Biggest Regrets in the last 5 years?

Thought so. Maybe this will be our year. I've been saying that ever since 2012

 

Only one???

 

As in buying into the company listed on the ASX.

 

I'll join you in that regret.

 

For all those that replied, especially regrets regarding property, did it serve as a lesson going forward? If so, how?

In my case it kind of really "can't be really learnt" going forward as:

1) We were inexperienced in building or know what we really wanted out of a 40 square house. In the end, we were rushed to just "build something" and ended up with a not-so-great floorplan that didn't quite fit our needs. Ironic our old 2 bed plus study fit us better than our current setup.

2) Those missed opportunity costs can never quite come back to purchases ips. Point 1) then pretty much put us behind the curve as we purchased much later (2014 and then disastrously in early 17).

Ah well.

 

Not consulting with my accountant before putting my commercial property up for sale. Contract date was mid June, if I had have waited to sell for another couple of weeks and the contract date was in July, .would have saved me a lot of tax.

 

No regrets, just lessons learnt.

 

Buying bargains at what I thought was the bottom of the market only to see following buyers of similar properties shave even more off

 

But isn't just not being able to predict the market? 99% of us probably can't buy an any given bottom of a market or sell at the top of the market. Man I'd be happy had I been able to buy in a falling market knowing I didn't buy right at the bottom as I would have made significant savings anyway.

I had an uncle who was able to buy in Balwyn or North Balwyn at the time the GFC hit, real decent prices from memory like 700K or so for a 600-650m2 block at the time. He bet against this, said it would go lower or predicted a crash like down to the 500s, which I thought he was dreaming and 700k was low enough. This is almost as bad, ok not as buying at a peak...but same principle.

He sat on it, lost interest and eventually prices bounced back up again.

 

Yep, you got me! How did you know? lol

 

Depends on area. I bought house and land package in 2015, Construction finished mar 2016. Rented & Sold in Dec 2018 at 37% gross profit

 

Missing a golden opportunity to purchase a block I was made aware of in Claisebrook, Perth - distressed sale. Only 400sqm but had a repairable house on it. I took too long to think about it and it was gone. I knew I should have jumped but I didn't for some reason - block has nearly doubled in estimated value since the concrete plant got their marching orders.

 

2 purchases in high rises in south west Sydney... I could've purchased so much better. Sadly it was before I found this site

 

H&L package in Wodonga built 2014 and still not seen any CG. On the plus side the great cashflow has helped me build the portfolio from a serviceability perspective. Just the lost opportunity cost of having over $300k tied up there still niggles at me.

 

One of the mistakes or regrets some may have is based on where property has moved in the past 5 years & relates to loans and structuring these. In simple terms those who went hard on finance and maintaining a max LVR may now face less options that those who pursued debt reduction and restraint.

- High LVR and maintaining debt now may limit refinance optiosn or rates?
- IO v P&I and the cashflow issue with IO options ending.
- Lack of equity v's limited equity. Strategies to parlay more property mean portfolios may have a high value but net equity is low or even negative
- New servicing and other calcs have seriously reduced access to finance affecting refinance options. Some are bound to present lenders.

Not all loans can be refinanced now where it was generally assumed 5 years ago a 80% LVR was a easy start point.

Those who pushed cashflow into lower LVRs typically have more finance and refinance options now and can better weather the market. I have seen some of them use these softer market prices to buy new property at lower prices than 2-3 years ago. When they buy now they are taking on a higher LVR on the new buy but have cashflow +ve property also.

 

Not developing My Croydon property ....instead I sold DA, would have made an extra $300k profit if I did

Not buying more properties in USA in 2011 when AUD was at parity with USD and prices were rock bottom

 

We did IO 5 years ago to pay down debt during this period.

That's pretty much done now and while we have reverted to P&I the repayments are actually manageable (all things being equal).

So I don't feel like I'm in any better position to weather anything, personally - my extra money isn't going into savings, it continues to pay down non-deductible debt.

 

Thats a good point. Some people look at deductible interest like its good. Its still borrowed money. But if you can apply cash to reducing non-ded debt its a good strategy.

The other one is building a offset. Some people pay off their own home debt and then realise that as a rental its now got no loan interest.

 

Doing nothing would have been my biggest regret.