Learning from mistakes

antistar

antistar

Hi all

There are plenty of amazing and inspirational success stories on these boards that everyone can learn from. Never a dull moment reading through.

However we all know that investing is not all champagne and fireworks and all of us through our investing efforts and evolution have made many mistakes in order to get to where we are today.

Mistakes are there to teach us things that we otherwise wouldn't have known.

And as as a very smart man once said:

'Always learn from your mistakes, though it's much better to learn from other people's mistakes where possible"

I thought we start a thread of lessons learnt from mistakes and share the collective wisdom of all property investors on this forum for the greater good of everyone.

Cheers
 
To break the ice I'll actually open with a regret i still hold to this day: buying my first property at the tender age of 22 at the golden pre-gfc days of easy 100% finance and with the help of then full FHOG only to sell it a year later for a quick though somewhat ok profit.

Knowing how hard it is to get into property these days I constantly remind myself of the silly decision I had made to sell my first apartment that was practically given to me for free (FHOG, minimal savings, 100% finance, bargain price). On top of it knowing that it's actually worth multiples of my original purchase price today and figuring out that I would have had the mortgage at a minimum by now are not easy thoughts to entertain.

But mistakes are there to learn from so my lesson out of the above was to learn to hold onto good assets for the long term and not rush into quick profits. I have also learnt patience and to appreciate and value every single purchase.

Hope this is of some help to anyone young and inexperienced out there.
 
Not buying property younger, or learning to save and only coming to my financial senses late enough to make property unaffordable. Also - not to have acted on my gut instincts about property when everyone told me my rough suburb picks were awful. They are worth bunches now but I never bought.

Also - buying property with a partner and not having it structured properly and it all ending in a mess where I just walked away with nothing just to get free of an awful situation when we broke up.
 
I made a lot of bad decisions in my life, however I never regret the times I took action, as from all the horror, I walked away with a lot of personal growth, and in a lot of cases, ok profit when it came to real estate.

So what would I consider a bad decision? The times I took no action at all or held others responsible for the state of my life, (not to be confused with being patient, I refer to laziness and/or fear).

Things seem very easy as a spectator, but putting your balls on the line, things are much much harder and it is where the best gifts life has to offer come from.

I still have days where I wonder what I do this all for, maybe it would be easier to let the winds of life throw me about, why bother with financial freedom, or community work, I could find a job, talk big, settle down, pick away at the mortgage, change the channel when I don't like what I see. Then I see my friends who follow that philosophy, victim mentality, and mate, my life is incredible and powerful, I truly feel I can change the world around me. Worth it!
 
Not setting up the loans correctly when we bought PPOR. Now we will not get tax benefit if we ever convert it to ip.
 
Interesting thread - thanks for sharing.

For me, I just turned 24 and am just about to buy Property #3. If I could look back with hindsight, I probably would've used the $20,000 in cash I had to purchase IP #1 in 2011 as opposed to the BMW I wanted. Lucky I didn't take out a loan I guess. Set me back 2 years in my journey. Ahh well, you live and learn!

Nixba.
 
Nixba said:
Interesting thread - thanks for sharing.

For me, I just turned 24 and am just about to buy Property #3. If I could look back with hindsight, I probably would've used the $20,000 in cash I had to purchase IP #1 in 2011 as opposed to the BMW I wanted. Lucky I didn't take out a loan I guess. Set me back 2 years in my journey. Ahh well, you live and learn!

Nixba.
Click to expand...

Just for some perspective.

*grandpa voice*

When I was your age, I didn't own any property.
 
Still better off than your mates I'm guessing..

As for me buying a car at 24 under finance 14% for $27k, and no clear goal in life

I still have property mistakes to make..... IP 2 settling 6th Aug tho
 
In 2005 I was offered a rear block in Doubleview facing an alleyway from my Dads best mate. He said I could have it for $140k.

I told my Dad there was no point as I couldn't afford to build on it.

By now I would have easily owned it outright and could have built myself a nice PPOR with equity out the wazoo.
 
Nixba said:
Still, I'm annoyed I didn't educate myself earlier as I'd probably have 4 or 5 properties by now. :mad:
Click to expand...

We could all say the same.

Realise that you're about to join the top 1% of Australians by owning 3+ investment properties. And most of your counterparts are just entering the workforce, where they'll remain--out of necessity, not choice--for the next half a century.
 
Richard Feynman said:
Realise that you're about to join the top 1% of Australians by owning 3+ investment properties.
Click to expand...


That's an interesting statistic Richard. Do you know whether it relates to Australians owning the properties in full or 'owning' the titles (but potentially LVRd to the neck)?

Always curious with these types of calls and research data
 
Deviating from my list of 'must haves' when looking to buy as I grew impatient. Originally set out looking for 3 bedroom house, after a frustrating 6 months settled for 2 bedroom villa. Not only did I end up overpaying as I was comparing apples with oranges, in 12 months the 3 bedders in the area have skyrocketed and my purchase has not been as fruitful.

And like everyone else, should have started earlier, I'm 30 now, and should never have bought that Audi convertible. But you live, you learn.
 
Ok This story is not about making a mistake per se, but what I didn?t do that could have improved my lot substantially. An opportunity cost if you will. So about 10 years ago my business partner and I spotted a unique development site being sold off in one line by the government. It was 3 adjoining 1000m blocks forming an L shape ? two were side by side (which is what we were after) and the third joined one of the blocks at the back, facing the street behind. As our budget was somewhat restricted our plan was to buy the whole three lots and soon after sell the back one off, thus keeping the 2000m site for our project.
We were disappointed to be losing bidder at the auction. It went for $600k at the time. That?s life we thought. Imagine our surprise when about three months later the 2 blocks we were originally wanting came back up for auction ? re-listed with the same agent. We duly won the second auction and paid $530k for the side by side blocks, which we later developed. Turned out the winner of the first auction was a group of anesthetists who only ever wanted that single block at the back for their new surgery premises!
In discussions afterwards they told us they would have gladly sold the front two blocks for 450k on day one if we had of spoken to them immediately after the first auction. But we did not think to approach them at the time of course. Was too disappointed at the time to be happy for a competitor. Despite the fact we were happy with our eventual purchase I realise if I had of just congratulated the winning bidders and exchanged business cards etc after the first auction I could have saved $80k there and then. So that?s what I do now when a lose out on a commercial site.
 
Tyla said:
Not setting up the loans correctly when we bought PPOR. Now we will not get tax benefit if we ever convert it to ip.
Click to expand...
Ditto
Also took a long time to purchase my first property (PPOR), have 2 IP's now but have never had any real growth in 8 years. Cant wait for one of these mysterious booms and 5% pa growth i keep reading about in investment books to occur with my properties. In my case timing and not "time in" the market would have been more important. Oh well, if we all had crystal balls - im still happy :)
Cheers, nat
 
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