Callum
Would you buy again through them or do it yourself? Are you from Qld or another state? I dont like new townhouses and I reckon the depreciation allowances are built into the price of the property anyway. I also dont like buying in Qld when I am in Melb. They still get commission so its still in their vested interests to sell me a…[Read more]

Michael R.

Do you have anything to do with Conrad properties?

Personally I would not touch an inner city apartment, no matter how much they say it can rent for or that demand exceeds supply. Makes no difference to me if its Aust or NZ.

I cant see how the lord of the rings effects real estate prices in NZ. Hey I love the film – Something about…[Read more]

Sounds like a good agent to me. If I was selling I would not want the agent to tell the prospective buyers. I always offer a lower price if I know why they are selling eg. moving to another home, divorce, deceased estate etc. I also agree with Jenman on this one.

If you want to go to a free seminar on property investing – go to a free investors club evening session.

I agree with their philosophy about acquiring property and keeping for as long as possible.

I would not buy from them. (NEVER BUY FROM A SEMINAR) But use their strategies and DO IT yourself. I have been to a few of their sessions and…[Read more]

You need large deposits firstly and banks dont like loaning money as much as they do on residential. The interest rate is higher on commercial loans. As the guy from the bank says to me you always need houses to live in. There is also the valuation aspect of a commercial property. The bank needs that valued (you pay, not in the case of…[Read more]

peterp

Well summed up. I suppose you could say there are 3 different styles.

McKnight – rural/postive geared. High Yield.
Somers – middle ring surburbs near your house. Combination of yield and growth.
Wakelin/Fitzgerald – closer to city, mostly negative geared, high capital growth.

My personal thoughts on the following

Mcknight – the…[Read more]

Have you read any other books on property investment in addition to Steves. There are many good ones out there. My first ever books on the subject were Jan Somers. My advice to anyone after they buy their PPOR is to read her stuff. She has been investing alot longer than 3.5 years.

A comment from westan

<<<If anything come close to the overvalued prices it is those inner city units in Melbourne (that will really make Yack happy).>>>

I agree innner city prices are overvalued. I would not touch an off the plan apartment or anything off the plan. Unless I can see it, I dont know what I am buying. I just dont touch inner…[Read more]

The rules have not changed. Your just basing your argument on the last five years. Its the dripple effect. Now that the prices have increased the yields have gone down now. We are also in our largest period of growth in our australian history.

So dont expect too much now. The rules have not changed.

My advice for what its worth. Keep what you have – your strategy in the long term will be better than buying shitty positive geared properties at $80k each with low capital growth prospects. Quality wins out in the end.

Where overseas are you working? I was working in San Francisco back in 1998 at the height of the tech boom when real estate prices were booming. I was paying heaps in rent for a shitty 2 bed apartment in the surburbs and had no prospect of buying a place.

I thought then that things like that could happen in Australia. We had many migrants…[Read more]

I went on a holiday for a week to Merimbula about 4 years ago. Yeah – I am from Melbourne. We stayed in a holiday flat – that was 2 beds, two baths. It was for sale for $80k. The following year in the same complex another one was for sale for $150k. I am too scared now to even look there.

So Had I had more guts, it would have been a good…[Read more]

I enjoyed the read. It may be time to re-jig my strategy a little. As they say – they aint building any more land. Well except for maybe the Nederlands.

I dont have any experience in this, but I understand that councils are not prepared to rezone residential as they do not want large rural areas subdivided, as it could one day become very unprofitable for farmers to have smaller pieces of land for farming as you need large peices of land to make farming efficient and profitable. You still need…[Read more]

Yeah – your view is shared by many. But I still dont understand it.

As a kid the beaches here were a little dirty with the dredging. Thats stopped so the beaches are very clean now.

I drive along beach road to work, so I reckon I have one of the best scenic drives to work in the world. It certainly beats the drive I used to have to work in san…[Read more]

South – just a little over half way between the city and Frankston

Well, I am talking Melbourne. We have not yet really embraced the beach concept yet. I live presently in a beachside surburb about 25 kms from the city (50-60 mins drive in peak hr). My home is only 10 mins from the beach pushing a pram (about 400m) and the houses go for $360-$380k. We are even closer to the railway station. But I want to…[Read more]

Sounds good to me. Any other ideas? Anyone doing anything like these ideas? Surely you must reach a point one day when you think you deserve to live in a nice house.

I want to keep my eggs and eat them too.

Kool

Hi

That sounds good. But thats assuming you can afford to buy an old house on a good piece of land in the area you actually want to live in.

Old houses still go for around $500k in the area I want to live in. So its not possible for me to do that. Having a family and kids, its a bit hard to live in an old house. They still want some comforts.