Thats pretty much it.

Selling could save you years of undeductible interet – but cost you stamp duty, CGT, agents fees and loan fees.

Another option is to sell the home and live in the investment – avoid CGT.

You may also be able to sell your half of the house to your spouse, or sell the whole place to a trust you control. That way you avoid the agents fees and get to keep the property while getting some cash out of it to pay down other loans.

That article reads more like an advertisement.

You only have to charge GST when you sell. Whether main residence or investment before that doesn't really matter I think.

If you want to claim GST, then it is an investment property you would claim it as part of the cost of construction I would think. If it is a main residence then you wouldn't be able to claim it at all.

TG

Why not do the sums and see?
Also factor in if you live in the house first you can rent it for up to 6 years and have it CGT free. That could be an additional big saving.

And buyers agents fees are considered a capital expense and only deductible against the capital gains of the property when sold.

This may vary from State to State.

Just cause you call them a contractor doesn't mean they are not an employee – there are various tests to determine this. So do be careful. Nevertheless it could be a good way.

On issue with the land is that the loan would need to be in all names – the same as title. So if the other party stopped paying, then you would be responsible and you could be used and lose your other assets if there is a short fall.

You could possibly avoid stamp duty on the splitting of the bocks into one name each – but you would need a deed of partition and have the exact sizes determined before you settle on it. As long as the split results in these sizes you may be ok. Otherwise you will have one block with 4 names being split and one part going into 2 names and the other into a different 2 names = stamp duty.

Having a farm like that is one of my dreams, hope it works for you,

Have you tried Stacks Finance? They can lend up to 50% LVR on farms with rates around 10.75%. I have some details and can forward you a recent email if you need it.

Its strange that agents don't care about property management. They seem to think it is the sales side that matters, but it is the management side that brings in long term passive income. As they build up a list of properties being managed they can then sell this loan book to other agents. The going rate is about 2.5times the annual income collected.

Say the agent managed 100 properties and the rent was $300 pw on average and their fee 8%. That is an annual fee to the agent of $124,800. They could sell this rent book for about $300,000 (and you can even get finance for this sort of purchase).

Nothing to be sneezed at!

He owes nothing on the property – maybe he is trying to set up a LOC for further investing?