How do you know the owner of the house you are renting is subsidising your rent with his pay packet? He may have had a big deposit towards the $550K purchase price. He may also welcome the tax break from the negative gearing.

It is unfortunate that in four years you didn’t make anything when you owned your PPOR but that is just a matter of…[Read more]

Hi,

So sorry for what you are going through.

Please get in writing whatever you can from the staff who have confided in you that your dad was not in a fit state to sign a will. If you don’t get anything now, they may forget the details or worse, be pursuaded (or not allowed – privacy laws are very strange) to give you any copies at a later…[Read more]

Hi Chris,

Just a slightly different thought…

Instead of paying any utilities, why not try offering the first week free. I have never done this, but have seen it suggested before and think it would be a big incentive, maybe just to help someone decide to rent your house over a similar one.

Is there anything else you can do to spruce it up a…[Read more]

Hi Colin,

Apology accepted, and very much appreciated. I was rather shocked by your previous post but I do understand that these posts give only a tiny glimpse of what people are really about.

I’m think I’m probably just as quick to jump to conclusions and judge people from a couple of sentences. That’s why I probably ramble on, to give a bit…[Read more]

Hi Colin, your comments – Wylie your boundless opportunities never cease to amaze me.
When I checked back today you have twice the opportunities you had yesterday.
And just like a solid rock you are still sitting there. I am sure that you have a perfectly good and reasonable excuse for no action.
Perhaps your kids will understand. End of quote.

I…[Read more]

Thanks Colin, Your reply is well thought out and pretty much I think we’re on the same wavelength. We have two of these properties in the same street, both 36 perches. We plan to do the same to both, but as I said, we are in go slow mode at the moment.

Foundation, we don’t think this property was overvalued at $520K a year ago. House immediately…[Read more]

Hi Colin,

While we have had fantastic capital growth on this property, to buy a similar house would be at least $450K. Whilst negative gearing doesn’t deter us, our children are growing and getting more expensive to feed and clothe (two teenagers – they eat a LOT and one younger) and I don’t want to stretch our budget so tightly we have to live…[Read more]

Just giving this some more thought, the house we bought in Coorparoo for $156K about seven years ago was valued at $520K last year. (We put about $30K into it over a couple of years and it is spic now.) I know that I can probably take off $50K off the latest valuation (perhaps more) in today’s market but I have a lot of faith in the seven to ten…[Read more]

I’m one of the believers in house prices doubling every 7 to 10 years. I remember when I was about 17 (1977) my parents went overseas for 10 weeks. They had just sold my grantparents house for $29,000. They advised an English family who were looking to move to Brisbane that for the value of their house, they could emigrate and buy a house to live…[Read more]

Hi Milly,

To give a different perspective, here goes.

We have always had IPs and while others think we are “lucky”, it has meant hard work and either no holidays or, at best, pretty average holidays. We have all our “needs” met and a fair amount of “wants” as well. Life is good. I’ve chosen not to work since our second baby and that is a…[Read more]

Hi,

Valuers usually ring the local real estate agents to get an idea of value. I used to type up the valuations in a big bank. The valuers were always conservative – after all, they just want the bank to be able to get their money back, nothing more. So, apart from the fact that they are sometimes crucial in getting your loan, bank valuations…[Read more]

Hi,

Valuers usually ring the local real estate agents to get an idea of value. I used to type up the valuations in a big bank. The valuers were always conservative – after all, they just want the bank to be able to get their money back, nothing more. So, apart from the fact that they are sometimes crucial in getting your loan, bank valuations…[Read more]

Hi again, Just re-read your post and realise you are in Sydney, property in WA. Much as I don’t personally use agents, the distance involved would seem to make it a good idea to get an agent. You can’t jump in the car to check the property out if there are problems.

Regards, Wylie

Hi Candy,

We’ve had IPs for 25 years and never used a manager. We sometimes pay for landlords insurance, depending on the tenants in place at the time. We look at it each year in relation to the risks. For example, one house rented for two years now, fantastic tenants, no worries for us about them abusing the house – we don’t currently have…[Read more]

Hi Dazzling,

Am I wrong, or did I read you also were having major problems with feral tenants in your non-residential IPs.

Please forgive me if I got that wrong, but I’m sure I read that somewhere in this forum.

I think it takes guts to run a non-residential IP for a number of reasons, mainly that I see many sitting empty, sometimes for months…[Read more]

Marissa,

We recently had a similar situation with an IP in Brisbane. Nutty tenants pulling all sorts of tricks. We manage our IPs ourselves.

In Qld Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) website has all the forms to print off and issue. We followed the RTA procedures. Make sure you give the proper notice and keep copies of everything.

We gave…[Read more]

Surely, if you want to increase the rent and the one next door is $50 per week more you have the right to do so. As you already know, you risk that they will move out, and you will lose a couple of weeks rent (maybe more, maybe less) plus the cost of getting new tenants.

We lowered our rent in Brisbane to get tenants two years ago. We were…[Read more]

We have three boys, oldest grade 11, age 16. We tend to be a bit like your parents, expecting him to get good grades (he’s on a half scholarship) and when he got a C last term we said something like “this is a great report for most students, but for you it is a bit disappointing”. Part of it is that on a scholarship, we expect that the school will…[Read more]

You sound like you are in a similar position to mine about 20 years ago. Because we were fortunate enough to have a low interest housing loan through my employer, our solution was for me to increase my superannuation from 5% salary to 10% salary. I had several years of this because of different types of maternity leave and career break and even…[Read more]

We plan to do the same, but turn the enclosed verandah entry to a queenslander into a fourth bedroom and move the front entry. Easy job and the rent for 4 bedrooms is more than for 3 bedrooms. I convinced myself by doing a search in our suburb through realestate.com.au for 3 bedroom rentals and then 4 bedroom rentals. Not many 4 bedroom houses…[Read more]