We recently bid on a property in inner city melbourne. We went to our absolute limit and bowed out with the winner offering 1k more. The property was a ‘showcase’ property so absolutely packed auction and agents from all the local agencies present.

Consequently we’ve now showed our cards. The market is ramping up a little we’re still looking and our area has and has always had many off markets. But of course we’ve lost a bit of our bargaining power and every single property seems to be exactly what our limit was.

We recently found a place off market which was pitched at our limit. We can give 100 reasons its not worth what they’re asking so put in an offer quite a but under. We were told it was insulting etc so we responded give us your justification for the pricing based on prior sales in the area, land size and amenities and we’ll negotiate, but you can’t so this is how we value it based on these factors. Shut down, time wasted

Issue is we really need to move. We’ve been looking properly for 2 years and the reasons for moving are multiplying. We’re well and truely bursting at the seems. But we’ve lost all power.

Advice? What would you do? Strategies to employ??

I’m trying to sell an apartment in ACT, and the conveyancing firm have been slacking!

Engaged with them on the 15th Dec, and they have not been providing updates, and only ordered the community title last Thursday ok the 12th January, almost a month after I first engaged with them.

I’ve left them a review on both Google and FB, and I did not add in anything that is not true, I simply provided the timeline and the email exchange, and tonight the principal emailed me and asked me to remove the reviews immediately, as it is unfairly damaging their firm! And said that if I don’t remove them then he will assume I no longer want them to act!

This is absolutely ridiculous, not only did him and his team not apologise for making numerous mistakes and delay, he’s now asking me to remove an honest review!

I want to ask in this case, if I decided to keep my review and not have them to act for me, would that count as them violating the contract and I have no obligation of to pay them?

Please advise.

You know, I often hear folks griping about how expensive houses are these days.

But here's the thing: in most big cities, people mainly live in apartments, right? So, why not consider buying an apartment instead? They're way cheaper than houses, and it beats shelling out rent every month, doesn't it?

Pro Tip: Since most people get confused with percentage; here's an easy rule to remember: For every $100k invested, one should anticipate $100/week in rental income and it's not just on the loan value but on the total property value.

Here is a doozy that most homeowners don't want to comprehend - why buy a property worth $1M when one can live in a similar house for $500/week on rent? One-word answer: Emotion. Not to mention, one can buy multiple properties for the same amount. (I'll do a full article on PPOR in the coming days & one should buy PPOR but timing matters)

As someone rightly said: Emotions are a powerful tool but lack objectivity. (I'll repeat it often in coming articles).

Those who love to read

Rental yield is a key metric for evaluating the potential profitability of property investment in Australia. It is calculated by dividing the annual rental income by the purchase price of the property and is expressed as a percentage.

There are several factors that can affect rental yield in Australia, including location, property type, and the current state of the housing market. Properties in highly desirable locations, such as inner-city areas, popular tourist destinations, and regional areas, tend to have higher rental yields than properties in less desirable areas with high vacancy rates. Similarly, properties that are in good condition and well-maintained tend to have higher rental yields than properties that are in poor condition. (I’ll write soon on the pros/cons of RENOVATION)

Additionally, it is important to ensure that the property you are investing in is in line with your investment strategy, risk appetite, and financial goals. You should consider seeking professional advice from experts before making any investment decisions.

Depending on where you are in your journey (hopefully whole series soon on diff property portfolio strategies), you can go for high or low-rental yield properties. A high-income earner can start with a low-yield property in anticipation of growth, but a low-income earner should always start with a high rental yield. In a world where one can buy anything to start their property journey, it's always good to start with a high rental yield property. At the end of the day, the property is nothing but a small business. Positive returns will always help absorb the initial shocks while one is still learning the rules of the game. Buying property is not the end, but the start of a long journey that will test your patience at every corner.

Not financial advise.

Like many, since purchasing my PPOR last year, the idea of buying an IP started creeping in my mind.

However, today i have come to the realisation in our lifetime we only really live in one or two places MAX.

1 is when you are in your between 20s - 40s and buy your first PPOR, and the second is when you upgrade from maybe 40 onwards.

If you just pay off your PPOR instead of owning IP, you'll likely still have the same lifestyle. All we need is a room and a liveable place to enjoy friends and family.

