Investment properties

[westy]

Would like to hear from those of you who have an investment property.

We are again thinking we might look into purchasing an investment property but what makes one house stand out from the rest? What did you look for when you were purchasing your investment property? Obviously things such as location, house size, price, returns are all things to be considered but what else made you decide on buying the house/unit/flat that you did?

[~Trish~]

One of the things we went for was scarcity. We bought a beach front apartment in a location that is close to the city, public transport and a well known lake. It ticked the scarcity box because there are only so many beach front locations, no one can build in front of you! We also looked for an apartment block that had no more than 3 floors (ground, 1st and 2nd floor) so there is more land value. We also chose a ground floor apartment that has a great courtyard, storage room and a car park. All very hard to find things for renters!

Best of luck

[Mak]

Depends what you are after. With kids, jobs and not much spare time - I would look for something that needs little work - so it can be rented out ASAP, has a reasonable rental return (not necessarily cash positive but so that you have room to move in your budget) and rental appeal and in an area that will improve in value. Also worth considering if it can be sold on easily if required.Investing is much different from buying for yourself - you really need to separate your heart from your head and see if the $$ stack up. Also hard not to be sucked into the romantic idea of buying a fixer upper if you have done that before. Good luck!

[MrsB26]

We bought something that needed little work to be done, in an area where rentals were in demand and in a good location. I have actually never seen our investment property in person - only photos - but htis wasnt an issue for me at all. Ours is in Cairns, 2 blocks from the beach and close to uni + public transport. It took me a little while to get my head around the fact that i wasnt going to live there so it didnt really have to appeal to me or my style of taste. As long as the figures add up in the end, thats all that mattered

[Mum2SweetCs]

We invested in a commercial property. The tenants pay for everything such as repairs etc.

The only mistake we made was buying it in a strata'd shopping centre.

Other than that the ROI is alot higher but the risk is also alot higher.

[westy]

Thanks for the replies, i guess we are a little different as we would ideally like to buy a house where we want to be (live) in say 5-10 years down the track. So although we wouldnt be living in the house initally we would eventually end up living in it so it would have to be a house that we would eventually be happy to live in permanently ykwim.
We are looking at the Far North Coast NSW with some land, rentals are far and few between at this particular spot and i think if we bought now not only are we going to be able to use it as a tax rebate but also gets us closer to getting to where we eventually want to be with us paying minimal for those 5-10 years.