property investment/more study

Wow. Sorry about the hiatus.  There’s been a fair bit going on in one way or another, so life has been pretty busy.  We’re discussing (yet) another potential property purchase; SO has stipulated that he’s only interested if it’s cash flow positive.  This has meant that I’ve been doing some fairly serious sums, together with my own cost/benefit analysis of this week’s property options.

I’ve also just started considering studying part-time.  I’ve found a couple of providers which would enable me to do the majority of study at home (sorry, I mean over the internet) to get a counselling qual that is recognised by the Australian national body of counsellors.  It would only cost about $3500 total, which is cheap, compared to going back to uni, and if I was really keen I could get it done in two years part-time.  It would give me an unrestricted license, with two specialisations (at this stage I’m looking at interpersonal relationships and workplace counselling as the areas of specialisation), which would mean that once qualified, I could practice without a supervisor, open my own business, etc.  This is all very much appealing.  Nothing like an extra string to my bow in terms of earning $$.  Plus, if we ever did have spawn, it would fit in perfectly with working from home on a limited basis.

The more I think about it, the more appealing it becomes.  Now I just have to see if I can find the $150/month over two years that’s needed.

I discussed it with SO and he’s supportive.  I guess now I have to weigh up the pros and cons, look at the  money side of things, then become a pair of Nike trainers and Just Do It.

There’s some pretty full-on decisions we’ll be making over the next few days.  Wish us luck.

mid-week update and property blahblah

Well, I’ve managed to survive going back to work.  I’ve been having hour-long sleeps in my lunch break to tide me over, and naps after work, but I’m actually functioning well while I’m awake, which is great.  I’m able to sleep at work due to our fantastic sick room – it’s dark, quiet, has an a/c duct which blows onto your face (I love this as I get really hot), and a very comfy mattress.  I just sneak in there, lie down, set the alarm on my mobile for an hour later, and I’m out like a light.

I finished my nasty antibiotics last night, and I’m glad.  I was just starting to get pains in various tendon-like areas, but I chose to ignore them on the basis I was finishing the course that day.  (Yes, I play an MD in real life as well as on the internet.)  They’re still a bit sore today, but I’ve stayed off my feet, and I’m sure they’ll improve now I’m off the ciprofloxacin.  At least, that’s the plan.

Work has actually been good.  I’ve done some good work and got some really positive feedback.  This is so good!  I spent months under-performing pretty badly when my depression was out of control, so it’s fantastic to be appreciated. 

SO and I are still on the property warpath.  We put a couple of offers in on Monday evening after seeing a unit, but the owner wasn’t negotiating, and we didn’t want it badly enough to pay full price.  We’ve got our eye on another couple of units, one of which we should be seeing on Saturday morning, so we’ll see what happens then.  SO has really got into the search this time round - he’s actually pointing out potential properties to me, which is a first.

(Please feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you’re not interested in hearing about our approach to buying investment property.)

We’ve got a pretty good system going of elimination based on internet research.  We have a list of essential features, desirable features, and deal-breakers.  Essential features include:

1.  Must have two bedrooms;

2.  Must be on the ground floor (ever tried carrying a three-seater lounge up two flights of stairs?! I thought my father in law was going to have a heart attack.  Never again.);

3.  Must be able to be tarted up, so we can get it for a good price, clean it up, and voila, instant equity;

4.  Must be in a decent complex;

5.  Must be in a desirable location (eg. close to public transport, shops, freeway entrance, beach, the city, etc.);

6. Undercover parking for at least one car.

Desirable characteristics include:

1.  Air conditioning installed (we can do this ourselves, but it’s a pain getting permission from the body corporate);

2.  A private courtyard out the back of the unit;

3.  Bathroom and kitchen in okay condition (so all we need to do is apply lots of paint and new handles, to create a major improvement).

