Buying property unseen.

Hi Sean,

Yes, I have recently successfully purchased sight unseen 3 times. I would not recommend doing it on your first investment purchase and if you want to do it on your second then you need to be extremely thorough. Research is my thing because I use to be a Crime Intelligence Analyst but if you do not have a research background please understand that there are lot of T’s to cross an I’s to dot before you can come close to being as confident as you would by seeing a property first hand.

Having said that, sight unseen is a heck of a lot easier now with the advantages of the internet and I am setting up my new website to provide as many internet research tools as possible but there’s still a lot more to go on there yet so don’t think that there’s all the information there to do it.

There are are a lot of things you have to get others to do. You have to get lots of photos, check, cross check , check again and make sure you use reliable professionals to do the relevant work for you. Obviously some people will see a sight unseen purchase as an opportunity to rip you off so the due diligence has to be as thorough as possible. My wife keeps telling me to write a book on it but I am too busy sitting here writing forum posts.

Todd Burns
http://www.freepropertyhelp.com.au

I think for a beginner it’s hard to feel comfortable for buying a property unseen.
Margaret Lomas, in her book, ‘A pocket guide to investing in Positive cash flow property’ gives 20 checkpoints to safely buy something unseen.

Cheers,

nah, get on a plane and do the hard yards. lots of places look and feel good on paper, some of them are simply trash. your choice and your money.

cheers

brahms
Purveyor of Fine Finances
aka Mortgage Broker Brisbane

Hi Ryan,

The first trip (prior to purchase) is not deductible rather the expense can be claimed against as purchasing costs and used to offset any capital gains tax liability in the future.

If on the other hand you visited after purchase this trip is deductible under most circumstances.

Derek
[email protected]
http://www.pis.theinvestorsclub.com.au
0409 882 958
Skype – derekjones2113

HI all. Interested in Gtphysios comments. What part of NW Tassie did you buy in? I’m guessing Rosebery or Queenstown at that price. The real estate guys that cover those areas I found don’ t seem overly interested in the first place, which is why I ask. None seem interested in even going out of their way to send more than one picture, and expect you to buy on that – yeah right….We bought our 2nd prop in Burnie sight unseen, which we did after finding and using previously an excellent builder to do the prop inspections. True, a bit daunting though. As a sidepoint, the RE we dealt with, that we established a bit if a repoire with, said it surprises him how many (especially locals) do not even think of getting a building report done. [strum] Oh, and while it has been no drama, in all fairness, other than if using a trusted buyers agent, who pumps photos off like a madman/woman to email you/us something to look at, I don’t think we would do it this way again,,,,

Its really easy to buy a property sight unseen ,
but its really hard to get the best possible deal sight unseen.You really need to go to the place and get on the ground and do all yr research. You end up learning all sorts of things you never would from the computer or phone, and often find deals from talking to locals.It is worth the effort.

Also you feel like you have really achieved something when u have done all yr research and then got on to some bargains!

“I have a theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same.”
– Rachel Scott(16 yr old killed in columbine shooting 1999)http://www.racheljoyscott.com/