[jadamo76Member@jadamo76Join Date: 2012Post Count: 13]

April 23, 2012 - 6:15 am

washingtonbrown wrote:

Hi

As you are not settling until July…..you won’t be able to claim anything this financial year.

The report will start from Settlement.

Might be best to organise the QS to inspect just prior to settlement – so as to not disturb the tenants if you have one immediately.

regards

Tyron Hyde
CEO
http://www.washingtonbrown.com.au

Hi All seems we had a development and now settlement will occur on 29 June.
Can we claim the cost of the report this financial year but then start the depreciation next financial year? Or would there be a very ridiculous pro-rata required to cover the 29th-30th June?

Cheers,

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April 11, 2012 - 4:05 am

Dan42 wrote:

No, as depreciation is deductible when the asset first becomes available for use. It isn't your asset until a) you have paid for it, and b) it is available for a tenant to use. The earliest date for depreciation would therefore be settlement date.

Is it worthwhile getting a depreciation schedule done up before settlement?  Or wait till after settlement?  I would not have a problem getting a surveyor access to the property. I am thinking with very little deductions this financial year might be worth getting a couple of costs through this financial year.

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April 10, 2012 - 12:55 pm

DWolfe wrote:

Hi jadamo76,

Propertyinvesting.com puts on a 3 day Mega conference. It's 3 days of property information, broken up into workshops with property and other speakers. It should be advertised on the site soon. Well worth the money, I'm not sure how much it this year, but I loved the last one I went to.

I'm sure there will be more info on it soon…

Cheers

D

Well can I ask how much it roughly cost last year?

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April 4, 2012 - 1:05 pm

Nhan wrote:

Hi there,

Just wondering if anyone knows the location for the 2012 mega conference this year? I know its in Melbourne but dont have the address.

Your feedback is much appreciated.

Nhan

Hi stupid question but what is the “mega conference” ???

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April 2, 2012 - 11:37 pm

BMW wrote:

How many people with only 1 investment property get 5% plus GST for management fee?

we will be getting 5.5% at family rates also in a regional area

BMW thanks. Can I ask how much your paying in letting fee? and is there a re-let fee attached?

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April 2, 2012 - 1:49 pm

kouts86 wrote:

Hi All

I am interested in your thoughts with the new home and land packages in Melbourne. I have been looking in Morwell and Warrnambool as well as Sunbury as it is slightly closer to the CBD. My intention is to ensure it is CF+ but as I am an out of state buyer I would like local experience and knowledge. The Governement is giving 20k to new homes and 26k to New homes in regional Melbourne.

What are your thoughts on both regional and metro?

Rental Returns aren’t so bad, from what I have seen in all 3 suburbs.

Looking Forward to Your Thoughts

Pete

Umm you planning to live in the home and is it your first property purchase? The government is giving FIRST HOME OWNERS who live in the house the grant not investors.

Re sunbury there are currently 96 houses available for rent (according to realestate.com.au within the suburb with plenty of these houses being brand new! )

We have our family home in Caroline Springs because when we decided to get our PPOR 10 years ago the land was cheap and the facilities planned were fantastic and we got to build what we wanted. Having said that I would not buy an investment property here. Like sunbury and a lot of new estates there are plenty of houses on the market for rent. Caroline Springs has over 100 houses available for rent right now!

Your CF+ calculations assume you will find a renter on day one and it will never be without a tenant! With another 96 vacant properties for rent that probably wont happen without reducing the rent to below market which then might not make it CF+

If you want CF+ forget Victoria because you wont find it. Seems QLD and to some extent Tasmania are the main areas offering CF+ potential investment but these areas are actually having negative Capital Gain at the moment as well!

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April 2, 2012 - 1:34 pm

Phorsha wrote:

Put in 480k, as soon as i said subject to the sale of my house the agent made it very obvious I didn't stand a chance. He also said there would be no counter offers because the owners expectations had already been exceeded by the other offers.

SUCKS!

At least you know where you stand! no pussy footing around now. You can move on to your next prospective purchase.

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April 2, 2012 - 1:29 pm

anandd wrote:

If your investment property is in Melbourne Metro area I may refer you to a major property agent (I know her personally) and they will look after you very well and I believe will be cheaper over all. Email me if interested.

Cheers

Anandd thanks but as already said in my original post it is in a regional area hence why I would prefer someone local.

Also since when is bigger better? Major property agent means heaps of properties to worry about which means probably wont get the type of focus I would be hoping for.

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April 2, 2012 - 1:27 pm

JacM wrote:

There is no way that I would pay half a week's rent for lease renewal.  $50 at most.  And once you have a couple of properties with them, negotiate it to zero.  Remember that all a lease renewal is, is a phonecall to the tenant from the agent asking if they want to renew, and posting them a renewal notice.  That's not half a week's rent money worth of effort.

