[ScampMember@scampJoin Date: 2008Post Count: 297]

April 4, 2009 - 2:16 pm

jaglions wrote:

The house has been valued by the real estate agents to sell around the $260,000 mark. We have just had the property revalued by St George for only $235,000 and rental appraisal of $225 per week.  I know I can sell the house tomorrow for $260,000 and rent of atleast $250 minimum. We live in Toowoomba- 1 and half hours west of Brisbane and the market here under $300,000 is HOT!!!!

You know what you should do ? You should become a valuer and value your own house at $500,000 instead of that lowly $260,000. You would be making $240,000 in a single day.

I don't understand why not everyone who has a house just values their own house. And while they're at it, they might as well value it at $1,000,000 , so they can buy more homes for $185,000, and value all of those at $1,000,000 each !… after all , everyone knows that they will sell their homes for the price that the valuation came to , right ?

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March 3, 2009 - 7:32 am

The property that today is valued at 460K will be valued at 400K in 6 months, and at 300K in 12 months.
Can you afford to lose 200K in the next 12 months ?

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February 23, 2009 - 10:57 am

Hi Harb,

I just posted what I thought about the OP's dilemma. If he is going to buy anywhere, in *my personal opinion* he's best off in Sydney.

IP Freely : I don't know which segment you are talking about, but 'my segment' has been stagnant since 2003.
ie : not going up more than CPI , which means about 3-4% increase per year.
Over 5 years, CPI adjustments add up to approximately 20% extra value on the house. Houses in my segment have not gone up by 20% in Sydney in the last 5 years. That in my view means the houses were stagnant because if you would have invested in other things you would have made more than those 20% over 5 years.

So yes, Sydney has indeed been stagnant.

It's ok if people don't agree with this, maybe they are in different segments of the market.

[ScampMember@scampJoin Date: 2008Post Count: 297]

February 22, 2009 - 11:50 am

Sydney is probably the least problematic market of Australia.

Perth , Adelaide and Brisbane are the worst ones.

Sydney houseprices have been stagnant for 5 years ( due to them being overprices in the first place ).
In recession times, business goes away from Perth / Adelaide and Brisbane and comes back to Sydney / Melbourne.
So yes, if you have to buy somewhere, Sydney might actually be the safest bet. But keep in mind that houseprices will still fall a lot, so offer at least 20% less than asking price.

That said, there are not many young couples that are cashed up, so that is just hype.

[ScampMember@scampJoin Date: 2008Post Count: 297]

February 19, 2009 - 8:36 am

Broadway ?… haha
Are you smoking weed or something ?

Investing there is like giving your money to your wife and letting her go shopping : Ie it's a big, black hole.

ie : NO… you should not invest at all and ESPECIALLY not in dodgy area's like 'Broadway NSW'.

tip for free: When people use names like 'broadway' and they are located in the middle of NOWHERE, your alarm lights should go off.

Stay away from that place.

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February 19, 2009 - 8:31 am

If you sell your home your mortgage will be released WITHOUT COSTS.
Even if you had 20% interest rates, selling the house will NOT cost you a dime.

Well.. unless you signed with a dodgy bank or signed a dodgy contract.

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February 19, 2009 - 8:27 am

I believe in "Global warming" in that the world's weather pattern is shifting, but I don't believe in the theory behind it. I believe it's a natural phenomena, just like ice ages, and this latter has been scientifically proven ( they have ways to probe these things, from polar ice analysis etc.. )

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February 19, 2009 - 8:22 am

clubhonda wrote:

Scamp wrote:

Don't invest in property. Stay out of it, don't commit suicide financially.
That's the only thing you need to know : Property is something to stay away from, just like shares.
Buy gold or save money on the bank, whichever you like, but do NOT buy shares or property.

You reckon the market is going to fall further? Melbourne has been surprisingly resilient. Haven't budged at all from previous months' prices.