Deal-breakers include:

1.  A poorly maintained complex.  This is an absolute deal breaker for us;

2.  Major problems with wiring or plumbing that require extensive (and expensive) repairs;

3.  Any form of commercial-type setup – we like to control the rent, tenants, etc ourselves;

4.  Ugly apartment layout (paint can’t change poor layout);

5.  Evidence of dodgy owners or tenants living in the complex – I wouldn’t want to rent where drug dealers hang out, and I don’t expect our tenants to do so either;

6.  Dead gardens (another sign of poor strata management);

7.  Very large apartment blocks.  We try to buy in smaller groups, as they appear to be better maintained.

Anyhow, that’s the approach we take.  It varies a little, but it’s getting more and more refined over time.  For example, it’s at the point where if I see a great buy that’s not on the ground floor of an apartment block, I don’t even consider it.  It’s just not worth the hassle, especially when we rent our units fully furnished, and so have to shift the furniture ourselves.

Eh, I think it’s time to hit the sack.

sunday

Well, didn’t do much again today.  I’m still feeling under the weather, and I’m scared I’ll go back to work tomorrow and just collapse.   I’m so bloody tired.  At this point, I can handle the illness side of it – the whole sniffing/coughing thing is controllable – but the exhaustion isn’t.  I slept again for three hours this afternoon.  Not good.

Oh well, we did do one good thing.  I’d seen a clothes rack on Gumtree (fabulous website, for anyone who’s interested in online classifieds that are free) about a week ago, and kept thinking back to it.  Finally I actually checked the website again, expecting it had been sold, but it hadn’t!  We picked it up this morning.  It only set us back $60, and it’s a nice sturdy unit.  Even SO, who is notoriously picky about things like ‘buying quality’, was very happy with it.  I even managed to put it back together myself (we had to dismantle it to get it in the car).  Here’s a picture (please excuse the furniture in the way):

It took me about an hour, but I managed to put all our clean but unironed clothes onto it.  The ironing room looks about a thousand times better now.  And yes, we do have that much ironing – the rack is completely full.

Otherwise, a pretty uneventful day.  Lots of sleeping and not much else.  I’m saving my strength for the coming week, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

adventures in real estate

SO and I went to a home open today, of one of the units we’d tagged as our next potential purchase.  We were all set; I had the camera, the map, a detailed list of the property’s features.  As usual, SO drove while I navigated.  It’s not far away, probably only took us about five minutes to get there.

Anyhow, when we arrived, we looked at the block of apartments, and looked at each other.  The best description I can give of the exterior is that it kind of looked like this, but in an apartment version.  The building was in what my mother would call, ‘a state of disrepair’, and hadn’t been painted in probably thirty years.  The gardens were comprised mostly of weeds and were badly overgrown.  There were assorted automobile wrecks around the grounds, abandoned kids’ trikes, etc.

We didn’t even bother getting out of the car.  We’ve got one unit which is in a poorly maintained building, and it’s the one property that we regret buying.  This is despite the fact that it pays for itself through the rent we get from it.

What we did do, is drive past the other property we were considering.  As they’re both in the same suburb, it wasn’t far away.  We couldn’t see the inside of the unit, but the outside was well maintained and generally much more appealing.  Also, the surrounding streets were much nicer and better-kept.  So at least we have one viable proposition on our hands.  We’ll be seeing it after work on Monday, so we should know by Tuesday if we’ll put in an offer or not.  Possibly even earlier, if we can get our act together.

I’m still not feeling that flash, health-wise.  I woke up today at 9am, did a few things – then slept from 10:30am until 2pm.  Now, I love my naps, but that’s not a nap.  That’s my body saying, ‘trying to fight this! taking too much out of me! need sleep!!’  SO’s concerned that it’s my depression, but I know it’s not.  I can tell because in my (few) waking hours, I’m thinking clearly, and I’m positive.  I just think it’s taking a pretty heavy toll on my system, that’s all.  Plus, the drugs I’m on (ciprofloxacin) are naaaasty.  Apparently, tendons snap like worn out elastic bands for those people who take it.  Both the pharmacist and the doctor warned me that if I felt any pains at all, particularly around my Achilles tendon, to get to the doctor’s immediately.  So yeah, the drugs are harsh too.

I have managed to do one productive thing today – I’ve ironed seven of SO’s work shirts.  Now I just have to tackle the other twenty.

update: rissoles

Well, the rissole recipe was a resounding success.  When SO first tasted one, his eyes rolled back in his head with delight.  I asked him if they were as good as his stepmum’s, and he said, ‘Better!’  So, a score out of 10?  ‘10!’

