Real Estate Talk |

Highlights from this week:   The benefits of creating an offset account. Ways to ensure you don’t overcapitalize on a renovation. Cherie Barber’s formulae. How to dramatically increase the returns from a rental. How can crunching the numbers help investors with their purchase decisions Airbnb success story and news about a new company that helps with the Airbnb experience for property owners. Why get a depreciation schedule before you buy? How accurate is an early estimate? Free tool to calculate how much value is added to a property with extensions and renovations. Transcripts : Offset account benefits – Andrew...

Highlights from this week: Renovation expert – Paola Tapia – shares some tips on how you can go about transforming a residence into something with that elusive ‘X factor’. The best time to consider the hook and flick strategy and the types of properties to use. Traps for young players planning to buy off the plan Things to be aware of when buying property with friends and relations. What can go wrong when putting property into a super fund and how to avoid the pitfalls. Transcripts : Renovation with the ‘X Factor’ – Paola Tapia Kevin:  This week, we...

Highlights from this week: A buyers agent guide to the ‘go to’ internet sites for researching the market. Cate Bakos lists her favourites. E-settlements have been available in New South Wales since late 2014. The exchange of electronic contracts was made possible in 2015. Fast forward to today and, as you will hear from the property lawyer who made history with Australasia’s first fully on-line transaction, it is bounding ahead. The property cycle – what makes the cycle, where are we at, does it change, and what impacts it? Damian Collins gives us an insight. Suburbs that are offering...

Highlights from this week: Is ‘hook and flick’ a viable strategy in this market? Find out why many sellers miss the strongest buyer for their property which could result in the possibility of underselling. Knowing the best area to invest in and the best property in that area. Getting to the hot spots before they are hot. Margaret Lomas reveals how many properties she thinks you need in your portfolio to afford you a comfortable retirement.  You might be surprised. Transcripts:  How many is enough? – Margaret Lomas Kevin:  A question I’m asked so often is “How many properties do...

Highlights from this week: This week we go shopping with Cherie Barber.  Cherie gives us the names of the websites she visits to buy the materials she uses in her renovations.  Hear how she save thousands of dollars. We try to calm your nerves about bridging finance with some sound words of advice on how to use it to your advantage.  Hear the lowdown on the ‘rent-vesting’ revolution and the facts about what is ahead for the Melbourne market. As a feature, we catch up with Kent Lardner from VIEW.  Kent is the genius behind many of the desktop...

Highlights from this week: Without doubt, one of the most commonly asked questions we get is “How do I get ahead of the market, and how do I find out where these hotspots are?” We tell you about a new website that helps you beat all the other buyers by finding out about off market properties. Karen’s question about capital gains tax on a holiday home is answered. How to make sure that everything is okay prior to you taking over a property that you’ve just had built. Transcripts : Two PPOR? – Ian Rodrigues Kevin:  I want to...

Highlights from this week: When to buy property from a lifestyle or life-span point of view might be a better idea than trying to ‘time the market’. We talk to someone from a very successful family investment company that specialises in commercial/industrial property. A great insight and some good tips. Why finance pre-approval and approved finance are not the same thing and how some investors come unstuck by not knowing. A data business model that enables everyday Australians to invest in locations other than where they live. Did you know that the little guys in the garden can be earning...

When it comes to foreign buyers, in the last 30 years, China has transformed itself into one of the world’s leaders in political, economic and social relations. With Australia a hotspot for Chinese immi­grants, understanding the cultural nuances, both from an Australian and Chinese perspective, is more important than ever.  In his book, The New Chinese, author Barry Li (pronounced Lee) gives us an insight into how Chinese buyers think, what is important to them and how they are reacting to the discussions we are having about their influence on the Aussie market.  We talk to Barry about his findings.

Transcript:

Kevin:  In the last 30 years, China has transformed itself into one of the world’s leaders in political, economic, and social relations. With Australia a hotspot for Chinese immigrants, understanding the cultural nuances – both from an Australian and Chinese perspective – is more important than ever.

In his book The New Chinese, author Barry Li has written an essential guide on the history, culture, and mindset of Chinese migrants in Australia. He joins me to talk about the book and the influences on Australia of having Chinese investors.

Barry, thank you very much for your time.

Barry:  Thank you, Kevin, for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Kevin:  That’s okay. Barry, how do Chinese buyers feel about how we discuss their buying Aussie property impacts on our prices?

Barry:  Well, to answer that, Kevin, I need to divide the Chinese into two groups. One is the group who works here and lives here, permanent residents like myself. We make Australian salaries, so it’s as difficult for us to compete with overseas buyers as any Australian. We would feel the comment is unfair, but we totally understand why – because typical Australians can’t tell the difference.

For the second group, the Chinese from overseas, they don’t care about these comments. These comments won’t stop them from buying, because they don’t read our media or our social media.

