PI.com Roll Call

Hi All
I’m Becky, 32 and have wanted to start investing in IP’s for years with my partner Gordon who is 35, no kids yet and one Cat (aka fluffy head:-) we signed up for the seminar and had a ball! We haven’t bought an IP yet but do have a PPOR with heaps of equity. It’s great to hear about all of you and what you do. We met a few of you from the forum when we went to the seminar but weren’t familiar with all the names until after the seminar. We live in Ferntree Gully, I am a secretary and Gordon owns his own computer shop. We can’t wait to get out of the rat race and join the 5% that can fund our own retirement and help others in the process. I have been watching this forum since Feb and can’t believe that I missed this discussion until now! I must say that this forum has some very supportive and generous people, keep up the good work everyone and hopefully we will see some of you at the Wrap seminar in mid July.

Bye for now
Becky

Invest in People for a Prosperous Future!

Hi everyone my name is David I am 33 yrs old and work as a Finance Manager for RE/MAX. I have been involved in the finance industry for many years but never really found out how it could work for me.

In 1994 my partner and I bought an IP in Coorparoo in Brissy. Got it cheap spent $7,000 fixing it up. Held it had some tenant problems I got cold feet and we decided to sell in 2000. HUGE mistake. We sold for $163,000 the same house sold last month for $300,000. I have been kicking myself ever since. So last year started buying investment properties mainly becuase my sister needed somewhere stable to live.

I now had far more knowledge about the property market and it was Rich Dad Poor Dad that started it for me. We now have 1 PPOR we owe very little on and four +CF ppties. We are now tossing up between buying a commerical ppty or a block of flats.

We have an amazing cat no kids. So if the Brisbane people get together we would love to be involved.

Davo70

Hi everyone,

I’m Melvin, just turned 31 and am a lawyer (no I don’t chase ambulances or litigate!).

Hey Minnie – I’m in Perth too. So you’re not the only sandgroper.

I found this forum by searching google, on one of my internet surfing expeditions to find property investment websites. I like forums, because they are populated by real people with real experiences.

Maximus – that’s an inspiring story. Keep on going mate. I hope that you will find more than enough happiness in the years to come to make up for the pain.

I spent most of my youth punting on the stockmarket, got lucky early and became cocky. Nearly lost my shirt in the tech crash, with enough debt to buy an IP but nothing to show for it. That’s when, with my tail between my legs, I decided that I needed a proper plan.

After years of reading, research, attending seminars, surfing the internet and just asking people, I came to the conclusion that IPs are one of the easiest and strongest foundations when you’re building financial independence.

So, after clawing my way back out of my self-dug financial hole (which took me the better part of 4 years), I finally bought my first property just over a year ago for an absolute bargain price, when the banks still didn’t want to know me. Thanks to a great mate of mine, who’s a mortgage broker, I got into a Liberty home loan which allowed me to borrow 110% of the purchase price – together with the FHOG, I only had to stump up about $1,000 (only thing was the high interest rate []). I lived in it while I renovated it, and the bank recently gave me a great valuation when I was refinancing, which has nearly got me out of the woods! Unfortunately, I made the big mistake of getting too attached to my apartment, and can’t make myself rent it out. It’s just the best apartment now, and I can even take the ferry to work in the mornings, which is a bonus!

I’ve been writing a book on the conveyancing/settlement process for WA, because I couldn’t find anything out there which catered for us out here in the West. It’s basically a condensation of my experiences, both at work and personally when buying my property. It was mainly for fun, and also to help me when I bought my next IP. But it’s starting to look pretty good, so hopefully, I’ll publish it soon, although I’m not sure exactly how and what to do. I sold a few on ebay a while ago, but that was hard work and slow going. I’d welcome any tips or comments, whether on what should go into the book, or how I should go about flogging it off.

Looking to buy my next IP now – hopefully soon. I had a 10 year retirement plan – it’s now reduced to 9 years, and I need to get moving!

I think everyone who posts on this site is great – people who actually care enough to share their experience, knowledge and even secrets in property investing. Unlike many other forums, I haven’t seen anything remotely resembling flaming! It’s a great community.

Cheers
M

Hello everyone,
I’m a newbie, found this forum about a month ago, have been checking in regularly since. I am so impressed with the strong sense of community and the warm and helpful folks that I’ve decided to join in. I hope to be able to contribute more as I get more experience and confidence in PI.

