Distraught FHB

Hi All,

I am 24. I posted a bit a couple of months ago. My sister and I both started looking for our first home around August last year. But then realised that it was wiser to get two separate properties instead of buying just one together. My sister found a property a 2 bedder villa in Girraween for 328k. I found one too though missed out by another buyer who paid $5k more than what I had offered. I kinda regret not offering a bit more and walking away from that 2 bedroom villa. We also believed that it "might" be challenging to hold two properties at the same time, given we had decided to move out of home and that would have made it difficult. Excuses aside, I am a tad regretful because we had an agent do an appraisal of my sister's property which the agent said was easily $350k - $360k! It's perhaps Girraween which is just too popular now a days.

Serviceability isn't a problem, however my deposit could get some strain from these increasing prices and again the disappointment that a property that I could have bought for $332k late last year is probably selling around $350k - a bit of a loss eh?!

I'd like the experienced forum members to pls offer me words of advice? I am obviously down at the moment, so would appreciate constructive criticism only.

for you to be in this mindset at 24, is a great acheivement, and the home you want is just around the corner for you, you have learn't a valuable lesson, but please know its not always win win , some loose as well, its just the market timing at the time ,
You see at twenty four, you have another 10 chances to see booms, and busts , good times and bad ones too! but you will not get feel the experience of either untill your name is on the dotted line, good hunting
BTW, 30k sounds alot for you now, keep up this mindset and your in for hundreds of thousands , not just 30,

chin up kiddo, you've just started the race, plenty to go around.

so what have you been doing for the last 10 months

craigb said:

for you to be in this mindset at 24, is a great acheivement, and the home you want is just around the corner for you, you have learn't a valuable lesson, but please know its not always win win , some loose as well, its just the market timing at the time ,
You see at twenty four, you have another 10 chances to see booms, and busts , good times and bad ones too! but you will not get feel the experience of either untill your name is on the dotted line, good hunting
BTW, 30k sounds alot for you now, keep up this mindset and your in for hundreds of thousands , not just 30,

chin up kiddo, you've just started the race, plenty to go around.

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Thank you Craig for your very encouraging words! I will keep this in mind and hopefully find something good soon!

twobobsworth said:

so what have you been doing for the last 10 months

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Don't ask...learnt some lessons the hard way...like losing $2k on two new units (one for me and one for my sis). But it turned out established properties are heaps cheaper!

I remember talking to you about it at the time.

You have paid for a lesson - take your learnings and you will be smarter next time. It is only a property. It is not your life. You still have your health

What else do you want me to say? (you should have hired a BA ).

The market still has plenty left in it IMO. You can still do well by buying a property now.

C'est la vie

Hi Sa Ali

Never look back but look forward!

As i see it, you have the following advantages:

1) positive attitude at 24 ( i was still cruising the world at your age)

2) you (seem) to have sorted out your finances

3) you have narrowed down your area and your budget

Now, you just have to be decisive, breathe deeply and then plunge in!

Remember, the first one is always the most difficult; as long as you have done your research of the market, treat it also as a learning experience.

All the best!

P/S; BTW, i think Girraween and surrounds of Parramatta have a lot going for it, i just bought in Greystanes!

"The deal of a lifetime comes around once a week". Have a look at some of the deals that Nathan finds. Put in the time and effort (as Nathan sure does!) and you'll find your own ideal home.

Keep the longer timeframe in mind, and consider the importance of growth. If your sister bought last year for $328K and gets an average 6% pa growth, but you buy a year later for $350K and get an average 6.5% pa growth, in 2029, her property will be worth $1.052M, and yours $1.158M. (With one years' less growth!)

If you'd really done your research and picked a place destined to increase in popularity, and you achieve an average 8% pa, compared to your sister's 6% pa, your property would be worth $1.51M in 2029.

If you plan to hold for the long term, then picking the right area - one that is going to be relatively more popular than it is now - is more important than timing, the specific property, and a bunch of other factors. Obviously they all still need to be considered - just emphasising that picking a location that's becoming more popular LONG TERM, or "gentrifying", gives you a big advantage and it's worth taking the time to try and apply some common sense to research, statistics, demographics, etc, and pick a property that's likely to perform "above average".

Chin up, do your research, zero in on what you want, then work hard to find it.

i know how you feel (sort of). my 21yr old step daughter came to me 12 months ago about buying her first property - and 2 bed unit - in inner newcastle. she had a good deposit, no debt and would qualify for fhog (at that stage). we talked about what she could and couldn't do, and i found several properties that would've suited to give to her as examples of what she could afford.

in the end - as she is at uni full time and working part time - she decided not to go ahead. 12 months later the same units are worth around $50-70k more.

i haven't said anything, but disappointed she didn't buy as i could see the market was at a real low and it would've been money for jam.

I agree with what the others have said, don't be so hard on yourself because your current mindset and willingness to consider breaking into the property market is a great achievement in itself.

