Contract crash

So we were looking at house in Caboolture. Put in an offer. Three weeks. Hear back and they say valuer said worth more,  so they back out. Now,  it will continue to stay in the market for 6 month and probably sell for the same price we offered. Hmmmmmmm.

www.realestate.com.au...what the hell are you doing?

I'm in a bit of a whiny mood tonight so I thought I'd share one of my biggest bugbears tonight; the bloody re.com.au app. And just for a bit of icing on the cake, the map function on the regular website.

Now I'm not 100% sure about this, but real estate is a pretty hot topic on most adults' lips these days (well, those that have some form of cash flow anyway). And of course our love addiction with all things technology naturally leads us to our wonderful smartphones. It is here where I assume A LOT of realestate.com.au visitors are starting to migrate to. Now lets get this straight from the onset; I have been using realestate.com.au since 1876 and I absolutely love most elements of it. That is until I made the switch to smartphones in 2008 and found the initial version of the app not long after (I think it was 2010 roughly...). It used to be OK. Of course since then there has been a number of updates and variations and all sorts of fancy functionality had been introduced, but what we have now is a complete stuff up. The app is bloody hopeless. The maps function on the regular website is a pile of shit. Apologies for the bluntness.

I think I could poo poo a better map function out of my poo poo hole while I was sleeping dreaming of poo poo. I mean come on...really? Large balls and useless zooming in and out that resets as soon as you look at a property? And the 'refinements" you speak of...what the f!@# is that? Half the time they don't even work and you can only refine a few elements. I rate is -10000/10.

Seriously, you would have received feedback about this. I bet you have. Now how about you move one million into development, get me on board and we'll sort this shit out.

You know, just because I love you.

Regards,

Andrew

You used to be thin and sexy...now you're covered in warts and look like a walrus.

Suburbia revisited

My little family has lived in suburban Toowoomba for almost two years now; in a plain, no frills, small little house, made of bricks and colorbond.

I'll be truthful, it's not where I imagined to be by 2013, but then again, I don't think I had a particular 'dream' for this phase of my life.

Suburbia, to me, is kind of a living hell. Most of the time:

1. Our windows are closed with curtains and blinds virtually permanently closed. We typically live in darkness and artificial light.
2. When we do go outside, we have 634 square metres of "land". The reality is there is a patch of about 4 by 14 metre grass to run around on, the rest is house, sheds, garden, totally useless unfenced front yard, carport and driveway, and trailer space. It's a bit like watching lions in those small cages. Space, yes, but it's really just a small holding pen.
3. There is no paths leading to the local park; we become 'road walkers', dodging cars and pushing prams up and down  the kerb between the road and the council strip.
4. The local 'park' has unsuitable play equipment for my 2 and 3 year old. Half of it disappeared one day after some teens melted some of the plastic tunnels with some sort of fire producing device.
5. At around end-of-school time, the street becomes a mini racing strip of mummy taxis.
6. Birds.


Look in all honesty it's not too bad. Of course there are heaps of awesome parts to living so close to convenience, to life, and really, we are lucky to have great neighbours (although next door just moved out, here's hoping).

At the moment, suburbia is close to work, which is good. But soon enough, work will change once again and I'll be doing my 30-35 minute "thinking time" drive all over again.

The bottom line thought I think for me has become about the actual house itself. This particular one is your typical three bedder with the original garage remodded to be a rumpus/large 4th bedroom. It's starting to grow on me in terms of practical space; recently I've added more storage and it's starting to work. It's become easier to live with.

What is most perplexing for me is how do millions upon millions choose this living option. How do they favour such an option? How do they "live with" this type of living? Is it by choice?

Suburbia....the joy of confinement.    

Is this just getting ridiculous now? Stars and Real Estate

In what appears to be a new low for real estate journalism, you can now let the stars decide how you're going to tackle the 2013 property year by reading the horoscopes! News.com.au, a wonderful free news website by the way, has just posted this. Make of it what you will.

"And here we see the duplex IP constellation."

Plan 43b, version 2.1a

As usual I'm sitting here, contemplating the past, the present and the future. I ask myself what is important to me. What is it that I want out of life and am I on my way to getting there? So I'm deep in thought and my mind ultimately turns to two things; time for kids, time for health. This then leads to the obvious question, is what I'm doing with my life, with my financial strategy, align with these two priority areas. 

