Brisbane South Side - experiences?

Hi Everyone,

We're looking at buying an IP in Brisbane. In our price range we're looking right across the east and west suburbs from Logan to Inala (avoiding anything in the flood areas). Looking at spending about $250-300K for a 3br on a 600+ block.

I would like to hear from anyone with IPs in these areas and their experiences. Any suburbs/street/areas to stay away from or which are preferred? I have read all the Logan threads and I know there are some rough areas so any on the ground experiences would be appreciated. Of course I am planning to travel up there and look at the areas personally as well .

Also, as the yields aren't that great I was thinking of trying to generate equity by developing the underneath of a highset and/or enclosing the verandah. I looked at several properties a few weeks ago and have spoken to a private certifier about the legal height requirements. It seems like a good way to add a bedroom or even a dual occupancy arrangement. Any properties already done up seem to sell fairly quickly. Has anyone done this?

Thanks for your feedback.

hi there

i bought in edens landing before xmas and scored a great deal,

the house is a highset on a 1000m2 block and i also plan to add a room and bathroom underneith, but not for a few months so cant help you there w logistics just yet!

a similar house to mine (but has been renod and had underneith built in and a pool added) has gone on the market for 450, 200 more than what i paid, so im hoping i can manufacture some equity by following suit (i doubt that it will sell for 450) but hopefully it does!!

i spent a long time researching alot of those suburbs and i negotiated really hard and urge you to do the same and you can grab yourself a bargain

if you havnt checked out edens landing you should, i prefer it out of the other neighbouring suburbs, i had no problem finding a (good quality)tenant and residex has given it a thumbs up for (possible) good growth for the next 8 years, just make sure you pick the good streets

also check out rent guru in beenleigh if you need a good pm, they were great w mine

anyway, just thought id share my 2 cents

I bought a townhouse in Waterford about 7 years ago. At the time I looked at houses around Edens Landing, some had nice views, and looked at townhouses at Waterford West and Waterford. I decided Waterford West was probably a bit too Woodridge like for my SANF. The location of Waterford suited me and the return was good. I fixed at high interest rates, but even still, property has cost me about $1000 year to hold on 105% lend. Come off high interest rate next month, yay!! No probs with tenants. I've spent about $1000 on improvements over that period. As long as you plan to hold over lul periods like now you should do fine, big discounts currently.

Thankyou both for your information. Yes, there's many houses on the market at the moment and it's hard to know where is the best deal. The new valuations have come in quite a bit lower than the previous one for some of the properties I like so hopefully that will force prices down a bit more too.

Plenty of choice in that price range, also can look for land upside in that price bracket with the Logan City Council. Either for subdivision or dual occupancy builds.

Here is some analysis I did a year ago on Edens Landing, Waterford, TanahMerah & DaisyHill.

At that time I thought Edens Landing was under valued.

Thanks Devank, Eden's Landing prices seems to have increased a bit now.

Andrew, and others what is your opinion? Is it better to buy where the Site Values have increased or decreased?

If decreased, potential lower sale price and more potential future growth? but does this indicate that the area may have been over-valued before? e.g. Browns Plains

If increased or remained stable - is this an indication that it is a better area? E.g Doolandella, Inala

Just bought two highsets (4 bedder + 5 bedder) in the Logan area in the $200k + range with a rental return above 7%. We will need to spend around $10k to convert one to dual occupancy which will then increase the return to around 10%.

Think there are quite a few good deals available in Brisbane. A fellow investor who just visited Logan mentioned that the Logan area is not as feral as some of the Mount Druitt suburbs (Sydney West). Mortgagee auctions might be your best bet, JClegg though it's always difficult to pick the bottom of the market.

Apparently, things are getting pretty busy in the Logan area and surrounds with investors on the ground. Heard Sydney investor groups have moved into the Logan area as prices in Western Sydney have increased thereby lowering the yield.

Last weekend went up to check our properties which we had bought sight unseen (with the help of a local BA) earlier this year and was pleasantly surprised with the area. Does not have the feel of the Druitt for sure.

Anyone else with similar thoughts about Logan ?

Cherry Pro said:

Just bought two highsets (4 bedder + 5 bedder) in the Logan area in the $200k + range with a rental return above 7%. We will need to spend around $10k to convert one to dual occupancy which will then increase the return to around 10%.

Think there are quite a few good deals available in Brisbane. A fellow investor who just visited Logan mentioned that the Logan area is not as feral as some of the Mount Druitt suburbs (Sydney West). Mortgagee auctions might be your best bet, JClegg though it's always difficult to pick the bottom of the market.

