Today I talked with a couple who are planning to buy a rental property. As I always do, I asked them what their expectations are from the property they buy. These folk have already done some preliminary investigation into finance, tax implications and more, so while there’s more to do in those areas, they’ve made a good beginning.
They are well aware that buying a house is a large transaction that will have major consequences – good or bad – depending on how it’s handled at the beginning. As an agent, I can certainly source good potential investment properties to buy and advise them as to one property versus another, and the general market value of the properties we inspect. I can also coordinate and oversee on their behalf, all the property-related inspections, conveyancing, finance etc., through to ensuring they have a good, viable tenant in place.
But – as always – there’s much more to buying the property than that. The purchase will change their financial position, their tax benefits and obligations, their estates and more. And for those aspects, I cannot give any advice. They will need to consult their accountant, a financial planner and perhaps also a tax adviser and an estate planner, to optimise the proposed investment’s value and benefit to them.
Of course, it’s better to consult these experts before plunging into the investment; accountants and other professionals dread getting a call from a client who begins by saying excitedly: “guess what we did!”
So hopefully my potential new clients have gained some useful information, and left with a short list of “homework” to do before we catch up again. When we meet, they will be much better informed and probably therefore much more confident about their course of action in their quest to buy investment property.
I hope we’ll do business together, but even if we don’t, they will have come out with a ‘win’ from our meeting today.
People are more important then property!
