As Bryce puts it today, we’ve made it to “99, not out!” and with just 1 episode to go before the big 1-0-0, we’re back to provide you with another Q&A Session. In today’s episode, Bryce and Ben give advice on whether to sell your home, tips for investing later on in life, what to do when your property portfolio is falling into a downward spiral, and more. Today’s questions are from the following listeners:

• Fernando on whether or not to sell his home: My wife and I moved from SYD to MELB four years ago without not even knowing where its north was. We rented an apartment in the beautiful East Melbourne for a year as we wanted to enjoy this beautiful city life style but also knowing that we needed to buy a property after that time so we were not building someone else’s future. So we bought “with our hearts” a 3 beds, 2 bath, studio + man cave OLD house out in Donvale with the “vision” of slowly renovate it while starting a family, be surrounded by green, live the Australian dream and on top of that, generate a good growth on the property in a medium term. We love the area BUT… Now, after 2 kids, our cash flow is quite dry and we need to do something about it (classic isn’t it).

Our first bet is to sell as Donvale is not a good suburb from a rent perspective (Yield), put whatever money we can make from the sell – We bought at 520K, the median is 650K and we’ve been slowly renovating a few things, but again, without enough cash to finish it, we are not expecting making a huge profit – into an investment property and then became “Rentvestors”, we wouldn’t mind to sacrifice moving out to a suburb where rent is half what our current mortgage is. In our raw calculations, in 3 – 5 years we could be saving enough to buy the second investment property.

I believe the best things Australia has to offer are for free (parks, security, culture, etc.), so for now, not living in the suburb we’d prefer is not such a big deal when thinking on our medium-long term goals which are given to our kids the best that we possible can and start a passive income strategy for our future ASAP. On the other hand, if we keep the property, we’d need to put a considerable amount of cash on top of the rent in order to pay the mortgage, so our savings wouldn’t be enough to think in buying a good investment property any soon. We will regret not keeping this property… I can guarantee you that but we don’t see any other immediate solution.

• Monique on whether or not to sell her home: Taken your advice, but what now? Given the projected apartment oversupply, should we sell our inner suburbs 1bdr flat to put towards our next home? Or is it still a good investment worth holding on to?

• James on interest only loans:Part 1: 2 years ago my wife and I purchased a property 5km from the Brisbane CBD for $530,000. Unfortunately we only spoke to 1 bank, didn’t seek advice and fixed the whole loan for 3 years at 5.05% so have no offset and no way of paying more off the loan than prescribed fortnightly payment amount. After listening to your podcasts and just starting to read your book just this week, we have since found a decent mortgage broker and are considering refinancing and setting up the money smarts structure. We are considering an interest only loan, as discussed in your podcast, to give us the flexibility to purchase another property over the next 2-3 years, but currently we are getting conflicting advice from our financial planner who is against interest only and our mortgage broker who is telling us ‘cash is king’ in your offset account and we should consider it. The idea is to pay the same amount as we are paying now with our P&I loan but go onto interest only 100% variable (4.3% int rate) and let the cash stack up in the offset. What are your thoughts on this?

• Ronie on investing late in life: Hi Guys, Loving the podcasts. Only started a month ago and am devouring them. Ben, I don’t know if you’ve been told this before, but when I’m listening to you, I can’t help but associate your voice to radio celeb Fitzy. Anyway, my question is, how to start in the property investment after 40. We are self employed, and although have a few savings, is not near enough the 20% asked for a deposit. We don’t even have our own house. Should we work towards that first? Thank you guys!

• Lyell on the next steps to take in fixing his property portfolio: : I bought my first property at 22 in Kalgoorlie WA. I know i know, mining towns are dangerous. We bought that property is 2010 and have see no capital growth what so ever. Property was bought in 2005 for $197k and we purchased it for $340k in 2010. Not a bad profit for the previous owners. As soon as we bought it, growth stopped. We are however getting 7% gross yield (leased at $460pw). We then bought a house on a big block in Ballajura in the north eastern suburbs of Perth. We bought that for $450k in 2014. Unfortunately that house has dropped by around 7%. We now love in this home. But we leased it at $435pw. We are now at 90% LVR. Both properties are 3 x 2’s with the Perth property on 760sqm. This house was bought for $128K in 1998 prior to us. Very disheartening for a young couple. Could i get a rough idea on what you would do in the situation (in a completely general sense)?
  Also, could you guys discuss ways to get yourselves out of sticky situations like this? I think a lot of people will be feeling this kind of pinch right now (especially WA).

 

If you like this Q&A episode (Tips For Investing Late In Life, Selling Your Home, Fixing A Downward Portfolio Spiral and more), don’t forget to rate us on our iTunes channel (The Property Couch Podcast) and our Facebook page. Any questions or ideas? Feel free to drop us your thoughts here: https://thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/