After gaining a lot of assistance from the knowledge and recommendations from Somersoft members - both from the threads and directly we thought we would share our journey of purchasing and renovating interstate.
It seems there are a lot of members looking at Brisbane from elsewhere so hopefully it will be of assistance to them - but we are also hoping to benefit from some input on the challenges we will face.
A bit of background, after years of having two heavily negatively geared properties in Sydney we stumbled upon a magazine article in early 2012 on the cash flow benefits of granny flats. We then quickly moved to make both properties dual occupancy and they are now both close to neutrally geared. During this process we discovered Somersoft and directly as a result purchased another property in Western Sydney and put a granny flat on that during 2013.
We were then very much in land tax territory - so thought anything else would need to be interstate. After reading all the predictions and interest in Brisbane we decided to look there with the following criteria :
- needs renovation (we always look for immediate sweat equity).
- capable of being cash flow neutral quickly.
- in 10km radius of CBD (for CG and also good tennants).
- good land content (to improve potential CG).
We found the yields in Brisbane were lower than expected and thought we may need to broaden the search area to place like Logan. After a few months of searching we came across a place at Enoggera that looked like it might meet all our criteria - but as it was going to auction we were not sure.
A trip was planned for auction day - but we also had a number of other open houses scheduled as well. In the end we were sucessful at the auction and purchased a run-down "3 unit block" at Enoggera on a 780m2 battle axe. It is actually like a raised large house with 3 x two bedroom units but it was built that way in perhaps the 1950s - but there is some confusion with the zoning.
There is a lot of work to do on it but we are hoping to achieve something like a 6.5% gross yield at the end of the project. A lot more details to add - but that might do for a start.
It seems there are a lot of members looking at Brisbane from elsewhere so hopefully it will be of assistance to them - but we are also hoping to benefit from some input on the challenges we will face.
A bit of background, after years of having two heavily negatively geared properties in Sydney we stumbled upon a magazine article in early 2012 on the cash flow benefits of granny flats. We then quickly moved to make both properties dual occupancy and they are now both close to neutrally geared. During this process we discovered Somersoft and directly as a result purchased another property in Western Sydney and put a granny flat on that during 2013.
We were then very much in land tax territory - so thought anything else would need to be interstate. After reading all the predictions and interest in Brisbane we decided to look there with the following criteria :
- needs renovation (we always look for immediate sweat equity).
- capable of being cash flow neutral quickly.
- in 10km radius of CBD (for CG and also good tennants).
- good land content (to improve potential CG).
We found the yields in Brisbane were lower than expected and thought we may need to broaden the search area to place like Logan. After a few months of searching we came across a place at Enoggera that looked like it might meet all our criteria - but as it was going to auction we were not sure.
A trip was planned for auction day - but we also had a number of other open houses scheduled as well. In the end we were sucessful at the auction and purchased a run-down "3 unit block" at Enoggera on a 780m2 battle axe. It is actually like a raised large house with 3 x two bedroom units but it was built that way in perhaps the 1950s - but there is some confusion with the zoning.
There is a lot of work to do on it but we are hoping to achieve something like a 6.5% gross yield at the end of the project. A lot more details to add - but that might do for a start.
