Hi Emma

What are you referring to when you say triple taxes and triple holding costs?

Cheers

The RE office is…[Read more]

As Kay has already indicated it is doubtful that you have a case.

As far as trying to evict him because of the lease conditions. I see that these would be judged as harsh and uncontionable and as such you will not succeed but in so doing aggrevate the whole situation even further.

Reading your post I drew the conclusion that you had…[Read more]

Allan.

Hi allan

Could I…[Read more]

Vote for the party that is going to create the most upset and disquite in the economy.

By all means abolish any favourable treatment of GCT, increase stamp duty, apply a land tax to all IP’s.

In the end the smart investor will stand to gain from the oppurtunities that are created as a consequence of the politicians idiocy. The last thing…[Read more]

Citibank just sent similar letter advicing me I had exceeded my max points for the year (by 20k) and will not receive anymore points until August my…[Read more]

Iam a bit confused why you are discussing NSW if you are going over to NZ.

Anyway in regard to land tax in NSW the new should actually benefit trust structures. The reason is that the first $400k will be levied at .4% rather than the previous 1.7% a saving of about the 1.3% mark.

It is still to be seen whether the .4% will apply to…[Read more]

I would suggest you go and talk to the council and see what approvals you need to make it an approved improvement.

The next step will be to get plans drawn up and submit them to council to get official response. This may cost up to $1k but in the long term is a worthwhile investment even if you don’t proceed.

The main consideration…[Read more]

Absolutely spot on. By not redrawing the money used to pay down your PPOR you are literally using the pile of cash sitting under the bed.

Obviously one needs to invest this money correctly to maintain your safn (sleep at night factor).

Unfortunately the marketiers are starting to get hold of this concept and pushing people to use…[Read more]

You can try
http://www.strategicwealthmanagement.com.au

or

http://www.chrisbatten.com.au/

and lastly try

http://www.navra.com.au/

Cheers

Possibly what is refered to is redrawing the increasing equity to finance the -ve holding cost and also provide defered tax income based on spending the drawdown rather than having a taxable income.

A more detailed explanation can be obtained via Steve Navra. A link that explains some of this is here…[Read more]

1 qld properties with -ve no effort
2 seaside properties with +ve with effort

1) overpaid, with market only just catching up with purchase price.

Look at the market and asses whether there is going to be any CG in the near (2-4 years). If there is going to be any further capital gain does this exceed the loss on…[Read more]

We have been renting a house to my sister in law since 1996. They have now paid more rent than we paid for the house originally (a long time ago)

No problems so far with the rental payments.

Cheers

As a substantial NSW investor I see the change in Land tax as positive for landlords.

I am already paying substantial land tax and although I haven’t sat down the work out the difference I suspect there will be negligable difference under this new regime.

What it has done is leveled the playing field for all other investors (read my…[Read more]

This will be after the new property investors have had a gut full of bad tenants, the hassles of the paper work, the allure of a shiny new car or any other doodad that takes their fancy and simply no real capital gain which most will be banking on and possibly -ve growth.

They simply don’t…[Read more]

Unfortunately for you life (and the government) has a way of catching up with you. You may or may not be aware but and depreciation on the property is added back for GCT purposes so that any…[Read more]

It makes a difference and its called profit. The bank is out to make a buck and if they can get away with differenciating the business so that you pay more they will try.

Having said that I managed to get St George to do a Portfolio loan for $1mill at %6.5 or there abouts. With no business reporting etc. So basically as a home loan and…[Read more]

The ability for you to channel the money into a trust will be dependent on whether the trust can become a shareholder of the company without to much CGT problems.

With a hybrid trust the 50k will become the seed funds yoy take out…[Read more]

I took the decision some time back to start investing in blocks of units.

The main reason was the land tax bill with my thinking being that a house has very little income to offset the land tax but a block of units will have many rents to offset the saem or nearly the same rated value.

Since then we have purchased 4 blocks, the blocks…[Read more]

Congrats on your success.

In regard to selling don’t forget to factor in the CGT and other selling costs. In general this will come to about 20-30% of the gains that you have made so when comparing selling to simply raising money against the increased equity you are better off simply getting a loan to provide the money and retain…[Read more]

It is your responsibility to lodge the initial paperwork that acknowledges ownership from then they will asses what you owe retrospectively and then will send an annuall assesment.

If you don’t lodge the initial return then any land tax will simply…[Read more]

Looking at this as the landlord my initial thought is “you’ve got to be crazy”. I don’t have a problem with improving properties where the improvements are part of the building. But any improvements that that have a high or expensive maintenance risk is certainly to be avoided.

Where we buy property that has a dishwasher we will even…[Read more]

What this means is you get a $200k+ threshold for each entity and thus avoid land tax in Qld.

Cheers

I don’t disagree with the thrust of your argument but I do want to highlight that the markets you refer to are generally very volatile markets.

It has always seemed to me that country areas are much more prone to market turbulance, with a complete lack of demand when the cycle turns against property. From personal experience I don’t find…[Read more]

If you want to have a laugh and maybe scam the scam artists then have a look at http://www.scamorama.com/

Seems people are fighting back as far as these scam artists are concerned. I just can’t believe how people can fall for their lines.

Cheers

The realestate agent is only working for himself. You will be able to draw down that equity in the years to come like you had that money sitting in the bank.

In relation to using it to get the next one, try and not cross colaterise. First go to the back and borrow the equity, tell them its for reno. Then you can use this money as the…[Read more]

Cheers

Excelent contribution and finally establishes some credibility and some relevance as to where your comming from and heading to.

