Recent content by Guy

Spoke to an agent in Gladstone today who quoted rental vacancy rate at 1.3%. That 's very low by any standard.

My 20yo daughter & a friend went 1/2s in a block at Wyee Point on Lake Macquarie in NSW. Bought it for $117k 18mnths or 2 yrs ago, & the block next door just sold for $280k. Wish we'd bought the street out! They could afford the outflow of cash, as they both live @ home. The -ve cashflow for a...

I saw it worked out once that if everyone was on Tassie we'd all have 9 or 10 m2, so laying down is 1/5th of Tassie.

Mike, From my observations there are still good numbers of small blocks of units out there with yields of 10%+. They may be older properties, but with rents per unit at around $100 pw they're always full. Looked at an older place today ('70's built) that had tenants in the same units for up to...

We're just in the process of our 1st shot at it, for our daughter. She & a friend went 1/2s in a block in a new subdivision. With land & a cost of $150k/unit their outlay was $220k each. Agents est. a sale price of $360k (they'll hold the units), so it looks like there's money in it. There's...

Mitch, The vendor left 1/3 of the price in the deal with no real ownership or equity?

I'm currently looking to buy a couple of adjoining properties in my area to develop. I've heard of the use of options & presume they are a contract to tie up the property for a time without actually purchasing - is this correct? Could someone explain some detail? Where would I source a good...

I found that gaining finance on an IP in a distant locale was easier when we spoke to banks/brokers who were had a branch/lived in the area (found them via google). Our local finance providers were suspicious of NthQLD & were wanting to tie up more of our equity with 50-60% LVR's. Since the IP...

Goalsmagic, Systems in life are often helpful, & systems can be great tolls in Real Estate as well. Sharing thoughts with like minded people is a very wise pastime. But in my opinion the old book 'Think & Grow Rich" nails it. We've each got to think long & hard & deep for ourselves. Avoid...

No worries here. As someone once said "the poor will allways be with us" (or something like that). There are heaps of people around who WANT to rent .... they just can't see themselves ever owning a house. Just yesterday I was listening in on a conversation (yeah evesdropping) where one of...

Got a contact for CGU?

How about the smell of goanna, kangaroo & a variety of other native game being cooked in your kitchen by some of our original Australian friends. We attempted to get rid of the smell... dumped the stove & fridge (still smelly) .. pulled out the cupboards .. to no avail ... stripped the floor...

My last shower base was onto an old timber floor & despite extensive use of a couple of jacks, we couldn't get it level. I put down a 20-30 mm bed of concrete straight onto the floorboards, dropped the showerbase onto it & then put a spirit level over the base. Ran a trowel around to remove &...

Malleeboy, We own 4 properties, & one thing that makes my wife feel secure about property is that our IP income covers all IP costs PLUS the mortgage on our home. Maybe trawl the 'net Real Estate sites, find some property with really good +ve cashflow ( >10%) & take your wife through the...

Penny, I don't own any commercial , but have seriously looked a couple of times & have each time concluded that I can get a lot more leverage out of my equity sticking with residential (3 or less units), & it's so much easier to get the loan. Still, if a killer deal comes up you'd have to...