Have you ever been through a period where everything that could go wrong does go wrong, all at the one time? You know what they say. No news is good news. So when I saw those emails start coming in from property managers I knew there had to be a problem. The first few weeks…
Articles by Lauren Day
Lauren Day is the former deputy editor of Australian Property Investor Magazine and an avid property investor.
API goes behind the scenes and takes you through a day in the life of one of the hardest jobs in the property industry. Jayne Nancarrow is a psychologist, a plumber, an electrician and an accountant. She’s a friend, a carpenter, a receptionist, a police officer and a peacemaker. Oh, and she also happens to…
There are so many people who want to buy one property, per year, for the next 10 years. It’s a fantastic aspiration and there’s nothing wrong with having that dream at all. In fact, I’ve had the very same dream myself in the past and still love the idea of building a portfolio and holding…
Cutting back to one wage and still juggling your mortgage repayments is no mean feat. We reveal some tips on how to protect your portfolio and stick to a budget. Most mums-to-be are thrilled with the impending pitter-patter of little feet and a newborn baby is obviously one of life’s most important and exciting gifts….
Have you ever thought about the true cost of waiting to buy over the past few years? Add it up and it could well amount to half a million dollars. I have two good friends who chose two different paths and have ended up in vastly different situations. They both did extremely well at school and…
It’s great to deal with a bad real estate agent when trying to buy a property. Just make sure you don’t have a bad one when it’s time to sell. I recently wrote a blog about how a bad property manager can cost you thousands. This week, I have realised that a bad real estate…
Is buying a blue-chip inner city pad better than the blue sky of a regional property? It’s a question often asked by investors, is it better to negatively gear in a blue-chip area, or purchase something more affordable, but perhaps with less chance of capital growth, in a regional location? This debate goes around and…
Imagine being threatened legally on an almost weekly basis, being called about ‘urgent’ matters every day and having one person in every single unit block who just never leaves you alone. Not many people could cope with the huge demands of being a body corporate, owners’ corporate or a strata manager, but for 55-year-old Andrew…
How many times have you been told by your friends ‘why would you want to invest?’ That’s why friends make the best mates but don’t always give the best advice. I recently caught up with some friends I hadn’t seen for awhile. I told them I had gone back to work after having a baby…
Working as a journalist for Australian Property Investor Magazine over the past three years has given me much more than just a salary. It has also been a huge learning curve and life lesson about how one simple choice on where you invest and what you buy can either put you leaps and bounds in…