TAS Tasmania

Oh yes. We were there this morning. Love the cakes!!!

 

I hope you have an awesome time!

 

A lot of Sydney people would be envious of your 45 minute commute. I'm amazed at the time some people up here spend getting to and from work.

 

It takes me an hour to city, door to door.

 

So true.. I have heard of two hour commutes! Needless to say that I am not cut out for commuting!

 

MONA was good. Kids liked some parts of it. The cloaca professional by will Delvoye was the highlight. Done with salamanca market and the festival of bright ideas today. Where's a good place for seafood tonight?

 

Fish Frenzy, Blue Eye, Flathead or Smolt are the token central great seafood providers! =)

 

Update from our trip to tassie. Been to Bruny Island, MONA, Mt Wellington, freciynt national park, royal botanical gardens, salamanca market, fish Frenzy, sorrell and royal Hobart Hospital. I fell off a quad bike and wife had to drive 2 hours to get me to RHH. Severely bruised lower back and buttocks. No fractures thankfully. Didn't see any property and they are expensive! I survived.

 

For anyone remotely interested in Tassie, I got this from SQM Research recently:

Hobart rental vacancies down to 1%
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9badbd870addb4af72206c2eb&id=469787994c&e=81714c4f05

and this:

http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=9badbd870addb4af72206c2eb&id=75a8be24f7&e=81714c4f05
​

 

That may not be pure luck. It may repeat this time or not ? Not sure.

 

Hobart v Launceston? I had a quick survey on the properties in Hobart when I visited in August. Not cheap at all.

 

Did you have a chance to go to the Walls of Jerusalem too? I think Tasmania is known for one of their golf course but the course also experience strong winds due to the location.

 

No @jins13 forget about golf on family holidays. Will never happen. I heard it's a really difficult course.

 

I'm not a fan of the south end. Launceston really float my boat though - like a mini Darlinghurst there. I honestly think there's a lot of upside to Launceston - CG and Yield.

 

@Aaron Sice just saw 194 Brisbane St Launceston that has over 9.4% return... The ad says it's used for short term stay...and booked until march. Good yield if one can consistently rent it out to short term guests.

 

Houses are really nice. I like it. The closer to the city the better I guess?

 

Launnie is icky! The central CBD has so lovely heritage houses... Decent returns (because of entry price) but the surrounding suburbs get VERY bad... VERY quickly! Not my area of expertise but I studies with a few locals...

 

I've been studying Launceston and surrounds for a couple of years, been travelling there to see friends for about 4 years and planning to buy a place for us around the Tamar in the next 2. People who make wise cracks about Tassie usually change their minds when they visit. Compared with VIC I don't consider it cold (Tamar area that is) and I personally love summers that don't get much over 30 degrees. River, mountain, country views it is spectacular and a great place to avoid the climate change that I believe will make places like Brisbane unpleasant - the climate of Townsville is heading there, according to research.

I definitely think there is investment potential there after the recent decline, especially the right inner suburb location for positive cf property. Obviously the appeal is the entry price being lower than other states. I can't see capital gain more than a few percent per year though. But sometimes cash cows can be handy.

Most people from the 'mainland' imagine a waterfront holiday place which they can also rent out. Rents are very high to my mind and AirBnB spots are asking high prices. A friend of mine caretakes for a couple of absent VIC landlords who handle rent themselves using AirBnB. He does cleaning, changing linen, gardening and any as- needed services. He is actually thinking of trying to turn this into a kind of one stop holiday home service if he could get enough additional properties. The properties have code locks not keys so he does not necessarily have to go to let the guests in.

 

I'm so open to the idea after my recent trip to Hobart. Tassie is beautiful and I haven't even seen Launceston. Any other areas that I should look at?

 

No idea in terms of IPs, but in terms beautiful places, heaps of you like the outdoors.

Cradle Mountain was a highlight for me many years ago, where I did a day walk out to the summit. Freycinet was very nice too, also spotting fairy penguins at Bicheno. And doing a bit of spelunking in Mystery Creek cave, down Lune River way (southwest NP, past Hastings Caves), was a lot of fun. Don't know if you can still do that though, after a few members of a school group died down there during a flood.

By comparison, Hobart, Launceston, Devonport, and even Port Arthur were rather dull, not helped by getting food poisoning in Hobart on Christmas Day! Celebrations at the end of the Sydney-to-Hobart were interesting though, if drunken debauchery is your thing.

Never made it around the west coast.

GP