Sunday ramblings

It’s Sunday today.  Apparently it’s going to be nice here in Melbourne.  I hope so.  It really does feel like summer hasn’t arrived and I am a little tired of being cold.

The weeks seem to just fly by at the moment.  And with what feels like little productivity.

I have a list.  An ever-growing list of to-dos that I have to achieve.

Some people hate lists.  I love them.  They neatly keep all that is inside of my head organised.  And that means I can sleep.

I slept quite well last night.  Except for when the dog woke me at 5.  I cursed, let him out and then went back to sleep.

Today we are off to Newport to see our investment property.  It is nearing completion and we haven’t seen it yet since before they broke ground, so we thought we should go and see the thing that is going to mean we won’t starve in our old age.

We don’t really have a retirement fund.  We have only been in Australia for 9 years which means our Superannuation fund isn’t really that big.  We had a guy look at our “portfolio” and he did a really good job of not laughing whist telling us that we were “quite a bit under of where you need to be to not rely on the kids or the state to keep you.”  And so we bought an investment property.  And we intend to buy a couple more.  Because we don’t want to be in a position where anyone needs to “keep” us.

So we are off to see this property.

We used a “wealth creation” company to buy it.  We did some research and felt that going with them would be best since we weren’t all that up to scratch on the property market and how to gain the best return on our investment.

I wouldn’t use them again.  It isn’t that they were horrendous, I just feel that they simply don’t offer good value for money and I think we can achieve the same thing on our own.

Wealth creation companies work by helping you to build up a property portfolio.  You start off by paying them a (hefty) membership fee and then they find you a set of three properties that fit a set of certain criteria that is supposed to ensure maximum return on your investment.  They work according to tax rebates that you get from the government in terms of depreciation on a new property and the like (it’s all quite complicated frankly).

Wealth creation companies, we later discovered, do not have a good reputation as many of them have come under fire for over inflating the price of houses to maximise their own profits, which means that you, as the investor, are forced to hold onto your property for a lot longer, or in some cases, never realise any profit at all due to a slowed market.

Frankly, they have not been worth the money we paid.  Largely, communication has been lacking, we have been unable to access the property prior to lockup stage (and apparently legally they can do this) and we have been left feeling that we paid more for the property than we should have, though probably not too much more due to location, thankfully.

But all is not lost.  It is a lovely property in a lovely location.  We should have no difficulty renting it out and in a couple of years should have realised enough growth to consider buying our second investment property, which we will find ourselves.

And today should be a nice day out.  See the property, meet friends in Williamstown for some lunch, get out into the sunshine.   Melbourne hasn’t had too much sun lately, so it will be nice to feel the sun on my skin.  It’s good for depression – all that vitamin D.  Apparently lack of vitamin D can drive severe depression, who knew?

And so it is lovelies, my rambling post for you today.  Just a normal day with not much happening.

How about you, what do you have planned today, wherever you are in the world?

Much love,