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Cherry Pro, congratulations on your purchases. One word of caution about dual income, most up/down arrangements are not legal height for bedrooms downstairs and you aren't supposed to have two leases, not as advanced in QLD compared with NSW yet in this regard!

jclegg said:

Thanks Devank, Eden's Landing prices seems to have increased a bit now.

Andrew, and others what is your opinion? Is it better to buy where the Site Values have increased or decreased?

If decreased, potential lower sale price and more potential future growth? but does this indicate that the area may have been over-valued before? e.g. Browns Plains

If increased or remained stable - is this an indication that it is a better area? E.g Doolandella, Inala

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Not sure if there would be something useful in terms of looking at the site value movement, important that it's a healthy percentage of the total value and likely to increase in the future though

One idea is to look for land upside, in some of these areas you can get larger blocks with potential for development for similar yields to normal houses.

Andrew_A said:

Cherry Pro, congratulations on your purchases. One word of caution about dual income, most up/down arrangements are not legal height for bedrooms downstairs and you aren't supposed to have two leases, not as advanced in QLD compared with NSW yet in this regard!

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Hi Andrew, I remember you saying in another post the BCC were looking at reviewing this year? I have tried searching the web for any details but came up with a blank, do you have anymore detail? I have a place that is not up down but is lowset and has a self contained flat built on the end of the house (for the original owners mother I understand) so it is of some interest.

8fold said:

Hi Andrew, I remember you saying in another post the BCC were looking at reviewing this year? I have tried searching the web for any details but came up with a blank, do you have anymore detail? I have a place that is not up down but is lowset and has a self contained flat built on the end of the house (for the original owners mother I understand) so it is of some interest.

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end of july the review should be finalised......

Well the story is continuing so I thought I should post what I have learnt recently.

I called RACQ to inquire about insurance and they told me they don't care how many tenants are renting the property or if any granny flat or downstairs reno is council approved, however the building should be in good repair and if there is an issue they will assess the state of the building - that's fine, I don't want something falling down anyway.

However, I then spoke to yet another certifier and got another piece of the puzzle. Brisbane council call it multi dwelling (up to 3 on a lot), Logan call it dual occuancy (2 on a lot). Granny flats are class 1 building and do not need any special requirements. For Dual occ, a highset require a fire-rated floor/ceiling between the levels to be a class 2 building and this is much more expensive to get done and not likely to be approved unless you have it.

So 99% of the council approved "dual occupancy" properties you see are not approved for dual occupancy at all

Off to call a town planner to get more info.

May be those councils are approving the construction of granny flat as an extension to the main house. Dual occupancy let us have separate postbox, bins and utility meters and then legally rent them separately.

jclegg said:

Well the story is continuing so I thought I should post what I have learnt recently.

I called RACQ to inquire about insurance and they told me they don't care how many tenants are renting the property or if any granny flat or downstairs reno is council approved, however the building should be in good repair and if there is an issue they will assess the state of the building - that's fine, I don't want something falling down anyway.

However, I then spoke to yet another certifier and got another piece of the puzzle. Brisbane council call it multi dwelling (up to 3 on a lot), Logan call it dual occuancy (2 on a lot). Granny flats are class 1 building and do not need any special requirements. For Dual occ, a highset require a fire-rated floor/ceiling between the levels to be a class 2 building and this is much more expensive to get done and not likely to be approved unless you have it.

So 99% of the council approved "dual occupancy" properties you see are not approved for dual occupancy at all

Off to call a town planner to get more info.

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I've read this a few times, but still a bit confused (it's been a long day ).

Are you saying that, for example, someone could rent the downstairs area of their home to one lot of tenants and the upstairs area to a second lot of tenants, and that if it is NOT approved by the Council, RACQ would still insure it as long as it is in good condition?

I'm assuming Council WOULD approve such a set-up if the floor/ceiling area is fire rated? I've always thought there was no way to get approval from BCC for such a set-up, which seems silly.

I've always thought that there were two issues with this set up. One being that the set up is NOT council approved (but it sounds like they WILL approve this set-up if the floor/ceiling area has fire rated materials installed).

Secondly, if such an arrangement is NOT council approved, I thought the insurer would not pay out in event of any loss.

I've seen such a place openly advertised in Morningside and wondered how they were able to lease it through an agency. Maybe it is fire rated between the upstairs and downstairs and therefore has council approval?