Property Investing

Wednesday, 21 June 2017

I first thought I would write a blog on the top 10 tips of property investing or the 5 biggest pitfalls to avoid. Instead I’m going to pose a question, a question that I had to answer before deciding to invest? WHY? Why are you considering investing in property and what is the overriding factor driving you to do so? Do you see a niche, or a bargain or a new property hot spot ready to take off?

Property Investing
The WHY for me was / is how am I going to secure my family’s future. My family and I, like many families live to the level of their income, as our income goes up so naturally or unfortunately does our spending.

If my overriding desire was to secure my families long term future, then couldn’t I somehow increase my income….? It might help, but it wouldn’t be a passive or secondary income stream, the financial health of my family would still be entirely reliant on one individual – I if get hit by a bus, there goes the income…

We were though very lucky to have built a house in a new estate which had had consistent growth over a 7-8-year period giving us a substantial amount of equity in our family home. One option was we could refinance and reinvest the money in the share market – problem was we knew nothing about shares and frankly preferred not to go anywhere near something that is so affected by the vagaries of some dude with fake hair in a white house, madly tweeting about “fake news”.

So, investing in property it was, conveniently I work at what I consider to be one of the most outstanding estates in Victoria, given I know the place like the back of my hand it meant I should be able to find an appropriately priced lot, that would fit my “risk averse” budget and we could be on our way.

Now the other driving factor or (Why) that made me take the plunge, was the urgent need to secure a lot before the start of the construction of villagewarralily.com.au & the Armstrong Creek Education Precinct (Temporary Name), I was positive prices would go up…. I saw an opportunity!

Now the window of opportunity that I saw, to get my family and I ahead has not closed, while the shops and the school are nearing completion there are still a number of infrastructure items to be built that will encourage strong capital growth – the fully funded and soon to start construction $3million Armstrong Creek Sports Pavilion, an Aldi Supermarket, McDonalds & 7/11, The YMCAs first retirement Village & Kingswim, the fully funded $15million dollar Health & Wellness community facility due to open 2019 and not to soon after Oberon High will be relocated to the Education Precinct by 2021.

Now these items are local to the estate and while capital expenditures help drive capital growth, the other two major drivers are population and jobs growth. Excitingly Geelong has both with the City recently coming in 4th in the Australian Bureau of Statistics nationwide list of areas for “net internal migration” in the 2015-2016 financial year with 4216 new Cats members.

From an employment view, with not just the TAC, NDIS & Worksafe all having moved or moving to town, we also have the ever-expanding Deakin Uni with the adjacent Epworth Hospital also open for business.
Now fast forward to now, our little investment property is at lock up and we are inching our way to completion and the search for our very first tenant.

The main piece of advice I would impart is to do your research, hop of the computer and organise a face to face meeting with a local estate agent, with a refinancing specialist - make your equity work for you…hang on a minute didn’t I see on Facebook that Warralily have an investment seminar coming up on the 28th of this Month, where you can do all of this and more…. click here.

If you arm yourself with all the right information, you will see your opportunity – its then just up to you to seize it.

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