As a young investor myself, the best advice I can give, is stop looking back and wasting your time regretting, and take action now. My fiance bought his first IP when he was 18. His brother (A RE agent) and parents convinced him to. 10 years ago, he paid 105k for something that is worth 270k today. Around 3 years after his first purchase, when we were 21, his brother advised us to buy a second IP (together), this one was a unit in the same suburb, but 2 bedroom, and we bought it for 250k, I remember at the time it took a lot of convincing becuase my fiance thought it was 'overpriced', and he regretted very much not purchasing earlier, closer to the time he bought hsi first one, when they were much cheaper. That second unit we purchased is now worth 450k, and we still look back and say 'gee we should have bought a house back then for what we could have paid!'.

My point is - we can always look back and say or think we could have or should have done more, but if you do SOMETHING now, then I am sure in years to come you will look back and be grateful you did something, and that difference between your sisters unit and yours will not be such a big deal.

Just go for it, the first is always the hardest, and I'm not advising you go and overpay or stretch yourself beyond your means, but go ahead, do your research, know the current value, and personally, if you need to pay up to 5k more and you can afford it and really want the place, just do it!!!

Best of luck, you have many years ahead to reap the rewards of property investing!

There was probably a time when you could purchase Brisbane CBD plots for, say, 1,000 pounds. When they went up to 5,000 pounds, I bet people were kicking themselves saying "I wish I'd bought when they were 1,000 pounds".

Fast forward 50 years... do you think you'd feel bad saying that you'd paid 5,000 pounds for that property now?

Obviously if you're looking for quick gains, it's a different story, but long-term buy and holds are very forgiving with regards to price paid, provided the fundamentals were right.

How you are feeling is certainly not unique. I have and still do feel like that some days. Other days I look at my long term plans and am soo filled with motivation, and then on others still I look at those same plans and am full of trepidation. I am a very conservative personality and am HUGE on risk management, as such I always lean against rushing into anything - having said that s long as you are doing something (even if it is only saving for that deposit) you are heading in the right direction.

You are looking at your situation in the wrong light. You haven't spent all this time doing nothing. You HAVE spent all this time learning. You may have made mistakes, you may have lost some money, but will you be making those same mistakes and lossing that same money again - likely not (unless you are a very slow learner )

If you are overanalysising everything to the point of paralysis, then maybe you need to start smaller. Your first investment doesn't have to be perfect, it is a learning vehicle. By all means mitigate any forseeable damage as you can, but don't let that prospect of risk put you off completely.

And DON'T just rush in because you are afraid of missing out. One thing I have llearnt over the past year, is that no matter how many oppertunities pass you by, there will always be more around the corner.

Thank you all for your VERY encouraging and supportive responses!!! ! I have been positive. I am very excited actually now that I know that I have bigger and better plans for the long term. Two years ago when I graduated from university, all I ever wanted in life was to climb up the corporate ladder. But I know that doing that alone will not be getting me the comfort that I deserve (for the crazy hours I sometimes work! - by choice currently). I have learnt ALOT in the past 10 months since I started looking - it also helps when my sis is a tax accountant !

I moved to Australia around 10 years ago. I am sorry to say that although I have educated parents, they just haven't made the choices they could have (I can blame on one of them, but anyway this is how life has been). It kind of hurts when you have family friends who are moving into million dollar homes with their kids. But we (my sis and I) finally decided to just stop waiting for our family to do something. We just decided to do it for ourselves. We have learnt a lot from our parents mistakes. And we have declared that we will only grow in an upward spiral.

I had a good news, we invested in a land overseas (where we are from) in defence housing. We have to pay around USD14000 for a 300 sqm land. We have so far paid USD1100 and the land value has already grown by 400% of what we paid. So very glad about a side investment which is costing us pretty cheap from now on.

It is surely scary to buy my first home, but I hope that I just do it. I feel ready for it. And since we will be renting my sister's first place out, the rent will help definitely.

Not travelling abroad much is a bit of a downside to all this committment (initially). And of course just like our family friends' kids we'd like to be travelling paid for by our parents and having fun, but we just looked at our priorities - we want a comfortable life and the travel will come with it. As soon as I get my property we will be saving up for a holiday overseas early next year, so I hope when we are older we don't look back and say we didn't make the most of our youth.

Alan (propertunity), I did think about getting a buyers agent, but hey I am a FHB and as rugrat said, this experience that I have gained is so invaluable. We learn quick (though haven't yet been successful with acquiring the second property), but I hope that this experience will come in handy in what I like to see as a long term committment to my financial growth

Thanks again all !

And like they say. Keep a positive mindset. Concerning anything in your life.

You cant change the past. You have to focus on the present and the future. It will do you know good to beat yourself up about the past. Let it go mate and move forward.

I was upset that i didnt get into perths property market before the huge boom of 2005/2006 but at the time I couldn't afford to buy/plus I had a personal issue, I was kicking myself for a while there that I missed out. I got over that and bought my 1st in 2008, my 2nd in 2009. I'll catch the next Perth wave!!

Good luck, keep positive and let us know how it goes hey!