Firstly why did I say it is an idiotic question. The focus of retirement is a personal thing. You may see retirement as driving your motorhome to the sun. Personally I see this as work as I would must rather walk…[Read more]

Instead of asking idiotic questions that have no immediate relevance you might want to do some research into structuring.

From the info given you have your investment property paid of but your still carrying a personal non deductable mortgage. Loosing heaps to the tax man.

“i have a fully franked income of 48k per year as well as my…[Read more]

I like you have my Superfund pay my life insurance. This makes the life insurance tax deductable but because it is the superfund the tax deduction is only 15%.

Terry the link you included is not working could you please correct it as I am interested in researching further.

Cheers

Mitch you are absolutely right that if the figures work and you have left sufficient buffer in the deal to cater for contingencies, like double interest rates, then great.

But as Dave has indicated there is a bust after a boom. In real estate this tends to be a flattening out where supply exceeds demand…[Read more]

Firstly I agree with Quentin and for your first property get it managed for a while to get the hang of things. You can shop around and get a good management deal. If you do manage it yourself then the most important thing you need to educate yourself about is the tenancy act of your state. This sets out all the rules re notifications…[Read more]

All the best from my family and I. I am sure you will be back on your feet in no time keeping everybody in order.

Cheers

Well done. Iam somewhat curiuos as the partnership seems somewhat lop sided. How come the profits were not based 50/50?

Cheers

It depends on what you use the money for.

If the money is used to purchase further income producing assets then the money is tax deductable. I

If the money is simply wasted on a home extension, doodat or any other non investment related use then it will not be tax deductable.

So the specific answer to your question
“Would I be able to…[Read more]

Iam confused as you indicate that you already have a settlement date. This would indicate that the sales contract is final, meaning it has exchanged.

If the case is exchange has taken place then there really is no avenue for recinding the contract without foregoing the 10% deposit or more if subsequently the vendor gets a lesser price…[Read more]

My personal opinion is that the property market is way over heated and that at this point of the market you can actually make loses over the shorter time frame (0-5 years). If you are willing to venture out of the main capital cities then at least you can pick up a property with cash flow but the flip side is you will wait a very long…[Read more]

Are the payments that you are making currently the same payments ones building has finished?

If the payments are the same then renting out the two completed houses should ease your financial posiiton.

I would suggest you do a full financial analysis projecting your cash flow to ensure that there is enough.

If after doing this you…[Read more]

I tend to agree with Del and would strongly suggest that you simply concentrate on getting going on a rental property.

Then as Peter suggest look at the potential problems that may occur and plan to negate each one.

At the start of our investment adventure the main risk I identified for myself was the vacancy factor. So to overcome…[Read more]

You divide by two because there are 52 weeks in the year, which is close enough to 50 to be 50.

The other way that you can look at this is if the property is for sale for $80,000 then double it and drop some zero to arrive at $160 which is a 10% return.

I do this particular calc almost automatically to determine the ball park return…[Read more]

Some suggestions and questions

How is that you are not getting a response from your phone calls? Answering macine or what.

Set your phone to not showing your number so that there is a better chance of getting picked up.

Get involved with the strata so that you get on the committee then get the strata involved with the parts of the…[Read more]

Apart from the cost of the mortgage insurance there are only a limited number of ins companies that actually provide this cover (about 2 ) and they then keep a record of how much they have covered with their upper limit at about 1.5mil.

So when…[Read more]

It is really a subjective question as it is dependent on the reason for buying the property, whether you want to negotiate further and a miriad of other reasons.

I will take that your not about to tear it down so as such I would be include it as a condition in the offer and only proceed with the inspection when the price/offer is…[Read more]

You generally need to get a depreciation schedule done by a quantity survey. These guys will do a full depreciation schedule for you taking into account the base value and the age of everything.

The cost to get this done is $300-400. More to the point the ATO excepts this as true and correct with the fee for getting it done deductable…[Read more]

Just some thoughts

History repeats itself because people don’t learn. A classic example is the recent stock market boom where the talk was ‘this time is different’ ‘new econmy’ etc and the prices were pushed beyond reasonable investment criteria. People believe the hype get on the band wagon the axels break and low and behold…[Read more]

I know this thread is supposed to be about qualities for a good tenant but about your 2nd property that your having some tenant issues with. May I suggest that you start using 12 month leases rather than the standard 6 month.

My reasoning is that with a tenant willing to sign up for 12 month you cut down the changeover work between…[Read more]

I am curious, what is the ‘red tape and zero flexibility’ you refer to?

Cheers

On renovating the unit I lift the rents from $130 pw up to $175pw and that was in a stagnant rental market. Total spend is about $8k.

I thought it was an interesting story in contrast as to what it looked like to what it actually was.

Stretch, as far as inspections go you can inspect as much as you like but in the end you can not impose your…[Read more]

Well lets be controversial my stock standard answer is ‘there is no such thing as a good tenant’ []

In a property managers eyes a good tenant pays the rent on time.

In the property owners eyes a good tenant is one that pays the rent on time, looks after the property like it is their own rather than somebody else’s carries out any minor…[Read more]

I don’t know about where Steve finds his deals but I look in the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald.

This has a section under Commercial Property Forsale. You will find all sorts of wharehouse, commercial, DA approved property etc advertised. Amongst them generally under ‘Investment’ or ‘Flats’ are multi occupant units.

Generally it runs to…[Read more]