Hi all,
I've just joined this forum, after reading some of the Jan Somers books. I've spent the last couple of days trawling through these forums (as a visitor), and just after some friendly advice.
I'm currently residing in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, and looking to purchase our first IP. We currently own our PPOR outright (about $650-$700k in value). We've had it paid off now for about 5 years, but haven't really been saving, due to the amount of work required to finish off our PPOR (new home). We are getting to the stage now were we've saved about $40k, and are hoping to take the plunge into the property market.
From reading the books, and these forums I have sumarised some of the tips:
Puchase a property with value adding potential (be it a quick renovation, sub-divide).
Purchase a house over a unit/apartment, because the land value is what increases.
Purchase slightly below the median house price in that suburb (not the lowest amount).
Purchase brick, over weatherboard houses and with low maintenance if possible.
Ask the question, would I live here.
Purchase something that appeals to a wider range of renters.
Try and get the smallest house on the biggest property possible.
My brothers have always recommended buying close to the bay, as you'll never loose money close to the water.
Some questions, what side of the bay (Geelong side or Frankston/Mornington side) has the most potential for increased property prices?
We are more conservitive types, so we would be looking to pay the first IP outright as quickly as possible, then use that as the equity to buy a 2nd property, and keep our PPOR safe, as a fall back.
The situation. Currently earning about $65k gross (my own IT company) per year (only working 3.5-4 days a week, and have 12 weeks off a year to spare). My wife doesn't work, as we have 2 young kids (1 in primary, and a 1 year old), so she only receives the Part A/B payments from the government. She will be getting back to work in about 4 years, so at that point the money will be pouring in. So far I have been using the BAS money collection in a netbank account till the BAS is due, which gives us around $200 a year in interest. We anticipate the 1st property will take about 10 years to pay off.
There is talk of us having a flattening market at the moment, and possibly heading towards a decline, if interest rates keep going up. What are peoples opinion on the investment clock. Surely our politicians have by now worked out how to stop us going into a recession, and with all these promising things happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine we are going to go belly up? Then again, we can't help what's happening around the world.
Are we better off waiting till the end of year to see what happens? Every day I drive past a block of land we were going to purchase 7 years ago (5 acres) for $400k. At the time we thought it was a bit too much, so we let it slide. There is a house on there now, and it's worth about $3.5-4 million now. We sometimes feel the more we wait, the more everything goes up, which has been the case for the last 18 years, since the '91-92 recession.
We've been burnt before with the 'financial planner' and managed funds 'scam' that Jan talks about in her book. The only person that did well out of this was the financial planner. We don't wan't to rely on the same superannuation 'scam', which seems to give with the one hand and take with the other.
BTW, we are only 34 years old.
I've just joined this forum, after reading some of the Jan Somers books. I've spent the last couple of days trawling through these forums (as a visitor), and just after some friendly advice.
I'm currently residing in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, and looking to purchase our first IP. We currently own our PPOR outright (about $650-$700k in value). We've had it paid off now for about 5 years, but haven't really been saving, due to the amount of work required to finish off our PPOR (new home). We are getting to the stage now were we've saved about $40k, and are hoping to take the plunge into the property market.
From reading the books, and these forums I have sumarised some of the tips:
Puchase a property with value adding potential (be it a quick renovation, sub-divide).
Purchase a house over a unit/apartment, because the land value is what increases.
Purchase slightly below the median house price in that suburb (not the lowest amount).
Purchase brick, over weatherboard houses and with low maintenance if possible.
Ask the question, would I live here.
Purchase something that appeals to a wider range of renters.
Try and get the smallest house on the biggest property possible.
My brothers have always recommended buying close to the bay, as you'll never loose money close to the water.
Some questions, what side of the bay (Geelong side or Frankston/Mornington side) has the most potential for increased property prices?
We are more conservitive types, so we would be looking to pay the first IP outright as quickly as possible, then use that as the equity to buy a 2nd property, and keep our PPOR safe, as a fall back.
The situation. Currently earning about $65k gross (my own IT company) per year (only working 3.5-4 days a week, and have 12 weeks off a year to spare). My wife doesn't work, as we have 2 young kids (1 in primary, and a 1 year old), so she only receives the Part A/B payments from the government. She will be getting back to work in about 4 years, so at that point the money will be pouring in. So far I have been using the BAS money collection in a netbank account till the BAS is due, which gives us around $200 a year in interest. We anticipate the 1st property will take about 10 years to pay off.
There is talk of us having a flattening market at the moment, and possibly heading towards a decline, if interest rates keep going up. What are peoples opinion on the investment clock. Surely our politicians have by now worked out how to stop us going into a recession, and with all these promising things happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine we are going to go belly up? Then again, we can't help what's happening around the world.
Are we better off waiting till the end of year to see what happens? Every day I drive past a block of land we were going to purchase 7 years ago (5 acres) for $400k. At the time we thought it was a bit too much, so we let it slide. There is a house on there now, and it's worth about $3.5-4 million now. We sometimes feel the more we wait, the more everything goes up, which has been the case for the last 18 years, since the '91-92 recession.
We've been burnt before with the 'financial planner' and managed funds 'scam' that Jan talks about in her book. The only person that did well out of this was the financial planner. We don't wan't to rely on the same superannuation 'scam', which seems to give with the one hand and take with the other.
BTW, we are only 34 years old.
