We have a couple of Western Australian suburbs in our top 100 list, but nothing in WA that currently ranks in our top 5. Having said that, our lists mainly cover metro and near metro areas. 

mbsuper,

Firstly, if you buy an investment property first you won't loose the first home buyer's grant, you just won't be able to claim it for this purchase. You still qualify for it on you home purchase when you are ready to go a head with that purchase.

$100,000 is a good amount to get started with, a $430,000 investment property purchased with todays interest rates will be positively geared by a few $1000 per year. 

To answer your main question: Buying an Investment Property 1st & your own home 2nd OR your own home 1st & Investment Property 2nd ?

The answer is over a $1,000,000 difference to your wealth over the first 10 years of property ownership. 

Renting where you want to live and investing where the market is moving can give you the best of both worlds. The market calls them professional renters for a good reason. We have watched clients doing it the right way time and time again, so we see the results of making the right choice. 

We have a client CJ: 28yo, self employed, single female, earning less than $90,000p.a. living in a rented harbor side apartment (that would be worth $900k+) and pays $350 per week for her share. Living the good life and while saving a bit too. She made her first investment 5 years ago, then another one 3 years ago. Both were positively geared and being positively geared has meant she has been free to continue her savings plan. Over the last 6 months CJ has bought another 2 investment properties with us. One is an 2 bedroom apartment and the other is a 4 bedroom house. That brings her number of properties to 4, 3 houses and 1 apartment. After Christmas CJ told us she going to revalue them in June/July and look to buy again later in the year. 

Her main advantage is all her properties are positively geared. She plans to buy 2-3 more investment properties before she buys a own home.

CJ will be able to retire at 45 on over $2000p.w. investment income. 

If you delay buying your own home and invest first, your ability to continue buying (serviceability) is going to let you grow your wealth much, much faster. Once you take the luxury of moving into your own home (PPoR), you holt your ability to save and it often takes 5-10 years before there is enough spare money to start saving for that next property. The outcomes are as different as black and white OR you could say; well over a $1,000,000 in wealth.

You will get there if you start with a simple strategy and work towards a clear goal, as this quote sums up:

“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.”― Alvin Toffler

I spend 50% of my week, working with propective clients to help them get their strategy right. When they have their strategy in place, they tell me that they find investing less confusing, just as Alvin Toffler's quote puts it.

The debt to the EBT wont stop you from getting sued, whether the creditor finds the $200k or not, are you going to be happy being bankrupted? You should look at your insurance options as part of your risk strategy. 

Some how I don't think you are going to find a pot of gold with all of those gems mined and presented in a list for your easy use. Collecting all of those is what takes up a lot of our research time. We subscribe to a lot of the data suppliers, even then we have to scrape data off the web to get everything we need to select the hot areas for client to invest in. 

He will know or find out for you. Call Dave on 0425 559 648

https://www.propertyinvesting.com/user/dave-ward

I like xdrew's take on this.

At Stepping Stone we look at old verse new all the time. I have got to say; there are a lot of property investors out there running around just making bad wages doing Reno's.

I know I was one of them all the way through the 1990's and early 2000's. With a dozen Tradies working on 3-4 houses at a time. Don't get me wrong, you can make a small killing doing a Reno and turn around and loose that small killing on the next one.

In late 2007 right at the start of GFC, I lost $690,000 on one Reno project, just because I got the market timing wrong. That was after doing Reno's full time for 10 years. 

Buyers of old property can get caught fooling themselves into thinking that because an old suburb has done well in the past, it will do well in the future. New stock offers some of the best growth and yield potential there is going. Add to that the tax advantages and you can be a mile ahead for 10% of the stress.

The down side of Reno's are:

1. You don't know what you don't know. There are always surprises and most of them cost money to fix.
2. You loose income while the property is off the market. That's money you can never get back.
3. You have to fund the Reno work with cash most of the time. So that's money not earning while it is waiting to be spent.
4. While you are doing the Reno work you are not making an income that the bank thinks is worth lending against.
5. While you are shopping for all those bits and bobs you are not being an investor. Think "Home Handyman/woman"
6. Investors who Reno tend to trade their properties more often. The costs of buying and selling over and over again rips a heap of profit out of your portfolio and has a huge negative effect over the life of the investor. 
7. Most Reno's only make real profits in a raising market, so the actual Reno is subsidised by the market.

When you buy an Investment Property, your ability to keep saving for your next property is not reduced, however when you buy a PPoR your costs go up and your savings go down for a quite a few years. 

To grow a portfolio you need to continue with your savings while your investment property's equity is growing. If you have bought well, your investment property equity will be growing a lot faster then you can possibly save. Once your portfolio gets to 4 or 5 properties, you can then turn your attention to buying a home for yourself. 

My mother, who was a great property investor told me " it took me 10 years to make my 1st million dollars, but only 3 years to make the 2nd million". She bought her first investment property age 50yo and went on to buy 20 more over the next 15 years. 

HI Fay,

Well done on saving your deposit. Your credit issues are properly handleable without handing over your life savings. 

If you delay buying your PPoR and invest first, your ability to continue buying (serviceability) is going to let you grow your wealth much faster. Once you take the luxury of moving into your own home, you holt your ability to save and it often takes 5-10 years before there is enough money spare to buy that next property. The outcomes are as different as black and white. On your income and with your savings you could do very well in as little as 4-5 years. I think you just need a plan and to set the wheels in motion.

Glad to be back, I hope you all have a great year.

The first 3 weeks have been busier then the first two months of last year. 

Jamie, 

Profits or middle men, if you are buying at the right new price, the property should only be 3-4% MORE expensive then the average old would be. That's not much extra for peace of mind, ease of maintenance, reduced stamp duty, depreciation and rent-a-blity. Exchanged, settled, built and rented in less than 30 weeks.

With a 4 bd house build cost to the investor at below $880 per square metre NET (4 Bedroom, 2 Bath, 2 Car, 212M2 in Queensland) it all stacks up.