Married with Children - Thursday, March 5, 2009 16:11 - 1 Comment

Property Investment – Reckless or Planned? You Decide!

Here is some lengthy reading material, but it’s worth to plough through.
This article was released by realestate.com.au on 30 Jan 2009.

A young couple share their story of building their retirement nest egg through property, albeit having a reckless start to the property game.

For these driven property investors, real estate represents more than just the opportunity to boost their bank balance. It is the means for obtaining long-term financial security and stability in retirement.

Swarnie and John Condon’s property investment journey began in the most unusual way.

They had owned their own home for several years but, in 2004, they became serious about the idea of building their retirement nest egg through property investing.

One day, on her regular train commute to work in Sydney, Swarnie “looked up and saw a for sale sign on a property, right next to the railway line”.

“When I tried to look for that particular property on the internet, the first listing that came up was another little unit in dire need of help – bright blue, smoke-grimed walls and crappy carpet – and it was so cheap,” Swarnie says.

“At the time, all of these renovation rescue shows were on TV, and I got caught up in the hype of it all. So I thought, let’s go and renovate. I just wanted to buy something, so I made an offer and it was accepted. Then I had to go home and convince my husband John that it was a good thing!”

Swarnie and John purchased the one-bedroom unit, located in Harris Park in Sydney’s west, for $180,500, and spent just over $5,000 on renovations. Having spent just one day researching the purchase, and knowing nothing about the drivers of the property market, Swarnie admits that it was a reckless entry into the property game.

“I tried to do my own thing, and I just made so many mistakes!” she says. “We bought at the top of the boom; a unit that was under 50sqm, which meant that LMI kicked in straight away; and it’s a very old property, so we get no depreciation. It’s just going nowhere, really. I mean, how many mistakes could you make in one go?” Continue…