According to a report released by The Australian Institute, family homes valued over $2 million should not receive any CGT exemptions. Currently any principal home of residence receives a full CGT exemption, regardless of its value.
There has been an ongoing debate on the proposed changes to the National Construction Code. According to the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), the changes can threaten the Australian property sector’s international reputation. In Canberra, some of the biggest names in the industry have joined hands to fight the federal government’s plans.
Here’s a bit of great news for home owners who are renovating to sell. According to a report on Smart Property Investment, you can boost apartment value with a second bathroom, and by a significant amount at that.
If you’ve been doing some channel surfing lately, you’ll see that programs that deal with home improvement are becoming quite popular. Their popularity clearly shows how everyday Australians are becoming more interested in renovation. An article written by Cameron McEvoy for RealEstate.com.au talks about this love for renovation among Australians and more.
Having a home you can call your own is perhaps one of the best feelings in the world. However, there is one word in the world of real estate that somehow brings a euphoric home owner back to earth, and that word is equity. It is the one word that reminds home owners that they only own the value of what they have already paid for the house against its fair market value. That means for a home that has been appraised for, say, $200,000 with the owner still owing $125,000.00 on its mortgage, the equity is $75,000, and that is what the home owner actually owns of his/her home.
Of course, the natural way to increase your equity would be to pay off the mortgage, but unless you have lots of cash lying around that will help you pay for it immediately, that would take a really long time. There are ways that you can create instant equity to your property, and making renovations on your home is at the top of that list.
If you’re a home owner, there will eventually come a time when you have to get some renovation work done on it. While planning a renovation project can be a rather exciting thing, it can also get really stressful, particularly in the finance department. Managing your budget responsibly can get a bit tricky. If financially managing a renovation project becomes a bit of a problem for you, perhaps this article written by Tony Rigby for RealEstate.com.au can help.
A study commissioned by the NSW Government Fair Trading has confirmed that word of mouth is the best kind of marketing for tradespeople. The 2013 study, which looked into consumer behaviors when they hire a tradesperson, was conducted by independent research company Instinct and Reason. About 1,000 NSW home owners who had hired a tradie in the past 18 months from the start of the survey acted as respondents.