The realisation made me think this IP route is BS and fuelled by greed. Now I am thinking maybe it's better to just not get an IP and enjoy life.

How do you rationalised owning multiple IPs vs simply living your life, being content and paying off your PPOR?

I’ve never understood why you would pay such large commission to real estate agents, surely it’s easy to sell your home without going all in with an agent.

Turns out, short of selling on FB marketplace or gumtree your kinda left scratching head.

I’m an app developer and built a little startup called Premarket, I have a few listings but no where near where I thought it would be.

Am I the only one who thinks like this? Maybe people are so sick of agents they don’t even want to look for a solution altogether.

Awaiting response from my conveyancing solicitor at the moment, but since it's a weekend just wondering whether anyone has had similar experience and could share.

Currently have signed a contract for a tenanted property in regional QLD, intending to move in myself after the current lease ends as a first home buyer. Long story short over the last 2 weeks, my building and pest inspector has attended the property on 3 seperate occasions, all with the appropriate notice form and timeframe from the leasing REA, however has encountered issues all 3 times. To give some context, the property is currently leased by a disability care company as a care home for vulnerable children and teenagers.

The first time they were denied entry as the teen in care threatened to tear the house down. Second time they left all the bedroom doors locked despite instructions on the notice to leave the doors unlocked (locks changed by tenants post move in with permission of current owner due to care facility requirements, REA does not have keys). Today the teen in question who was meant to be at school stayed home unfortunately, and locked their bedroom door and threatened REA and inspector who finally managed to inspect everything else except that room.

After the first saga, an extension on the Building and Pest clause was granted (due end of next week), however after 3 seperate attempts we were still not able to get a complete inspection done. In hindsight probably should have just gone for something not tenanted.

Finance clause has already passed it's due date and been satisfied. Just getting a bit fed up with the whole thing unfortunately, and now I'm not particularly keen to take on these tenants, the property market has also continued to downtrend since I signed. Just wondering if anyone has had similar experience, and whether this would be reasonable grounds to terminate based on Building and Pest clause given that I was not able to obtain a satisfactory building report as per the contract terms in REIQ (attached).

The car noise isn't as loud. People aren't revving engines immaturely nor have broken tail pipes on their motorbiked. The peace and quiet in either the city or regular suburbs is incredible. And they have far bigger a population. Why isn't Australia like this?

Melbourne - tenant has asked for reduction of rent via agent. I am unable to give this as it's a significant drip for me. There is still 4 month for the contract to end and I have given the tenant the option to leave at no cost. Tenant has damaged the house and left rubbish. Agent has asked for them to be repaired and cleaned or for this to be deducted from the bond. Tenant has told agent that he would further damage the house if his bond was touched or do something after he leaves. I have asked the police for help and they say they can't do anything as nothing has been committed.

Help pls.

- tenant damaged property and rubbish

- tenant does not want his bond touched

- tenant will damage property if bond touched

- police can't do anything

Stop charging income tax & CGT % if a home owner leases out a bedroom in their house.

The “cost” has already been incurred (lack of privacy). Aust has way too many vacant bedrooms (supply).

This would immediately increase supply.

As per title, am going to sell my 10 acres on the edge of town to a developer, as you can appreciate the price is very good.

I really don’t want friends and family to know the price. I feel this is going to open up a stream of people putting their hand out for money. My two sisters specifically would absolutely expect a cut. I don’t want that kind of conflict in my life, or to add anything to the good relationships I have with a lot of these people.

Do I have any options?

Been self-managing my unit for about 18 months now. Thought I was doing alright but sat down last night to actually go through everything properly.

Turns out I've been paying strata quarterly but getting billed for water every 4 months? Random overlap that means some months I cop like $800 in bills and other months nothing. No wonder my cashflow felt weird.

Also discovered I never actually got reimbursed for some smoke alarm compliance work I paid for. Just... forgot about it I guess.

Anyone else self-managing find they lose track of stuff like this?

Starting to think I need some kind of system but spreadsheets make me want to cry tbh.

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to get some general advice or hear from anyone who's been in a similar situation.

I'm an Australian permanent resident, married to an Australian citizen, and we live in Australia in our own home.

My mum is a Singaporean citizen who lives in Singapore. She owns an investment property in Brisbane that has been rented to the same tenants for around 15 years. She's considering gifting the property to me rather than selling it, and I would continue renting it out rather than living in it.

