Property profile taken interstate

Ralph Nicholson is 53 and lives in Victoria, but four of his seven properties are outside that state. He has two in NSW and two in Queensland.

"I looked at my situation three years ago and I thought we may not have enough to survive comfortably," he says.

His interstate property investment plan is therefore his retirement plan.

After one misstep buying in a bushfire prone area that took a long time to eventually sell, Ralph took it upon himself to get better educated and do more thorough research. "As an investor you need confidence to buy in other markets, or else it's a real risk and you've got to mitigate those risks by doing your research," he says.

But he also values the local agent contacts he has found through his property investment adviser. "I don't think, even given the education, I would be confident buying in those areas unless I have those local contacts," he says.

He buys properties that have the potential to appeal to the greatest market, which means residential houses for families with four bedrooms or at least three. "I just try and buy garden-variety buildings, hopefully with enough land, because I place a fair degree of emphasis on land value."