Moving Forward?
Thanx for responding Dave and Rixter,
All investors please feel free to pick the hell out of the remainder of my post, I want feedback. It is a long post so youve got to have some thoughts!!:
I am targeting suburbs with a good capital growth and that satisfy as many of my other selection criteria that I outlined in my original post. Yield is the last thing I look at and it is not a major consideration, if I can get a good yield all the better for it.
I would have replied earlier but I have been getting out there and learning as much as I can. I probably wont be ready to invest for atleast a year, I havent yet bought any properties and I need the time to save for a deposit. Although my parents have equity in their home, one of them comes along with me and if/when I feel like I am ready for the next step they will could enter into some sort of partnership whith me.
I chose the suburb of Balga to start looking at in detail and getting an understanding for the value of homes and land and to start to refine my selection criteria and detirmine if something is a good investment.
I chose Balga because it has above average 10 year cap growth (9.5%), has good affordabilty, above average yield, upward growth pressure from the conversion of properties from Homeswest to owner occupied. The demographic in the area is changing completely. There is two good shopping centres, and the suburb has the most open spaces, and reserves of any suburb NOR. There is a number of planned housing estates to replace the high density housing (homeswest). There is 3 primary schools and a High school. As well as homeswest houses being renovated by the govt, there is alot of investor activity with homes being renovated every where. The street has alot of newer home and is nicely tucked away, but not lost in the suburb
Is there any other suburb characteristics I should be looking for??
I had never been to an open inspection before, I have read many books but never actually moved to the next step. Give me a break I am 21 and prob thought of investing at an earlier stage in life then most.
On the weekend I attended 7 open inspections meeting my intial selection criteria, already that criteria has been further changed and refined. For each inspection I got a detailed report before hand of all the homes that had sold in the street in the last 12 months. This is going to be alot easier now that I have become "friends" with an agent in the area who is prepared to send me stats for no charge with any selection criteria (beds, baths , house type, street) and she also handles neigbouring suburbs.
At each inspection I have a checklist that I have written over the last year of preparation, the agents dont really like it because they get a grilling session every time they see me, I love it. I go through each house taking approx measurements of rooms especially in rooms I think need some rejuvenation. My mum has a good eye for things so it was good to have her their. I am starting to develop a good sense for what need to be done in each house.
I also look at similiar homes that have sold recently in the neighbouring streets that have similar sale price to the one I am inpecting. I have done a bit of door knocking on those houses, just givign the owner a compliment and stating that I'm looking to move into the area. I ended up talking with one guy for half an hour about the improvements he just did to his front yard. Getting an idea for the cost of his improvement, what he thought of the area, how much he thought rents were going for and his impressions of the local school
I have already found a great 3+1 house, it makes the others in the area seem way over priced and I can envsion the improvements that I would make already. I have all the measurements of the rooms so I will try to ascertain the cost it would take to bring it up to where I want it to be, it already is in very good condition and any improvements would just add that real desirability we all want in a property. There seemed to be a bit of interest in the property on the day, because of the price.
This week I will give my criteria to the agent get her to look out for homes for me and refine my search within the suburb. I will also look at neigbouring suburbs and with a refined search I can look at the same number of home or more better meeting my selection criteria.
I wanted to assess how much the home I have in mind could rent for. The agent quoted a top heavy figure of $200 per week. I havnt been around long but I wasnt born yesterday. I pulled open the paper looked up what other houses in the area are renting for and the maximum is $170. Hey!, "I think I want to rent a place", why not call by and have an inpection of these $170 homes see what people are prepared to pay for. I need to keep in mind that I wouldnt want to overcapitalise on any improvement I do.
So looks like I'm pretty set for another week of excitement in the world of property. If anyone has any comments regarding my whole post, hit me.
I think the my next purchase will be a laser guided measuring tape, digital camera and the PIA software. If anyone feels like selling any of these (except the PIA software of course) let me know.
Thanx,
Jarrad