Tag: advice for first time buyers

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Expert Tips Interiors Addict

How to buy 12 properties by the age of 32: PK Gupta shares tips

PK Gupta, a second generation immigrant, shares how he acquired 12 properties worth $8million by the age of 32 and had most of the deposit for the first property saved while still at university.

After PK’s parents moved to Australia from India so he could attend university, he met his now wife. They shared a goal of not wanting to be trapped in 9-to-5 day jobs and dedicated themselves to raising funds. During holidays, they worked picking fruits or doing summer internships with major firms. They saved every cent, even after entering the finance industry.

Despite being Brisbane locals, a lot of research led to a three-bedroom house in East Gosford, NSW catching the couple’s eye. PK says they bought it for $320,000 without ever seeing it. Instead, they had a property manager inspect several homes for them for free.

PK continued to apply his analysis to unearth other opportune markets. He says that first property went up $40,000 in value in the first year. They now have properties in Brisbane (QLD), Frankston (VIC), Newcastle (NSW), Cairns (QLD), Burnie (TAS), Gold Coast (QLD), and Townsville (QLD). The most lavish might be a home near the Taj Mahal, purchased for $480,000 (now valued at $600,000).

“Investing in markets across the country is entirely achievable for the average
Australian,” says PK. He is now keen to educate others on the investment game and shares his top five tips to break into real estate:

  1. Set goals and focus on achieving them: Have goals and drive towards them wholeheartedly. Their first deposit was hard work but the commitment paid off in huge dividends.
  2. Treat all of Australia as an opportunity: Don’t limit yourself to investing where you live. Apply your analysis to every location in the nation. You’ll get the chance to select from the very best suburbs for gains.
  3. Invest by numbers, not emotion: The most important thing is understanding how to analyse the available data. Using the right metrics and applying them correctly will have areas of opportunity for growth and great rental returns reveal themselves.
  4. Ask property managers for help: Local property managers are professionals who are happy to help you if you give them your management. They are an extraordinary pool of untapped guidance.
  5. Get educated: Being educated in a systematic, data-led way is crucial so you aren’t led astray by misinformation or biased agendas.

These five points can help you build passive income by remotely acquiring properties interstate with minimum fuss.

Find out more about PK’s self-paced online property investing course

Check out PK’s YouTube channel

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Expert Tips

How to find your perfect suburb

By Michelle May

It’s easy to fall in love with a property and jump in without researching the suburb you will be calling home for the next five to 10 years. Trust me, there aren’t many feelings worse than unpacking in your dream home and then finding out your neighbourhood is a nightmare. Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to stop that from happening, and it all starts with playing detective.

Do some digging before they start digging

It’s not a real estate agent’s job to provide you with information about any development that will affect your property. It’s ‘buyer beware’, and you have to do your own investigations into what’s going on around, underneath and above your potential new home.

There are many risks associated with major works (such as tunnels) that can cause cracks and devalue properties. Check out local zoning details, where maps and visuals of planned tunnel routes are available. Likewise, if you’re not aware of local zoning, you might find your property dwarfed by high density and industrial developments in the coming years. 

Also, trawl through council websites for news of developments and Google the name of the suburb and the keyword ‘development’ to see what pops up. 

Use social media as your guide

Before you become part of the community, it pays to become an active member of the digital community of your target area to see what the issues are. Local Facebook groups are a valuable source of intel. So, jump on and comment. ‘Hey, I’m thinking of buying a property in this street, what do I need to know?’ You won’t get a completely unbiased view of the suburb, but people are glad to help out and certainly are the experts. 

Follow council and local police social media pages to see what’s going on and hit Google hard with all the keywords that you can think of attached to your suburb’s name: Noise, crime, robbery, flight path, building works, etc.

Don’t ignore traditional media, either. Local newspapers are packed full of the good, the bad and the ugly things in the region.

Hit the streets

No matter how much research you do, there’s no substitute for spending time in the suburb to get a feel if it’s right for you. If you’re going to commit to a property for 10 years, you should be prepared to spend at least 10 hours immersing yourself in the area. I give my clients homework every week as they close in on a property.

