How did you start out in property?

Interested to hear your story. What prompted you to enter the world of property? Did you make mistakes starting out; any near-misses? What were the highs and lows, best/worst decisions you made? How did you learn?

 

I'm a wog, buying properties was inherited.
First one at 19 because my dad told me it's time to start buying properties now.

 

im chinese........no more explanation needed

 

I tried to buy my first IP back in February 2015. I was looking at a mid-lease DHA property. Tried a low-ball offer on a property near Ipswich. The owner didn't want to negotiate. My offer was below what they had paid 7 years earlier. After getting more active on somersoft and going to some meetups I decided to look in the Moreton Bay Region. This was based on where colleagues of my broker were buying and also reports on somersoft that Margaret Lomas was suggesting the region as a good place to buy.

Quick way to learn is to go to some Property Chat meetups. I also went to a Michael Yardney seminar but kept my wallet closed.

Now I have two IPs in the Moreton Bay region. Proximity to the water and the rail-link going in was a factor in investing in the region. The low entry price point and the yields / cashflow were also a significant factor.

Google is your friend for research. Be inquisitive. Plenty of good information around such as local and state government growth plans / reports.

 

Lots of mistakes and lessons learnt which is why I've started my blog so that other people can hopefully avoid making the same costly mistakes which I've done previously. I'll cover a couple of things which was not mentioned in my blog.

OK, so starting out...the most influential person was my dad. He retired at the age of late 30s so I knew he certainly has done something right. He had a business but what really got him over the line was property, so he has been pushing me to start investing as early as I can.

Having said that looking back I still procrastinated and only started when I was about 26...so first lesson, don't procrastinate! Invest as early as you can and as much as you're comfortable and can afford. i.e. if Sydney is too expensive now then look somewhere else - there's always money to be made elsewhere.

First unit in Granville NSW, OTP back in 2009 - paid way too much for OTP (due to rental guarantee) than suburb median. It pretty flat lined till the latest Sydney boom. So now I steer away with anything that says "Rental Guarantee" now, because guaranteed they add those "rent" back into the sales price.

One of my IP has a swimming pool and is giving me lots of headaches and adding extra unnecessary maintenance costs. It's great for the tenant but not so much for the landlord, so now I also avoid IPs with pool...to me not worth the little bit of extra rent for the headaches you get.

I've trusted a PM before and blindly took on the tradie she recommended (the big discussion thread is still in this forum). After all the discussion/negotiation on the scope of work, turns out he's a dud and ended up taking my deposit and disappeared. No work was done and no way to track him down. A couple of other forumites had even more severe damage than mine...some costed them up to 20K. I only lost about 4K so considered myself lucky. Moral of the story - make sure you take the necessary steps to verify tradie's license/accreditation before signing any paperwork.

Just a couple to illustrate my point I guess. Each time it's a pay exercise to learn the lesson the hard way...I don't think there are any other way really. But don't be afraid of making mistakes as I'm sure it's well worth it, especially looking back at what you have accomplished to-date

 

I bought a vacant block of land on the outskirts of Perth where I grew up.

First lesson: make all the dumb mistakes early.

 

Started at 24 years of age. The goal was to have a family home Didn't have one and 40k wouldn't take us too far. That was the key driver..

Near misses - thankfully we did not buy 2 x OTP properties - thanks to all the great advice on what was Somersoft forums in 2009. It would have set us back 10+ years. Just looked up recently - one of the properties we considered grew 37% in the same (and greater) timeframe versus the established properties in the portfolio which grew 70% to 90%!

Best decisions:

• Start young
• Go hard buying in Sydney early - even though equity was a challenge early on
• Buying 2 x properties on secured credit cards
• Not listening to the media that Sydney had peaked in 2013 and continuing buying in Sydney before moving the purchasing interstate

Lessons:

• Don't fix rates - hinders re-finance where required to extract equity
  
• Make sure you set your goals plan your portfolio up front. Can be costly if not correctly set out from day dot

 

Buying a PPOR and the broker said, ever heard of a low doc..........i miss those days.

 

I got sick and realised I am not immortal, Once I realised that I knew I needed to retire early. I'm in my early forties so didn't want the risk profile of some other investment options (hah options, you see what I did there, investments, options??)

Looking to get IP2 in the coming months

 

I started working in financial sevices ad sales in 2008 and got told by clients to either invest in shares or property once the GFC passes. Signed the paperwork that Christmas on a unit.

Worst booboo is allowing crosslinking of a couple of my IPs with the single bank. Lose one, gotta lose em all *Pokemon jingle*

The current issue of Your Investment Property mag has a little feature on it for those interested.

 

HI Dan how are you planning to retire early from two investment properties, starting in your 40s? Cheers

 

Tell me about it! I was a low income earner when I bought my first PPoR. As I started earning more I would make an appointment with my lender, sit down and say "I need more debt". His response: what are you buying and hoe much do you need? All low doc of course. I miss those days too.

 

Yeah, I'm a wog too, and bought my first property at 19

Unfortunately, I made some pretty bad decisions back then and lost the property (well actually 2).

Anyway, recovered from all that and now at 45yo have 6 properties with PPOR paid off.

 

I started late at 29 years of age. I was lucky enough to have a huge help from my parents, didn't have to save for a deposit. Bought our PPOR with my partner back in 2011, since then I read Seven Steps to Wealth book and few of Michael Yardney books and was really smitten by how compound growth works. Also attended a couple of seminars...
Then 2 years later our 1st IP and late 2015 2nd IP.

One of the best decision I have ever made when I bought the PPOR.

 

Brought at 18yrs old because no one had brought property before
Parents had rented all their lives
Dad said don't buy ...everyone else in the family said don't buy ....along with don't leave home at 18 along with don't buy a motor bike ....
Rebelled against everything lol

 

Lucky your parents advice was so terrible.
If you rebelled against good advice think where you would be today.

 

Purchase 1 per year then after the next Sydney boom cycle, sell down enough to pay out remaining mortgages. Enjoy passive income.

Currently we pay way more than we need on debt which leaves $1,500 a month from my pay, without debts to repay, this is all we need per month, not my whole salary.

With the amount of extra we pay on debt we could have 2 untenanted places at any 1 time and not eat into the buffet. By doing this we have become used to only having a small amount from my pay each month.

I don't need to be a rich man, just a comfortable man

 

Stupid autocorrect, that should be buffer

 

I'm Australian ........ no more explanation needed.

I bought my first property so long ago I can't remember how or why .

All I can remember:- I was single and under the age of 25.

"Forced" both of my kids to do that same thing - buy their first property while they were single and under the age of 25 .

 

My first full time job, several of my colleagues were mid to late 50s that were stressed that they would be working for the rest of their lives trying to pay down a mortgage and other debt. They were also concerned that they might not qualify for a pension and had minimal super. I've always envisioned myself travelling the world in my 50s. So seeing the opposite was a huge wake up call.

I decided I didn't want to sit back and let things happen to me. I wanted to take control and happen to things.