Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 26, 2015 7:58 pm Hi all, great forum! I hope to sap as much info as I can out of it, as I'm sure you all have. I also hope to put in as much as I take out. Well my name is Dan. I'm married with three daughters and our next goal is to purchase our first house. I say house as this will not be our home. Having kids and recently married our finances are limited, and although we can comfortably pay a mortgage, renting and saving for a large deposit is hard. We plan to buy a house and land turn key property to enter the property roundabout. The property will be ours for 24 months and then will be rented, I give this information as it changes the way we feel about the house, and the way the house itself will be used in the future. In saying all of the above, this will be our property, we want the best for us and our future tenants and hope to get as much information as possible before choosing a builder and along the way. Currently we are at the pre approval stage, then we will have the 90 day find a place period before final approval and all the fun stuff. So what's your best advice, what would you have done if you got your time again? What wouldn't you have done? Any info, help, people to contact, reviews or anything similar would be really appreciated. Thank you very much in advance Dan Re: You have probably been where I am. 2Mar 26, 2015 8:10 pm Welcome to the forums! One thing to watch if you will rent it out is to understand and work out all the taxation issues. Things like the best use of mortgages and offset accounts, who's name it's in, and how you deal with GCT can be important to the economic viability. Which city are you looking in? Re: You have probably been where I am. 3Mar 26, 2015 9:08 pm We are looking in flagstone estate, jimboomba qld. There's a few reasons. Mainly price, but future developments, rental returns and work are factors we have considered. My father and his partner have a few rental properties, and my mother is about to purchase one also. Re: You have probably been where I am. 4Mar 27, 2015 1:54 pm If you're planning on renting it out in a couple of years, I'd definitely recommend building materials with as little maintenance as possible. For example, no render on the facade (unless required by covenant), tile or timber-look floors, no fancy light fittings, neutral colours. A new house is still going to feel like a nice place for you to live in regardless, so look for quality and longevity in your fittings as opposed to pretty. Also make sure that your floorplan is practical (with 3 kids I'm sure you'll be looking for practicality anyway!). You don't say what age your kids are, but regardless, for their rooms try and keep their decoration easily removed or changed with the basic colour scheme neutral, to save you work later. You want to keep your landscaping as easy care as possible too - try to stick to low-maintenance natives. Finally, remember that things change. You might end up staying longer than you originally planned. Make sure that your house is livable and beautiful to you first! You never know Jen (& Dave) Plantation Bronte, Ormeau Ridge, Gold Coast QLD 12/03/2015 - Commencement... 26/08/2015 - Handover! viewtopic.php?f=31&t=76446 Re: You have probably been where I am. 5Mar 27, 2015 2:28 pm My three pieces of advice: 1. See an accountant NOW - There are a range of CGT issues depending on how long you are in the property for, and you should look very closely at the difference between redraw and offset for a loan which is going to convert into an investment loan to ensure you get the best tax benefit down the track 2. Consider the demographics of the area in terms of socio-economic (what can they spend on rent), and deomgraphic (Avg number of kids, house share, FIFO workers) etc and tailor the house to that 3. Assume you will be in the house for longer than 2 years, and make sure the design still fits your current needs. Consider it may take 1 year to build, then another year to build your "dream home" - doesn't give you a lot of time to save up a deposit if you plan on moving out in 24 months (that is assuming you are building, not purchasing - but either way it will probably be longer than 2 years) Follow my build here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=74975 Re: You have probably been where I am. 6Mar 27, 2015 6:27 pm Thanks for the replies guys. As you say llaeria about making the place suit us, this will be our main priority. In saying that, we will keep the future in mind. We spent a few grand re doing our gardens here where we rent. They look beautiful, we have cycads, ornamental ginger and some ornamental grasses with red bark. We don't water and we don't weed. Spending the money was well worth it ( convincing the wife was not so easy) on the flip side, our lawn would rival the best of golf courses it's something I have always had, I can't expect a remnant to maintain the grass like I do and this will kill me inside. As like many things do, our plans change, and we stay a little longer then this will be fine. As long as we have a roof over our heads, a drink in hand and a smile we will survive. However