I agree with the pp.  Exit the contract.  Real estate mistakes are expensive.  Lurk here for a while.  There is supposedly another fall in interest rates to come.  The market is largely tipped to fall or at least remain still.  Not sure who convinced you that there was so much interest that you had to pay more.  You'll find that on this site, t…[Read more]

wealth4life,With your obvious knowledge of the Sydney market, can I ask your opinion on my parents PPOR?They bought 5 acres at Galston in a bush block.  Very pretty, bushland lifestyle block.  They paid $900Kish, with a house on it that had severe white ant damage. (At the time it seemed to be the land value).  After deciding that the cost of de…[Read more]

Great thread idea, and very interesting response from Michael.  I didn't find it boring at all. I wouldn't change anything that we did either.  We set up our own business, based on a government contract.  It is earning well, and has us in a good industry and location to sit out the down turn.  We are a bit sick of where we are and look forward to…[Read more]

wealth4life.com wrote:
4 Land area must be 700 sq/m +

Mmm interesting.  I'm a sometimes lurker.  Often enjoy this thread.  We are a few hundred km from Townsville and have been wanting to invest again for some time, but have resisted, happily, sitting on high equity and low loans on two properties, waiting for our opportunity.   and waiti…[Read more]

It is sad that sometimes the most believable voice is the one saying what you want to hear.  Something to remember for the future.  And yeah, these two agents sound like a right waste of time – certainly not worth preserving a relationship with.  I'm wondering why it is within their interest to not sell this property?  As to making changes to the…[Read more]

morts wrote:
it was fun struggling along as you forge ahead.

I think it is such a pity that there are so many people out there who never have the benefit of having really struggled financially.  When my now husband and I first moved in together we lived in a country 2 bed cottage with no power, no washing machine, no gas.  I washed everything b…[Read more]

Marc,I'm wondering why you object to allowing the agent to have his name etc on the signage, advertising.    Secondly, I'd consider all of your suggestions to be a form of marketing, just not an expensive marketing campaign.  Sometimes I wonder if agents are paid a commission on the advertising that they sell.  I'd absolutely agree that these expe…[Read more]

Have you a link?S

Oh D,What a great idea.  I'd love to participate in some online training.  As much as I think the Melbourne course would be great for me to attend, I'm not ready yet to put our investing activities ahead of our children's needs.  Perhaps when they are a little older I might be prepared to leave them with someone while I take a week away, but at 3…[Read more]

Thanks very much Tracey, excellent work.  I can see us participating in this sort of value adding when we are more conveniently located.  The current interest rates situation is probably not a good one for learners with this sort of project, anyway, so it is probably just as well that we will bide our time for now, collecting ideas, information a…[Read more]

Thanks for your response, Tracey.Can I ask wether you managed to create a much better ROI after refitting the building for student accom?  My only intention of carrying out a project like that would be to try to create positive cash flow, and I would be as highly leveraged as I would be allowed to be by the financier.  Such a project is probably s…[Read more]

You could use an RP data report to get factual information about what other houses sold for.  Though, you need to take the report with you and go for a drive past the addresses sold because it gives you no information about the houses, just the land size and sale price.  It is a good indication, though, and you might be able to fill in the b…[Read more]

Sorry, Geoff,I too agree that you are priced way over the market.  I don't listen to much that real estate agents tell me (or I listen, then disregard a whole heap of what they say), but an agent who I have found to be a great ally and source of information (who recently told me not to buy now – just goes to show how much more credible and…[Read more]

Thanks Steve, for your honest advice.  "Frustration" was a good choice of words.  But it might all be for the best as our current situation means that we are entering the period of interest rate rises with nearly $400K worth of real estate and $85K debt.  If we can just avoid doing something stupid (like buying a boat) we will be in a great po…[Read more]

Tracey,Yeah, I was sure there would have been other similar "guru" experiences, but I didn't have time to go right through the thread.  I think he might have been the loser.  That's the sort of thing you hear if you go to an triangle marketing scheme seminar (yep, been there, but glad to report I had the sense to quickly leave without giving any d…[Read more]

This is very interesting, all the talk about getting the balance right, as well as what people are driving.  I drive a 2001 Triton dual cab ute.  At the moment we are thinking about buying a boat for family holidays etc.  It would cost somewhere between $5K and $20K ( we haven't really decided what sort of boat).  If we buy a dearer boat, we wil…[Read more]

Glancing through my lenders rates today, I was interested to note that the variable rate was dearer than their fixed rates.  Does this mean NAB views the economy as steadying up to the satisfaction of the rba?  S

Hi Happy Homes,I've had the pleasure of using Alistair Perry personally ( he replied to your original post saying he ticked all the boxes – which I agree he does).  I can thoroughly recommend him as being the absolute opposite of a dry, drab, lazy sod and will certainly be keeping his contact details for when I need similar services from an IP…[Read more]

We are currently negotiating rent with a corporation for about 800pw.  There are two residences in the one property.  It is sort of a duplex, I guess.  And it is fully furnished.  We don't anticipate needing a property manager if we deal with this particular corporation.I wouldn't say that I have an abundance of properties, but that over the cour…[Read more]

Hi Mel,I'm not so far from Townsville, and have been watching the market there for a while now and collecting information and opinion on it.  There is no real feeling that Townsville is about to slow down.  My problem there is that rents haven't risen in line with property values and you are lucky to find anything that will give you a gross r…[Read more]