Difficult next step that I can't seem to figure out

Just thinking out loud and obviously not advice, but I’ve done something similar in the past and taken $50k as a “gift” to purchase, renovated over 12months with cash, Revalued and gave it back with interest in the form of a holiday , 2.5% of amount - (we were happy, they were stoked)

I guess it depends if your able to hold on to that $80k and move it through the next few buys.. if it was me & this is just my opinion on what I’d do, I’d buy something at $400k closer to Brisbane CBD, aim for a higher % owner occ suburb, with the intention to save over the 12months and do a Reno on it. - then Re val both properties & go again, Repeating that for purchase 3 - and at the end of property 3 (24months away) - you reval again & pay the parents back.

A clear plan to 1. Pay the parents back in 2 years time, and 2. also allows you to buy another 2 good quality assets closer to Brisbane and potentially do well given a lot of the talk in SEQ.

Now could be a good time to accumulate and paying the $80k back straight away (if parents don’t need it) as others are suggesting - could see you miss growth over the next couple of years?? Just my 2c

 

Lol, if the parent are asian, I can assure that it is a gift but they dont trust you yet so it will stay as a loan for a while.
Anyway, talk with them and if they are ok with the risk or not, they will tell you.
They may advise about PI option as well so ignore the posts you dont want to read and move on as we are only hearing what we want, aren’t we?
Good luck and update your progress and I think you will just ask what you should invest next...

 

Love it, very well said! Its funny, I went to a Steve McKnight 1 day event (highly recommend, not sales ******** just a nerd who loves property and numbers and wants to help).However, it was his last live event in Sydney. I had the opportunity to ask him this questions and his reply was " Go the route that has the least amount of risk, least amount of aggravation, with the best return, closest you can afford to the city of Brisbane and model the data on higher interest rates." Quite general but great advice.

I then walked away from that event thinking pretty much what you put down here, then I wake up to see it down on the screen! Thanks for the input

 

No problems, I actually resonated with your situation (I’m 27, with little equity & needing to make the best decisions going forward)

I met with a few buyers agents around Brisbane and the one that really stuck with me was against all the others, some recommended a lot of areas that involve a lot of speculation and investor activity - but where affordable..

The other was push your budget the most you can and buy the best location, mid quality house you can possibly afford, in a suburb that has 70+% owner occupiers. We did and haven’t looked back.

Once I got my head around not owning X amount of properties, and focusing on the Value of the portfolio which may mean only owning 2-3 high quality great location properties. The whole process become so much easier. It takes a lot of guess work out, your not speculating and hoping sub par areas are going to gentrify just because infustructure is going in. You buy in areas that have a proven track record, a history of growth, the demographics & wages to continually afford here. Long term the numbers look after themselves

Can you move to 12% deposit and pay some LMI (tax deductible anyway) - and get something middle ring? Is $400k defiantly the limit for serviceability if you buy jointly? Any debt you can shuffle/clear to increase this figure? Just something to think about.

 

Yes, its all about the value of the portfolio. After doing the oven and electrical for the place I currently have, you start to think that the more lower end properties you have, the more you have to fold out big $$$ to fix. The more houses the more ovens, still better than have nothing though haha.

We may be able to borrow more if we go joint and get a larger value property but we want neautrally geared, so it should be around that $400K mark. I am not against LMI, pay it when you need it.

What suburbs would you consider middle ring and worth looking at in your opinion?