panther wrote:Is there anyway of making money on buying a second house and renting ?
Can there be short term profits on 1-2 years and then selling ?
Stamp duty, Capital Gains Tax, Housing Loan, repairs etc seem substantial
Can a person lend the whole lot, rent and make money after expenses over 2 years ?
Panther, in short, not really.
I've owned investment properties since 1991. My first one I lost money big time but the two I've had since 1999/2000 have done ok. I had to sell one recently to finance reno's on the house I'm in but I'm going to be hit with a 30k capital gains. When you add up all the expenses, vacancy time, renovation costs etc, etc, you really don't make that much money.
If you were to find a place for $50k and rent it out and then sell it within a year at a profit, you'd be hit with capital gains till your eyes bleed. I think (and I'd suggest getting a proper quote from a financier) you get hit with 100% of the profit being taxable at your nominal tax rate. If you sold it after 1 year, 50% is taxable at your nominal tax rate.
So if you sold the property for $100k in the first year, $50k of that is subject to tax at your nominal tax rate.
If you sold it after the first year, only 50% of the $50k ($25k) is subject to tax at your nominal tax rate.
If you are going to buy an investment property you'd be better keeping it for 5 or so years. Again a financial planner would be the best help.
Hope that helps.
Up until this time last year I was advising people not to get into property because the share market has less overheads. I went and saw a financial planner mid last year and he said "we're not going to see a property boom like we have just had for another 20 years, so get out and get into cash, cos the banks need it and are willing to pay heaps for it". With the crash, that's not as apparent as we thought it would be but I did get 8% at ING before the crash came through.