Author Archives: Bill Hutchison

Government Puts Home Ownership Further Out of Reach

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The Federal Government has once again put home ownership further out of reach for the typical Australian owner / occupier.

In a move meant to increase the availability of affordable housing in Australia the government has provided tax incentives to investors to build 100,000 low-rent properties over the next 10-years. Investors will be able to claim a tax credit of $6000 a year for 10 years on new properties that are rented at 20% below the market rate. But who determines what the “market rate” is? A move like this also has the possibility to drive up the market rate to artificially high rental rates because of the availability of properties available at the “discount” rate.

Already the typical real estate investor in Australia has a huge advantage in terms of buying power over an owner / occupier. This comes partially from the increased borrowing ability that they have because of negative gearing and other tax breaks that investors get that are not available to an owner / occupier. Continue Reading →

7 Types of Window Blinds

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I posted an article a little while ago about 10 Advantages of Curtains over Blinds. It was written by someone else and had some good points about why curtains are a a better window covering than blinds. As we slowly get closer to finishing under the house we wanted to look at more options for our window furnishings.

Below is another article that I found, but this one covers information on different types of blinds. Upstairs we have all blinds, so we are probably lean towards getting blinds under the house. We’ll see though, as curtains would be nice in the master bedroom.

Here are the Seven Types of Window Blinds covered in the article:

  • Window Shades
  • Window Shutters
  • Sun Control Blinds
  • Wooden Blinds
  • Bamboo Sliders
  • Hunter Douglas Blinds
  • Vertical Blinds

Continue Reading →

Free Energy Saving Light Bulbs in Australia

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Right now you can get free energy saving light bulbs in Victoria and New South Wales. There is no maximum number of lightbulbs to replace, but you need to replace a minimum of three.

The energy saving light bulbs are available for free because the company that replaces the original light bulbs with energy saving light bulbs gets paid for the carbon emissions saved by installing the energy saving light bulbs.

You can apply for your free light bulbs at the following web-site:

The company that is providing the free light bulbs is approved as “Greenhouse Friendly” by the Australian government, so it looks legit. You need to book a visit from one of their “installers” to get the bulbs for free, but as long as all they are doing is installing the energy saving lightbulbs, then it hopefully won’t be too much hastle.

If you live in Sydney and don’t want to bother with the hastle of an installer then check out this offer, which can let you pickup five free energy saving lightbulbs. (Please note that as of 2011 this free offer is no longer valid.)

Source: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/3180

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Plan a Community Garage Sale

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When I wrote about our last garage sale here in Townsville I mentioned Community Garage Sales (also known as street garage sales).

In Calgary there used to be one weekend a year when the whole community would hold their garage sales. It worked really well as everyone knew that on this particular weekend you could head over to that suburb and find a lot of garage sales running.

The community garage sale has a lot of benefits over a regular garage sale:

  • Increased traffic to your garage sale
  • Cut down on advertising costs (share the cost with the community or street)
  • Get to know your neighbours
  • More fun than a standard garage sale

I’ve often thought that if we were to run another garage sale it would be nice if it were done as part of a community or street garage sale. Continue Reading →