My parents bought a casket shop when I was 12, sold it when I was 15 and used the profit (Mum built the business up) to buy their first IP. When I was 17 they went on a ten week Europe holiday. I remember very well their panic when they got back because they told a couple from Scotland their house value would buy two houses in Brisbane, one to live in, one to rent.
In the nearly three months they were away (1976) the property market jumped and they had to phone this couple and say "don't sell until we send you some property booklets" and they had to explain that they no longer could buy two houses. The house my mother and her sisters sold (was their family home) for $29K just before they went overseas would have sold for about $50K within a three month timeframe. The market moved that quickly.
I just wanted to get into my first house. I'd watched Mum and Dad do it, and helped them paint that first IP aged 15. I reckon I've had a hand in painting and/or renovating (small and large) 40 houses (some several times since purchase).
I love it.
We've just spent the weekend ripping out old carpets on a house our son and his partner are purchasing. They have their current house on the market after renovating it. It looks amazing, and they will move into a dump, but a dump with huge potential.
Second son's first house settles in three weeks and first job is new bathroom and kitchen and a paint through. I'm looking forward to that too, though I'll whinge and complain whilst it is happening because everything else stops. We tend to push on until we drop
.
Our sons have learned at the knee, just like I did.