One line of thought we have is to purchase a house from the DHA. Anyone had experience good or bad with a DHA investment. Their leases are quite long 10+ years. Do you lose your options of selling during this period or if you do, do you limit your market to other investors ? Any advice welcomed
You may have already made your decision regarding this topic however in my experience DHA properties are a good investment. What you do need to do is work out what you want to get from the property - are you buying with the idea of moving into the property after the lease is up or are you buying with the intention of investing and making money. Generally the DHA leases are long up to 12 years however if you look at their website or even on the open market via real estate agents there are some properties with not much more to go on the leases. Depends on what you want to do as discussed above. DHA do charge a high fee for looking after everything for you, however from my understanding they also provide a good return and have rental increases annually and maintenance of the property is good. When you have the leases that are 7, 9, and longer years, DHA undertake in those leases to repaint, inside and out, recarpet etc depending on the length of the lease at no extra cost to you. So, what everyone needs to do is work out what you want from your property purchase and then go from there. As far as resale, obviously if there is a long lease left then the purchaser must also be an invester for some period of time however I have never seen this as an issue for my clients who have sold DHA leased properties. Always ask the agent for complete details of the lease, rental, time left to go on lease and what is covered in that lease. Your conveyancer should also explain this to you, but to have this information upfront will assist you. Hope this helps.