Two weeks letting fee is a lot.  I'd be aiming for 1 week – payable only if they find you a suitable tenant.  On the other hand this is sort of offset by the lower management fee.

You also want to be sure they are using TICA database to check up on tenant's background, and not charging you per search.

Hey everything comes with a price doesnt it?

Half a weeks rent is going to be around $170. How much would you get charged to get some good quality photographs of the place for a rental listing? (Assuming I will be able to access a house I have not actually settled on yet) I am sure this is going to be worth more than $120 which I am getting for nothing.

I was already thinking of trying to haggle them down to 1 week for letting fee (I would never agree to pay if it is not tenanted who would?)

On the other hand for the sake of an extra $340 I will be given co-operation from current vendor in relation to allowing access to prospective tenants to allow me to get a tenant in on week one. If I find another rental agent there is a chance (because I did not add special clauses for access into the sale contract as it was my first investment purchase and didnt think of it) I wont get access till I settle for photos / propsective tenants being shown around etc. Paying a 1 week premium to have three months access to the property to have a renter from day 1 of owning the property surely must be worth it. Rather pay the premium than risk not having rental income for a few weeks!

The charges outlined in my original post are the only charges so there is no extras like charging per search etc.!

How many people with only 1 investment property get 5% plus GST for management fee?

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April 1, 2012 - 5:37 am

Phorsha wrote:

Hi Everyone, I have decided to put in an offer on a house which I haven't done in 5 years so I am a wee bit out of touch. The first home open was yesterday and from what i could see generated a fair bit of interest. Within 15 minutes the Harcourt's agent reckons he has 3 separate parties interested in making an offer so I potentially have some competition on my hands.

The house is 'Price by Negotiation $469,000 – $509,000', I would like the house for 469k, i am prepared to go up but not any more than $480k because thats all i can afford and i know the area extensivley and dont think its worth any more.  

My question is, what figure would you initially come in with and why?

Cheers

Hi this is my first post here but I have just finished putting in an offer for a house only yesterday so thought I would share my experience and probably more questions for you! We had a similar dilemna in what to put at a starting point as well!

The place we just got literally yesterday was as follows:

Went on the market on Monday 26th March 2012 for $345K.
Went for an open for inspection only yesterday Saturday 31st March 2012.
Put in an initial offer of $340K they came down to $344K and we went to $342K with the condition of the timeframe for building inspection to be increased from 7 days to 14 days and extended the subject to finance condition by a further week.

Only 12K under offer price but well within what we were willing to pay.

What I did between the property being listed on Monday and making the offer on Saturday was as follows:

1) I subscribed last week to Australian Property Investor Magazine after buying a copy last month! It came with three months free access to Price Finder which is a valuation software.

2) Put the property through the price finder software which actually valued it at around 380K straight off. When I did comparable sales it increased the value up to 395K.

3) I then cross checked my valuations with a property profile provided by my bank which came up with pretty much the same figures!

3) Based on the price finder valuation it seemed that even at asking price was a good buy. I had decided I was prepared to even pay asking price but obviously wanted to get the price down if possible.

4) We decided to go for a quick kill rather than wait just in case someone else realised the true market value of the property!

5) Researched to “discounting rate” for the area. Discounting is at around 6%. But this is really a reflection of agents generally overpricing the properties and factoring this in!

6) in the end we were going to use the line of ” well your asking for 354 and the discounting in the area is roughly 6% so we will offer $333K to start which is the discount for the area” However after inspecting we decided it ticked all boxes and thought well I have said I want to pay $340 so lets put that in to show we are serious. We only ended up paying 2K more than that to secure it and achieved extended timeframes for building inspections and pest inspections and finance final approval.

As its an investment we were also happy to accomodate 3.5 months for settlement as the agent wanted to marry up the settlement of this place with the new house they bought. It then gives us plenty of time to get a tenant in from day one!

The issue we had was do we go in with a soft offer or do we go in with something close by to what we wanted to pay. We decided to go in with close by. Being only listed if we went to far down then the seller would say lets wait and see. Getting close made them realise they can get it sold within a week of being listed.

From the above have you:

Actually checked what the market value of the property would be or as you say you “think” it would not be worth more than 480K. I based ours on facts and numbers and not on gut feel. Have you done an independent check (through price finder or similar) on what the actual value of the property is?

Have you checked the discounting for the area?

Have you checked the average number of days properties stay on the market in the area?

Being a new listing means the sellers are more than likely to take a wait and see approach. If its been on the market already for a couple of months then they are more than likely to accept lower offers.

Also try to suss out the reason the owners are trying to sell and move away to figure out what there priorities are. In our example they had 3.5 months to 4 months before settling on a new property so if we didnt go in with a serious enough offer they would take the wait and see approach. If however they were after a 30 day settlement or something then we would of gone in with less knowing they are looking for a quick sale!

Australian property investor lists all the average days, discounting etc in the back of the magazine each issue.