Hi there,
What a wonderful forum. First post here.
We have just found our modest dream home (bad debt). After constant buying and selling over the last 5 years. Now changing strategy and would like to really get serious in investing over the next 2 years.
So have a few questions.
Looking to invest either in Brisbane or Perth. Perth because of my parents living there. Brisbane because heard that they are one of the best australia cities in terms of rentals. Also living overseas and will be returning to the Gold Coast – hence Brisbane as place of choice.
I have emailed a RE Agent but know I have asked them questions that just would just be too easy for them to treat in their favour.
I know that Brisbane CBD and inner suburbs have experienced growth. I would like to find some middle suburbs, read this is the next best area.
Don’t want cashflow affected by already inflated price. – problem, don’t know the area so don’t know the name of the suburbs. Also someone once said to me that the best place to invest is close to universities and hospitals. Does anyone agree with this please??Is it also true that you need to pay off one investment property before you should buy another please?
We really would like our portfolio complete in 2 years. For best returns should we be buying lots of 100k properties or a few 250k properties please?
Are houses the best or apartments please?
If anyone could help with the name of the suburbs i should be looking at would be greatly appreciated. Also your opinions on the rest of my questions/thoughts would be vastly appreciated.
I just asked my husband to describe real estate agents. Without wanting my first post to be negative, I will tell you his response wasn’t good.
Best regards to everyone
4walls
Oh boy,
They just asked many of my same concerns in this property investment venture. Althrough I live here in Sydney (I have to work oversea too!) but my investment problem would be fairly much the same as anyone trying to invest from oversea.
Regardings investing on properties around Uni and Hospital, I am fairly in favour of it as it provides a constant higher income tenant group(even students! They are rich in our prespective.) that would certainly fuel our venture.
Regards,
Hiu
My strong suggestion is that you first invest some time & effort in educating yourself. Without taking the time to find out more, and learning what’s important and what’s not, you’ll just be ‘flying blind’. Even if someone did tell you buy in suburb X and Y and Z… YOU need to have some idea yourself of why those suburbs are good (or not) and why you would buy there. Buying without knowing why is an almost certain recipe for disaster and financial loss. Can you lose money in property? You sure can if you don’t know what you’re doing!!!!!!
You need a strategy first and then a plan for how to carry it out. Capital growth? Cashflow? How much? By when? Is it realistic? Wanting to buy them all inside 2 years is great… can you do it realistically? How?
Whether houses or apartments are ‘best’ will depend on your strategy and your finances. Different people may hold strong opinions on them. One successful investor I know specialises in 1 bedroom apartments in an inner suburb and does very well out of them. Another never buys apartments and only ever buys new houses… there is no ‘best’, it’s what will work best for YOU.
Same goes for Real Estate Agents – they are good, bad and very ordinary. If you’re going to get into property, then you’ll be dealing with agents. If you treat them like dirt, then don’t wonder why you don’t get much from them. Their prime loyalty is not to you, and neither should it be – that’s like expecting the car salesman to be loyal to you instead of their employer. Why would they? The agent works for the client who is paying them to sell the property.
They’re not out there to make you rich, they’re busy trying to do it for themselves, and fair enough. I know a couple of great agents – they’ve helped me make a heap of money by a/selling property for me at a great price and b/buying property for me at auction also at a great price and c/telling me about deals that have made me money, but only because I put in the time to let them know I’m serious, and I treat them well… AND I also do my own research & homework, so that I can double-check everything they say to me and I know then when it really is a good deal. Yes, there are some bad ones, and yes I’ve heard horror stories, and yes, I’ve had some look me in the eye and tell me stuff that just wasn’t so. Maybe they knew it, but often they didn’t. You need to know at least as much as they do, if not more. But when an agent tells me that a site with plans on it to build 2 units is going to make me $50,000 ‘no worries’ – I know enough to tell them when that isn’t so, and exactly why not, and thus why I won’t be buying it from them at that price.
So… time to get busy reading – there’s a stack of good books out there, easily available and quite cheap. Read through this forum, and Jan Somers’ http://www.somersoft.com.au (both fabulous sources of info and they already have the answers to a lot of your questions). And then, when you’ve done the homework… you can ask some better questions. Hope this helps.
I am considering Brisbane also. Not knowing the city I went to a bookstore and bought a couple of maps of the city. They show major roads, rail, shops, hospitals, uni’s etc etc. It has helped somewhat, especially since I knew nil about which suburb was where. I then went to realestate.com.au and began my search. Hopefully you can get some maps in Singapore, or ask a relative to post them over.
Regards
AllyA lot of depth their Jane, welcome to PI.com [
],I agree 100%, property investing is about investing time and effort into learning about how to do what everyone else is not doing or do things smarter and how to get the best results out of people.Key
],I agree 100%, property investing is about investing time and effort into learning about how to do what everyone else is not doing or do things smarter and how to get the best results out of people.The topic ‘Want to invest but don’t trust RE Agents’ is closed to new replies.
