How to ethically flip a house?

[chilli]

My wife and I have a bit of a dilemma. We are both the free-range oddballs of our respective families, and as a result we have no assets and no kids, whilst quite a few of our younger siblings are nesting and making lots of money. We are both a couple of years above and below the 30 mark, and we are realizing that we don't really have much of a life plan, especially as regards money. My wife makes an excellent wage, which has allowed us to basically live a pretty relaxed life, with her doing three days a week and me doing casual work just so it looks like I'm doing something.

A couple of years ago in Perth, we started talking about buying a house and getting into it and then we kind of got scared and took off to New Zealand basically on a whim. The thing is, neither of us wants to just "settle down" into a middle-class lifestyle, but we also don't want to get old and have nothing.

I basically would love it if people with experience could share their ideas and stories about possible ways to go from here... we are at a stage of making basic plans, but everything is very liquid.

Ideally, we would like to live out of the city and become as self-sufficient as possible, but we feel like that might be a few years off yet, as we don't have any equity and don't want to get locked into a 30-year mortgage... by the end of the year we will be basically debt-free, and we are looking at buying a house and land package with no flooring garden etc and living in it, making it nice ourselves and selling for a profit in a year or two... we watched a property development show about this 'green' couple that were doing something similar, and it got us thinking about what kind of footprint this kind of venture leaves.

We both want to do some more study one day, we decided no kids, but will probably foster one day, we would like to be independent and self sufficient one day... one day.

[ThunderIdeal]

i don't have the experience you're after, but i have read this book

introduction to permaculture

and recommend it for your perusal. perhaps mainly just the section on house design for your climate. fairly basic but sensible stuff that should serve as a starting point for house layout.

[chilli]

i don't have the experience you're after, but i have read this book

introduction to permaculture

and recommend it for your perusal. perhaps mainly just the section on house design for your climate. fairly basic but sensible stuff that should serve as a starting point for house layout.

Actually I just bought Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual from forum member auto, and I think that's the same author... really neat and helpful stuff. Cool cover too. BTW can anyone tell me if Mollison is himself aboriginal? Cheers ThunderIdeal, I'll check that one out too.

[AndyAmine.]

My main advise is START NOW!

Dont let the prices or debit put you off, it will only get worse as time goes on.

Get in there, get a renter or some other 'twist' to help you pay for the interest and repayments, then use the equity to buy another one and snowball from there, it seems unrealistic at first but well purchased property goes up in value quickly and even badly chosen property will even out after a cycle or 5-10yrs.

[cisumevil]

Yeah act now mate as it only gets harder!!!!!!

If you had brought a house in Perth a few years ago you would of already made over $200K+ & could of sold up and headed to some nice country loocation with a few acre's to do what ever you wanted!

[Big George]

I have been in exactly the same situation as you mate. My wife and I can't have kids, so we decided a long time ago to just stick it out together and have a great life as best buddies.

Eventually you are going to have to resign yourself to a couple of facts:

1. You will have to enter the property market at some stage. The earlier you do this the better off you will be.

2. Living the "Earn it - Spend it" lifestyle inevitably leads to a very empty lifestyle that is full of toys, trinkets and other material junk. It is all worthless and doesn't make you happy. (I have indulged in toys such as video arcade machines, racing cars, 2.5m projection screen in my living room, etc...)

3. etc.... etc... I am probably preaching to the choir.

I realised these things 2 years ago when I was 28.

The time came where I had to make a choice about the house I lived in.

I could move out, rent something else and continue the cycle.

Or... I could purchase my current rented house from my landlord for 2/3 of it's market value, not move house, etc...

Pretty clear cut choice, but I was not ready to take on a mortgage. My rent went from $200 a week to $500 a week overnight. Same bloody house. This meant that things such as toys, nights out with the Mrs, take-away food, holidays, etc... all became extinct.

I did not have a deposit, I had no real assets to put up against it, and we struggled to string together a mortgage, eventually accepting a shitty deal on a low-doc 100% home loan with a really nasty interest rate. I mean REALLY nasty!!!

Having some cash/equity/assets behind you, gives you bargaining power in the mortgage market and will lead to a better deal than what poor people like me get.

The fact is though, we got our foot in the door and 2 years on, I am sitting on a 1/4 of a million $ mortgage, in a (almost) half million dollar house. This opens doors for investments and better interest rates.

Your plan sounds great and I envy you dude, If you can get yourself some land and become as self sufficient as you can, you will find happiness in that. I am not content on a suburban block of land. I would love to move out to the country and spread myself out a bit, have some chickens, grow something I can eat and put up a few windmills to power the satellite internet computers.

I hope you can learn something from my mistakes.

[ThunderIdeal]

yeah good advice here. ME WANT LAND. MUST KEEP FULLTIME JOB.

brain:

no mollison is not an aboriginal!! maybe he's a fraction aboriginal.

the book you have is the most thorough anyway. about four times thicker than the one i recommended, so don't bother checking that out unless 'designers manual' is too overwhelming. they have good ideas for home and property design of course, but if you score a large property and want to use the resources (particularly water resources) to max effectiveness i have to recommend the keyline system.