Unfortunately I think the answer is a resounding no. This is sad. It makes me sad. I mean, seriously, why am I living in a large town, paying off a mortgage (well, to be technical, not even paying it off) and going to work every day missing out on precious time with my two gorgeous kids and not having enough time to get some riding, running or swimming in a typical day. 

So it's contemplation time; what can I do about this situation? It is possible, albeit slightly, that I can build my family a little house, live mortgage free and have a lot more time to do the things that matter, the things that are important to me. 

My investment strategy therefore has to change. I must be able to do something different to get out of this cycle of mortgage ownership, or having to grind away at work (although I do enjoy what I do) and push the priorities into the back. Let's review what it is exactly that I am doing right now:

1. Going to work 7:30am-6pm (when I leave, to when I get back home)

2. Small property portfolio of two houses and one block of land + a PPOR.

3. PPOR has a bit of equity.

4. Making a decent wage. 

Lets hypothetically turn this around to what it COULD be:

1. Going to work 8am-3:30pm, three times a week.

2. No portfolio

3. PPOR mortgage free.

4. Getting by.

The secret here is Point 1 and 3. Yes, we would be just 'getting by' in this scenario, but look at the extra time I have. Look at the reduction in pressure, in stress, in 'grinding' away. Who knows, I could even contemplate doing something really worthwhile (that's a different story).

Contemplation is a wonderful dream.

Until next time.  

There is a little Facebook thingy underneath this post. Spread the word. 

What has happened recently...

Well, after our block of land down in Tasmania finally settled, we are in a 'solid' position as far as our portfolio is concerned. 

As the title eludes, I want to talk to day about what has happened recently to me, and possibly more importantly, my life circumstance, which has once again changed my mindset and has re-defined what the end goal should be. So in the last few months I have been contemplating HITTING THE BUTTON (HTB). HTB for me basically means to totally get out of property investing by consolidating all investments to pay down the primary PPOR mortgage and live happily ever after. I have talked about this before, have contemplated the thought many many times, but then it dawned on me again that it was exactly this sort of thinking that got me into a bit of a stalemate for the last few years. 

So the main dilemma for me is family time. I want to stop work, or at least not work as much, so that I can spend some more time with my family, with myself, think things through. At the moment, this is not possible; work is super busy and I am left fighting a battle between the things I love doing all taking up the precious little down time I get during the week.   

So the dilemma, or shall I say, conflict in my mind, continues to haunt my drives to work and that precious time just before I go to sleep. Property investing....HTB...wonderful stuff! 

Property Investing Stalemate

Tonight I'm going to write about what has recently happened to me regarding the world of property investing. Since 2006/7, I have continued to feverishly gear myself towards becoming an 'expert' property investor (whatever that means). It got to a point where I was confident enough to give those people that were prepared to listen, some advice. But something happened. Something in 2008, after I luckily unloaded some properties at exactly the right time before the GFC, I began having doubts. I still visited re.com.au, Somersoft was still my friend, but, as you can see on this blog, I no longer posted as much. I no longer went out looking for bargains. I no longer did the 'research' that was so familiar to me. Something inside of me got spooked. And now, as I sit here contemplating the last few months of my life, I have came upon the realisation that indeed, things have changed. Capital gain, in my world anyway, is no longer a sure bet. Rental income, again for my properties, do not always go up what they need to, or as much as they need to. Things like sliding doors break and with stupid quotes of $1700 to replace it (needs new rollers that the maintenance guy can't find) I begin to think if it's really worthwhile? Our house in Ingham, hit by the cyclone, has been a constant chase up with insurance quotes, lazy/busy/incompetent property managers, and the apparent inconvenience of 'distance investing' comes to the fore. 

But alas, I think its just my sentiment at the moment; property investing is too risky, especially on a single income. 

Anyway, just to summarise, I no longer consider myself an authority at any level regarding property investing. I'm still learning, there is still hope that my portfolio will blossom again, but for now, its a waiting game. 

Until next time....

Consolidation; the continual mind fuck.

Warning: Language warning! Ops, too late.

Sorry everyone, it's the only term I could use to actually describe how I feel pretty much day to day about my current portfolio. We are settling into our PPOR very nicely thank you very much, so much in fact, that I am thinking about consolidating our assets to pay down our current mortgage. Wouldn't that be nice? A nice little mortgage to go with my current wage, I could finally venture into that business idea I have. But then an evil annoying voice in my head tells me to stop being stupid and to wait it out; after all, it's not a sellers market. So here I am, getting mind fucked by this decision. Sell now for short term gain, or hang onto the properties for just that little bit longer, perhaps a lot longer. 