I made some minor changes – I didn’t serve them on a roll, they were the meat item accompanied by steamed vegies.  I also didn’t include the tabasco sauce - I did a gravy to go over them, which was beautiful.  (My secret weapon is Gravox.  In this case, two tblspns of Brown Onion Gravox and two tblspns of Roast Meat Gravox, with a cup and a half of water, made in the same pan I cooked the rissoles in.  Yum.)  Also, I didn’t cook them in a frypan on the stove, I did them in my electric frypan (about half an hour on 4, turning once).  I have to say, for a first time with a new recipe, they were divine.

These are definitely worth trying.  The only downside is that they do take a while to actually get to cooking stage.  However I think this is outweighed by the fact that they’re easy, cheap, and taste fantastic.  Plus, I got past the yuck factor (raw mince! raw egg!) by using disposable plastic gloves.  That way I didn’t spend all last night picking bits of mince out from under my fingernails.  I mean I know that everybody needs a hobby, but that’s pushing it.

So folks, get to it.  Give it a go.  And here’s that link again, in case you missed it.  I thoroughly recommend it.

mother impersonating daughter

This is simultaneously the funniest and saddest thing I’ve read in a while.

rissoles

I remember when I was about 9, my dad exhorting me to come into the kitchen to watch him make rissoles.  Dad and mum had a pretty large mortgage which they were desperately trying to pay off before I reached high school (private school fees are a bitch), so mince featured regularly in our diets, in different guises.  We used to eat a lot of spaghetti bolognese, shepherds’ pie, rissoles - you name the mince dish, we ate it.

Anyhow, Dad was saying to me, ‘Come and watch how I make rissoles – you’ll thank me when you’re older and you have a mortgage and you have to eat’.  I don’t actually remember watching him, but I would’ve, being a reasonably dutiful daughter.  I do remember thinking there was no way in hell I could imagine mixing up raw mince and raw egg together with my hands.  Yuck!

Anyhow, some twenty-odd years later, this story cuts to last night at the dinner table.  SO had made a beautiful dinner of fish and vegies, and we were talking about eating healthier.  I mentioned I was thinking of cooking roast beef for tonight’s dinner, but SO wasn’t enthusiastic.  I sighed (he is a picky eater) and asked him what he wanted instead.  He mulled it over for a few seconds, then his eyes lit up.  ‘I know! I want rissoles.  And gravy.’  He smiled at me delightedly.

So here I am, looking up rissole recipes, and resigning myself to the idea of my hands in a mix of raw mince and raw egg.  Yuck.  Most of the recipes I’ve found are pretty simple – mince, raw egg, onion, breadcrumbs.  I know SO’s stepmum’s rissoles (which he adores) are more involved than this, so I kept looking.  I finally found this recipe, which sounds more like the rissoles my Dad used to make.  He used to chuck in any vegetable that could be finely chopped.  So yes, I’ll give it a bash tonight.  Rissoles with gravy, and steamed vegies.  Stay tuned for a review of how it all went.

drugs and real estate

Ugh.  I’ve decided that I really don’t like ciprofloxacin.  It makes me feel nauseous, and it completely wipes me out.  I slept on the couch, in broad daylight, with all the neighbourhood dogs barking, for two hours today.  I’m the girl who normally needs complete dark (100% blockout curtains) and complete silence (earplugs) to sleep at all.  SO called me, which woke me up, and he told me tonight that he couldn’t understand me for the first half of the conversation as I was still basically sleep-talking.  This is not like me, I normally wake up almost straight away.  Admittedly the meds do warn not operate machinery when on them, and that ‘mental confusion’ may result from taking them.  Which is great, it’s not like I need my mind to be working for anything, is it? /sarcasm

Oooh, and the funky dreams…. don’t get me started.  Today it was washing snails, which survived and turned into slaters…. just very very bizarre.

Oh well, I guess I should be grateful for anything that may fix this ridiculous bug I’m harbouring.  I must admit that I am feeling better in myself.  If it wasn’t for the nausea and sleeping issue of the drugs, I’d be okay to go back to work in the next day or so, but there’s no way I can go to work like this.   Narcolepsy is not a trait associated with high productivity.