Yes, and since then ( july 2008 ) things have gotten a LOT worse. The lowering of the interest rates has brought depression onto Australia's soil : The biggest mistake anyone could have made was to lower the interest rates.
They tried to save the property investments ( because they ( the policy makers ) own a lot of properties ) and by doing that they have forsaken their children's future and the whole nation.

Way to go, you have seen nothing yet. My predictions back then were dire ( and they came true already ) but my predictions now are even worse. Australia is in for a crash unlike any other country has ever had ( Maybe Iceland or Ireland can compare )

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February 19, 2009 - 8:17 am

Scamp wrote:

L.A Aussie wrote:

Oh, I forgot; you said to buy gold.
Thanks for that pearl.

You're welcome. Gold is still the safest investment in these times.
I predict goldprice higher than 1100, possibly higher than 1200 by march 2009 ( write it down somewhere ). That's about 20% increase.

Speak to you in January 2009 about that prediction.

http://www.news.com.au/business/money/story/0,28323,25076961-5013953,00.html

Quote:

The price has since risen by a third to almost $AUD1569 an ounce.

Seems like I wasn't far off after all eh. It's 19 feb now and goldprices are at 1569$ already.
My next tip is that it will only go up from here.

I hope you guys took my advice in July 2008 seriously and didn't invest in shares or property.
I can fill this post with bad news about property but I think it's clear to all that property will fall 50% total at least after this whole circus is over. ( and guess what : It hasn't even started yet )

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January 30, 2009 - 8:25 am

At first it sounds like a good plan. You seem to be able to make the payments and a house is worth whatever "the next fool will give for it" which in this case means it's worth what you will be giving for it. If you are comfortable with the repayments, then many people say you should go for it.

However, if this house is only a dream, why will you rent out your dream house ? Renters break a lot of stuff and if it's for the feeling you buy the house then you should consider this. It's like buying a new car with the smell etc, or you buy a car which has been smoked in for 2 years. Same thing, the car still drives but.. it's a bit more dodgy. Think of stuck up drainpipes, many drillholes in the walls everywhere, carpets broken, small firedamage in sometimes, the garden will be a big mess, the roof might be leaking and caused some damage inside etc.
That's what you get with renters. Nothing much you can do about it.

I would personally not buy anything until 2010. You are very veyr lucky to be in the situation that you cannot move out before 2010 anyway, so why would you buy now and lose 100's of thousands of dollars just to 'hold' something ? Something BETTER will come along, a detached house on the edge of a lake, you know the thing you really want ? Fishing from your back yard ? For the same price as this house now.

Think twice, think thrice, and if you are still thinking about it think again until you forget about it. By that time it will be 2010 and you will have SO many nice houses that you will think "man.. I'm glad I didn't buy that small townhouse over there, look at this detached house with 800 sqm at the lakefront… much better!"

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January 27, 2009 - 9:45 pm

How does a 22-year old get their hands on 400.000 dollars of debt ?
Sorry but there's something really wrong about that picture.
Whoever gave you that amount of money should be sued for child cruelty.
And YOU should know better than to get a 400.000 dollar mortgage !!

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January 27, 2009 - 7:40 am

harb wrote:

For that to happen we'd have to be in a property bubble which we aren't

Harb, you're still in the 'denial' phase my friend ? Most of your colleagues have already passed that phase and are now in the 'angry' phase. You mean to say that 10 to 12 times wages is not a property bubble ? Not to worry harb, you will get a big wake-up call very soon. ( Most people are awake already btw )

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January 27, 2009 - 7:32 am

the reason for the bleak outlooks ( and remember that guys like B. Gates are the real smart people, not idiot property spruikers ) is simple : All the money for the next 40 years has been spent already.
All your children are born bankrupt, you will be expected to work till you're 75 just to repay your debts and property will halve in price. Many property investors will go bust and these will need to be bailed out, this comes from taxes mainly. Banks will fall in Australia and will need to be bailed out too. This also comes from taxes.
Those who saved will be much better off than those who spent their money on a house of cards.

