Tassie is GOOOONEEEEEE!

We have a contract on our block of land down in Tassie! It should go through no problems and, by the start of November, our consolidation phase becomes a reality. I hope to pay down our mortgage on our PPOR, with a view of increasing cash flow and a change to my investing strategy. I have been talking about this for a while and it's great to finally see the 'cash' materialise. We have also had some interest in our Ingham house, so hopefully things start moving forward even faster!

Ownership pushed to the suburbs?

I often fail to see past the obvious notion that our nation's journalists are a bunch of idiotic, moronic, 'non-life experienced' idiots. I mean for instance, read this article. 

While the statistics about how far people travel for work are indeed very interesting, the wording is just all wrong:

"Young people are most at risk as housing affordability worsens and first-home buyers are increasingly pushed to outer suburbs."

Does this writer suggest first home buyers should be buying the premium properties in the exclusive suburbs AS THEIR FIRST HOME? Get a grip please, a grip on the reality that the typical first home owner SHOULD NEVER buy ANYWHERE NEAR the CBD. No wonder we have our 20 and 30-somethings complaining about 'affordability'. 

In Brisbane, where should a typical first home owner, in 2011, buy their home? It isn't going to be any of the 'leafy' burbs, not the Indooroopily corridor, definitely not the CBD, not St Lucia, not Kangaroo Point, none of these places are for FHOBs. 

Young people need to get a grip on reality and realise that home ownership is rarely about living where you want to, but rather a compromise between four main factors: distance to work, the suburb 'age', the size of the property and the entry cost. 

1. Distance to work: As in the article, the closer the better, but this needs to be balance with other factors. 

2. Some suburbs, like those popping up near Ipswich at present, are new suburbs with new homes. These come at a premium. Some more established suburbs, say, Oxley, have generally older homes, but are a tad closer to the city. 

3. The size of the property is always a factor, and as the typical back yard becomes smaller and smaller (read 250 square), a premium is paid for the 'larger' lots.

4. Entry cost is probably the most important factor for FHOBs. The market dictates the overall value of a property, considering ALL factors related to the 'livability' of a property, and this is continually forgotten by many many people. Entry cost dictates basically where you will live, but FHOBs can not enter the market with a $700,000 inner ring home. The article talks about stress etc., imagine what it would be like when you need to make the repayments on something like that, AS YOUR FIRST HOME. 

Ciao.

The Brisbane Property Market must be VERY interesting.

Throughout the last week or so, basically since this blog post, I've been intently monitoring which of my blog posts are getting the most hits, and basically it comes down to one about the Brisbane property market from mid 2009. So the question is, how come this particular post IS the most commonly hit post, again and again and again? I think I can put it down to a few points:

1. It has the words 'Brisbane Property Market' in it a number of times. This of course must be a keyword worthy of looking at, as my Russian friends attest to, bombarding the comments with junk (which by the way I've left for entertainment purposes). 

2. It also has the words 'Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide' etc. etc., once again, words that must be high hit keywords.

3. This is an earlier post on my blog, basically it's been there for a while, with all those juicy, yummy keywords, sitting pretty. 

So, the dilemma is this; do I keep writing blog posts that are meaningful to me, that, I believe, may actually entertain a few people, or do I switch over and become a keyword robot, making sure that I have words like 'Brisbane' and 'Australia' and 'Sydney' and 'potato', just for the sake of getting hits?

Perhaps I need balance, a bit of Column A and a bit of Column B. Lets see, what other words may score highly? Any suggestions?

Also I am now going to add a little message to the bottom of my posts, similar to the way smonkyou does whn I read the entertaining posts on Google Reader. So...

Can I ask you a small favour? Pretty please? With a cherry? Please put a link on your website to this website. In return, if you notify me, I will back link you, or whatever else you want me to. Cheers...

I miss Google Maps Real Estate...there, I said it.

Well, it's been some time now since Google's Real Estate function, that was linked to their 'Maps' website, was taken 'off the shelf' so to speak. I did a review on it when it first came out and I LOVED IT! It was soooo functional, and, even though I know realestate.com.au do offer similar functionality, it's just not the same. Anyway, enough reminiscing...  

My block of land may sell soon

News yesterday that there has been some interest in my block down in Lachlan, Tassie. I think it is priced very keen and hopefully this should mean I can start the consolidation phase of my plan to reduce my PPOR mortgage to a more affordable level. This would mean, financially, I can then start working on changing my circumstances on the job front.  

RBA keeps rates the same and at the same time, becomes boring as batshit

News that the Reserve Bank has kept interest rates exactly where they have since the start of the year is no surprise, and in doing so, have shown how 'safe' the RBA has been over the last little period. Although many of our shares investor cousins are doing it tough (although the smart active ones probably making a lot of dough), the RBA continues to hold the rates. I am beginning to think they are so fixated on keeping inflation at bay, that they are not actually looking at the rest of the data. Of course you'll 'hear' reports that they are, but currently the markets are, in my opinion, looking so negative, that this should have pre-empted a drop in the cash rate, and if this doesn't then what does? For property investors, this continual inflation minimisation policy that the RBA have in place is bad news; we need inflation to help boost our capital gains, but for the immediate future, its not look positive.   

Gardening and the value of your house

Did a fair bit of gardening today, thanks to a visit from my dad, who just so happens to have a wonderfully loud chainsaw. We trimmed off virtually all of the trees in the backyard and then I proceeded to pull out all the ferns. I have plans to create a formal look, with a lot of hedges and neat gardens. The missus has dictated that there still must be room to kick a footy and run around a bit, but when you start with a 600 square metre block, something has to give. Anyway, I have an idea or two to incorporate into this design, which will hopefully mean that we can have both; a bit of garden, a bit of grass. 

It got me thinking; how much value does a neat or established garden add to the value of a property. I mean its obvious that it will present better during the sale. But, is the intrinsic value, the time you put into it, really amount to anything in terms of dollars? 

I think it does, especially if someone with any interest in gardening is looking at the property. Established trees, or a neat weed free laws, or some established hedges all contribute, lets say to the tune of around 1-1.5%. So in a property that is let's say on the market for $300,000, the garden may contribute between $3000 to $4500. This may not be apparent at first, but subconsciously, I bet its there. When I bought this place, I saw a few hedges and already I was thinking about the amount of time that those, being established, will save me. Was it to the tune of 1-1.5%? Hard to say, and I think this is the overall issue with placing a dollar value on this particular item during a purchase. Its just 'hard to say'. You simply can not put a value on the countless hours that has gone into a garden, even a simple one. 

Your thoughts?