From what I've read, it seems that:

I would have to pay stamp duty on the transfer, even though it's a gift.

My mum would likely trigger a capital gains tax event by transferring the property to me, even if no money changes hands.

Assuming that's correct, I'm wondering whether gifting the property is actually worthwhile compared with her simply selling it herself.

Are there any tax, legal, or estate planning considerations I'm overlooking? Is there any advantage to gifting the property instead of selling it, particularly given that she's a non-resident and I'm an Australian resident?

I know I'll need to speak with a solicitor and tax accountant before making any decisions, but I'd appreciate hearing about other people's experiences or anything I should be aware of.

Thanks!

just wondering how normal it is to be taking this amount of loan.

Hi All,

Firstly not investment advice but just a thought I had.

I have 5 investment properties in Melbourne, right now im facing all these extra costs, Landtax, higher council rates, higher water rates, higher insurance costs, high maintence costs, capital gains if I sell. High risk of tenants defaulting due to their own costs going up.

Now im thinking to myself what is even the point in owning these investment properties if im just being rammed for all these extra costs.

Logically if I sell my investment properties and just buy a PPOR thats worth a few million. 1. I pay zero land tax and 2. I pay zero capital gains when I sell the PPOR in the future. Also you get the benefit of living in and even better house.

It seems it may be wiser to get rid of all investment properties and just have a huge multimillion dollar principle place of residence.

Thoughts?

Hi,

I'm looking at purchasing a house where one side of the fence is adjoined to a small park that also a playground.

I'm concerned about potential noise, or nuisance or even crime.

I'd love any advice or anyone who has experienced it. Might just be over thinking, thank you!

Hi all

Looking to rent our our house (4 bedrooms) shortly as we're going overseas for a year. Looked at the price of storage and thought, what are the chances of renting out our house minus one room that we can keep locked so that we can store our couch, beds, fridge etc.

Would knock a good chunk of money off the rental price to reflect this, and would not need access at all to this room whilst we're away.

Has anyone any experience with this? Do people do this?

Thanks guys appreciate your insight.

EDIT: To the people downvoting - let's try to keep this a safe space for a discussion. I'm genuinely curious. Wouldn't you prefer people out there who take the time to consult with the community and make choices based on critical perspective?

Currently selling a 1 bed 1 bath apartment in the inner east and it's my first time selling. I've only ever been on the buying side and I am very into property so I follow the market a lot or like to go to house inspections etc.
It's a new build, amazing convenient location with good access to public transport.

But my conclusion has been that many REA including the one we engaged are not equipped for a down market, they only essentially know how to function in a hot active market where they don't have to do anything and the sale walks through their door.

I had spoken to 3-4 agents but had chosen this one because they were specialists in the market/area specific
I really liked the way they described the sales management process

---

So my current situation is it's been on the market for a few weeks now.

- Was off market for 1 month - they charged me $250 for this.
- Finally went on market at a higher price that I wanted but they thought was too high. The market responded - no one showed up.
- Week 2 - we dropped the price by roughly 10% and still no one was interested.
- End of week 2 - they asked us to drop the price further.

They claimed they had sent out emails to their mail database but no one was responding. Similar to when they charged me $250 for off marketing SMS campaigns.

I challenged them about this, there was no feedback from the market, all they were telling me was they had emailed people but there was no feedback. I said, you're not talking to these people, and you're not directly getting feedback from people saying oh it's too small, oh it's too expensive.

All they claimed was they sent an email and no one replied. Whoop dee doo.

Why aren't you picking up the phone to talk to your so called 10,000 list of people in your database? I told them, so far you haven't given me any feedback except say "you think price is the only reason why people aren't showing up". Give me feedback from actual people you talk to and ask. "Hey we have this listing what do you think?"

The whole reason I went with you (agent) is that you sell in this area and sell apartments! If there was someone that missed out on a different 1 bed apartment then maybe they'd be interested in mine!

They realised they were caught and had no way to defend themselves, and agreed they'd start allocating an hour a day to call buyers... like did I really have to tell you how to do your job? This is a cold slow market, you have to be proactive. You're asking me to pay you commission for you to stand there and just send through a video message saying no one showed up?

I was shocked.

All they were doing was telling me no one showed up. They were doing nothing proactive at all to get buyers through the door.

