A quick flick through the statistical pages at the rear of the Australian Property Investor Magazine is most definitely not reporting "no capital growth" for Ballarat.  Regardless of where you invest, you can look at the viability of forcing your own capital growth through value add projects such as renovation.

I'm most certainly not "advising"…[Read more]

Hi Foo_Cat,

Have a chat to a local draftsperson, they can give you a bit of an idea of what may be possible, normally they'll give your situation 5mins or so of thought for free before proceeding.  They should be able to give you a vague idea of costs .  Have a chat to council also about what is possible on your block.

You would also need to…[Read more]

I had an offer rejected on a property this week because the vendor's solicitor told them the property "was worth $8k more".  That's right, $8k.  He told them to get a certified valuation to prove it.  The agent was gobsmacked that the vendor thought this was a good idea.  A val on a piece of paper doesn't translate into a buyer prepared to pay…[Read more]

Hey Jamie excuse my naivety, what is STG?

Are you intending to have involvement in selecting the property yourself?  If so, do you plan to visit Australia to view properties before buying?  If not, I guess you are talking about buying sight unseen, and/or using a buyer's agent.

Hi EW

Good on you!  Finally someone that sees it is a bad idea to make a loss every month!

Have you looked at Ballarat?  It is a regional city with a pretty fast train to Melbourne.  It has a university and a hospital and local industry (so plenty of available tenants) and you can have a whole house for less than $250k, and rent it out for an…[Read more]

That is what I was thinking Scott. Don’t mind us working hard to dish out handouts to people that don’t need it. This infuriates me.

Books are written to generate income.  They will generate more income if they are written in a manner that targets the bulk of the audience.  In this case, this means beginner investors.  It's where you are luv.  There is not a big enough market of people doing or wanting to do the fancy footsteps you are stepping!

Why are you paying the electricity and lawnmowing?  Did you offer to do so in the lease? 

You can have your cake and eat it too.  You can fiddle with the mortgage in a very specific manner and use equity to buy the next IP, but still have the other IP standalone.  Jamie M has already responded, why not get in touch and talk to him about how best to do this.

In VIC you can find out for about $17 by clicking on the titles & property certificates button on this page;
https://www.landata.vic.gov.au/tpc/tpc_home.aspx

You want to do a title search (order a certificate of title)

In which state?

Indeed. If one is making a loss and the other a gain, it is irrelevant. You subtract your total losses from your total gains and that overall position goes on your tax return as one aggregated figure

Why do you want to do this? 

Do you already own the two IPs or do you only own IP #1 and you are hoping to buy IP #2 ?

If you already own the two IPs, are they both held in the same name?

Oh you are right!  Says so on his info sheet http://www.terryw.com.au/  .  How have I gone this long and been unaware.  Angry with myself. 

To clarify Scott's suggestion:

Richard Taylor (userid Qlds007), or Jamie Moore (Jamie M)

TerryW is a lawyer ,.. unless I've misunderstood somewhere along the line and he is a double agent hehehe.

Third that.  Richard is a superhero.  I've had him sort out several mortgages for me now… and I have yet to sit down and meet the man face to face.  Email and phone is all you need.

Ray – depends on your tax bracket.  You work out your profit, you add that to your taxable income that year and you are taxed accordingly.  So if you are in the 37% tax bracket before you add your profit (ie based on the salary of your day job) and you are still in the 37% tax bracket after adding your profit, you pay 37% CGT.  Note if you hold…[Read more]

oh ok, well if it is locked in, money in the offset account won't do you any good.  unless you  have some miraculous mortgage that allows you to offset a fixed rate loan?

which of your IPs has the highest interest rate?  that is where ALL your offset money should go.