Some great stories on here, thought we may as well add our own fun journey!
Laura and I met in early 2005 after both finishing school in 2004, both 18 yo. Over the next 6 months we both managed to start university, drop out in first semester and move out of home! We both worked basic jobs around $30-35k and by using garage sale furniture and home brand everything actually saved quite alot.
This led us to very different paths to our friends who are all still at home, most still at Uni after changing courses. We saw that the standard 'career' was not what we wanted and through a brief stint with a direct marketing company were introduced to books such as 'Rich Dad' and our lives were changed forever!
from the start property was something we could grasp and find interest in so in 2007 (Ages 20&19 at the time), we were able to buy a 2br unit in small group Oaklands Park, SA. This purchase was made possible with the first home owners grant as well as the mortgage being backed with one of Laura's parents IP's as security. Obviously we are forever indebted to them for this as it showed alot of faith in us in allowed us into the game probably a couple of years earlier than otherwise possible.
We bought for $202,500 and lived in the unit for the next 13 months. During this time we had some interesting times with a break-up and the reduction in my working hours as I completed both a PM certificate and started a degree in Property & Business externally (30 hrs job & Full 4 subjects a semester externally).
A big change came in November 2008 as we became engaged and decided to renovate the unit. This was a huge learning curve as we lived in the unit whilst ripping out the kitchen, part of the bathroom and repainted everywhere mostly at night! We tried to do most ourselves and definitely found our passion. We finished in early 2009 at a cost of around 12k with most of the cost, around 6k, going to plumbing and electricity. Ikea provided the kitchen and as we installed and tiled the splashback ourselves only cost around 2.5k.
In the end it ate our savings and made a start on my credit card so was slightly stressful time when went to sell March 09. Of course everyone at the time was shouting D&G and telling us worst possible time to sell but due to our research, much on Somersoft, we saw that units were still in huge demand with their affordability in good areas. The first open saw 80 seperate groups of people and a day later we accepted an offer of 258,500 (New high price for the block) and we were an extremely happy 22yo couple!
Pictures of the reno and result here -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49375248@N06/sets/72157623747417635/
Even though mortgage costs etc realistically need to be factored in there is no other way we can think of that would have given us, after selling costs, tax etc, almost 40k cash in hand! The path was now clear and after paying off my credit card and Laura banning me from ownership of another one we started looking for the next IP.
After almost purchasing a PPOR which would have seen us stuck for a very long time we settled on a 3br trust home on a large 800sqm corner block in Smithfield Plains, SA. Again all family told us we were silly buying up there but you dont have to look far to see how much growth is happening in Northern SA both in infrastructure and population and we are very happy with the purchase. Purchase price was $186,250 and we were able to rent out straight away after spending 3k on cosmetic reno for $195 p/week. This is slightly under market but got a great tenant and have had no issues to date and as loan is variable it is currently around $50 negative p/week with property value around the 200-205k mark after almost 12 months.
The rest of our 'winnings' went inevitably to our wedding in Dec 09 and the subsequent 5 month honeymoon that is about to end iwith a flight from LA home in about
3 days!
This choice was made after being heavily influenced by the '4-hour work week' by Timothy Ferriss which has shifted some of our mindset and helped us make the choice to quit our jobs before the wedding and take this 'mini-retirement' to Latin America for our 5 month honeymoon.
Now coming back to Aus with VERY little in cash and no job we are still very excited for the future still holding our IP and recently a small share portfolio to diversify our investment learning. We have also started experimenting with online income and we have already learnt alot through our experiment with our property blog below. This is an exciting project it is allowing us to spend more time researching and being involved in everything property as well as the online community so would love any feedback
I am currently 1 year into my degree at 23 and start my second year, still externally, in second half of this year so will look for only part-time work upon returning home with Laura full time. At this stage we are looking at property under $150k in regional NSW, VIC, SA and TAS and hope to make a purchase before the end of the year which would most likely be neutral cashflow.
Sorry for the long post but hopefully gives people more background and insight into our posts on here. Im sure many things haven't been covered well enough so please ask us anything, we are very open and check Somersoft daily so will happily respond!
Regards,
Ben & Laura