They only look at things from Weibo and WeChat, which are largely controlled by property developers, and there’s probably only positive news about investing in Australia, which is the reason they buy here. So, that’s the situation.

Kevin:  It’s a very interesting point you make, Barry, about when we look at buyers and we someone who’s obviously from Chinese descent, we naturally think that they’re foreign buyers when, in fact, as you just pointed out, a lot of them are in fact Australian citizens.

Barry:  Yes. Let me tell you an interesting thing. When I bought my first property with my wife, we went to the inspection, and the thing I said to my wife is “Wow, I think I’m going to get this one, because there’s no other Chinese here.” I’m as worried of Chinese buyers as any Australians here.

Kevin:  That’s a great story. Are you sensing that Chinese buyers are put off by regulations introduced to slow down Chinese investment? I think you already discussed that and said that you didn’t think that that’s impacting overseas buyers.

Barry:  Yes. Personally, I believe the regulations already [2:26 inaudible] wouldn’t stop them, because to them, it’s still the same calculation that it’s better to buy property in Australia than in Beijing or Shanghai.

What’s really going to stop them is the enhanced foreign currency controls by Chinese government since the 1st of July. I think from the 1st of September, they are hyping it up that any transaction with UnionPay card – which is a Chinese payment card – over 1000 yuan will be reported to the central government’s bank.

They are trying to close every loophole to transfer money illegally from China to Australia, which would impact the settlement of properties bought earlier, as well. This has more use for controlling investment, rather than our regulations. That’s my personal opinion.

Kevin:  That’s interesting that that impact might actually come from the other end, as opposed to from Australia.

Property Twins Sana and Mona Ali have built a $5 million property portfolio before the age of 30 and also have their own mortgage broking business.  In Kevin’s chat with the twins, he gets them to draw on their financial acumen and investment success t...

Some property investors are making up to $100K profit by developing duplex properties but it does not work in all markets.  Brook Drake has a business that helps investors identify the correct markets and the properties that will return well.

Transcript : 

Kevin:  One thing I do know is that any smart investor is always looking for the highest possible return they can get on their investment property. Have you ever thought of duplexes? Well, duplex development is something that requires a lot of skill, a lot of knowledge about where you can do it and how you do it. A man who specializes in that joins me now. He’s from Duplex Pairs. Brook Drake, joins me.

Brook, this does actually require a lot of due diligence – doesn’t it – to find the right site?

Brook:  Yes, it does.

Kevin:  Tell us a little bit about it. What sorts of areas are best suited to this?

Brook:  There are a few. We concentrate on South East Queensland and certain parts of New South Wales. In South East Queensland, probably the best opportunity is in that Brisbane to Toowoomba growth corridor there. There are a couple of shires around there where we can do it.

What we’re looking for is to be able to find areas where we can buy the land and put the duplex on there, and create instant equity, instant profit of $100,000 once it’s built, once we strata title it. That’s including all strata titling costs.

We’re looking for a net gain of $100,000, so certain shires in South East Queensland and also the Newcastle area is a very good area in New South Wales. We’re talking west of Newcastle, a few areas around there.

Kevin:  I’ve had a look on your site, and when we think about duplexes, we think of those old two side by side that were pretty unattractive. But nowadays, they’re really quite contemporary, quite nice in their design. Is one of the other attractions to it that it has some longevity in terms of its design?

Brook:  Absolutely. We use a couple of builders, and we’ve chosen builders that are specialist duplex builders and they do an exceptional job. These are full turn-key packages, and the finishes are superb, probably the best I’ve seen, particularly one of the builders that we use. So, the tenants or the people who are going to move in, they’re moving into a very, very good product.

Kevin:  What sort of investor are you finding is being attracted to this? Is it someone who wants to live in one and rent one, or is it building up a package and renting both out?

Brook:  I think the whole thing about it is to make money. No longer is there the need for negative gearing. This is what it’s all about. It’s not about holding onto it and living in one and renting out the other; I think it’s more a choice of using property to make money.

With these duplexes, what we can do is we can build them over a period of six months. We can work on pre-selling the units before it even settles, or we can settle it and get a local agent to do it or we can do it, sell the individual units side by side as soon as we possibly can, and then move onto the next one. You could potentially be making $100,000 profit within a six- to eight-month period. Technically, you could.

Kevin:  And there is obviously another advantage, too, in maybe holding onto it and gearing up on that because you’re getting an instant growth in equity. You’re talking there about netting $100,000, but you could then re-use that equity as well, couldn’t you?

Brook:  That’s exactly right, but that would depend on your serviceability. Obviously, that would come into play as you’re building up. But if you have unlimited serviceability, then that would be the best way to go, as well.

Kevin:  There’s a button on the homepage on Real Estate Talk that will tell you a little bit more about this. It’ll take you to the site where you can get in touch with Brook and his team if you want to know a little bit more about duplex.

It’s a great opportunity for investors.