Good to see young people having a go. My story is not greatly exceptional as it has taken me quite a few years but here goes.
I started investing around 30 years ago in the early 70’s.
Finance was extremely hard to get in those days and a friendly bank manager was a necessity to get any sort of bank money. Unlike my peers at the time I saved my money and soon was able to purchase my first PPOR, a unit in Kogarah for around 20K, I think. I managed to save enough to buy another one brand new in 1978 for 37K. I’d never do that these days unless I could get a good deal on it. This one had water views over the bay and as luck would have it we had a property boom similar to the one we just had.
This more than doubled the value of my places and I leveraged into some apartments and houses in the Sutherland shire. I think I paid 65K for the houses. Not great houses but in good locations. We then had a property slump for a few years, 83 on and you could pick up properties cheap again. I then started to buy run down houses in and around the Eastwood, Carlingford area.
I was still only in my 30s so did a lot of the work myself to renovate them. Then a big problem happened, high interest rates hit in the late 80’s. I had to drop a couple of places to stay above water. Real estate didn’t do too much for a number of years and if I remember rightly around 1994-5 it reached its nadir. I started to buy up in Noosa at this time. There were for sale signs everywhere and it was easy to knock 30 to 40% off the asking price. Noosa Waters land was sub 200k and average 3 bedders could be bought for 130k. Higher end places were 200 to 300k. It took a few years but another boom happened and the rest is history. In the 30 years I have been in the game it has been ever thus…boom, bust or stagnation then boom again and the cycle repeats.
My equity in property is about 15 million I think at the present.
Looking back it is interesting to look at what happened to my peers from school. At a recent reunion I discovered the Dux of my year rented his whole life and had plenty of “if only stories†to tell. That new Torana he bought on HP back in 1974 didn’t make him too much money. This is one reason why most end up on the pension. They have to have it all now. I still drive just an ordinary Toyota but I must admit cars never really did anything for me. I’m only in my early 50s and retired from my job in 1998.
The things I’ve learned along the way is make sure you have good asset protection. Once you are wealthy someone will want to take it off you. Make sure you have an exit strategy if things go pear shaped, ie high rates, falling asset values. But above all do something. These forums are full of people who will never do anything. Successful people do what the majority are not prepared to do. It is far easier to become wealthy in this country today than at any other time in my opinion.
