Railway wagons?

[trajik]

This is sort of property related.

We've been offered two heritage railway wagons for $5,000 each. They are in good condition and just need a tidy up to be liveable.

We have a couple of acres that we are looking at putting the wagons on and then renting them out.

Assuming we can get someone to rent them we could probably ask $120 pw, total cost of $40,000 plus land that cost us $14,000 a while ago. So the return will be quite good.

Has anyone had any experience with this, or a similar, left field property investment, or any comments?

 

[AnneDe]

This is sort of property related.

We've been offered two heritage railway wagons for $5,000 each. They are in good condition and just need a tidy up to be liveable.

We have a couple of acres that we are looking at putting the wagons on and then renting them out.

Assuming we can get someone to rent them we could probably ask $120 pw, total cost of $40,000 plus land that cost us $14,000 a while ago. So the return will be quite good.

Has anyone had any experience with this, or a similar, left field property investment, or any comments?

Hi Trajik,

What about the cost of connecting basic services such as water, power, sewerage, telephone etc. ?? Also obtaining council approval for a railway wagon dwelling that is to be lived in, might be difficult depending on where the property is.

If your rental premises are sub-standard, you will have a hard time attracting quality tenants.

The following link offers information about rights and responsibilities for tenants and landlords in QLD (If property is not in QLD other states will have the equivalent).

http://www.rta.qld.gov.au/

Cheers,
AnneDe

 

[skater]

I heard somewhere a while ago (I don't know how true this is though, so check it out), that railway carriages come under the same category as a moblie home/caravan (they must have wheels left intact) in that you don't need to get Council approval as it is not a permanent dwelling.

If you were to reno them & put in all the services you should get a good return for them.

 

[sailor]

Here is an example of what one organisation has done with railway carriages...and their accomm rates are also on the URL.
http://www.undara.com.au/[email protected]&url=www.undara.com.au

I've been up there and it looks fantastic.

 

[trajik]

Thanks for the comments guys,

Water isn't a problem as we have a full year spring available, power is the biggest concern, but I am considering solar, especially if the govt bring in some better incentives. Sewerage is also pretty easily accomplished. And the phone runs past the front of the block.

I realise that the council approvals may be an obstacle, but I can't really see a practical problem as the carriages are in excellent structural condition, we'll be doing a heritage reno on them, and they'll just need to be fixed to the ground properly. They don't have the wheels so would be classed as a fixed dwelling I think.

 

[Dazz]

I assume the 5K is just the Capex, and doesn't include lifting offsite / shifting to your site / lifting off carrier to final resting place.

A few pennies and a few headaches in that lot. We just went through that quoting process for shifting rail wagons and it wasn't cheap.