Thanks Everyone for your feedback!
I’m definitely going to go down the IP track, I don’t think I’m ready to settle down to any specific location. I have an aunt & uncle who are longtime renters (renters by choice, they are very frugal and invest heavily, but do not believe in any debt (no credit cards, loans etc) so they choose not to tie up all of their wealth in their homes.) They have been renting at their current place for over a decade and are starting to talk about wanting to downsize to something smaller, I’m hoping to work out a tenancy agreement with them as I know they would take better care of the place then even I would.

I’ve re-worked my budget and lowered my saving goals to $51,600 by my birthday next year. ($9,000 in additional savings + $2,600 in interest.) And i’m going to keep living my life as frugally as possible, rather than squandering my other $5,000 in savings I’m going to budget $2,000 for a holiday and aim to build a $3,000 safety fund. (I picked up Jan Somers books and a few Rob Kiyosaki books at an op shop on the weekend for a dollar each, they recommend having one, $3,000 is easily 3 months living expenses (rent&fuel are my only big expenses) /enough for me to replace my car etc. So I think it will be enough

Edit: Jamie you asked while I’m waiting until I’m at the $50k mark, it is purely for comfort. I’m looking around the $300k mark for my first purchase and 50 paid down (maybe more depending on how I structure it for FHOG) seems like a reasonably safe level of leverage to me given the current market. Additionally to this my financier has told me I shouldn’t have any issues getting the loan today, but I don’t feel that I’m ready to purchase yet. I don’t want to rush into it, so I’m inspecting as many properties as possible in the price range I’m comfortable paying. If I see something I think is a great buy, I might try and snap it up, otherwise I want to inspect at least 50 similar places before I go into serious buy mode after my birthday.