Comments on: Feelin’ blue about blogging

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 02:40:01 +0000

Pete, I can’t help feeling cynical about Rudd’s statement that he’s going to fix the problem. A case of say nice things and maybe people will vote for you…

Our landlord needs to move back into our place for practical reasons - I don’t bear her any grudge at all - her reasons are understandable, and she’s been decent and given us fair warning of her intentions. I just wish I didn’t feel so up in the air and uncertain.

We also used up our “nest egg” when we had our little girl. It’s an expensive business, having a child! But better for me to spend as much time as I can with her than to be financially well off and never see her at all…

By: pete m

pete m — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:52:19 +0000

Kevin likes to identify the issue - it reads like a grocery list of polling people for their concerns.

Still waiting for a policy on most of these things. It seems he just has to announce his concern for it and everyone thanks he is wonderful. When he runs the joint, we’ll see how much his words translate on the ground. He has bad timing though - we are about to come out of a sustained period of growth and things will start going pear shaped. The usual 7 year cycle made it to 14, but these things do turn and we’ll all be bit!

As a landlord twice selling myself, and my wife selling as well, it was an extremely hard move. We’d much rather have kept the properties, but starting our own family and my wife not working required us to sacrifice our investments for raising our child ourselves, and not in child care. Even then we’d have had to sell some property. It sucked turfing out a great tenant and letting go of what we thought was part of a retirement nest egg. Now to build another one!

good luck on the move.

By: Umm Yasmin

Umm Yasmin — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:06:53 +0000

*Waving g’day from another part of the blogosphere*

Today we roamed around with my nicely collected list of rentals from the internet, and we only managed to look at one place (uggggghhhhhh real estate agents, I need a shower) and the rest were either not available to view (despite being ‘available’ on the net) or already let etc.

The only good thing about it, is you get to play ‘house’ and imagine how you will look in a new place.

Whereabouts are you looking? We’re in the south-eastern ‘burbs.

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 02:42:03 +0000

Marcellous….SNAP! Bouts of study, bouts of trying out different jobs, and too much time in banking litigation repossessing houses… Yes, we also have a small amount of savings/deposit, but again, it buffers me against income insecurity…

Oh well, I’ve found out I’m not alone!

By: marcellous

marcellous — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:47:50 +0000

Home ownership - what a depressing non-prospect.
I know how you feel because, owing to my many bouts of study and presently highly uncertain income prospects, I, too, still rent. And conditions are definitely tightening just now: I just got the second rental increase notice this year (6 months after the last). I will pay it, because moving would be much, much worse. I doubt if I would find anything cheaper or better to rent. I certainly couldn’t afford to buy anything of comparable size and distance from the city. Anything I could afford to buy would cost me at least twice as much on an ongoing basis, and deprive me of the buffer against variations in my income which my potential deposit presently serves as.
And then there is my own extreme risk-aversion born of too many trips up to the possession list…
Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!

By: LDU

LDU — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:28:49 +0000

If it makes you feel any better, i’ve never been out of WA. Really makes you feel left out when you know so many people who’ve been to real cities like Sydney and Melbourne.

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:42:32 +0000

Alas, too far for me, LDU - I want to be close to my family. Although Perthites tell me the weather is nicer there than in Melbourne.

If you can believe it, I’ve never been to Perth - my record with Australian travel is really quite hopeless, I must get around to visiting more places than Sydney one day.

By: LDU

LDU — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:59:29 +0000

Well, if you dare consider moving to Perth, my parents will have three houses up for sale in six months.

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:28:17 +0000

Thank you guys. I feel better about it all than I did this morning. I think I go in swings and roundabouts.

Dunno that I’d trust a house built by me. There’s a reason why I’m a lawyer…!

By: pmott

pmott — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:04:36 +0000

Part of the answer is ending tenure discrimination and improving tenancy rights. Security of tenure is a huge issue for tenants, alongside affordability. Making it harder to evict tenants & regulating the frequency and amount of rent increases should provide tenants and investors with greater certainty.