The NSW Government First Home Owner Grant (FHOG) has provided a great incentive for many to build their new home. 

One of the well-known eligibility criteria for receiving the grant was that the owner must "occupy your first home as your principal place of residence within 12 months of the construction or purchase of your home and the minimum period of occupancy is six continuous months."

Many would-be property investors noted the six month criteria carefully, understanding that to be eligible for the First Home Owner Grant they needed to live in the property themselves for 6 months once it was built. Astute first-time investors saw a future opportunity to turn their new home into a rental property after their required six months of occupancy had finished. 

Now, some time on from the grant first being introduced, many owners who took advantage of the First Home Owner Grant are approaching the end of their six months and wondering what happens next. How do they turn the place they currently live in into a rental property?

As readers within and near the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area would know, the Hunter region went into COVID lockdown from 5pm Thursday 5th August. 

Following the media announcement from the Premier, we briefed our team and were all up and running working remotely and fully operational from 9:30am the next morning. 

During the lockdown period, our office is closed and our contact page is updated with the best means of contacting us whether for urgent maintenance, non-urgent maintenance, or general enquiries.

While some aspects of business are temporarily paused in the interests of public safety, our ability and commitment to the continued management of our landlords' valuable investments remains ongoing. 

If you'd like to talk to us about the management of your investment, we're still available to reach any time. 

Stay safe
- Natalie, Paul and the team 🏡

In light of the recent heightened COVID-19 case numbers throughout NSW, new temporary measures have been put in place to support both tenants and landlords who are financially impacted as a result of COVID-19. 

Specifically, these measures have been introduced to prevent financially impacted residential tenants from being evicted and to assist landlords who agree to renegotiate rent.

The latest information related to these residential tenancy support packages is found on the NSW Fair Trading website, while a summary is as follows. 

At some time or another, many investors will receive a letter from their real estate agency advising that they are selling their property management interests to another business. That is, that the rent roll (the rental properties they manage) and perhaps other assets including the business itself will be sold to another business who will carry on the relationship with you from there. 

If you've had a great relationship with your existing agency (we hope you've been so lucky!), this news can be quite concerning. In this post, we discuss what happens when a real estate agency sells their property management business and what to consider before signing a new managing agency agreement with any agency. 

In the current market we've seen an increase in the number of tenants wishing to end a tenancy before the end of a fixed term lease. This is often due to the tenants finalising purchase of a property to live in, a relationship breakdown, or some other change in circumstances. 

In this article we discuss the misconception many tenants have around break fees, and our response to tenant requests to have the break fee waived. 

In recent times we have seen an increase in online searches for information regarding whether a tenant is permitted to install security cameras in a rental property in NSW. 

For all the of "less than clear" areas of NSW rental legislation, this particular question has actually been specifically addressed, although there are a number of conditions and a little research is required to see where!

We were very pleased to have been contacted by the Australian Financial Review to provide insight into the current rental situation outside the capital cities, as shared in this article.