State of Affairs, October 2014

They say variety is the spice of life and so it has come to be for my family over the last few months. Throughout the last 4 years or so I've often blogged about the tiny little insignificant thing called 'life' that often gets in the way of my ambitious investing strategy and again, it has proven so.

A few thing then. We have sold our PPOR in Toowoomba. Sentiment in the Garden City boomed after the airport announcement and, when news of the bypass started spreading, the proporty market went into a sort of weird piranha-like eating frenzy where everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING, was getting snapped up quick smart. We jumped on the bandwagon and surprise, surprise, we ended up about $20,000 ahead of my best-case-scenario amount when it came time to order the removal truck. It took a grand total of 3 days to sell our comfortable home and I have to thank Ray White Toowoomba for the wonderful job they did for us. 

Just prior to this, we also bought a modest, tiny little three bedder in Caboolture. Remember that little thing called 'life' I was talking about? Well, when the planets aligned nicely for me to leave my job, this little Caboolture residence was (somewhat) ideal to shift into. And, it came to be, that after a short stint in a govy provided residence, we moved again. 

Kicking out the tenant was a whole new world of pain. I won't go too much into detail, but let's just say that SOME property managers have no idea what they are doing (shock horror) and in reality, since we began our investment journey back in 2004, this was the first time we were left with a very sour taste in our mouths. Luckily it all worked out satisfactorily in the end, but it was a close call. 

Caboolture is an acquired taste. The house itself is tiny and we are surrounded by EVERY neighbour having a dog, which of course is not a real confidence booster. On the plus side, we won't need a dog. The clientèle is very much mixed, low and medium socio-economic families, single mums and a lot of renters. Our street seems leafy enough, quiet so far and, the best part of it all, it's a hell of a convenient location. Besides, we've lived in Kingston in the Logan area south of Brisbane and we survived that experience. 

So where does this leave our portfolio? 

We are still in the process of consolidating. We have:

PPOR: Caboolture (QLD), 3 bedroom brick and tile, small suburban block.   

IP 1: Launceston/Invermay (TAS), 3 bedroom plus sleepout, tiny historical block of 405sqm, weatherboard, competitively rented with some renos completed mid last year. On the market, but no bites. 

IP 2: Ingham (QLD), 5 bedroom typical fibro, undesirable street, on the market, DEFINITELY no bites, but we can hang onto it as it's also strongly rented. Both of these IPs are just negatively geared. 

IP 3: Glen Aplin (QLD), small block near Stanthorpe, on the market but again, no bites. There has been some movement in the area where our block is and if the street is finally developed from dirt to asphalt, we may be in luck to make a tidy little profit. A lot of little houses popping up around our block. 

All of these are becoming very hard to move. Ingham is floody, Tasmania has a job crisis and the Glen Aplin block has it's challenges to develop. Hopefully we have a win on one of these soon. 

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.    

Sweat Sweat Sweat, Toowoomba Edition!

Wow, this latest heat wave has really hit home here in Toowoomba and even I, the official air con Nazi, has had to yield. 

I just finished saying how climate doesn't really influence house prices, yet, here we are in a town often referred to as "the fridge on the ridge" melting like snowmen taking in a sauna. So I suppose the climate up here on the Toowoomba range is no different to anywhere else is South East Queensland, although I do have to say, the humidity is not as high as it was in Brissie when I was down there a few days ago. 

On the plus side to all this warm weather is the fact that my front garden, the one that will ultimately provide SOME street appeal  come sale time (I say 'some' because the house is only kind of appealing form the front, no matter what gardens will be in place) is going great guns. My hedging plants are doing well and I'm contemplating putting up a small  hedge boundary, as we have open council strip front gardens on my side of the street and I don't really like this concept much. 

"Permission to land in Toowoomba."

I wish it was a bit cooler so I could go and do a bit of gardening outside...maybe after New Year. 

