My property portfolio

Building our property portfolio has been an incredible journey. But it hasn’t been easy.

My wife and I bought our first property in 2015. And since then it’s been a journey of many ups and downs – and a lot of learnings in between.

In this section, I’m going to share the details and learnings of our investing journey; one property at a time.

Property 1: Blacktown (Sydney) 2015

• Price: $411k

• Current Value: $430k (May 24)

This was our first property and by far our worst. It is a true example of how buying the wrong property as your first investment could set you back in the long term.

Because this was our first property purchase, we wanted to buy something in the same city we lived in. At the time, Blacktown was also the fastest growing suburb in Australia.

We wanted to buy a house and we inspected properties every week for months and kept missing out.  Eventually, prices moved up so quickly that we were priced out. We were so exhausted from attending inspections every week - so we ended up buying an apartment instead.

So many property professionals carelessly say property prices will “double” every 10 years. It doesn’t. There are a lot of things that need to align in an investment for that to happen. And this property missed the mark on a lot of them.

Biggest learnings:

• House values in the area have nearly doubled since then. But apartments have only gone up slightly. This is because houses grow at a much quicker rate than apartments. Because land appreciates, and buildings depreciate. Land is also scarce. But more apartments can always be built.

• A lot of apartments have been built in the area since then which has significantly increased supply and kept prices down for apartments.

• If I could go back in time, I would have bought a house in a different location further out e.g. Penrith or Mount Druitt. OR looked interstate.

Property 2: Redcliffe (Brisbane) 2016

• Price: $402k

• Current Value: $750k (May 24)

This was an excellent property that has almost doubled in value within 6 years.

Fundamentally speaking, we learned that properties located close to the beach or water have a lot of lifestyle appeal and are likely to perform well in the long term.

Redcliffe was also going through a lot of gentrification at the time and was starting to attract a lot of younger couples and families with higher incomes into the area.

This property is just a 15-minute walk to the beach and also has a lot of renovation potential. In the future, we will do some small cosmetic renovations (paint, kitchen, floorboards) to further increase it’s value.

Property 3: Margate (Brisbane) 2020

• Price: $480k

• Current Value: $840k (May 24)

This was our first purchase in almost 4 years. During that time, we lived and travelled overseas and we were just waiting for the first two properties to grow in value so we could have enough equity to use for our next deposit.

Unfortunately, the Blacktown apartment had not grown in value, so we had to wait longer and rely on the Redcliffe house to increase in value.

Going off the learnings of our previous purchase in Redcliffe, we knew the area very well and felt it was still affordable and had a lot more potential growth. So we decided to double down and purchase a better home in the next suburb, Margate. It’s also close to the beach which adds to the lifestyle appeal.

After settlement, we painted the internal walls to make them look more modern. This enabled us to attract a higher quality tenant and charge a higher rent. Since then it has grown by $335k within 3 years.

Property 4: Regents Park (Brisbane) 2020

• Price: $366k

• Current value: $680k (May 24)

 After buying the Margate property, we still had a bit of equity and borrowing power. So we decided to buy another property.

Our borrowing power would only allow us to have a maximum budget of 400k for this purchase which left us with limited options.

Logan council was attractive to us because a lot of suburbs had very strong rental yields, and a lot of the houses were affordable.

This property has performed very well! It has grown by $214k in less than 2 years. It is also on a very large 700 square metre block with a big backyard. So our plan is to put a granny flat on it in the future to create another income stream.

Property 5: Alexandra Hills (Brisbane) 2022

• Price: $677k

• Current Value: $800k (May 24)

This was our first purchase in almost 2 years. We didn’t buy in 2021 because we had our first child and my wife was on maternity leave. During that time, the market became very hot and the value of our properties experienced a lot of strong growth. So we pulled out more equity and used it as a deposit to buy this one.

At the time, our portfolio was positively geared and was very profitable. And this helped us with our borrowing capacity so we could have a higher budget. With a higher budget, we decided to buy one more property in Brisbane - but in a more premium suburb close to some of the city’s best schools.

It’s still hard to predict the value of this property. At the peak of the post-covid boom (middle of 2022), this property was worth over $800k. But the rapid rise in interest rates and cooling of the Brisbane market has probably brought the value back to $730 - 750k.

This property also has a lot of renovation potential. Our plan is to re-paint the walls and upgrade the kitchen to make it more modern so we can charge more rent.

If I could go back in time I would have bought something in Perth instead because I would probably have a lot more equity in 2023 to buy another property.

I’m not too worried about this property because it’s a long-term investment and I’m confident it will grow a lot more in 2024 and beyond.

Property 6: (Perth) 2022

• Price: $556k

• Current Value: $780k (May 24)

I recently secured this beauty slightly under market value at the end of 2022, and it has grown by over 20k in just 2 months. We also secured a high-quality tenant who offered to pay more rent than what we originally advertised.

This house is a 4-bedroom home in a very hot suburb in Perth and is just a 25-minute drive to the CBD. It’s located in a premium pocket of the suburb where there are a lot of owner-occupiers with higher household incomes and is also within walking distance of a very popular primary school.

One of the things I really liked about this property is that it’s in excellent condition and is very low maintenance. This was important to us at the time because some of our older properties needed repairs (plumbing, leaking roofs, door handles etc) and this was eating into the profits of our portfolio. As we were moving into a period of high-interest rates, we wanted our next investment to be low-maintenance with fewer headaches.

Property 7: Perth (2023)

• Price: $468k

• Current value: $650k (May 24)

  
  I recently secured this deal in one of Perth's fastest-growing suburbs.

  You may have realised by now, I’m a huge fan of suburbs that are close to the beach - and Perth is known for it’s beaches! So I wanted to get something closer to the water.

  At this point, the beachside suburbs were getting very hot and the type of properties I wanted were slipping away from my budget (due to high-interest rates). So I decided to buy this one that was not as close to the water as I would have liked, but close enough for a short drive.
  
  I'm super stoked with this purchase because it's on a large corner block with a lot of potential to build a granny flat in the future to create another source of rental income.
  
  The house wasn't as modern as a lot of other similar properties for sale at the time - So I was able to secure this at a lower price. I also see a lot of value in this property because I can always renovate it in the future by upgrading the kitchen, carpet, and bathrooms to further increase its value.