How To Save Your Home

by Neil Jenman The word 'mortgage' is French in origin. It means to make a pledge upon which your life depends - or, literally, an agreement until death. In today's debt heavy world a mortgage really has one of two meanings. Either you destroy (kill) it or it destroys (kills) you. Around one million Australians are now suffering the most talked-about 'material disease' of today - mortgage stress. The symptom of mortgage stress is a mortgage payment which is more than thirty per cent of your net income....(read more)

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[Source: Australian Real Estate Blog]

Preventing Estate Agents From Preparing Contracts

by Tim O'Dwyer M.A., LL.B Solicitor Consumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au After firing more than a few verbal bullets over recent months at Queenslands Attorney-General (and Fair Trading Minister) Kerry Shine in The Courier Mail and Gold Coast Bulletin newspapers, on ABC radio and here in the Australian Real Estate Blog, I finally got a response (of sorts). The critical issues, of course, had been the largely unregulated role of legally unqualified real estate agents in the preparation...(read more)

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[Source: Australian Real Estate Blog]

Just How Many Phantoms Are Out There?

by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd A comment on our recent posting about "phantom" property listings makes me wonder whether we may have only just scratched the surface of this problem. Just how many phantom properties are out there? The comment appears on our posting " Cameron Fisher - Something Very Fishy !", and is reproduced below. You should check out ICON properties they only have a hand full of genuine...(read more)

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[Source: Australian Real Estate Blog]