Guidance appreciated regarding move, PPOR and IP

[dallee]

Schools

How are you going with your school selection? As Geoff said Queanbeyan schools don't have a great reputation. Did your wife check out St Clare's? If you end up living in Queanbeyan it may be a good choice given that the girls have been in the Catholic system, and zoning isn't a selection factor - but being Catholic is. Dallee

 

[namtrak]

Thanks GeoffW, Im heading over to Qbn again this morning before I leave for home.

I'll chase Jason up and have a chat to him regarding what we are looking for.

I was singularly unimpressed with Narrabundah. Whilst, unless we sold our current PPOR, we could only afford to buy into the dodgy side, there wasn't much to Narrabundah that was appealing at all.

I did think there were some opportunities in a suburb called Duffy, out at Weston Creek. Particularly where the fires ran through the edge of the suburb. There are some serious mcMansions being built out there and at the same time some Housing Commission stock which with a makeover could appreciate in value quite nicely. However at half an hour its probably too far to travel to work.

And yes we have enrolled at St Clare's but there is a bit of a waiting list. Hopefully it pans out, but we'll be keeping an open mind.

 

[namtrak]

An update and some observations.

We are still looking for somewhere to buy. But at least the kids are bedded down in schools.

We have more or less decided on one of two areas. Either Narrabundah or Queanbeyan. We have a budget of around $450.

In Narrabundah, we get a very dodgy house (3 bedroom but livable) but with a lot of room for capital growth, and fairly solid rental returns.

In Queanbeyan, we can get a very livable house, (4 bedroom and ensuite or within 3/4 blocks of mainstreet) but slightly less capital growth. Although there does seem the odd opportunity to buy the 'worst house in the best street' with some very large disparities between houses within close proximity to each other.

We have made a couple of offers and I have had a couple of funny/odd things happen.

Firstly we put in an offer (just fishing) of $395k on a house listed at $440. That offer was rejected, and we put in another offer of $420k (realistic). However the agent this time sort of seemed like he wasn't interested at all. Just said too low and left it at that - no counter offers, no call back, nothing. We would probably go a little higher, but the agent is making it really difficult to negotiate - by not being interested! The agent is the owner of the real estate business and the house is still on the market.

We put another offer in on a house that we felt was priced realistically (no fishing offers). We offered $395k for the house listed at $399k. But it was sight unseen (although we were happy with the due diligence). However this time the agent rejected the offer because we hadn't looked at the house and she wouldn't accept our standard condition of pending building/pest report. I was actually willing to acccept the vendors building report which was only completed in May, but she wouldn't allow that either. I always thought money was money, but I guess in this case it wasn't. To be fair, the house is now under offer.

I rang Jason at Maxwell RE, who was very pragmatic and provided some good advice regarding purchasing. And we will still keep looking. We do have a couple of auctions coming up, but I always bid low at auctions and would be loathe to buy at one - hoping to ge them passed in and go from there.

 

[dallee]

Hi. We live in Narrabundah so if you'd like someone to check out whether the next door neighbours have a dozen rusting cars up on blocks in the front yard, happy to do so. PM me if you need any help. Dallee

 

[namtrak]

Just to round out this thread.

We ended up buying in Queanbeyan, and used Maxwell and Co. as the agent. Jason was very helpful, as you would expect. We bought about 2 blocks further from the mainstreet than we wanted but basically there is nothing for sale in the areas we were interested in - as they say a "tightly held area"

I think we paid about $20k too much for the place, but we see some room for improvement with a bit of astute renovating - stay tuned for that thread!

We did continue with our offers on the house I mentioned earlier where the agent didn't seem interested. We came back with an offer of $430,000, however the agent advised that the house was now listed at $450,000 - we let go at that point. Since Christmas I have noticed that the house is now listed at $475,000!!

As for our house in Albury, we are now renting it out room by room to 4 students. We are very happy with the situation as we have much more control over the house than our last IP and the students are all keen to stay for the full 4 years! We also get access to the house for the 10 weeks over Christmas which will be very handy. We are paying for gas, electricity, internet, cleaning and gardening.

Cheers

 

[geoffw]

Well done Namtrak.

I'm glad Jason has done good by you. But, obviously, being an agent, he's done good for himself as well. Hopefully a win win.

But Jason has given me good advice in the past- buying or selling.

I hope he has done the right thing by you.