RESULTS Programme

Hi,

I would like to invest in property but haven't got further than reading books and going to free seminars. I have read all of Margaret Lomas's (last year) and Steve McKnights' 3 books (just finished). I am thinking of taking the RESULTS Programme but am not sure. I agree with Steve that negative gearing will definately lead to losses now for possible gains later. Even if I was fairly sure of capital gains in the long term I can probably only afford one medium priced property possibly 2 (at a stretch) if they are making cash losses.

My husband works fulltime and earns $35,000 taxable. He also salary sacrifices into super which we could change but not until we were sure putting the money into property was better. I work partime and earn $35,000 before tax. Neither of us wants to work longer hours at our current jobs. We own our own home outright. It is worth 400k possibly 450k. I have $50,000 in cash that I can use for deposits. Neither of us has any handyman skills at all. I generally get in a handyman to do what most people probably do themselves. So if anything needed sprucing up or more major work we could not do this ourselves. We are both 48 years of age.

 We live in Adelaide and would prefer at least to start out investing in an area to which we could travel fairly easily to check out properties personally.  I have searched for property using the internet, local newspapers and driving around locally. So far I haven't found anything that even nearly passes Steve's tests (3 second solution- Ch 15 0-260 Properties in 7 Years). I have read the case studies about how hard it is to find cashflow properties and am wondering if I will be able to if I take the course. I have also looked up rent yields in the back of Australian Property Investor and none are much above 5. In the made up examples in Steve's books he always uses much higher yields. Lots of his deals seem to have been made in times when higher yields were more common than now. I like my job and am not looking like Steve to do hundreds of deals and replace my current income. I also don't want to spend as much time as he obviously does. As well as my paid job I have a fulltime job at home looking after my children.I would like to do a  much smaller thing than he has done. Just a few properties and perhaps just a small amount of time each day. My bias at this stage is towards buy and hold. Perhaps buying property on a sub-dividable block to create a cash positive situation. I would still like to have capital gains as well.

My aim in investing is (1)so we can be of assistance to our children in them getting into the real estate market or providing them a place to rent and (2) to increase our wealth.

I would value your opinion as to if the RESULTS programme would be suitable given my situation.
Is it really possible to create cash flow positive property deals with a buy and hold strategy or is it necessary to do more creative things like wraps and leases.

Thanks so much for reading this

Cathy