Check your insurance policy.  Often if a place is not lived in for 90 days or more, you cannot claim if something happens.  You need to sleep in it for a couple of consecutive nights and/or have the electricity connected to get around this.

Remember to provide your conveyancer with the current lease and remind him/her to do the rental adjustments (ie get the rent for days beyond settlement day paid to you raither than old owner).  It is also a very good idea to contact the current managing agent, let them know of settlement date and ask that they not pay rents for days beyond that to…[Read more]

The safe way forward is to just get a mortgage broker to go into bat for you with the bank.  Jamie M who has already contributed to this thread is held in very high regard.  Why not give him a call and let him handle it all for you.  Mortgage brokers are paid their fees by the bank, so you do not actually have to pay the mortgage broker if that…[Read more]

Make sure that your conveyancer orders a meter reading for the water usage, so that any water prior to settlement is not your problem.

Well if there is a clause in the loan contract specifying you must notify the bank of a change in use of the property, then essentially they could pull the contract out from under you if you try to be sneaky and not tell them and they then find out (which is easy since all your records… post and such…. will come to your house).  if you cannot…[Read more]

Just spoke to an insurance broker by the way, she is saying premiums across the board are going up minimum 35%.  So in essence there is no getting away from it.

Pondering whether to send a courteous letter to my tenants explaining that rents will go up a bit more than the standard increase this year, and explain the reason why.  They have…[Read more]

exactly.  the issue is more that landlords across the board need to have the same view… put the rents up.  otherwise those that opt to put their rent up will essentially be offerring a product way more expensive than the other dwellings around, and end up with a vacancy.

Freckle wrote:

JacM wrote:

For goodness sake Freckle, this site is free and here for us to use to learn how to be wealthier.  A little bit of courtesy wouldn't go astray!

Should I lie, pretend, offer false praise instead. What would you have me do Jac?

Like I and others are saying.  Constructive feedback.  Offer your ideas and…[Read more]

Freckle wrote:

SteveMcKnight wrote:
Appreciate the feedback, but make it as constructive as you can please.

– Steve 

Correct me if I'm wrong but the thread title asks what we think not suggestions please. I've left suggestions anyway in response to other posts on the subject. 

I'm a straight shooter and I'm not big on massaging peoples…[Read more]

Incidentally, GIO is the company that has slapped the 40% price hike.  I'm going to use an insurance broker.  I am sick of discussing this policy with GIO.  It's an unstrata'd unit block which confuses them greatly and they waste hours of my time and the planet's oxygen trying to get up to speed and understand what's going on. 

Indeed bring on…[Read more]

Either way you must tell your bank and insurance company about the change of use of the property.  It would not be very nice to have an incident such as a fire and have the insurance wangle out of paying you out because you didn't keep them up to date with what is going on with the property.  Same goes with the bank.  You cannot expect them to be…[Read more]

Do look into this before you jump in, or when each of you goes to try and make your second IP purchase you might get a shock on your serviceability calcs which will affect how much you can or cannot borrow.  In many cases, all three of you will be considered responsible for the entire loan should the others default on their portion of the…[Read more]

Leo – Jamie and Richard are both brokers who regularly contribute awesome advice on these forums.  Personally, I am in VIC and use Richard (who is in QLD) for all my mortgage needs.  Never even met him in person, everything is done via phone and email.  It's about getting the right person, not about picking from those available in a particular…[Read more]

You would be well advised to let your insurance company know that the property is no longer a rental but an owner occupier.

You might also want to look into whether you'd save some cash by refinancing.  Perhaps the interest bill is higher for an investment property loan than it would be if you are living in it.  Have a chat to a knowledgeable…[Read more]

Here here Lady Dianna!  Agreed – the team is actively asking for feedback and actioning it accordingly.  Hopefully people can lodge their feedback and ideas in a pleasant manner.  Keeping it in perspective that this is a free site where we all get to learn heaps of profit-generating information from one another… feedback doesn't need to be…[Read more]

I agree with Terry.  Interest only. 

After a couple of years of hiking the rent up, the rent exceeds the holding costs and the surplus can be used to start chipping away at the principal.  Why would you use money you had to go to a job to acquire to chip away at the principal when you can instead have tenants chip away at it for you in tomorrow's…[Read more]

Yup that is more like what I understood to be how cgt works, cheers for clarifying Shahin.

I don't think that is how CGT is calculated…

Pro-rata is a concept that becomes relevant if you lived in the property for a period of time and rented it for a period of time.

My understanding of CGT calcs are:

Cost of acquiring property …. minus holding costs …. minus sellling costs…. equals Capital Gain.  Let's say your capital gain is…[Read more]

Admin wrote:
Hi Nathan and Jac

This is on our "Things To Do" list – but we've needed to fix a few show-stopper bugs before we've been able to hit this.

I just wanted to let you know "we're on it."

BH

Awesome!!  Aren't we a greedy bunch!

I am not sure why though there is quite a bit of unused space at both the left and right side of the screens.  On a mobile phone it for some reason makes it impossible to scroll all the way to the right.  This is probably because I can't figure out how to use my phone properly hhehe.