Interest only periods are limited. Often 5 or 10 years is the max, depending on the bank. At the end of the IO term you can ally to change it back to IO for another 5 or 10 years, but this may depend on your circumstances at the time as most lenders would probably want to see evidence of income etc.

I beleive the MISA account is not a true 100% offset account.

I recall recently reading that the investors club is suing Neil Jenman. think it was mentioned in Jenman's recent email newsletter.

hi Nitdrops

What product is that? Is it the portfolio loan? It is a very good product, with ability to split the sub accounts etc. But from a tax point of view it can be less than ideal. I would only use a LOC for accessing built up equity myself. IO loan with a 100% offset is preferrable for other uses – and a cheaper rate.

I recall now (memory fading!) that one of my clients made me attorney for him and his trust with a corporate trustee. I still have a copy of the document (and may go sell one of his properties for the sake of it!).

The document is a bit longer than a normal one (9 pages) and It was drawn up by group of lawyers, ie specifically designed and tailored to cover his trust with specific clauses.

No specific clauses relate to the company, though it is mentioned with the director signing as director in addition to signing as an individual.

hope this helps.

(if i recall it cost him a few hundred$$ to set up)

ANZ, Westpac………….

Usually they are very conservative! The Govt uses the value for calculating land tax.

Just read the posts here. Best education there is.

You should seek proper advice as there are various CGT implications. If the property was previously a owner occupied property, or was purchased prior to 1985 it may be possible to sell without CGT implications – but I think this must be done within the first 2 years of transfer.

So it may be an idea to look at the figure for you to sell that property and use the proceeds to pay off your current house. Then you could reborrow to buy another property. This should save you heaps of non-deductible interest on your own loan and save you CGT, but will incur stamp duty. so you have to assess if it is worth it.

If you just take out a loan on the new investment property and pay off your current home loan the interest won't be deductible (as it is a private expense, borrowing to pay private debt).

Pre-approvals are really meaningless. Most brokers should be able to generate a pre-approval online in 10 mins. If the broker does not have access to the online system he will have to send in the docs and have them input by bank staff. St G is not providing any priority to doing pre-approvals at this time as they are too busy with the full approvals.

If you can get a pre-approval with one lender, i would suggest you just wait until you find a property and then re-assess who you will go with at that stage. Having the pre-approval may only save a day in processing anyway, so no big deal.

What you should be concerned about is the full approval.

hi Joseph

I don't think so as that doesn't include depreciation. He would be crazy to claim part of his mortgage for the office as he would lose the CGT free status on his home (on that portion claimed) – which would end up costing much more than the few dollars saved in interest.