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January 27, 2009 - 7:28 am

You can't delete accounts apparently. ( or at the time couldn't ). So I just haven't logged for quite a while.
I wanted to come back in the new year to see how you guys were doing, because this helps me. I see that the atmosphere on here has changed from the previous euforia and all the "congratulations on buying a new house mate, now get the equity out quick and buy another !" to something else which I won't care to explain yet. I am glad to see that, because that will help me big time.

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January 27, 2009 - 7:23 am

harb wrote:

Scamp wrote:

Harb my dear,

The problem is not convincing yourself that your properties are worth 10 million dollars each.
The problem is trying to sell them and finding out that the only offer you get is 200.000.

Then refusing to sell them for less then 10 million dollars each would solve my problem.

Yes, this is what everyone who can afford to do that is doing. I believe none ( or very few ) of the people on this forum have actually tried to SELL a house instead of buy buy buy. The real problem, my dear harb, occurs when the BANK tells you that your properties are worth 200.000 and that you please pay back the 9.800.000 'equity maaaate' that you have taken out of the bank.
This btw is what caused this whole mess.

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January 26, 2009 - 8:59 pm

Harb my dear,

The problem is not convincing yourself that your properties are worth 10 million dollars each.
The problem is trying to sell them and finding out that the only offer you get is 200.000.

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January 26, 2009 - 10:01 am

devo76 wrote:

I remember my grandparents house in Broken hill sold for $30,000 about 8 years back. It was probably the best in the street but they were the last to leave. You could get one in the street for under $20,000. If this happens again. I will consider buying and boarding it up for the next boom. There will be a next boom. Got to get in early but.

There's always a next boom. The question is if you will earn more by investing there as opposed to investing in something else. My guess : you will earn much more by investing somewhere else. Don't forget that maintaining the house to a suitable standard will cost you a lot of money if they steal your rooftiles and windows and doors every weekend.

[ScampMember@scampJoin Date: 2008Post Count: 297]

January 26, 2009 - 9:59 am

harb wrote:

Say it ain't so and prices have not doubled in the past 7 years.

Houseprices, under normal circumstances, double every 10 years. Noone said they don't.
The explanation is simple : Inflation. Everything doubles / triples / quadruples every 10 years. My income in the last 10 years has quadrupled for instance. Did I do particularily well ? hm… well no , everything has become more expensive in the meantime, so I'm not that much better off. Ofcourse I have a better job and I earn more, but overall, I didn't become richer by a factor 4. Maybe a factor 2.
So, what does this all mean ? In the last 10 years houseprices have gone up MORE than double. And this is exactly the problem. In some places houseprices have doubled, but most have tripled, quadrupled or even worse.
This will mean there's a correction coming, because unlike housing, the wages didn't quadruple. They didn't move much actually, hence there's a correction coming. Housing doubled compared to wages, and need to come down 50% now to get back to normal. Probably more because credit is not available anymore and people have gotten themselves so much in debt that there are less buyers without creditcards / huge loans etc.
We'll go back to the 'traditional 3* median income' which means median houseprices in Sydney / Melbourne will come back to 200.000 abouts. And perhaps we will overshoot the crash and end up like Detroit, but any less than 50% ( in real terms , inflation corrected ) will not be happening. By real terms I mean simply this :
Median houseprices = 4* median income.

And that's already on the top price. Usually I'd use 3*, I'll be on the safe side here, and only predict meager drops of 50% overall.

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January 26, 2009 - 9:46 am

Many of the houses I track have 'sold' and 'under offer' and 'successfully sold at auction' just to reappear under another add 2 days later, FOR A LOWER PRICE.
'sold' my ass… Instead of deleting the add and recreating it, they just fake the statistics by putting 'sold' on it.

It's all a big scam, and it's all falling apart. And Harb, I feel sorry for you if you own property in Perth.

C2, can you post your houses on this forum with your prices so we can take a look at them and see for ourselves ? See, I have trouble believing people when they say "my houses gone up 20%" while we're in a severe recession and economic malaise ( not to say 'depression' ).

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January 26, 2009 - 9:33 am

Ah here's the post.

/bump