In other news, it dawned on me that my little nuclear family is staying in this house for at least another year, if not longer. Not a bad thing, but it does mean that I can go ahead and try to make our house a bit more homely for the year ahead. I'm installing more permanent storage, looking at setting up the backyard for the kiddies a bit better and generally trying to fit into this house a lot more. 

Ciao. 

Should I mow my grass more often? Hmmm.....

It occurred to me today that I am not a frequent visitor to my front lawn. Yes, I vaguely look at it for a split second as I drive up my driveway, but I don't really take notice of whether it needs mowing or not. Until today.

As I pulled into the driveway I remembered that we need the other car out for a trip later, so I stopped half way and began to back out. Strategically perhaps, a car was coming down the road, so I had to wait and as I did, I spent an extra split second to glance at my lawn and what I saw scared the crap out of me. 

You see I've planted a few fruit trees to fill this empty space, you know, just to be different, maybe with the hope of starting a fruit tree revolution in my neighborhood where everyone decides to do the same in their tiny, otherwise useless, front yards and we all miraculously swap our KFC for pieces of fruit. Anyway, I digress. As I took this extra glance, I REALISED THE GRASS HAS GROWN ALMOST AS TALL AS THE TREES! Surrounding each tree, roughly where the watering system would take effect, the grass had shot up. Not that this is unusual, but I would have thought that over a few days, perhaps weeks, I would have noticed this starting. But alas no, it appears that the grass height has to hit a critical point where I FINALLY see it and force myself to push around a plastic/metal contraption which, much like to Cookie Monster, or me at KFC, goes NOM, NOM, NOM, and makes all the long grass disappear. 

I was then also thinking "Is me not mowing having an effect on my potential resale value?" Is my house going to be known as a "rental house" because I prioritise other aspects of my life over mowing? A potential buyer, who may know a neighbour, what will they think when they find out the grass grows as tall as them sometimes (I exaggerate of course, but it does get quite high). 

In established suburbs on owner occupied streets, everyone knows how each house is kept. My street isn't quite like that, there are a few rentals, but also a lot of PPOR houses too, but it is an "established" street with nice brick houses. 

So maybe I need to mow more frequently....you know, just for house value sake. :)

Upgrade = Stress = Upgrade?

Recently my wife and I began having conversations around the nasty "U" word. This word often strikes fear in the hearts of the average man, as this word changes everything. This word locks us in, and throw away the keys, because after this word, nothing will be the same every again. EVER. That word is "upgrade". 

Currently we live in a slightly small but comfortable 3 bedroom house, which really is four bedrooms because the rumpus room (read "built in garage")  serves as a large study and hence we refer to it as a bedroom. But somehow, it's cramped. Getting the cars out for example, we have to move one out of the single carport/garage to get to the other and a few months ago when I had a motorbike, you basically had to move half the machinery on the entire block, just to go for a ride. Also, my little boy and I sometimes want to play ball. The tiny backyard is OK, but we're limited to a piece of grass on an uneven sloping surface and really, once we get this new swing set, we will be playing 'guess where the grass is' game. The kitchen too, is on the smallish side for us, as we're used to a bit more space from our last few places.

So yeah, upgrade. Not such a dirty word, is it? Well, unfortunately I think it is. We're on a single income and at this point in time, while we could upgrade to a nice pad, it would really tighten the belts. Not that there is anything wrong with a bit of extra forced savings as I like to call it, but somehow over the last two years or so, I've become accustomed to a certain relaxed spending mood and not minding having a bit of extra cash lying around now and again. 

In reality, an upgrade is out of the question right now, especially on a single income. Maybe soon...only time will tell. 

There is a little Facebook/Twitter/other social media sharing options thingy underneath this post. Spread the word. As much as I love writing on this blog, it would be great if I had more 'followers' or 'disciples' who read the word of the great Andrew. 

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! 

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!

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?  

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....

What is my PPOR worth in today's market (according to www.realestate.com.au)?

