Choosing the right investment property comes down to knowing what you need, knowing what you can afford and knowing exactly what’s available at the time you are ready to buy. 

While property investing may be simple, it’s not easy and that’s not a play on words, because many investors end up paying a huge a “leaning fee” that they didn’t expect.

You see… many novice investors think, or are often led to believe, that bricks and mortar is a safe and easy investment and they find out the hard and often expensive way that property investment success is not so easy.

Here are 6 “learning fees” I’ve seen investors pay:  

1. The “Oops, I bought the wrong property “learning fee”

You buy home to in live but within a short time it just doesn’t “feel right”.

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Or you buy an investment property and realise it’s a dud.

Did you know that statistics show 20% of investors sell up their property in the first year and 50% in the first 5 years?

So, you decide to sell within the first year or two and regardless of what price you sell the property for, you need to remember the huge costs associated with buying and selling real estate.

There’s the stamp duty when you bought it (plus the stamp duty for the new place), legal fees when buying and selling, selling agent commissions and marketing costs and, of course, the cost of moving twice in quick succession.

This means your learning fee is likely to be tens of thousands of dollars and potentially into six figures when you take into account lost opportunity costs.

2. The “capital non-growth” learning fee

This is the fee that you pay when you buy an investment with poor capital growth because it’s in the wrong city, suburb or street.

Perhaps it grows at 2 or 3 per cent per annum when buying the right property may have achieved 6 or 7 percent capital growth.

A three percentage point difference might not seem like a lot but over the years this could add up to a learning fee easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

3.   The “renovation reality” learning fee

This is the learning fee that you must pay when you realise that renovations are hard work and not as easy as the reality TV shows or the property blogs would suggest. 

Perhaps you bought a property that needs a significant renovation in the order of 10 per cent of its purchase price.

But then everything ended up costing more than you expected and the project ran over time, which increased your holding costs substantially.

So you ended up sinking about 20 per cent of the purchase price into the renovation and landed in over-capitalisation territory.

This learning fee could easily cost you tens and tens of thousands of dollars as well as a waiting period of many years as you wait for the market to improve enough to get your money back.

4. The “I got eaten by a shark” learning fee

Here we have Sam and Susan, a couple of 25 year olds who charge off to one of those investment property seminars that promise you’ll make a million dollars in six months.

Instead our bright young things end up knee-deep in cash flow tables, bank documents and (oh dear) a signed investment home contract that results in their off-the-plan, out of town, so-called whiz-bang investment property growing at a miserable 1.3 per cent per annum over the next 10 years.

The learning fee in this scenario is especially scary as that “shark advice” could end up being a millstone around their necks for many years.

They may not be able to offload that property without making a significant loss and therefore their future lending capability may be severely compromised.

5. The “buying with emotion” learning fee

You can end up paying this fee in 2 ways. 

Firstly, when you fall in love with a property and overpay.

Now while this may be allowed when you buy your home, it’s a big mistake for property investors.

The second way you pay this fee is when you miss out on an opportunity because you have an unrealistic expectation of what the property’s price actually is and offer well below an acceptable price.

You then get angry that the vendors are being “greedy” and storm off, not prepared to negotiate at all.

This learning fee here is about your own ignorance and not remaining objective and basing your negotiations on cold hard facts such as recent comparable sales.

Either way the learning fee you could end up paying is considerable.

6. The “negotiation” learning fee

This is the extra cost to you when you are too afraid or too inexperienced to negotiate on price.

Many property purchasers are “shark bate” to selling agents who are highly trained negotiators who are taught how to get the top dollar for their clients – the seller.

So what should a property investor or home buyer do?

Many of us have been taught to “learn from our mistakes” – but in my opinion this is too expensive and too demoralising.

Rather than pay a learning fee to the market, why not pay a to a property strategist work with you and help design your property investment journey by creating a customised strategic property plan for you

It’s likely to be a cheaper as it could significantly reduce the overall learning fee you’d pay to make a mistake.

However to secure your financial future you’ll need much more than just a property strategist or a buyer’s agent.

My team at Metropole offers a 360° holistic approach to ensure you Grow, Protect and Pass On your wealth.

We customise a solution to meet your specific needs through a time-tested 360° system for acquiring wealth and help beginning investors buy their first property, experienced investors add to their portfolio and sophisticated investors manufacture capital growth by becoming property developers.

We’ll make your investment journey safer by providing direction and clarity in these uncertain times.

Using our services should be regarded as insurance against paying the kind of hefty learning fees I’ve outlined in the scenarios above.

In life we all pay – the question is how much.

Now is the time to take action and set yourself for the opportunities that will present themselves as the market moves on

If you’re wondering what will happen to property in 2020–2021 you are not alone.

You can trust the team at Metropole to provide you with direction, guidance and results.

In challenging times like we are currently experiencing you need an advisor who takes a holistic approach to your wealth creation and that’s what you exactly what you get from the multi award winning team at Metropole.

If you’re looking at buying your next home or investment property here’s 4 ways we can help you:

Strategic property advice. – Allow us to build a Strategic Property Plan for you and your family.  Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now!  This will give you direction, results and more certainty. Click here to learn more
Buyer’s agency – As Australia’s most trusted buyers’ agents we’ve been involved in over $3Billion worth of transactions creating wealth for our clients and we can do the same for you. Our on the ground teams in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane bring you years of experience and perspective – that’s something money just can’t buy. We’ll help you find your next home or an investment grade property.  Click here to learn how we can help you.
Wealth Advisory – We can provide you with strategic tailored financial planning and wealth advice. Click here to learn more about we can help you.
Property Management – Our stress free property management services help you maximise your property returns. Click here to find out why our clients enjoy a vacancy rate considerably below the market average, our tenants stay an average of 3 years and our properties lease 10 days faster than the market average.

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Read more: propertyupdate.com.au