Hello from the Blue Mountains!

Hi all,

I'm Brendon, I'm 25, married to a beautiful woman and I've known I've wanted to be a property investor since I was 10. (Before that I wanted to be an 'entrepreneur', go figure.)

Here is my story so far,
Purchased a 2BR townhouse in the Penrith region in 2011 with the FHBG and some of my own cash. I gave this home a quick renovation, and 11 months later, moved into it. (complying with the FHBG rules).
Timing was great (and lucky), and the home then grew in equity for us to purchase another 2 homes.

Mid-2014, bought a 3BR home in the penrith region - primarily as an investment but we would move into it if we decided we needed more space (i.e. once we start having kids).
A month ago - purchased a PPOR for us to live in in Wentworth falls in the blue mountains (my wife works at Katoomba), - A large 4BR fixer-upper (holes in every door, most walls, outdated pink bathroom and orange/brown kitchen), on a third of an acre. Have been working hard at it ever since.

As the Sydney market seems to be waning, and the fact that my wife and I are leveraged fairly high at this point (with both IPs being negatively geared), the initial townhouse is now on the market to free up some cashflow and to help fund the renos of our new PPOR.

We have been really lucky with the boom in Sydney prices of late, but I am now looking for the next step to mature and grow my portfolio. I believe that I now have enough accessible equity to start to mature my approach and plan.

I am currently interested in several avenues:
- purchasing a rundown block of units for positive cashflow, adding value through renovation/strata titling to create equity
- entry level property development
- entry level CIP
- Boom market surfing (i.e. search and identify rising markets and buy/sell to create capital)

I am a big fan of data and numbers, so none of the above scare me, but essentially I feel like I am now at a crossroads, - I am trying to put together a plan but haven't been able to do so yet. The ultimate goal is to invest full time, for a living. But how to get there, I'm not yet sure.

Looking forward to meeting you all and hearing your stories and how you have all done what you have. There are people on the Somersoft forums that seem to have achieved what I want to achieve, however as they are now closed up, I am hoping that the helpful members over there came across here.

 

Gday Brendan, good to hear your story.
That's pretty amazing, what were you thinking at 10 years old?

 

I was a big fan of Kiyosaki at that age, haha. I'm fairly sure I read all of his books (that were released at that time) between the ages of 10 and 13. I was a bit different from other kids.

 

Great intro! Welcome to the forum

Plenty of people here will be able to help you piece your plan together. If you haven't done it already, the easiest way is to figure out what your End Goal is and work your way back from there. Some quick reads here and here. Plus the obligatory Somersoft thread.

 

Thank you, and absolutely, I have done this a few times. But it's the how to get there that stumps me.
I'm not fussed with the number of properties I own, as long as I can achieve my goals.
I'm fairly comfortable with risk at this stage in my life, and I'm looking to be aggressive - but I need to have a plan to figure out what to be aggressive at!

Most of my researhh to date has found that there are a lot of articles on 'what the end goal looks like', and not many on 'how to sustainably grow your portfiolio quickly', haha

 

Haha, that is different. I was reading Mad magazine and comics at that age. Still consider it a great investment
It's good you are aware that you've been fortunate with the Sydney boom, when researching other areas be aware that property doesn't always go up.

 

Welcome and congrats on the great start of your investment journey.

Makes two of us.

And on that, I reckon it's worth working more closely with your broker and mapping things out based on your current position (get vals done on exiting IPs, confirm you can tap into it, then see where to go from there e.g. borrowing capacity for future moves). If you are comfortable with numbers you can get a pretty clear plan of attack in place.

Clarity is power.

 

Definitely try to to be "Boom Market Surfing" - your success in Sydney shows how well that works.

We have done the rundown block of flat a couple of years ago (Enogerra, Brisbane) but kept them.

I think it is a good approach that can work in a few different ways.

 

Well done @Tonibell , how many in the block?

 

@Azazel There was three - below is a link to the Somersoft thread on it.

We only have multiple occupancy places now - lets us have the land and the yield at the same time.

http://somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94336&highlight=Brisbane+North+Renovation

 

Looks like I've got some reading to do.

EDIT: I love the ending of that thread: