My situation, advice?

Hi

I am 24 years old, and living in Darwin. I just sold my first property which was a 2br duplex 5km from the city centre. I owned and occupied the premises and we made a $50,000 gain on this in the 1 1/2 years we owned it (rise in value from $195,000 -> $245,000) not taking into account inflation, purchasing costs etc. We sold it for $245,000 literally days ago. My partner and I are now building a home a little further away from the city but it will be a very nice 4 bedroom house and is the lifestyle we want.

We have $80,000 in the bank after selling our duplex and will be putting this towards our home as a 20% deposit (we will be spending approximately $400,000 on building our home including land.

After we get used to the mortgage on our new home, we will be looking to invest shortly thereafter. I earn a salary of $88,000pa + I also run a side business which I make an additional $30,000pa out of. My partner makes $48,000pa so our total household income is about $166,000pa. I have some small tax offsets like work-related car expenses but not much else.

What do you think we should do? Try and pay off our mortgage on our home as quickly as possible? Unfortunately property up here in Darwin has peaked as far as I can tell and can get very expensive. A 4br home on the marina is now equalling that of some other capital cities at around $1-1.5 million. So I am considering buying elsewhere, perhaps Perth where I am of the opinion property is undervalued.

To throw a spanner in the works, my health is not quite what it should be as I suffer from an extremely severe form of migraine/vertigo which puts me out of action on a semi-regular basis. Hence, sometimes I think my job security is not what it should be.

Looking forward to hearing your advice. So far I am leaning towards safety and putting the money into the mortgage on our home, but after the success stories of some of my work colleagues, I am highly tempted to invest!

Adam