if that is your combined salary, very possible to reach your goal… i would suggest you first invest yourself in a few property investment books and have a read and understanding of some of the strategy, find and speak to family members, friends… etc who have succeeded in property investing and get some tips.

If I was in your shoe, I would be saving and putting away 30% of my salary after tax. I would be looking at the FHO savers account… i hear some pretty possitive things about it since they tweeked it abit… and i would plan to live at home for at least anohter 5 years just to build up enough equity in my PPOR before even considering an IP (so you at least have some money stash away for a rainy day).

remember to buy and try to "never" sell… unless the government remove the stamp duty…. haha

Why I think NG will not be abolished right away.

– House prices will drop, meaning less tax for government and councils
– Bank will not lend up money when the market is dropping, making it extra hard for finance
– Rent will rise and less property for rent
– Less disposible income for investors, means less spending and that would mean no mangers will hire staff if they can't do business = higher unemployment rate
– Builders / developers will not construct new houses, why should they? if they aren't making any money… Which will make the supply much worst off in the long run, especially with our insane population growth (whcih we must have to replace the baby boomers retiring)

 The only way the government can remove NG is to VERY SLOWLY phase it out, say over 15 – 20 years… NG is like an addiction, you can't go cold turkey after 20 years of habbit… hahaha!

Regards,
Zeable

bought a house in sep 09 for $475k (6 bedroom + 2 bathroom + 2 toilets) and an older house to ours just sold 2 months ago 4x house down from ours, same block size and ready for demolishing for town houses sold for $706k. contract was done up for 1 year settlement!!! no interest paid, while we watch our house grew in value!

had at least 67% increase in equity within 1 year…

Hi,
Since the age of 21, I've always wanted to own my own house because of all the talks from my family about how house prices used to be so cheap (around year 2003). Especially, how they spoke about prices almost doubling etc…

I was still studying at Tafe and in 2004 I'd finished my diploma and started working in the city for a measily 34k salary office job but I'd managed to save up approx $50k by start of 2007 (I was living at home). Bought my first home in Feb 2007 for $301k (got 6k gov grant) in Melbourne. I had help from my mum, who lent me $150k for 2 years. I got lucky because this was the start of a property boom!! 2 months later, a house one street down sold for $320k of smaller land, lesser quality, no opportunity to subdivide compare to ours. This was my first property.

I was dating my long time girlfriend and this spurred her to want to buy her own home also but her salary was only at 30k. In mid 2008 my partner bought her first property at $240k aged 21, doing 3x different part time jobs and studying at the same time. This was her first property.

In Sep 2009, we've managed to secure a property in the middle of a boom but with a bargain price of pre-boom price becoz the owners were elderly and had no insight into the market price. We were the only people to see the property and first to buy it before it was even advertised on the market. we got this house for $475k now valued at approx $700k (basing on sales around us).

Our total equity now stands at approx $460k if we were to sell all three properties. My partner's age 23 and I am now 27yo – we both look to achive financial freedom by age 40.

There was alot of luck, support and sacrifice (until this day we have not had a holiday overseas). We are now planning our first holiday to asia next year! Someone once told me that you need to risk money in order to gain money! That will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Hey,
I had a quote for $5000 for restumping my house, then I'd asked my tradie friend who works with restumping people and said it is a waste of money, "you could do it yourself for less than $500!". So I got down and dirty, crawled under my house…

he used one of those water ruler thing to check where the house is slanting (bubble needs to be in the center of the green field)… he then told me to dig pot holes about 1 metre deep, half a metre wide with a handheld shovel under the house beams(pretty much anywhere the house is sinking). Then we went to bunnings and bought the cement stumps @ $12 each and premix cement bags $10 per bag… first we fill the pot hole with about 3 inches deep in the premix cement, pour abit of water… wait 10mins… then pop the stump in and fill up with cement and water… wait 2 days.. and use a car jack to lift the beam and run up the house and check if it is even… then head back down and fill the gab between the beam and stump with cement sheet / timber pieces… repeat on all the spots…

it was easy and fun process… no need to fork out $5000 for this easy job!

you should look around at child care costs and get an idea if you intend for your wife to go back to work. Someone who worked in my place earns approx $35k and she said it almost break even with child care costs… so she lefted work to be a stay at home mum instead.

i think the best move right now is to put ur money into other investment like shares and pay of your PPOR first.

Hi Smart Investor,

The main question you want to ask yourself is, what can you afford? If you are financially fit to buy a house, then I would suggest buy a house, instead of a unit due to the reasons outlined by globaltraveller.

Especially, how you made your point, that you wanted to hold it was approx 10 years. Buying a house is definitely the choice u should take in my opinion.

Hi Wazzie,

We purchased a house from an elderly couple last year Sep 2009 and the settlement terms was suppose to be 90 days unconditional contract. After 60 days into the contract, the vendor requested through the RE agent if they can rent out their house from us and I thought it was strange, so I got the elderly couple's number from the whitepages, we contracted them direct and from here onwards, we became very good friends. Turns out the couple need time to look for a retirement village home, so we decided to extend the settlement for 9 more months… we thought, this was great! they save money from renting and we save interest because we didin't need to take out a loan yet. Things went pretty well for the past 8 months! Sadly enough, the wife past away recently  and now settlement is next month but the husband was kind enough to offer us the keys to the house prior settlement date because he had cleared most of their stuff, which means we can start do some work on the house now, if we wanted to.

This is a very unsual case for us but maybe you should consult the vendor direct first and see if you two can negotiate something out of the book like us… Hope all works well with you.

Hi vinaysalia,

You can just rock up and bid but I would suggest u take a walk with the agent through the house first. Just remember to not get too emotional and have a limit on what is your maximum u are willing to pay before the auction and prepare to walk away.

David