Read more]

Do you think they will travel from the UK to Australia to take the photos ?

You also need to have a cash float in an account to cover periods when you do not have a tenant or to cover urgent repairs that you cannot delay fixing. Another important point is who can afford a $280,000 house. It might be a good idea to start smaller and buy in a rural area and work at getting this house paid off or cash flow positive. The…[Read more]

Hi. I am in a similar situation except that I am a house dad with twin daughters and my wife works. With a limited amount of income I have moved into the realm of positive geared property investments. I did have another property that was costing me about $400 a month to keep so when I became a house dad I sold it and used the $40,000 profit to pay…[Read more]

I have owned an investment home previously. Can I still be eligible for the grant? A person is not eligible if they or their spouse (including de facto spouse) has had a relevant interest in any residential property in Australia prior to 1 July 2000, whether they live in it or not. However, a person may be eligible if they or their spouse…[Read more]

I can't get the FHOG so I will be unable to increase the price by $14000 dollars and will be chilling out..

Welcome to the forum Rob.This months Property Investor Magazine (October 2008) has a couple of case studies of investors who have purchased investment properties while they were renting.  It could be a worthwhile read.If you buy an investment property you have the choice of where it will be like Rural or Outer suburb where it is cheaper to…[Read more]

Nepash,Welcome to the forum,Unfortunately, if you already own a house then you are not a first home owner. I am assuming that the new FHOG will have a similar requirement to the old FHOG in that you have to be a first home buyer and not previously owned property including investment properties.http://www.firsthome.gov.au/

give90 wrote:
doesn't the money that you input from your pocket get carried over as a loss against the profit?

No! , If you claim the expenses each year against your rental income or wage income you have got your tax deduction already !If you then try and claim the expenses as a CGT loss or to increase the cost base and against income each year…[Read more]

Re-finance usually refers to going to another bank and shifting your mortgage from your old lender to a new lender.Taking out an equity loan or line of credit loan against 80% of the value of your home is probably what I think you meant to ask.80% if usually the max amount you can borrow in this fashion.Now it really depends on what the purpose of…[Read more]

I own a pre fab house ex housing commission and it holds up well in value with the other houses in the suburb that are not prefab.What I have found is that the steel frame and solid concrete walls makes the house extremely tenant damage proof.In the case of a fire there is no wood in the roof or in the walls to catch fire or be eaten by…[Read more]

Your loan repayment expenses you can claim only the interest payment.You haven't mentioned depreciation claim for the renovations. Get a quantity surveyor to survey the property to work out what you can claim as depreciation. Repair done during the income earning phase can also be claimed unless it is an improvement and then depreciation is…[Read more]

Depends on if you own other property with equity. You could then get a deposit bond from a bank based on the fact that you could borrow the deposit amount from existing equity in other property. You might be living in a house now that has heaps of equity that you are not fully utilising. It is not usually recommended that you cross secure other p…[Read more]

452k * 7.76% = $35075 interest p/a352k * 7.76% = $27315 interest p/asaving of 7760 paying 5000 to brother save $2760 (this is over one year half the amounts for 6 months).Now the 5% payment to brother is that going to be claimed as an investment cost with ATO which your brother would have to claim as an income to ATO.If you have an investment with…[Read more]

Not being a USA investment site I can only suggest what seems to be a common practice in the USA where you offer a Lease to Buy. You charge more than the normal rent and place the extra collected into an account for the tenant so the tenant  can save up a deposit which comes off the purchase price and you give them an option to be able to…[Read more]

You probably need a valuation once you change the status from PPOR / Main Dwelling to Investment Property if the other new house is going to be exempted from CGT due to now being a main residence exemption. (There is a way of having it exempted but then the new property will not be exempted as you can't have both and there is a time…[Read more]

http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/Content/00133187.htm download pdf guidehttp://www.ato.gov.au/SearchResults.asp?si=&ep=0&kw=rental%20expenses&fm=&so=&sh=&ps=10&sc=0&py=0&sr=1look through search results