In other news, we’ve spoken to our mortgage broker, who has given us the go-ahead to purchase another property.  The one we were interested in was off the market by the time we called, so we’re back to looking around.  There’s one that we’ll be looking at on the weekend which is promising, but otherwise the market seems to have dried up.  I suspect the lower end of the market (which is where we buy) has picked up already, due to the low interest rates – first home owners can afford repayments, and investors have worked out it’s a good time to buy.  Rats.  Oh well, there’s always another bargain around the corner, I guess.

saturday

What a day.  For somebody diagnosed with Heap Big Sickness, I spent the whole day running around like a blue arsed fly.

It started off with not one, but two, rental inspections.  Both units looked good, were clean, no excreta smeared on walls, etc.  Unfortunately, when asked if they wished to extend their lease, one lot of tenants wasn’t sure due to potential job relocation, and the other asked if we had something bigger.  We spent a bit of time discussing the possibility that they move into our two-bedroom unit, and they seemed interested.  (Which reminds me, I need to send them an email with the specifics.)

After that (and barely pausing for breath) SO and I had a look at not one, but two other units which are up for sale.  Yes, you read this correctly.  I wouldn’t have said we were in the market, or even looking, but after yesterday, I need to contact our mortgage broker and start doing some serious sums.  Unbelievable but true – we may be putting in an offer on one of the units some time this week.  My head’s whirling.  The thing is, after doing some fairly basic maths, it seems that we’d be able to rent it out for more than it’ll cost us.  So it will actually giveth more than it taketh away.

I’m starting to think I’m like those women who keep having babies.  You know the ones, they have 10 kids and are pregnant with their 11th, and they and the husband wander around in a child-centred haze, smiling and saying that they ‘just keep wanting one more’ and ‘they’ll know when to stop’.  Yep, that’s me with real estate.  I’m an addict.  I think it’s also because it’s the perfect time to buy.  Property prices are low, due to the economy; interest rates are low; and there’s still a high demand for housing in Perth, as there isn’t enough new housing being built, again as a result of the economy.  This means good rental return.

So yes, I suspect we’re on our way to the purchase of our fourth investment property.  When I woke up late this morning, SO had actually been doing some research on recent property sales, etc.  This is normally the stuff I do, so the fact he’s interested enough to do it himself means that he’s also keen.  This is a good sign.  To do something like this (a short term cleanup of a property) you both really need to be on the same page, otherwise it would pretty difficult.

Anyhow, as a result of yesterday, I’m completely wiped.  I am feeling better, but obviously I’m not as good as I’d thought I was.  I think it’s time for a nap, actually.

update: alive. just.

I went back to the quack’s today, and got the update on what’s wrong with me.  The blood test shows that I have a pretty severe bacterial infection which is treatment resistant, and that the current antibiotics aren’t really doing a lot.  That said, my doc wants me to finish the current course, then start a course of Heavy Duty Antibiotics (HDA), otherwise known as Ciprofloxacin.  The script for these needed approval from Canberra (which the doc got over the phone while I was there). 

Luckily it seems that there isn’t an underlying health issue (like, say, leukaemia), so that’s good.  The doc gave me until the end of next week off, so the current course and the HDA have a chance to work.  This means that I’ve managed to use up my two annual weeks of sick leave in the first two weeks of the year.   I really hope 2009 is an unusually healthy year for me from now on.

One good side effect of this is that I’m losing weight.  Not a huge amount, only about four kilos, but enough.  I’ve just not been hungry, particularly at first.  Now I’m getting a little more hungry, but nothing like normal.  I’m also taking the opportunity to reduce my portion sizes back to more normal proportions.  I worked out that for breakfast every morning, I was having something like four cups of cereal.  The amount considered to be one serve is ¾ cup (according to the side of the box), so this is what I’ve been having.  I figure I may as well shrink my stomach size now while I don’t notice it.

In gardening news, our tomato plants are doing famously.  Most of them are cherry tomatoes, and we haven’t had any fruit fly to speak of (apparently they only attack the full size varieties).  Despite no water while we were away, they thrived and are now producing enough tomatoes to keep us going.  In addition, a number of other tomato plants have sprung up.  Not quite sure what we’ll do with all this produce… any suggestions would be most appreciated.