I am with the “get the pool” camp. We put one in when our youngest was nearly three and I understand your nervousness regarding safety. They learn to swim very quickly in their own pool. My mother used to sell real estate and always told us to buy a house with a pool rather than install one ourselves. That way someone else has had the cost and…[Read more]

Hi LifeX,

Had a laugh at your comment about my oldest boy. He can be a smart little punk but he is pretty good generally. He just loves spending money (other than his own, that is).

I had heard that the Windows firewall was not very good and we are (at the moment) well covered. It is just that whatever is on my computer is about to finish and I…[Read more]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for the help. I will try these freebies. Is there anything else I need. I have heard Ray Shaw (ABC radio computer guru?) talk about Kerio being a good freeby but I think it might be a spyware product and if so, I assume it does the same thing as one of the products you already recommended. I assume as you have recommended…[Read more]

Hi DannyBoi, I post here because I can. Surely you have noticed that not everybody has said SELL, SELL, SELL because it is negatively geared.

We have been reasonably successful investors with all but one of our properties over 27 years being negatively geared. We are not rich but we are comfortable and our retirement is assured (apart from world…[Read more]

It sounds like you are doing well to me. Keep what you have and when you can afford it do it again. Your IPs will go up, your debt will go down and I think you are probably WAY ahead of most 26 year olds.

If it aint broke, don’t fix it.

Regards, Wylie.

Hi,

I depends on why you want to change them to positive geared. Is it a manageable loss each week? Could you do something easy to increase the rent? Could you claim more tax each week rather than wait for the end of the financial year?

We have had negative gearing all our married life (19 years). Sometimes it has been hard, but rents DO go up…[Read more]

Hi Dazzling,

I am with with camp that says enjoy your kids. My hubby has had two recent opportunities for promotion (one he is considering as I write this). Last time we chose “no” and we will probably choose “no” this time because the extra dollars will mean he cannot come home at 2.30 or 4.00 to kick a ball with the boys. I suppose the…[Read more]

I CHOOSE to be a stay at home mum. I worked for two years after baby number one, and I have been at home since baby number two. To be honest, being at home with a toddler and a baby with a husband who was gone at 7am and two nights a week at uni until 9pm nearly sent me nuts. I was SOOOO lonely and desparate for adult company.

Now with three…[Read more]

Hi, not knowing too much about your situation, whether or not you have kids, on reading your post my first thought was why not stay for a while in your IP which you owe very little on (unless I read it wrongly) and buy an IP which will have a big loan – all the interest will be tax deductible.

Each time we have sold an IP we have regretted it…[Read more]

I would assume that many people who contribute to and/or read this forum are interested in appreciating assets. We bought a demo model Nimbus three years ago with three years free servicing thrown in. It is the first “new” car we have ever bought and it was a wrench to pay $31K. We did save about $8K on new price for it having been driven by a…[Read more]

Property Investor magazine did an in depth analysis on this within the last six months or so. Perhaps you could get hold of a back copy.

Hi, whatever steps you advise these people to take, I would suggest that if they have run up $45K in credit card debt they definitely should not look at a line of credit. As to what type of loan they could consolidate into, I’ll leave that to the better qualified people on this forum, but I wonder if it would be possible with no house to offer the…[Read more]

Hi, this “lady” was with a major chain. I don’t want to seem paranoid but I’d hate to get into trouble for naming names here. Also, the chain probably has no idea how bad for their name this particular woman was. Who knows, maybe it is a franchise and she is hurting her own bottom line as well as the company with her bad attitude.

Maybe she had…[Read more]

Just remembered the name “419 eater”. This is the site. It makes for some fun reading if you are looking to see the stingers get stung.

Type “419” into Google and you get sites regarding the Nigerian scams. Apparently 419 relates to the section of the law that these scams are breaking, or something like that.

I did find a site once that was run by internet vigilantes who baited these scammers and there are some funny stories there of the scammers being scammed by the…[Read more]

Pathetic to get 1 out of 8 who want your business enough to reply. The other 7 should be run out of business.

I was looking for the carpet for our PPOR (the carpet which was subsequently replaced) and the WOMAN (mid to late 50s) who served me (actually totally ignored me for over 10 minutes until I decided to let my younger two boys start…[Read more]

Without being any sort of expert, my thoughts are that it would devalue your property. Having said that, even if it does not alter the value of your property, I believe it would narrow the field of people prepared to buy your house once the shopping centre is built. I would not buy that close to a large shopping centre, and I am sure I am not…[Read more]

Hi again, forgot to mention with our housing loan with redraw that our every day account (Westpac) is our offset account. All funds in that account are fully offset, so we actually make good use of this as well.

Regards, Wylie

I’m pretty much like Lisa. I have three boys. Our front door also is a revolving door. Oldest is only 16 and tends to be a bit lazy. However, when we need help, or my parents need a house renovated, he (and the younger ones) rally forth and I realise what good kids they really are.

We plan to let them stay as long as they want, as long as they…[Read more]

My experience with odd phone calls was when we were about to sell an IP. The day before the first open house, we had a huge storm. Bay window was ripped out and broken by the wind. Garage doors swing off their hinges and gates as well. Insurance company quickly told us to have the house secured and the garage doors and gates fixed.

Trusted…[Read more]