$10,000 mistakes and starting over

I didn't come to property wanting to be a mogul. I wanted something solid that could build long-term security, and with no financial mentors around me, I didn't know where else to look.

Shares felt abstract, like a game whose rules nobody had explained to me. Property was something I could see, touch and walk through. I'd also watched my parents do it. Buying their first home was a huge milestone for two people who had arrived in Australia with nothing. After we moved to Brisbane they rented for a while, then bought land and built. Through my teens and into uni I watched that house climb in value. I remember telling them that if they'd bought closer to the CBD, it would have doubled. That was my first real lesson in the property market: land and bricks hold value.

My parents didn't know much about finance. But they knew owning a home mattered, and that was enough to point me in a direction.

The off-the-plan apartment and the $10,000 shock

I met my ex-partner when I was around 23. After a year or two together, I pushed for us to buy. Renting forever was never my plan.

We were young and wanted flexibility, so we bought an off-the-plan two-bedroom apartment on Brisbane's northside. It was close to my work and an easy commute into the city for him. I chose it the way most first-home buyers do: a floorplan I liked and a location that suited our life. I checked the numbers worked for us, but I wasn't thinking like an investor.

He worked for a major bank, so we went straight to them instead of using a broker. We thought we had it covered.

We didn't. Nobody had warned us about the costs that sit on top of the deposit: lenders mortgage insurance (LMI), legal fees, setup and admin costs. Just before settlement we ran the numbers properly and found we were $10,000 short.

If we couldn't find it, we'd default on the contract and lose everything we'd saved. I swallowed my pride and called my parents. The daughter who had refused their money for years was now asking for it. They lent us the $10,000, and I paid them back over the following year.

We saved the purchase, but it left a mark. I had fought hard to stand on my own, and I still needed rescuing because nobody had explained the rules. It showed me how easily ordinary buyers get caught out by a system that assumes you already know them.

Lightning strikes twice

About two years later we bought our second property. This time we'd budgeted for every extra cost, and the money was sitting in our accounts.

We still nearly missed settlement. When our conveyancer gave us the final amount to transfer into their trust account, we hit our daily online transfer limit. The rest of the money was tied up in other accounts, and we hadn't left ourselves enough time to move it. Settlement was hours away.

I called Dad again. Old-school as ever, he drove to his bank branch and transferred $10,000 for us over the counter. We paid him back the moment our limits reset.

Experience protects you less than you'd think. Buying property is stressful, and stressed people forget things. We had the money and we had done it before, and a simple logistical slip still nearly undid the whole thing.

The breakup and starting over solo

In 2019, the relationship ended.

We sold our house just as COVID hit, and didn't get the price we'd hoped for. We held on to the apartment until the apartment market recovered, so we could at least sell it for more than we'd paid.

The breakup shook everything, money included. The shared plan was gone, and I was starting from scratch. Getting burnt on that sale made me cautious. I still believed in property. I'd just had bad timing.

Something else had changed for good: there was no one left to lean on financially. If I wanted to build wealth, I'd be doing it on my own. In a way, it took me back to the girl who moved out of home with her own car and her own savings.

I spent the next stretch working on myself and figuring out what I actually wanted from my life. I didn't find the whole answer, but I got clear on one part of it. A 9-to-5 wasn't it.

Back in, on one income

By 2021 I was ready to buy again. A single income limited what I could borrow, so I took the money from the sale and bought a single-storey 1990s brick house in Logan. The market was rushing and prices were starting to climb. I analysed the area as carefully as my scientific brain allowed and put in an offer on the first house I'd seriously looked at. I got it.

It has since doubled in value. To be honest, in that market almost everything went up, and plenty of people were buying just to get in. But it was my decision and my money, and it worked.

Following other people's maps

Over the next few years I kept building, and kept sacrificing for it. While friends booked holidays and weekends away, I saved. Every spare dollar was a bet on my future freedom.

I bought a house and land package in Perth through a property investment group, leaning on their knowledge of the market. Then I went to a seminar about buying property through a self-managed super fund, engaged a property consultant to help me through the super rules, and bought a one-bedroom apartment in my SMSF.

Looking back, I notice something uncomfortable. The girl who wouldn't let anyone write her script was now handing her biggest financial decisions to whoever seemed to know more. Trusting the experts was easier than learning it myself. If I was serious about building a portfolio, that had to change.

So I went back to what I'd always done when I wanted out of someone else's plan. I studied. Property books, podcasts, webinars, seminars and, eventually, a developer mentorship program.

I went from a novice who nearly defaulted over $10,000 to an investor ready to step into development. Along the way, one thing became obvious: buying property in Australia is needlessly complicated and opaque. Most people don't have weeks to build spreadsheets, and nobody tells them to watch for LMI, transfer limits, stamp duty differences or holding costs. I learnt those lessons the hard way, through trial, error and a lot of stubbornness.