Ho did you go with your hunt phantom_x ? Did you end up buying anywhere yet ?
Hi Frisky, apologies for the late reply, work has been pretty hectic lately.
We ended up buying a new townhouse (just completed) in Upper Mount Gravatt. It's 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, ducted air, balcony access from two bedrooms and single garage. It is in a small block of 4 town houses and the strata fees are quite reasonable at about $500 per quarter.
It is in quiet street, very close to Holland Park West and about 9 km from the CBD. For us, being our first investment property and living in Sydney we wanted a fairly low maintenance property and having something new means there will be less headaches maintenance wise for the initial few years and allows us to claim back the depreciation.
It has easy access to the local shopping centres, bus services to the city around the corner, Griffith University etc.
It took a little while to find a tenant, but ended up getting $495 a week. We initially started at $520 which was what it was appraised for rental, but at the time in the middle of the year there wasn't much interest. We'll reassess it after 6 months and look at slowly increasing it.
I have to thank Rixster from the forums on here as he helped out greatly with a lot of advice during the process and RPI for helping out with the legal side of things.
Cross our fingers for some good capital growth in Brisbane over the next few years.
We're now on the look out for our next investment property, and deciding between another in Brisbane or something in Sydney.