Where did you go wrong?

I think this is a great topic if egos can be put aside. 

I have only been investing in property since 2007 and have enjoyed the ride.  I have only really educated myself properly in the last year.

I have made some mistakes like anyone and a few of them are as follows.:

My finance was not set up properly at the start.  I always did what the banks told me and now I am paying for it.  I never new about offsets and taking equity out to dump in there and having stand alone mortgages.  This undoubtedly was my biggest mistake.  I would also like to pass on my thanks to NAB for setting it up like this and telling me cross collateralisation was great and the way to to it

I focused in one area at the start but am now open to investing in other than areas surrounding where I live.

Not intially investing in blue chip areas due to where I was living.

I didn't take advantage of the interest rates when they were at their lowest.

Not initially using a Mortgage Broker.

I have learnt so much over the past year mostly from this forum and somewhat books and magazines.  These resources give you the courage and self belief to invest further and explore the different options.  It makes you believe you know you can do somthing rather than thinking you can!!!!!!

I have a few

Bought first IP because i would like to live there.
Listened to bank manager when he said crossing was cool.
Didnt jump on my PM hard when my property condition started to slide.
Didnt jump on my pm when rent started to slip.
Told my IP neigbours of my intentions to sub divide.
Underestimated how slow and useless the council could be.

Saving a house deposit four times and losing them before finally buying a property!

1st time – 17yo and had been working and saving for yrs and saw a 4brm QLDer on 1200m2 in my town for $65k and rented for $200pwk!  Worked out even at that age that I could buy through a trust with my folks.  Dads answer… "No, it's obviously too good to be true".  So I used the money instead to get a pilots licence.

2nd time – Saved a heap of money again and at 19yo but it ALL into tech stocks.  12mths later, no savings, no stocks!

3rd time – Bit older at 21 and thought I was a bit smarter.  Pooled my money with two mates and bought a unit off the plan from a developer mate in Auckland.  28 months later, no unit, no developer and we were lucky to get our cash back.

4th time – 24yr old and squirreled and saved but then got adventurous and started my own business.  Within months those savings had been poured into the business and wouldn't be seen again for three years.

So my mistakes were;
1 – listening to other people's "helpful advice".
2 – Investing in something I knew nothing about.
3 – Investing in something we had no 'control' of.
4 – Thinking a new business would throw off cash AND grow at the same time.

So many regrets, but so many good hard lessons that have all paid off now.

Anyways, that's me,
Andy

I bought the right property (i missed some better ones but that's life), in the right place, with the right strategy.

I didn't:
Negotiate hard enough at time of purchase and probably paid about 10k above what I should have even though the numbers worked.

Set up the property in the financially best way for taxation.

I did:
cross collaterlise my IP with my PPOR so had a few headaches at time of settlement.  I also placed an unnecessary risk with my PPOR.

Andrew

This thread reminds me of a proverb:

Only a fool learns from their own mistakes, a wise person learns from the mistakes of others.

Hmmm, biggest mistake, we bought a block in 2001 in East Victoria Park, Perth for $110,000, put a nice 4 bed house on it for $110,000 and a year a half later in mid 2003 sold it for $385,000, which was quite a tidy profit…   last year i think it was that house was on the market for $800,000, not sure what they got for it…

Had we held it and sold we could have been in a decent position (although in Perth everything else has gone up pretty crazily as well, but could have bought into a $5-600k place and had spare money over to invest….)   Had we taken our nice little profit and put it straight into some new property a decent portfolio could have been accumulated…   we did get a couple of round the world trips out of it and i then went and bought the wrong type of shares and we had a child and all…   at least debt free now….

But just looking to get back into the market and buy my second place now and start from scratch….

So while life hasn't been to bad and i'm hardly complaining about it all, there are a few lessons there, the biggest with 20/20 hindsight that after selling that place and making the decent profit that i didn't buy Fortescue Mining shares (that were mentioned in an email that came to me from a friend's broker with the company that i did eventually buy into that went to nothing)…  Fortescue only went up about 3000% or so, but there you go….

Hi,

I've been reading these forums for some time and have finally decided to join to throw my 2 cents in

My partner and I have finally started on our IP journey this year having so far acquired a 2 bedroom house in NSW and currently building what will be our ppor then rent or sell after 1-2 yrs which is when we plan to move on from this town. Needless to say the property investing lessons have come thick and fast this year!!!

One mistake I would say is getting caught up emotionally in our first purchase. Had we not been so panicked about having to get in to the market (at the start of the year it felt like house prices were going to go up, up, up in 2010) I think we could have bought something a bit more substantial for a similar purchase price.

2nd mistake was to buy a property with no off street parking. As far as CG goes I think this will really limit the property in future.

The third is not so much a mistake as hindsight – we live in a mining town and have been here now for about 18 months, when we first moved here house prices were at about 500-550k  for a decent house. We had the capacity to get into the market then but having not owned property before it just seemed like too much money for something in a dusty town in the middle of nowhere! Now the same properties are selling like hot cakes for 7-800k or more! Oh well you live and learn…

my mistake was buying a house that we couldnt really afford at the time.  i bought it because i was GOING to be returning to work 6 months later.  i learnt that you cant buy property based on what you plan on earning in the future … cos u never know if that plan is going to actually happen or not.

i fell pregnant 8 weeks after settlement so the plans of having two incomes diminished.  we struggled (really really really struggled) to hold onto the house for 12 months so we could avoid the full CGT.  its now under contract.

but its not all bad – we still made a hefty profit out of it.  just not as much as we had planned to make if we had the money to do all the renos we had planned to do.  we dont regret it though.  we have another lil bubba girl so we cant be bitter about anything to do with her unexpected arrival

My 1st mistake?

Not realising property potential before now.

My 2nd mistake?

Sitting on my hands waiting for everything to line up before going and doing anything.