Hi mate,

I am sorry to learn of your challenge.

Sometimes in the past I have found that it is easier to offer a carrot, than a stick. This means incentivising the tenant to move out, rather than paying money to force them out.

Perhaps “You’ve been a great tenant, and I want us end on the right foot. If you agree to move out by <date – which is a few days before the due date> , I’d be happy to offer you $x to help you settle in to your new home. How does that sound?”

I also note that there is a tenant dispute mechanism available in Qld, if you go down that road: https://www.rta.qld.gov.au/online-tenancy-dispute-resolution.

Next, you could put it in the hands of a rental manager, who will be happy to resolve it for you, for a fee.

Finally, you could make an appointment with a lawyer to act on your behalf.

Bye,

– Steve

Hello and thanks for your post. That is quite a gift that you have inherited.

Before answering your questions, I’d encourage you to think about the investing strategy you would like to pursue (income or growth), together with your available funds, risk appetite and skill. Once done, then consider how this asset fits into, and meets, your needs. The building ought not to become a burden for you, but rather be a blessing!

Reading your post it seems you are in ‘quite deep’, so to speak, re: property investing, without having the benefit of time and experience to ‘scale up’. You would be wise then to lean on qualified and experienced advisers to guide you over the next 12 – 24 months.

To that end, I feel your question also largely contains your answer re: advisers. Here are some further comments:

1/ Your strata adviser seems to be able to guide you, if you feel s/he/they are qualified and experienced. If not, perhaps go for a walk in the area and see if there are any signs on buildings saying ‘managed by’ and call them up for guidance and a quote. Have you googled ‘strata services + the area’? As to whether you have to employ one, I’d be surprised, but that is a legal question to ask a lawyer.

2/  A professional building inspection sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? You can include in the scope an opinion about whether the building meets the tenancy law requirements in respect to qualify and safety.

3/ Any insurance broker worth a pinch of salt will tell you about your insurance options. Having the building inspection done first will assist insurers to understand the risk.

4/ You may like to consider getting a quantity surveyor to provide you with a depreciation report, or at least see if you qualify for depreciation or building write off. They can also provide you with a Replacement Cost Assessment to help you understand how much you should insure the building for.

5/ I would highly recommend using a professional property manager to help you ‘stabilise’ the asset both re: condition and tenancy. I wonder, what would you do if there was a substantial capital works bill of, say, $300k plus (roof, etc.)? As I teach, the answer needs to depend on your time, money, skill and risk tolerance.

All the best,

Howdy,

Thanks for asking, but there are no certificates that come with these courses. I think you might be confused with my Property Apprenticeship that came with a Cert IV in Business (if completed). However, that course, and that certification, are no longer on offer.

Bye,

– Steve

Not me mate. I hopped out a fews ago when the ones I bought were redeemed, or became ‘stale’ as they were not worth redeeming / enforcing.

Would I do it again? Probably not from afar without some presence on the ground to keep an eye on things.

Also, with investment yields  on the way down as investors chase return, tax liens have been popular, so the risk/return balance as reset.

Bye,

– Steve

Well, I normally do much, much better trying to buy at a fair price, rather than a cheap price.

A couple of times I have bought a bargain, usually because the property has been mis-marketed, its potential not understood, or just lucky. For instance, I once bought a property the next business day after it went to auction with no buyers making a bid. It was a mortgagee sale and the bank signed it over for a song.

I nearly bought a property with a letterbox drop, but after much back and forth, they took it to market.

Never bought via a sheriff sale.

– Steve

Oh golly. Now you are plumbing the murky depths of my memory.

I looked at this long, long ago in the hope of maybe picking up a cheap property, and here’s what I found:

a. Most of the things sold are personal effects (cars, household stuff, not real property)

b. I believe they must be auctioned, not sold privately

c. Auctions used to be advertised in the classified ad section of the paper (I told you it was long ago!)

d. The buzzards and opportunists come out at sheriff sales, so it is not necessarily bargain hunter’s paradise as prices can be bid up

e. It is BIG TIME buyer beware! I forget… does the sale extinguish first mortgage interests? Hmmmmm. I would want to check and check again with my lawyer.

– Steve

Hi Benny,

Thanks for making the post.

Can I sit on the fence a little bit and suggest median house price information is ‘interesting noise’?

The challenge is understanding what median house price represents as a statistical measure (i.e. median vs. mean), and how the data is collected and analysed. As they saying goes: garbage in, garbage out, so the data being reported is only as good as the data being captured and analysed.

The difference in approach accounts for how different data series can provide different values off the same raw data. You really need to be a trained statistician to understand the integrity of each approach.

What I do is pick my preferred data series, and look at the trend over time, rather than a value in time. The trend provides guidance on how the middle of the market was behaving, as some guidance to how the market is behaving, and how it may behave.

A relative number in the same data set is useful to make value comparisons: city v. city, city v. region, region v. region, etc.

However the number, like any number, is just a ‘reading’ on the instrument panel of a property investor’s cockpit. Interpreting what the number means relative to the other dials and levers is where investing skill comes in.

Another analogy is that median house prices is the view in the rear mirror. That’s helpful. But even more important is looking out the front windscreen and taking notice of what is happening in the market now, and what’s coming over the horizon.

All the best,

– Steve

Yep – this old chestnut!

I suggest you search though the forums as plenty has been written on it.

Highlights:

> If you have maxed out your borrowing in your own name then you won’t be able to leverage your borrowing ability elsewhere. Maxed is maxed.

> As Terry has said, Trusts cannot borrow in their own right (they are not separate legal entities as such), but the Trustee usually can (see Trust deed permissions)

> Trusts cannot distribute losses, so buying -vely geared property in a trust has limited benefit as the loss is ‘locked’

> -vely geared property in a trust will require personal guarantees from the Trustees if individuals, or directors of corp Trustee (if company), so this will still hurt your personal borrowing ability

> Only +vely geared property that has sufficient cashflow and credit standing meet the serviceability requirements of the loan will meet the requirements I mentioned in the book. And then only if you have someone from the lender / mortgage broker who knows what they are doing.

Example: I am about to buy a $1m commercial property with $100k net income. if I buy this in a new trust, then the loan will either not need a guarantee as it can stand on it’s own, or if it does, there is no impact on my personal borrowing ability as the property is self-liquidating (i.e. loan repayments fully met from income).

Need further help? Make an enquiry and speak to Chris Berry: http://www.propertyinvestingfinance.com

Bye,

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by  Steve McKnight.

G’day Jaxon.

Hmmmm. Seems like you are after a manufactured growth strategy.

Well, there are lots of them on offer, but the question is how many of them make profit at today’s prices, rather than rely on continued growth?

The best advice I could offer you is this: What will make you the most money, in the quickest time, for the least risk, and lowest aggravation… within your available time, money, skill and risk thresholds?

The answer to this question will be different for everyone.

Bye,

– Steve

Well, let’s agree on what we agree on: that accountant’s cannot give legal advice.

As for the rest: lawyers, in my opinion, usually run good legal practices (small businesses), but otherwise make poor accountants, business advisers, and financial planners.

Just look at government: beset by ex-lawyers who argue for the sake of arguing, while the rest of us get on with the job.

That said, accountants stare at numbers too much and often make decisions from ivory towers.

People just need to find an adviser they feel they can trust, and go in with their eyes open. Hence, I think our discussion has been useful in achieving that goal. Thank you.