The Right Aspects of an Investment Property
What should you be looking for when purchasing an investment property?
One expense that you want to keep as low as possible are your maintenace costs.
When you are looking for a property to purchase consider this as part of your purchasing criteria:
- If you buy a wooden or fibro house, you are looking at repainting it every few years.
- When buying a house with a timber deck, make sure that it is not the just the top boards that don’t look too flash, you could have rotting supports.
- What are the pathways and driveway like, will they need to be replaced any time soon?
- What are the gardens like, are there any trees that are going to cause major problems?
- What state is the guttering in?
- What condition is the fencing in?
- If there is a pool, what happens if it overflows?
- What is the situation with window and door screens, will it need security screens?
You can see by this list that should these items not be in good repair you could be up for some expensive maintenance early in your ownership.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t buy a particular property. Just be aware of possible costs and use them to negotiate a good purchase price.
You might think that a building and pest inspection will list most of these items. True, but if you see these maintenance issues yourself, you may decide not to buy – saving you the expense of a building and pest inspection in the first place.
Filed Under: Property Investment Tips
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