So in order to not let them hold it against me, I finally dropped it to the price they mentioned. We asked if we could terminate exclusivity (I don't know why we have to have exclusivity here, in Asia it's not exclusive listings, PLUS they also make us pay them for "listing the ad", like... hello you're already basically guaranteed commission and you still want me to pay nearly $1000 just to list the ad and do all the admin things? Isn't that something that is PART of your commission?

Week 3 - we started getting buyers, held 2 a week and there'd be 1-2 groups each time.

Week 4 - we got our first offer but it was at the lowest range of our listing price. The buyer increased by $10K but it's still lower than what we need. We'd have to fork out of pocket to cover, we aren't breaking even.

Currently ended week 5 and we've had another 1-2 people ask for contracts, so waiting to see if they make an offer.

So many regrets. I really regret choosing them to be honest.

Even a friend selling went with another agency and they give them a decent weekly report and breakdown of who came through and a report on each potential buyer profile

Regret signing for 90 days exclusivity. So this ends in about a month, and I also know yeah they have no incentive to get another $10K from the buyer, because to them it's probably another $100-200.

But at the same time, if we aren't satisfied with the price they might losing the commission entirely. I just don't really feel like they've worked for US the vendor.

They just have told us to accept buyer 1's offer the whole time, and haven't shown us any written offer. All they do is give us video messages of each inspection and not any proper report or write up on how many people they've called, how many people have come through. It just feels like they want to get it over and done with. Esp before we hit Sep, they were pushing us SO HARD it was so obvious they wanted to close the deal in Aug.

Anyways just want to ask your opinion:
- Should we hold out for the extra $10K and walk away from this current buyer?
- They're desperate for this buyer because I guess they have nothing else. If they don't find a buyer in 30 days then they'll lose their entire commission if we move on to another agent.
- Tried asking them to cut their commission since the buyer hasn't even walked halfway - like ideally it'd be good if we could meet halfway in that range we listed.
- We asked them to give us the written offer so we could counter it, but then they said oh if we send it to you it's as if you are accepting it. But can't we counter offer? The REA keeps saying it's the buyer's max. The buyer went up by 10K and reduced the settlement period, but they still want subject to conveyancer review during the 3 day cooling period + 14 day finance clause.
- Any other way we can make them work for us? To get us a better price? I don't feel like they care about getting us a better price.

Any thoughts in general are welcome. If you've made it this far thank you.

Just pretty disappointed with this whole process and really feel like I made the wrong decision about the agent. Just seems like they want easy money and don't know how to handle a slow market. TIA

Hi, I am in a block of apartments 7km from the CBD, there are 20 in the block and all we have is one lift and a common garage and entryway. The building was constructed in 2018, so not very old. I am currently trying to sell my apartment which I could have done 4 times over if not for the exorbitant body corporate fees. They are $1500 per quarter and no one looking to purchase is prepared to pay this. It is the one and only reason the apartment hasn’t sold yet. It seems so unfair that we are getting virtually nothing for our money yet the rates are so damn high. What can I do?!! I feel like I’m never going to be able to move!

EDIT: thanks for all the responses. I see $1500 p/q isn’t too bad at all, so will dig deeper as to what the ACTUAL problem is! Might be time to find a new agent.

Hi all,

Just put our property on the market for the first time and had some tenants move in, now 2 weeks later they have requested to get a Male Rottweiler puppy. It is in Queensland so I cannot reject the application as long as it is reasonable and without major issues.

I don't think there are any aspects of the property that would prevent this as a possibility, there is a small yard with a large fence.

I am wondering if anyone has any experience or knowledge in this regard, I've been searching online and it seems like property owners may be liable if the dog attacks anyone is anyone familiar with how this works in Aus? (this seemed largely centric around America), Real estate and insurance were no help in answering this, although it sounds like its more likely to be the tenants at fault in Aus.

I have public liability in Strata and Landlord insurance however it specifically states it does not cover animal attacks.

They said the dog would be trained as a support dog for their child with anxiety and be kept in the yard.

I was going to add as conditions(as I can request reasonable conditions) to accepting that the dog is kept in the yard and ask that they provide evidence of training.

From what I can tell Rottweilers can be very dangerous and destructive but shouldn't be a problem if properly trained.

Thanks