$1,000,000 in 4 years

I just got home & noticed the house a couple of doors up from us had an open home. I couln't help myself, so went to have a look. Hmmm, 3 bed, 2 bath, 1 living, new carpets in bedrooms, painted 2 years ago, original kitchen & bathrooms. Mid 90's home, not on water.

The asking price was more than we paid 4 years ago. Ours is same age ON water. 4 bed, 2 bath, 2 living. Currenly under reno, with hubby lifting up the tiles for new kitchen & flooring. I had a good discussion with the agent, and he said once the reno is complete, it would probably be worth around $1m more than we paid for it.

Was our home a savvy buy, by an experienced investor who knew the area well and bought undervalue? No! It was settling on something because we got sick of looking and travelling every weekend.

So, for new players holding out for the perfect property, or not wanting to buy something because it's too expensive, let this be a little lesson. Just buy something, anything. Buy what you can afford, where you can afford, because for the most part, property won't be going down in price. Buying a PPOR is like a forced way of saving (seriously, you are NOT going to save $1m in four years, are you). You're not paying rent, and all the money you spend is going into an asset that you own. You can always move later, and use the current property as a stepping stone.

Now, of course, timing is everything, so while this property has done very well in four years does not mean that all properties will have done as well in such a time period, but the point is, that I wasn't trying to time the market with this purchase, just to secure a place to live in, and the cg fairy just came along with a twitch of her wand and delivered a very nice little surprise. But whether it takes four years or fourteen, it doesn't matter. At some stage the gain will come.

 

… and you purchased when market started rising.. fantastic

timing is everything

 

Well, no! The market was quite heated at the time, hence why I said that I thought that we'd paid too much. I usually prefer to buy when the market is dead and capture all the growth. I'm not complaining though.

 

Well done regardless

 

I enjoyed reading that and well done to you.

You changed your circumstances by taking some action.

 

Luck

Spoiler: Definition

Labouring Under Correct Knowledge

 

How much are you spending on reno?

 

Not much! Doing much of it ourselves. The right question is what are you doing with the reno? Paint, carpet in beds, remove tiles & put floorboards, move a couple of walls, kitchen. The bedrooms were done about a year ago. Now it's the kitchen, but it's a big job because the floors have to be done as well. When that's done we'll probably wait for a while before we tackle the bathrooms.

 

Wow! Excellent!

 

I have similar experience bought something late 2022 when it was considered the peak of the market. My partner keep nagging telling me I made a stupid decision for us. Recently there were few homes for sale in our pocket and sold for more than 600K than we paid for. We are doing reno currenlty so might looking to sit on equity 800k in the next two years after reno is finished. My lessons from this was similar to yours but also adding on one more thing : ignore partner's noise and negativity sometimes hahah and just go ahead do it...

 

awesome story!! great to read!

 

Bit of a werid question but what age range are you and your partner.

 

Hope this is the case for us, recently bought a 1970s property and we are 60k in for renos completing soon most labour done by us and family in trade, making it better than the turnkey properties we couldnt afford. Made sure it was near the station, schools, close to family and closest to cbd we could afford. How I saw it is, if the worst comes we wouldn't ever need to sell and it could be our forever home. But if there's increased equity in the next few years it would open up lots more opportunities to invest with, upgrade or use it to live a little. And there is already a neverending list of home improvements accumulating haha. The only worry I have now is a huge recession where both of us lose our jobs but since we are young and luckily still have family support hopefully we would get through that.

 

What was starting price? Up 1m from what?

 

Melbourne then now?

 

Early 60's.

 

I know nothing about Melbourne.

 

Similar price range of the previous PPOR in St Clair, which hasn't moved much since we bought. Still have the St Clair property.

 

Well it's kind of 'dead' as per your criteria.
But has not come off any recent boom.