The only way to protect yourself would be to avoid becoming a defacto or marry. Pre-nups can help, but are not 100% tight. Family Court can unravel or look behind trusts, and companies.

It depends on your view of the market. if you think house prices will keep increasing faster that inflation, then it is probably best to buy as many as possible as quickly as possible and then sit back and wait. if you are less confident, then maybe higher deposits to cover yourself a bit.

Most people tend to start off with little deposit and then slowly decrease the LVRs as they purchase more.

Hi Imugli

ANZ and their mortgage insurers can be fussy about this sort of thing. I think if you went to another lender such as St George, there wouldn't have been a problem. Surely a spouse will gain a benefit – from being the spouse as well as being a beneficiary of the trust.

Sympathetic doesn't mean the same as 'same' !! look it up in a dictionary and see what you think. I would think that as long as they were close to neutral or pink it should be ok.

Hi

Unfortunately couples are only able to count one house as their main residence at any one time (except for a 6month period of overlap). Couples include married and defacto couples. The 6 year rule could still work, providing they two people are not married/defacto or they would have to chose which property to have as their main residence.

Maybe you could work it out based on floor area used – eg size of the bedrooms. Masterbedroom users pay 60% maybe. 50/50 wouldn't be fair to you as you have 2 people in one room. 1/3s each wouldn't really be fair either – but closer maybe

invest007 wrote:

I own 5 car parks in total, very happy with the returns plus the buy back scheme is a bonus. If your looking for an investment with zero risk.. this is the way to go

Hi Invest

How does the buy back system work? Is there a set price, or is it just at the original price?

I am not sure I follow Richard's reasoning.

I am thinking it would work like this:

Say the property is worth $200,000. The full amount plus stamp duty etc would be borrowed from a LOC. Ideally this LOC would only have been used for investment purposes or would be unused at present. The property would be done up and maybe funds for this would be taken from the LOC as well. After a month or so the propperty may be worth $250,000. Lakeinnes would then approx lender A and take out a 80% LVR mortgage of $200,000 IO with offset account attached. The money from this loan would go back into the LOC covering nearly all the initial funds used.

There should be no adverse consequences tax-wise for using the LOC as the new loan is a refinancing of the LOC loan. One loan is being used to repay another.

The advantage of this method is the client may be able to borrow based on valuation rather than purchase price and if things go well, they may be able to replace most of the money back into the LOC where it will be ready to be reused in the next project.

You would probably be better off in the short term for the following reasons:
– You can claim all interest, rates, insurance, etc on your property if rented out, and
– you can also claim depreciation on fittings and maybe construction (at 2.5% pa if built after 1983), and
– You can still treat it as your main residence even though you are not living there for up to 6 years and it will be CGT exempt.

So you get the best of both worlds,

you will just need to add up all the costs estimate the depreciation and see if you are going to be making a loss from renting your place. This loss can help you save tax on your income. Then work out if the amount you will save is worth the hassle of moving.

hi

The FHOG is regulated by the states – usually the Office fo state Revenue.

There is actually no min period to live in a house to make it your main residence, you just need to prove it if audited. The best way to do this is to prove as much evidence as you can with changing your address on rates, drivers licence, phone, electriicity, electoral roll etc.