patches

Fortunately no Stamp Duty in New Zealand. That, combined with the fact that there's no capital gains tax in NZ, is what makes property investment so popular here. We do still have all the conveyancing costs and that though, but the cash contribution the bank gives usually covers that (e.g. approx. $9,000 cash on a circa $1M loan). In Aus you have negative gearing though, so that's a win for you. Here one can only offset investment property expenses (maintenance, interest, etc) against the rental income itself, not one's total income. As for liquidity, I hear ya! We were worried about that too. We could have taken a smaller mortgage, but exhausted our savings. We chose to borrow more, but have that rainy day fund. We also have wiggle room to relax the repayments on our own home if needs be. The advice we've heard over-and-over is "pay your own home down as fast as possible, and go minimum payments on the investment". And yeah, I can second that single storey train of thought. Both the multi-level units we were keen on buying has issues that would have been very costly to fix. We ended up with a 1970s single storey brick & tile unit with a single garage and a bit of garden, in a decent area with good school zones (very important to Kiwis, haha). Could have got a new build for less, but they have very little land, and the land is what actually appreciates over time. RE: Geezerhood plans, that's pretty much what my in-laws did. Bought an apartment as an investment 20yrs ago in a really nice part of North Sydney. When they retired a few years ago, they sold the family home, bought an acreage in the countryside and use the apartment as a 2nd "convenience home" when they need to spend time in the city, or babysit grandkids. So they've essentially downsized and upsized at the same time

Don't worry, we're in the same boat. Refixed our home mortgage, and took out a new mortgage (for a rental property), all at the beginning of the month, so it dropped about 0.3% since then. Not worth the break fee though. As for buying, now is a pretty good time. Better stock is coming on the market, but it hasn't quite started to pickup yet, so prices are reasonable. Interest rates are a lot better than they were 12 months ago. Rental market is down, but the right property will still get tenants. We managed to get tenants within 1 week at 10% above the rental appraisal, so it's not all bad.

One of my colleagues has a few commercial investment properties (along with a residential or 2). Like you say, the yield on them can be great. Additionally, the agreements typically put more on the tenants (like rates, maintenance etc). I did consider going this route, but I don't know enough about the commercial market, especially whether the capital gains are decent or not. My plan was for a 15-20yr investment (i.e. sell to top up my retirement savings). Yeah, for a straight up cash investment (particularly under 10yrs) an investment property is not the best bet. As mentioned above, we've done it for the long haul, plus no cash was required (although we did pay the deposit with savings, even though we didn't need to). With about 60% equity in our own home, we had the leverage, so we figured we'd make that work for us. A former colleague (and current CFO of another organisation) once put it this way. One can save $200,000 and invest it in funds, shares, etc... but the growth is still on $200,000. Or, one can invest in property where the bank will top up the investment to $1M, and the investor can benefit from the growth on that. Yes, the bank wants their pound of flesh (i.e. interest), but the gains are still worth it. Plus banks generally won't lend $800,000 against $200,000 to buy shares or invest in funds. (And when it comes to leveraging equity, the bank will give you the whole $1M, no deposit required). I'm no mathematician, but some rough figures: Again, this is the rough idea. It may not account for all expenses on the property side, but at the same time, it doesn't account for capital gains tax on the investment side (which currently doesn't apply to property, but I bet in 20yrs time there will be a CGT on investment properties). Anyway, the basic idea is there... make the bank's money work for you. Disclaimer: patches is NOT an registered financial adviser or authorised services provider, but just some fool doing Excel sums, and his sums probably need checking 😅

Decided to up my mobile setup with a new tool bag. I have a number of tool boxes and cabinets etc split into various disciplines (e.g. builders work, woodwork, bike mechanic etc), but the purpose of this one is a light, easy access "do most stuff" type kit. It's pretty convenient when handymanning over at the rental or helping friends out with odds and ends. Also stackable on many of my other tool boxes and dolly or dust extractor for wheeling around the place (the above is just an example stack, but even includes a table saw)

After many months in my Amazon shopping cart, I finally pulled the trigger on a little Wera Zyklop set. Whilst it overlaps largely with the Tool Check in function, I got it as more of an alternate option to a ratcheting screwdriver. Has 1/4" hex and 3/8" square drive. The 12x 1/4" bits are stored in the handle The head pivots and ratchets Great little piece of kit!

My wife grew up in Frenchs Forrest, haha! As for commuting though, if your step-daughter moves somewhere on the metro line... that's first prize! 🤩 The Sydney Metro is amazing! Currently 52km+ of new rail. Six new architecturally astounding stations, drastic reductions in commute times, a new harbour crossing... and all built in less time than Auckland has been stuffing around with the CRL 😐

In order to justify a recent splurchase (for which I am still in the dog-box 😐), I've been working on an outdoor play kitchen for the little one. A relaxing Sunday afternoon with the little Festool portable table saw, out on the back deck. Worked a treat (especially the sliding table) when it came to making the door panels for the outdoor play kitchen (still under construction as seen below).

You're right, suspiciously quiet here! Plus I was rude and missed Wayne's question about how a recent Melbourne trip was Riding... sadly no. My bikes are so dusty and lonely. I may even have forgotten how to ride a bike 😅 Most weekends are taken up with kids parties or house hunting (which is painful at the best of times, but extra tricky when dragging a toddler along, or trying to visit open homes around her nap times). A recent trip to Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula did have me considering a change of scenery. As much as I never feel "cool enough" for Melbourne, we had a great time in the city and noticed those extra features it has... ...it's still no South Island though, haha!

@Wayne Potgieter, great bumping into you at in the Koru lounge!

Just finished watching Landman. Really enjoyed it and very binge-worthy!

Also enjoyed Dark Matter. Just the right amount of "thinky" for me. Enough to have questions, but not leave one totally thinking "Wait What?!" like Tenet did 😅 Seen some clips and as a Taylor Sheridan fan, this is right up on my list as soon as I finish Silo (which should be on my commute home this afternoon, haha)

Dammit, backlog is growing. Finally watching Silo - Season 2 Finished the following recently-ish: Yellowstone - Season 5 (could have been better, could have been worse. It's done at least) The Day of the Jackal (really enjoyed this, although one of the main characters is a little annoying and unbelievable) Rivals (entertaining and amusing, but a bit overboard with the S&N. Story didn't need it) The Split: Barcelona - Mini Series/Offshoot (watching with the Mrs. Had watched the original series) Cunk on Britain (a re-watch, just because it's freaking hilarious. Had my Father-in-Law in stitches, my Mother-in-Law shaking her head 😅)

Ordered one of my wife's Christmas prezzies from Amazon and needed to add a few bucks to qualify for free shipping so got myself one of the FastCap Flatback tape measures (right) to make things the little bit easier when trying to accurately mark workpieces. Also useful for measuring curved surfaces.

Yeah, T-handles are a life-saver when working on dirt bikes. The Motion Pro spinning ones are particularly nice, but not cheap. As for Torx, my bikes (both Huskies) mostly use the Hex (outer)-Torx (inner) combo bolts, which are very convenient, although I mostly found myself using the hex option, just out of habit.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about T25 rotor screws... show's how long it's been since I paid mu bikes any attention 😅 As for bit quality, I had an issue just this past weekend trying to drive in T30 Ramset concrete screws. The 2 provided bits were both munted after about half a dozen screws each. What's more, I wasn't even using an impact driver, just a high-torque cordless drill. As a side note, very impressed with the fact my little Milwaukee drill was able to drive these and other heavy duty screws. Sadly I don't have the latest version with "kick-back control", so I did need to watch out not to break my wrists.