Hi DWolfe,A percentage?  That works great for your grandmother and the heirs if the property value is low…. but if it's worth a bit… well…With regards to getting a real estate agent to value the land… If the unimproved land value on the rates notice is not acceptable, then a proper valuation company does the valuation, not the real estate…[Read more]

A quick phonecall to a mainstream builder such as Metricon or Pioneer to enquire the build cost of one of their spec townhouses in your area would tell you.  $500k sounds well out of order to me.  Max $300k.

?? Drain the water out of it and build a deck over it.  That way it can be converted back into a pool whenever you want

Richard Taylor who participates heavily on this forum.  His userid is Qlds007.  Details belowRichard TaylorResidential & Commercial Mortgage Broker. Ph: 07 3720 1888richard@tayloredfinancialsolutions.com.au.

Best of luck BB!  Very awesome of you to keep us informed! 

If however you knew of a plot of land that was cheap as chips and eligible for rezoning to industrial, commercial, or from say semi rural to fully-blown residential 1, now that's another story. 

Yes there will be some stamp duty.Am I understanding correctly?  You want to buy vacant land which cannot earn rent to help with the mortgage.  You want to put in 10% so therefore you will borrow 90%.  Per year the interest on such a loan will be say, at least $7k per year.  That's $14k.  You then plan to sell at $130k.  Let's subtract the costs…[Read more]

More info required… wages, value of brick cottage, debt remaining on cottage, amount of liquid cash savings you have

Where is this house by the way?  Is it near a uni?  If so, maybe you could rent the sleepout to a separate tenant.  That'd change things….Where are you located?Look at Norlane VIC… even if only to get your head around buying a house on a large subdividable plot.

The thing you must understand about negative gearing is that you aim to deliberately make a loss.  A loss is a loss, even when a tax refund refunds PART of the loss. If you can afford to pay $219k for a property, do it.  But do it in the following manner:- put down a 20% deposit and the stamp duty- get the bank to pay the rest (you'll need a jo…[Read more]

Yeah fair enough Leopold is doable.  If you go ahead with this plan, be sure to get a Quantity Surveyor to do a depreciation schedule for you.  It'll cost you about $500 and he/she will determine how much the property will "depreciate" each year and indicate what figure you can list on your tax return for the next however many years.  This in tu…[Read more]

Further to what Kaz said; you could put down say a 20% deposit, and get a bank to pay the rest, and then park all the rest of your money in an offset account to hold off the interest on the loan.  then when you are ready to buy again, just pull that cash straight out and spend it on another I.P.

um… i think you'll struggle to build new in geelong for that price (just to get a plot of land big enough, with a knockdown house on it will set you back $200k ish)… unless you go with a house and land package in a new estate, or consider a double storey townhouse on a smaller plot of land.

There is nothing special about this deal.  It is just another house.  In fact it is worse than nothing special.  There doesn't appear to be anything you can do to add value.  The reno is done, the block is a bit small to build in the backyard, or to subdivide.  There are better deals out there. 

i sent you a PM

Good lord BB, epic!  Good luck!

Is there a reason you've limited your thoughts to Melbourne?  Using Steve McKnight's history as an example (refer the right side of this screen that has a pic of his book "0 to 130 properties in 3.5 years") he deliberately got started in Ballarat in order to get positive cashflow.And in answer to your question, no, not really. Not everyone can…[Read more]

Awesome – thankyou again

awesome post number8 – thankyou!!  One question – I rang the ATO and asked what deposit a SMSF must put in; and they said they had no stipulation… and it was therefore down to what the bank would loan.  So if a bank (eg Westpac) would loan 80%, then the SMSF would pitch in 20% (not 28%) ??My other question is can an SMSF  sink all its cash in…[Read more]

Hi Ash,Thankyou for your reply – yes I'd love your super guy's details – perhaps you could PM them to me?