we are very goal orientated. Alex you have definitely nailed all aspects we have considered in a investment/rental property area. Did you mention future growth? I'll be honest, the area will and is predominantly inhabited by renters. Perfect for our future plans. There will be excellent growth in the coming years including roads linking the, in my opinion, quite isolated subburb with others including the suburbs where my partner and I work. A fortnight a ago we decided to put a plan into action, Monday we applied for pre approval and today we were approved. Next step is finding what we need and signing a contract. On that topic, have you/do you reccomend having a solicitor look over the contract? I am thinking this will definitely be a good investment to avoid unexpected pop ups in the coming months. Is there a going rate? Average? I'm sure it's money well spent considering this will be our first experience. You have probably been where I am. 7Mar 28, 2015 12:37 am Hi there Gagginforit,
Love your username I'm a property investor (domestic rental properties). As previously mentioned, loans are important - make sure you are gearing your loan to suit the scope of your repayments in the long term, & the value of your offset account. Look into fixing the interest rate for a number of years now, while the rates are low - however do be careful with this if you think you may want to switch between interest only & principal/interest repayment types as you may be charged a fee if you break a fixed term agreement. Capital gains tax won't matter unless you sell the property, & will only apply on the calculated value above a specified price that you paid for the build, so unless you plan to be the buy/build then sell type of investor, I wouldn't worry about CGT at the moment. What you should do is find a good accountant that has a sound knowledge in managing financial matters in small to medium property investment, & they can help you structure your financial matters accordingly (gearing, trusts, holdings companies, etc, to save you tax - maybe even use your super to buy property if possible..needs a SMSF, but this has advantages & disadvantages, depending on if you need the income to live on or not...but you can't live in a property you own through SMSF). You will need to get a quantity survey done, which will provide a depreciation schedule for tax time for years to come - can't stress how important this is, & it should be done as soon as possible once the property is ready for the rental market. Get good landlord insurance through a specialised insurance provider, & manage through a local agency that knows the market & potential tenants; I do not advise managing the property yourself. And contact your relevant state body regarding land tax - I'm in NSW & I have to pay land tax on the value of the land portion of my properties, over a certain amount, & only on land values that are for rent (not personal residence land value). They will tell you when to register with them, & the threshold for the amount at which they start to charge you land tax (if this applies in your state - but worth a mention). Within the structure, as others have mentioned, make sure you use neutral colour schemes & easy maintenance inside & outside, which may mean extra expense at the time of construction - I find this always pays off...eg: tiles to ceilings in wet areas = no mould on paint, thus no re painting or mould treatments needed. Good quality ducted to eaves exhaust fans in kitchen, bathroom, & laundry. Dark coloured vanities & shower cubicles in case hair dye is spilt or used that will stain. And so on ️ Best of luck, I wish you great success. Sent using Tapatalk You have probably been where I am. 8Mar 28, 2015 12:47 am Oh, and of course, don't become emotionally attached to the property - put your business brain in gear, & think of the property as an income/tax offset stream rather than your lovely home when you move out, as you will need to make some potentially difficult decisions based on what some tenants need to do to the property to live in it (eg: to suit their needs they need to modify the property in a way which wouldn't be your personal preference), or in the case that it is damaged in some way (hopefully a very rare occurrence) ️ In terms of your building contract, ask a variety of builders for a draft version, so you can make yourself familiar with these types of documents. Then, do a bit of research into what the various clauses mean within their context. If you don't understand once you've done that, then this is the time to seek legal advice from a suitably specialised lawyer. This can save you some coin & also increase brain size, so you know for your future investment properties when the time comes Sent using Tapatalk You have mandatory building inspections and privately engaged building inspections. The difference between the two comes down to inspecting the building so it's safe and… 3 18083 Hello everyone, I have a question regarding moving a chandelier after it has been mounted. The chandelier in question is quite large, measuring 4 meters… 0 72342 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39751 |