I see issues with both sides of the story. For example, selling up, as you all know, would mean 'all the eggs in one basket' so to speak, all the profit and equity sitting in our PPOR. This on the face of things is not so bad, but imagine when we come out of this slump, imagine the possible increases I could be missing out on in 3,5 perhaps 10 or 20 years time. Mindfuck indeed.

On the other hand, I REALLY want to start a business. I am CRAVING to start a business and this is starting to weight heavy. I could, at a pinch, commit the required funds, but then the doubts set in; what if it fails, what if it's just a money hungry nothing, what if it doesn't generate any income AT ALL? Doubts, failure, problems and work. So I need a buffer,and consolidation would do that nicely. 

Realistically, perhaps I need to go back to the buzz word of 2008, which, in my line of work was 'balance' and it's still very true today. I need balance, I shouldn't downsize fully, but a bit more cashflow would be great, just so I can kick off this business once and for all. Maybe I'll just sell the non-cash flow ones, or perhaps the properties that are CF- and are non performers; what to do, oh what to do?

Until next time! 

 

Renovation Update

I'm a bit tired as I sit here, ready to write a short piece, just to let you know how things have progressed since the great up-root and demolishment of the bathroom and toilet in my last post. 

The good news is, we have a functioning toilet. The room is almost finished with a bit more grouting to do, but overall, very happy with the crap room.

The not so good news is, there is still plenty to do in the bathroom. The bath in particular is throwing up all sort of weird and wonderful issues for me to solve, but for some unfortunate reason, I am going to have to cut both the top and bottom of the back of the bath under the window. I know, I know, somewhere along the line it just wasn't to be, but one part of the room had to bite the bullet and this was it; it kind of defeats the purpose of having larger tiles, but this is how it's going to have to be. I will post some pore pics when everything is getting a bit closer to completion.

Ciao 

Renovating our home; fraught with danger.

So finally all the paperwork has finished. Phew, a sigh of relief and then it's time to take another breath and realise that just around the corner, two days after settlement in fact, the renovating started. 

In the past, my first and second home, I quite enjoyed the odd round of renovating. Doing a kitchen, a dash of paint here and there, tiling and making a few changes, I never minded the often innovative work that is required to solve reno dilemmas. Two weeks ago, it was a different story.

The missus and I (well, me mainly) have decided that this house of ours in Toowoomba will be our home for a few years. No longer will I chase the dollar, but settle in, plant some seeds and relax for a while. This of course has meant.....serious renovating. I have been painting walls, looking at door frames for days on end and recently discovered the joys of using a 'chisel drill' to rip up tiles faster than you can say "put on some knee pads." 

It's been fun, but two weeks of go-go-go is starting to weigh on me, so I'm having an afternoon off and hence here I am blogging. And just to set the record straight, I'm not talking about "The Block" bullcrap renovating with contractors and $13,000 bathrooms, I'm talking about getting the job done myself.

I've attached some photos of the joy I have had over the last few days in particular, along with a small injury and plenty of good old fashioned hard work. I have a fair bit to go yet, but the quick progress I've made has given me encouragement to push on through, with a two week deadline before the removal truck comes, looming. 

Before 

During. Surprisingly a lot of blood for such a small cut. 

 Almost there.

 3 hours later; from go to finish. Now the fun bit.

 

The frustrations of getting a settlement through

As I sit here, I am beginning to feel a bit of rage; actually, quite a bit of RAGE! You see, we have been trying to settle on a new home, a home for my family. From the get go, we have had delays. Now, after a few more weeks, there is ANOTHER LENGTHY DELAY. The matter should have settled on Monday, but now we have the seller taking their time to sign transfer papers and here we are, trying to take possession so that we can move in before our second little protein bundle enters our lives in about 6 weeks or so. It seems none of this matters to anyone really, not our broker, not the bank, not our solicitors, not their solicitors, not the seller. I'm probably just venting a bit, but we are powerless to push anything through. I do get a bit peeved (I could have used a much worse adverbial phrase there) though, when we hear statements such as 'They forgot to post it...' and 'He forgot to send it Express...' and 'He got his brother to post it...', which by the way, must be utter bullshit, since it's now been almost a week for this envelope to travel approximately 120km. So, I think Melinda hit the nail on the head when she suddenly realised they are probably stalling for the financial year; it all makes sense. Doesn't make our predicament any better though...NOT HAPPY JAN!

Hopefully next week I'll have some more positive news.

Rant over.