Our Portfolio

Below you'll find an overview of our current portfolio as of mid 2009. The portfolio has been heavily slanted towards new or almost new properties because as overseas investors we had to comply with FIRB regulations until we received our residency in April 2009.

I have not included purchase price or current estimated values just yet, largely because I am not yet comfortable with putting so much personal, financial data out there on the web, but at least it will give you an idea of what we are holding in our portfolio.

From now onwards the extension of our portfolio will be with existing property where we can add value, achieve moderate positive cashflow in the current low interest rate environment and have good prospects for longer term capital appreciation. I expect that we will return to the Brisbane area to source these properties.

The graphs above show how we have increased our portfolio both in actual numbers and value.

I do intend to include a similar index graph of our total net worth (but indexed rather than actual value) in a future blog post to discuss the concepts of leverage and compounding.

Investment Property 1

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2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with single car park in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, QLD

Purchased in August 2004, this unit is located in the Emporium Complex in Fortitude Valley. This was the developers last unit and the asking price was $375,000, but our offer of $330,000 was accepted.

Our rent has increased from $320 p/w in August 2004 to $450 p/w as of today. Value has increased by some 35%.

Initially we did not use the on-site property manager as during our pre-purchase inspection they had not given us much confidence. The off-site property manager we opted for was not much better and after about a year we switched to the newly appointed on-site property manager which has provided an excellent service.

Investment Property 3

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2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with single car park in Clifton Beach, Cairns Northern Beaches, QLD

Description to follow

Investment Property 2

2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with 2 car parks in Bowen Hills, Brisbane, QLD

Purchased in September 2005, this unit is located in the The Mews in Bowen Hills just across the street from the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Again, this unit was one of the developpers last stock and we bought the unit for $328,500 without much luck in getting the price down. However, the unit did include a second car park which we rent out separately to staff of the hospital for $40-$50 p/w.

The total rent for the unit and the 2nd car park comes to $445 p/w a good growth from the original rent of $330 p/w in September 2005.

We use the on-site property managers and have not many issues with the unit. Capital growth has been approximately 35%.