Recent content by Able

The problem with solar at the moment is it does not stack up to well as a return on investment (i.e. installing purely for financial return). We know electricity costs are still increasing way above CPI, but will the solar technology become cheaper in the future. A combination of these two could...

Maza, It will depend a lot on what area and Council in Sydney you are building in, and also on the block itself whether it is falt or not. - Some Councils will require that you build a stormwater detention system so add at least $10k as a rough guide. - Some Councils have more onerous...

I just performed a very quick search and did not find this covered in a thread elsewhere but apologies if it already is. The Block is an entertaining TV show but i thought it would be interesting to run the numbers and see whether it actually makes any money as a renovation value add. Here are...

Sorry, i should have added to the previous post.. My suggestion here is that the areas with faster rising incomes may (or may not?) see more spending (relative to the price of homes) on improvements etc. This woudl affect the median price change. Regards

A point to consider is that stat used is 'media house price' and that some portion of the change is due to renovations, improvements or redevelopment. For example the Sydney average 17 year change was 233% which equates to 7.3% p.a. However one cannot ignore that renovations, improvements and...

Can anyone recommend a good home builder who will build on sloping site and who does work in Ku-ring-gai Council area (Sydney North Shore)? Sloping sites (where they require more than a single step in a floor slab) tend to rule out a number of the project home type builders with generic floor...

According to the rental properties guide on the ATO website: http://www.ato.gov.au/content/downloads/IND00191817n17290609.pdf In my words (not theirs) general purpose sinking fund fees can be claimed. The distinction is that these funds are used for the long term maintenance and repair of...

Does anyone know whether it is standard practice for a commission to be paid to the strata manager for building insurance on a property they manage? The strata manager has used a broker to organise insurance renew on behalf of the owners corporation. The insurance prices from the broker...

I am a little late coming in on this thread but i have been looking at the novated lease product over the last week so i thought i would add my 2c worth. It may help others who are looking at the product. This is not tax advise so please talk to your accountant. I will do 25,000km plus per...

ryan mel, Have you factored in the infrastructure charge for creating an additional home site? Not sure what it is called in Vic but in NSW it is the Section 94 contribution. For example where i live on the North Shore in Sydney it is around $35k and you will pay the fee once for the one...

I totally agree. Purely comparing rates of return does not take into account the many other aspects to consider when comparing alternate investments.

Each to their own. I to find IRR to be a very useful analysis tool. For those interested read on. Lots of people will buy IP's for the capital growth, knowing that it will cost them each year they own the property but maybe working on a simple rule of thumb such as the property value will...

I bet there are a few other people on margin that are hurting. I could not believe over the last few years that every piece of financial advise in a newspaper column, magazine etc was to invest in shares and/or managed funds and utilise a margin. It seemed to be peddled as a conservative...

Well done on getting DA. Just play close attention to the DA conditions. This is where Council will try to cover all bases. You will need to satisfy all applicable conditions prior to obtaining a CC, and some prior to obtaining an OC. In my experience PCA's generally do not use lots of...

Maybe i wasn't quite clear. I have the choice of carrying out some renovations with cash or borrowed funds. Assuming the PPOR will become an IP soon i may as well use borrowed funds (which i assume will become tax deductable once the property is an IP). That way i can inject the cash into my...