Purely out of boredom (and the need to kill some time before my next iRacing race), I decided to go on www.realestate.com.au and perform the obligatory search for suburb, house, bedroom, that fits the description of my house. Looking past the outliers (i.e. busy road or weatherboard mainly these days), the cheapest one is $289,000. It does look a little nicer than ours, AND it's in a cul-de-sac, but is it possible that I have just made a quick $30,000 at the purchase of our house? I know, I know, I'm jumping the gun a bit, but the suburb has an aweful lot of potential and the prices, as far as I can see, are on the increase right now. Is it possible that finally we have stumbled onto a winner? Our last one was way back in 2005 when we bought our Miles property, which made a beautiful quick little profit, but it's been a dry patch since. I think though there is one important thing to keep in mind here; we like this place, it suits us nicely and as I had predicted, the smaller block size, while keeping me busy, is easily manageable. After the reno is finished (yes, it's still going), I think it's a place where my little family can put down some roots, a place to call our own, a place for my kids to grow up. Toowoomba is slowly growing on me day by day, I am loving the convenience, the drive to work is quite enjoyable and the climate is currently cool, but bearable.

So, it's a keeper is what I am saying. I'm toying with the idea of rendering the place, but how would that work when all other houses in the street are brick. The cheapest rendered house on the market is $342,000 and for the effort and minimal cost, it could be added to my list of things to do. Anyone with thoughts? I will post this dilemma on Sumersoft, see what responses I get.

Ciao for now. 

Renovation Update No. 02

Well it's been almost two weeks since the last update, and to be honest, there has been some positive progress, but still, a lot of work to complete. I have finally finished tiling around the bath, and just today I started the floor of the shower. It's looking good; the tiles Melinda picked work well together, it's a classic black and white with a bit of bling. Still, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when a small shower stopped me from working. Why it stopped me is a bit of a mystery, but my motivation is just not quite up there at the moment. 

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.

Finally, finance has been approved!

I won't bore you too much with the details, but organising the finance for this purchase has been a mini nightmare, with one stupid unnecessary delay after another. After a lot of stuffing about, finance was approved today, about a week and a half late.

I pondered on this scenario for a while and I now ask myself are banks THAT BUSY right now that it takes them over 4 weeks to approve a loan to a relatively low risk client? We have NEVER missed a payment, not even close, we have cross-collateralised way below 80% LVR, and the house we're buying a is a solid place which we will be living in. Considering the above, perhaps maybe I should apply to become a bank lender, as I can not see how ANY approval would take any more than 30 minutes. Banks, surely, SURELY, would have a lending criteria tick-and-flick, finance approved or valuations, or not. Come to think of it, a large chunk of the issue was getting to the valuer stage, which is bizarre! I'll role play a lending officer for a moment:

1. Receive loan application

2. Observe on the application that the mortgagee wants to cross collateralise with a list of properties: Order valuations.

3. Continue process of organising paperwork and making an ad-hoc decision based on paper estimates.

4. Receive valuations, approve loan.

5. Go and eat KFC.

So why does this take 4 WEEKS PEOPLE! 4 WEEKS? A load of crap...

Contract on PPOR

After a quick calculation of funds, and having frequent visits from mouses and rats at our current govy rental, we have put a contract on a suburban home in Toowoomba. OK, it will mean a 40 minute drive each way to work every day, but it's still a lot better than many, and it also opens others doors for my little family (which by the way, is expanding to 4 members).

It's a nice house, an ex rental with a bit of work to do, but as I posted earlier, the smaller block will mean less maintenance and allow smaller internal and external projects to materialise. I have recently acquired a nail gun which means I will be having a go at a deck and external feature screens and other Better Home and Gardens pieces.

We played what I like to call 'halfsy-halfsy' with the agent. Negotiations went:

On market for $268,000, which was already a drop from the initial $274,000.

We offered $250,000 (which we thought was a reasonable low offer)

He/they countered with $260,000 - (first halfsy)

We countered with $255,000 - (second halfsy)

They countered with $257,500 (third halfsy)

At this point we stayed resilient, as every thousand saved here, was money that could be spent on renos. So we said $255,000 we believe is a good price. (A firm halfsy resistant counter, based on the other halfsies.)

