Learning from other people’s mistakes
Do you really know what your home is worth? Are you relying on its likely sale price to fund the purchase of your next home? It turns out even the biggest stars’ gambles don’t always pay off. As shown in this ABC article a case in point is the recent successful suing of actress Toni Collette and her husband who pulled out of the purchase of a $6.35m Sydney property stating they didn’t have the money when their current home didn’t achieve the dollar figure she and her husband thought it would. Read More.
The value of homes around the country may have been trending lower over the past few months, but they are selling a lot faster, according to recent figures from property valuer RP Data.
RP Data-Rismark's Home Value Index for May 2013 shows that auction clearance rates, vendor discounting, time on market and transaction volumes are performing well...
Read more
How many homes have you lived in? Some of us move every few years, while others spend their whole lives in the same house, as did generations of their family before them.
Few would call several places home at the same time, but when he died in 1963, US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is thought to have had at least seven that he used regularly, including The White House.
To celebrate what would have been JFK’s 96th birthday in May this year, real estate blog Curbed has listed 27 homes that he lived in during his short life span of 46 years.
Image: jfklibrary.org
House prices continue to rise around the country, despite a slight drop in the March quarter, according to a new report released this week by the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA).
Read more
New research indicates that 75 per cent of Australian homeowners have done renovation work on their homes, but one in five of those DIY projects ended in a costly disaster, at an estimated national cost of $380 million.
We look at what you can do to ensure your next DIY renovation is a success...
Read more
Demand for home loans surged in May, from first home buyers to investors and borrowers looking to refinance, mortgage broker AFG announced this week.
There was also a larger share of upgraders, who formed 15.9 per cent of all mortgage sales last month compared to 11.3 per cent in May 2012.
Read more
As a warning to others who might think they can fell trees to improve a view, a homeowner in the United Kingdom has been fined more than AU$200,000.
The homeowner had built a backyard spa for his bride and wanted her to be able to see the harbour when sitting in it, so he organised to have a protected tree removed while on his honeymoon, the UK Daily Mail reported this week.
It certainly improved the value of his property (by around AU$100,000), but the judge ordered him to hand over that amount as part of the record fine.
Image: bnps.co.uk