I live in Sydney with my lovely husband, Jono and my “never fails to amaze me” son, Liam, who just turned the big 3. I work in management and IT consulting (don’t your eyes just glaze over when you read that, it usually does when I am pressed to say what I do to earn my crust!!), but I’ve just become an official statistic (yep, been given the chop, made redundant, toes cut off, made an ex-parrot, etc). I’m not down about it though, just abit fearful (but also excited) about the future. I’ve decided to take a break from consulting and spend more time with my son, try my hands at doing some right brain stuff and learn and do more PIs.

The situation is that we live in our PPOR (mostly paid off), have a PI (but horrors, it’s under a company structure, trying to sort it out at the moment, any help will be appreciated) and will now live on 1 income in expensive Sydney (very scary). Plan to do more PIs so that we can retire and do more volunteer work.

Thank you to all for contributing and please keep it coming….

Hi there!

My name is Stephen, 33 and married to my lovely wife Linda. We have 3 children – Kathryn who is almost 4, Christopher who is almost 2 and Timothy who is 4 months. I am an IT professional, these days managing a Technical Support Centre that services Asia Pacific and Japan. My wife is a Research Scientist with a really flexible work environment which helps when raising the kids.

We live in Bridgeman Downs in the northern suburbs of Brisbane having recently moved from the next suburb of McDowall.

We had been researching property investment for about 2 years before we finally took the big step about 15 months ago. We now have our PPOR, 3 rental properties and a block of land on which to build number 4. Each of the properties are slightly cash flow positive after tax (except for the land of course) and are in high growth areas.

We have a 10 year plan of slowly building up our portfolio to the extent that we can give away our jobs and never look back. The biggest hurdle for us was going from no debt (had payed of our previous PPOR) to having significant debt (but good debt) and managing this carefully. It also takes us quite a while to locate suitable properties for our buy and hold strategy in the local area. We are beginning to look at the renovation side of property.

Neither of us had family that had done anything like this, so were constantly baraged with negative comments and doomsayers. Finding out that some of our friends had been doing it for years was enlightening and a wealth of additional information followed. We have also encouraged a number of our friends to do the same, which has been great.

Take care,
Stephen

[:0)]
Hi everyone,
Name is Jerry,29 years of age, currently studying(returned to studying after some years working -well, to be honest after many,many years)Information Systems (on the side studying for my MCSE and CCNA).
I live at home with my mum, who I dearly love.
Looking forward to purchasing my first property, thats is if the banks give me the go ahead.

The end[:0)]

Howdy All,

My name is Chris, 36 yrs young in a few weeks, married 5 1/2 fantastic years to gorgeous Julie, who is 32, and live in Ringwood North, Victoria. We’re expecting our first child in January on Australia Day. How patriotic is that? In the meantime we’re busy practising our parenting skills on our cat Cossie and 3 chooks, Jackie, Molly and Snowy. Somehow I think it’s going to be a little different, but can’t wait until I’m a daddy! Has anyone tried burping a chicken?

My job in sales at Telstra has just been made redundant, but it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time and am really looking forward to the future. It’s a new beginning in so many ways for us but gee it’s mentally exhausting thinking up all the different strategies to take. I just need to harness all that energy and get stuck into it.

We paid off our PPOR in less than 4 years, have 2 -ve grd IPs, which we bought nearly 4 years ago, one in Toorak and the other in South Yarra. With equity in excess of half a million, including a decent redundancy package, we’re in a great position to launch into something substantial as far as investing goes. I know you should never have regrets, but I wish I had paid heed to my parents advice when they told me 15 years ago to buy property. I was too interested in going out to discos and getting drunk though.

Anyway, our goals are to generate income from our investments and live on a small acreage either in the Yarra Valley or Mornington Peninsula and run a B&B and tours, I’m studying a Rural & Regional Tourism course, while my wife writes children’s books. Oh, she has to have a Llama as well! This is a 5-10 year plan and I know we will get there.

Keep up the great work everyone, this forum is so inspirational.

Hello to All

Another newbie, my name is Darren 32yo married to Debbie 29yo. We are only now starting to look at investing in property, and i stumbled across this forum. What a stroke of luck, or fate as i have been reading posts almost non stop to try to get a better understanding.

I work in finance for a credit union, and deb is an admistrator for Chubb security. We are from Perth (surprise..surprise…) and looking at starting a family shortly. I guess i just wanted to say thankyou to all of those people who have offered advice on this forum, good honest advice is almost immpossible to find and you people offer this for free.

This is an amazing place full of amazing people.

Thanks
Darren & Debbie