He/they countered with $256,000, which we accepted.

I believe successful negotiations, and the right price for this property, in this street, in this suburb.

I'll write more when the contract finalises.

Buying a PPOR - emotional stuff.

The time has come to buy not a house, but a home. A place that we will live in for a while, a place that we can shape and mold over the years to make it our own. To give you an idea, I'm already looking at iPad wall mounts for our kitchen so that Melinda can use it as a recipe book. THAT SERIOUS.

So we've been looking around Toowoomba and to tell you the truth, house prices haven't changed much since we put a contract on a rental back in 2007. Luckily the sale fell through, I doubt we could get much more for it now. We're in the market for a 4 bedroom place, not a big yard, somewhere near a park and easy commute to my work. We are also thinking that this may still be a 'transition' house; a house that we will be in for about 3-4 years, before buying something even more to our liking.

I have made peace with one aspect of my current stage in life. I do not want a big back yard. Not now. I am busy enough. I have other stuff to do on the weekends, rather than spend countless hours gardening (even though I do love it).

So this one decision has taken a huge factor out of buying a house; the size of land.

We will most likely end up on a 600 square block, which, now, is fine with me.

Reflections on a Broken Strategy

Back in 2009, I posted about a strategy that got me very excited about an early retirement.

Basically, it involved an acquisition phase, followed by an LVR equity draw-down phase. It all seemed so simple back then. The GFC had just hit, but the housing market stayed resilient and there was no suggestion of the 7% annual growth pattern subsiding. How wrong I was.

It's now 2011 and my properties have performed dismally. When I mean dismally, I mean DISMALLY. There had been virtually no rental increases on any of the properties and CG has, instead of the 7%, been on average 1-1.5% per year. DISMAL.

What else has caused a deviation from this 'plan' I hear you ask? It's only been two years after all, hasn't it?

The answer is cash flow. Without boring you with details, I have had to unload two properties; one, a money hungry beast with some maintenance issues the other just came along at EXACTLY the wrong time.

Rather than point the finger, I think it's basically a combination of a few factors, and probably the weird alignment of some planets, that has lead to this scenario.

So where to from here? Cash flow is now looking better thanks to the sales, but we are now looking for a PPOR, which will 'lock away' more cash flow. Will the market return to the 7% days, I honestly can't tell you, but what I can say is that in Queensland anyway, the $400,000 psychological price ceiling is still well and truly alive and wages just aren't going up fast enough. So, for an average investor like me, it's just not happening. I am looking to hold on to properties, but when rents are not going up, and prices are staying stagnant towards the bottom end of the market, it's not looking pretty.

Until next time...

Shaky start to the year

The start of 2011 has been an interesting time, with floods and cyclones, the housing market is looking a bit worse for wear. What will this mean for property prices for this year, after all, 2011 is supposed to be the "recovery" year many were predicting, finally getting out of the shadow of the 2008 GFC.

Melinda and I are in the process of finally selling our biggest cost investment property, a 3 bedroom brick home in Ferny Hills in Brisbane. For the first time, we have tried an open listing and currently have three agents on the case, two of them very actively trying to sell it. Strangely enough, of all the properties we have on the market, this one has attracted the most interest and it looks like an open listing is going to sell it. Yes there has been some communication issues and I'm sure the tenant is feeling hassled by all the open homes they keep requesting, but it's working, we should have a sale soon. It helps that it's priced right.

I also wanted to let you know I have taken the big step of setting up a trust, a family discretionary trust to be exact. Why it has taken so long is a bit of a puzzle, but for a couple of hundred bucks, we are finally learning to "set up structures" that should benefit us come tax time. Trusts such as this allow flexibility and really, I should have done this sooner.

That is all for now, I keep saying I will try to post more frequently, it's just that life is getting busier and busier as the days go on. Oh I almost forgot to ad, I have a new job and we have moved back down to the south-east; opportunities await.