For example:

  • Go to cafés and parks and see what kind of people are there and what the vibe is like. Do you feel comfortable?
  • Sit back in your car, open your windows and watch the world go by. Is it noisy or right under a flight path? Are there dodgy people around?
  • Stick your head over the neighbour’s fence. You can tell a lot about people from the state of their garden.

Get educated

For those with children, the quality of the schools is going to have a significant impact on their lives. Catchment areas and NAPLAN results only tell a tiny part of the story, so visit the school and talk to the parents and principal. Just because people rave about a school, it doesn’t mean that it will suit your child and your family’s philosophy.

There are a million and one things to consider when selecting a new suburb, and I hope you find this guide useful as a starting point. As always, please get in touch if we can help with your search.

Michelle May is the founder of Michelle May Buyers Agents.

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Expert Tips

How life is different as a homeowner vs. a renter

Young couple hammering in nail for framed picture in living room

Sponsored by Stockland

As someone who has rented many homes and bought three, I can tell you that there are a lot of differences between buying and renting — some good, some bad! Either way, it’s best to do your homework and make sure you’re prepared for some of the bigger changes ahead when you become a homeowner. And for the purposes of this post, we’re talking about buying a new build (although many of these things will apply to buying an older home too).

You’ll have a mortgage!

While it’s of course important to pay your landlord, and on time, when you buy a house, it’s even more important to pay the bank every month. So make sure you know how much is due and by when, especially that first payment! These days, it’s more than likely that your mortgage will be more than your rent was for a similar home, so make sure you budget accordingly. However, unlike rent, you will eventually pay off a mortgage (with a lot of interest, let’s be honest!), and with rent, you’ll have nothing to show for your money. Before you buy, make sure you find out if you’re eligible for any government grants for first-time buyers, especially if you’re buying a new home.

New payments

As a homeowner, I’m afraid there are now some costs (what I call boring, grown-up expenses!) which are your responsibility (which previously were your landlord’s). These include council rates, fixed charges (as well as usage) for water, and of course maintenance. It’s a good idea to have a budget set aside for little surprises that creep in, like the dishwasher breaking or your back fence falling down in the wind.

You now need to insure the home itself as well as its contents and you should definitely consider getting life insurance. You also need to factor in the cost (and/or time required) of maintaining your home, from mowing the lawn to clearing the gutters and so on. On the plus side, if you buy a new home, those maintenance costs should me much less than say, buying a home with a roof that could need replacing before you know it. Scary stuff!

Flexibility

When you buy a home, you’re hopefully in it for the long haul, as the costs of buying a home (stamp duty, removals etc) are substantial. If you decide you fancy a different suburb, state or even country a year down the line, it’s definitely a lot harder to simply move. But if you’re building a brand new home, I’m pretty sure you’re excited about putting down roots, making it your own.

Stability

On the other side of the coin, buying a home means you have confidence you’ll be in the same place for a long time. This becomes more important if you start a family and want to plan for schools, putting your kids’ names on wait lists, making sure you’re in the right catchment area for that great public school, and so on. As a mum, the feeling that I may be in my current home for as long as a decade, is amazing. It is a real mindset shift! I love knowing that it’s worth my while putting in the effort to become part of the local community, befriend the neighbours and get involved with local activities.

As a renter, at the end of the day, you never know when your landlord might want their house back, which is not a nice feeling if you’re looking to settle down.

Total choice and control

When you buy a home, it is absolutely up to you how it looks and what you do with it (subject to council approval if necessary and of course, budget). And if you’re building your home, you get to choose what kitchen, floor, paint colour and landscaping you’ll get. There is no better way to get control over what your dream home will be like than building from scratch! No more having to live with someone else’s bad taste or dated fixtures and fittings. Oh, that blank canvas excitement! Not to mention you can put as many holes in the walls and hang as many pictures as you like!

Risk

There is of course a lot of risk involved in borrowing what is, in most cases, the largest amount of money you’ll ever borrow. So make sure you get good financial advice before doing so to ensure that you can continue to make the repayments and that you have some left over as an emergency fund.

Thinking of buying your first home? Stockland have partnered with Adam Dovile from Better Homes & Gardens to put together a great guide full of useful information. Find out more about making the shift from being a renter to a homeowner.