OzForex

 

Sending money overseas can be expensive if you are using the major banks or money exchange companies like Travelex. Thankfully, Streamline Investing have partnered with currency specialist OzForex, Now you can transfer money overseas faster, with minimal to no fees and at a great rate. Their fee is only AUD15.00 for transactions of under AUD10,000, free for above AUD10,000 and their exchange rates are much better than banks and other providers. Best of all you can do it anytime you like online or by phone as they are open 24-hours a day, every business day!

By using OzForex you will enjoy:

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To speak to one of their accredited dealers about your foreign exchange requirements call 1300 300 424 in Australia (0845 686 1950 in the UK; 1800 680 0750 in Canada or 0800 161 868 in NZ) or register online. Registering with them is FREE and you can view their live dealing rates immediately.

By subscribing via the link below, you will receive your first two transactions fee FREE: OzForex Registration   

Difficulties with Time Difference

Obviously one of the biggest issues with investing in US Property is the fact that you are on the other side of the world, so ultimately, the power of control is taken out of your hands. At the end of the day, being so far away really forces you to be hands off with your investment. This means your total investment is in the hands of your property managers over there, one of the reasons why it is so important to have a solid team working for you in the US.

One of the biggest issues which I did not realise would become so relevant, was simply the time difference. In the internet age, it is so much easier to communicate with the other side of the world, allowing you to invest your money wherever you want. However there is one problem with communicating with people in the US. When I am awake and ready to communicate, they are asleep, and vice versa. 

The last week of so I have been in constant touch with our insurance broker, every day I have been firing off emails to her. But by the time I wake up and send it, she has gone home from the day, and when she sends her emails to us, I am already fast asleep. Looking at a typical work day in Florida (where our investment property is), 9.00am - 5.00pm, that converts to 11.00pm - 7.00am Sydney time. It has made it very difficult as I am not typically available between 11.00pm and 7.00am, so our email conversations typically consist of just one email each day. Meaning a decent exchange of emails can take up to a week just to get through. The timezone difference just makes everything so much slower than it would if you were investing in Australia, where you could quite easily just talk on the phone with much more appealing time zones.

We are lucky our property agent is more dedicated than a typical 9am - 5pm worker, where she seems to be able to be contacted almost any time of the day, and quite often get a reply fairly quickly. Without this dedication to her job, I can't imagine how much more difficult it would have made the whole process.

I know it may not sound like a big thing, but it has definitely added to the difficulties with investing over in the US. It is something that needs to be taken into consideration, possibly investing on the Western coast of the US might make things a bit easier

Is it worth spending the money?

With our first property in the US. We had to carry out some small renovations to get it up to scratch in order to find a good tenants. Most of the renovations were only small, such as painting walls, repair some minor damage and clean up the property as it had been left vacant for a few months.

On the quote from the contractor was replacing the carpet with tiles. There is obviously a benefit with tiles compared to carpet with regards for an investment property, as tiles are typically more lasting and can be cleaned a lot easier. The existing carpet was slightly worn and had a few stains, but overall it was not in too bad a condition. The quote to replace with tiles was $2,900, we opted not to spend the extra money and just hired a good carpet cleaner for $200 to give all the carpet a thorough clean.

After the carpet cleaner did their work, the carpet was a lot cleaner, but there was still an issue of smell, aparently the old owner had animals, and the smell of dog was almost ingrown into the carpet. Having not being able to visit the property we only heard the issue from our agent, and we were told that although it was not great, it should not stop us getting a tenant.

When we started looking for a tenant, we received a positive response on the property generally, apart from the smell of the carpet. That was the deal breaker with the first few groups who were looking at the property. Due to this, we had to reduce our advertised rent from $800 per month to $700 per month. There was also the delay of approximately 1 month due to the vacant property which we had to deal with. I cannot say for certain that the property would have rented right away for $800 per month if we did replace the carpet with tiles, but I am confident that this would have been the case.

So if we did initially spend the money to replace the carpet, then we would have made back our money in a couple years. Not to mention, replacing the tiles would have also added value to the property, so any money spent on renovations for the property would have been instantly rewarded in a capital gain.

So although we still receive a decent return, it seems it may have been worthwhile replacing the carpet with tiles while we were renovating the property. I guess it is just important to know if improvements you plan on doing to the property, will really be worth it in the long term. Down the line we may plan on approaching our tenant about replacing the carpet with tiles, and perhaps negotiating a higher rent from them, so all may not be lost.

If you want more information from our experience, or any other comments. Feel free to email us at streamlineinvesting@gmail.com

Disclosure: The article is not to be taken as investment advice and the views expressed are opinions only.  Readers should seek advice from someone who claims to be qualified before considering allocating capital in any investment.

Huntdale Street - Lehigh Acres PHOTOS

Our property on Huntdale Street in Lehigh Acres, Florida was our first property. 

Click here for a map to the location - LINK

See below for some photos of the property so you can get an idea of what $44,000 can buy you in this area. 

We had to spend approximately $4,000 on renovations to get it up to rentable condition. Not much was required however, just some general cleaning, a new door was required for one room and painting of most of the rooms was needed. Please see below for some photos after the renovations were complete.

First US House Expectations

There is no point investing without a plan. If you simply choose to invest and do not have a goal, then most likely you will not succeed. Of course you may get lucky, but investing and just hoping to get lucky, is not really a strategy. Definitely not a successful one. 

That being said, with our US property investing, we were not 100% sure how well it would work, our plan was to purchase one property, if it worked out well, then we could continue this and keep purchasing more and build our portfolio in the US. If we found that the US did not work well for us, then we could cut our losses and get onto a different investment strategy.

Because we were only hoping to invest $50,000 for our first US property, it would not break the bank if we failed, whereas if we invested in Australia, we would still have a significant mortgage lying over our heads. This is why we felt that investing in the US, although it may seem a lot riskier, we actually think due to the lesser investment amount, it is almost a safer bet than investing in Australian property.

Below I have outlined what we initially predicted our investment to be like in the US, we were hoping to be conservative so that there was more chance of us surpassing our expectations, rather than not meeting them.

Initial Information

House Price + Renovations = $50,000

Monthly Rent = $750

Gross Yield = 16.8% (not the highest that we have seen in the US, but we were comfortable with this amount)

Deductions

Property Tax = $1,000

Maintenance = $800

Insurance = $850 per annum

Vacanct Rate = 5% (750 x 12 x 0.95 = $8,550)

Property Management Fees = 10% of gross rent  ($8,550 x 0.1 = $855)

Tax = 30% ($8,550 x 0.3 = $2,565)

Net Return

This gives our net return of $8,550 - $855 - $1,000 - $800 - $850 - $2,565 = $2,480

Net Yield = 4.96% 

The return does not look that impressive and it seems like you could invest in a high interest term deposit and receive a similar return, however it is important to look at the capital gains aspect of it. If the property value increases by 5%, then the net return will go up to almost $5,000 or near a 10% yield return.

Now that we have our first property, I will be keeping track of all expenses for the property and can see if our initial assumptions were accurate. Hopefully by learning more information we can refine our assumptions for future investments and be able to make more accurate information.

If you would like more information about our US Investments or anything, please send us an email at streamlineinvesting@gmail.com

Disclosure: The article is not to be taken as investment advice and the views expressed are opinions only.  Readers should seek advice from someone who claims to be qualified before considering allocating capital in any investment.