Good work, Josh.
careful on the spa pool. From experience they are expensive to run and a fair bit of work to maintain. It may not be worth the cost.

I’d go for the large screen plasma with cable and a Wii if you want to get some more pesos outta the boys.
The flatmates will love it and it’s a depreciable expense.

By the way; I just had a…[Read more]

One thing no-one ever does which will help is offer double the amount of bond and 2 months rent in advance. This will show you are serious, although is expensive up front. Maybe your parents can help out here.
Of course, the usual things like employment references and proof of employment will help.
Also, ask a few agents what you can do to improve…[Read more]

Welcome to our forum!
I’ll have a go at answering the questions –

1. Generally, with the exception of Perth and maybe Darwin, now is a good time to buy as in most parts of Aus the boom has ended and the cycle is nearing the bottom, or maybe slightly either side. You will need to research each micro-market (neighbourhood or suburb) to know for…[Read more]

Here’s a better idea;

Keep your existing home and access the available equity for more I.P’s. Sure, you can’t access ALL the equity, but if you sell you will incure selling costs, and lose any future cap growth on the property. The advantages of not selling will out-weigh the advantages of selling.

Then move out of your existing home, rent…[Read more]

Good on you Dr. Spock. I hope you do it!! I cured myself of the ‘income cancer’ as I like to call it many years ago. I think I must be the tightest guy in the world now. Once you get the hang of it you will do it easily ALL the time.

What will also happen is you will soon be going around looking at the “keeping up with the Jones” types and laugh…[Read more]

Do you absolutely HAVE to sell your house to move overseas?

Assuming you don’t owe too much on the house, have you thought of moving overseas and using your house as an I.P, and rent a place for a while in your new country?

We are currently doing this and it has been a great financial move.

You can rent for a while until you get settled and if…[Read more]

Thanks Wayne,
it’s interesting that you don’t use them. Is it because of the reasons I mentioned previously, or is/are there other reason/s?

Cheers,
Marc.
erardent@hotmail.com

We are in exactly this situation right now. We bought the block of land across the road from us. It was owned by the couple who live in the house next door to the block (who are also our friends). Both their block and the block we bought have totally unrestricted 180 degree bay views. Our plan is to build and move in there on our return to Aus,…[Read more]

Before taking any of the statements made by the agent or developer as the gospel truth (which it most likely is not), do your own research to find the truth.

Check out the prices of similar EXISTING properties which are for sale in the area – the newer the better, but they must be ones that have been bought and are for sale, or sold, already.…[Read more]

In the present climate it will be all but impossible to find both things in one property.
By that I mean you won’t find a ‘valuable’ property with a good rent return.
But what is a ‘valuable’ property? Everyone has a different version of this.
I could show you 100 valuable properties right now on r/e.com.au in the Inner Bayside suburbs of Melb,…[Read more]

You didn’t say where you are living?
In regards to investing from afar, the internet is the best way to go. There are many places that are/will be good for cap growth in the near future – you just have to find them.
One thing you can also do is buy reports from Residex on the different stats around the country. I bought one a couple of years ago…[Read more]

Most local councils should be able to tell you, or try the titles office.

Cheers,
Marc.
erardent@hotmail.com

It may be worthwhile contacting the A.T.O directly to get an answer as well.
I would doubt that you would have to pay cgt in Aus on a property sold in NZ, but you may need to pay tax on the money coming into Aus.
I believe that if you have already paid tax on the money coming over then you would be exempt from any tax at the Aus end. It has…[Read more]

Hi Paybac,
welcome to this fabulous forum.
If you do a bit of searching around on the different topics you will see the common theme about what most of us think about whether to a)sell or b)refinance and use the equity.
I believe that you should do option B as I have mentioned above. The selling and buying costs of option A will eat up a lot of…[Read more]

San francisco is worth the trip. It is about a 5-6 hour drive, straight up the 405 freeway, or you can fly. We elected to fly, as we had some f/f points, and free accom through a friend.
By the time we left our apartment in L.A, and arrived at the front door of the condo in San Fran (we hired a car at the San Fran airport) it was 6 hours!
If you…[Read more]

Boats are in the same boat (pardon the pun) as cars – only buy a late model second hand one.
I did a bit of quick research on them before leaving for L.A and I found that most sec/hand ones I saw were about a year old and were owned by people who
a) didn’t use them as much as they expected,
b) were not big enough in the first place.

As for…[Read more]

The apartment building where we are staying in L.A has single beds at $2200p/m and the 2 beds are as high as $2700 p/m.
Several tenants we know are moving out in the next few weeks/months when their leases are up.
When I asked a few of them why, they all responded the same – the rent is going up from $2700 to $3200 p/m!!

What’s even more crazy is…[Read more]

why don’t you mention the dealership here and really give them some bad publicity.
That is the last thing they would want. Dropping a few grand on a car won’t hurt them – car dealerships do it all the time to get a sale, but being seen as dodgy is never nice.
You should ring the biggest newspaper in W.A as well for fun. You might end up with a…[Read more]

The name of the process in the USA where you ‘trade up’ your property to another more expensive one without paying cgt is called a “1031 exchange”.
You can still claim costs in the US but I don’t know how the whole situation is calculated aginst your normal income tax.

Cheers,
Marc.
erardent@hotmail.com

Good to see there are so many investors on this forum who have never made a mistake.

Cheers,
Marc.
erardent@hotmail.com