Hi C2

Hisashiburi.

The return seems good, but at the end of the day you will be left with a depreciating asset, and have you factored all the taxes in? ANd considered the other opportunities you could be pursuing in Australia. Cashflow won't make you rick, capital gains will. (I had  a client today who sold his property for more than 4 times what he paid for in in just 4 years!).

Congratulations on the baby too.

Easy. Assuming you are not working, you could get a No Doc loan securred on your Melbourne property at 70% LVR = $350,000.

You can then get a 70% No Doc on the new Sydney property of $560,000 (assuming $800,000 val) with the deposit and costs coming from the fist No Doc. The $20,000 cash you have should be used on the Sydney property to keep the non-deductible interest down – put in a 100% offset if possible. IO on all loans preferrably too.

I think Cattleya is correct. The Family Law Court has powers that other courts do not have – including the ability to unravel trusts. However, having a trust is a good start as the other party has to find the assets before they can attack them. Getting them in a trust asap will provide some help – but probably not much.

I think the only solution is a life of celebacy! or least a live living alone!

And have a look at the recent case of a company director who is just getting out a jail. He was went bankrupt, but his wife is still rich though.

????C2

That works out to be a yield of around 25.6% pa. How far do you estimate the value to drop? And what is the land value?

If you could borrow in Japan, it may be a marginal deal. But if you are going to be using an Aussie LOC or similar, then you must factor in the opportunity cost of what else you could have done with the money.

There are also various property taxes in Japan – which seem very high.

I personally won't be buying any more property overseas. Nothing beats Australia for property.

I wonder, Does the name of the bank start with an "N"?

should be ok as long as it is being rented. but CGT would apply during htis period.

I was involved in a recent legal battle over something similar in NSW. One of my family members owned his property outright. His girl friend moved in for a number of years. They weren't married, and she did not contribute to the paying of the mortgage (as there was none) the rates or anything. I think there was even a lease with her paying a nominal rent.

It went to court  and he ended up paying approx one third of the value to her as an out of court settlment.

It depends on many things.

Probably a discretionary trust would be good as they offer the ability to flexibiliy distribute income. But if you hold the property then they cannot allow any losses to be offset against your personal income. If you have other income in different trusts, then this income could be used to offset the losses in the reno trust.

There are problems with getting loans in hybrid trusts if the trustee is different to the unit holder. If they are the same, then you may get it through with lenders that don't even like hybrids. The trustee is the name on the title with the unit holder ususally being the highest income earner. So if you have a company as the trustee, then the legal owner is the company with the loan being in the name of a third party – the individual. That is what causes the problems.

Property is fairly safe, with the chances of the owner of the property getting sued (as the owner) slim, so having a corporate trustee may be a bit of an overkill.

St George has a good one which can be split into several sub-accounts and the individual balances adjusted to suit. You need to be careful with a LOC from a tax perspective. Not recommended for investments if you are going to be putting money in and out all thetime. Not sure what Lomas recommends though.