Sarah is a scientist so she loves research but she admits the inner mechanisms of the property market have never been her speciality.
Sydneysider Sarah grew up with a father who believed in property as a wealth creation vehicle, but it wasn’t until she was nearing 30 that she finally understood what he meant.
“My dad has always drummed into me from a very young age to invest in bricks and mortar. Those three words ‘bricks and mortar’ were constant,” she says.
“He’s done some very smart things with his investments and I saw that and I found it quite inspiring but I never really pictured it for myself.
“It wasn’t until financially I had the ability to think that way that ‘bricks and mortar’ came back to me and I thought I want to do something with this and make some smart choices for my future.”
Home or invest?
So, it came to pass, through her dad no less, that Sarah made contact with the team at Propertyology.
She has some equity after the sale of her first property but she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“At that point, I was actually in two minds about buying something for myself or buying an investment – and the way that my direction was going I wasn’t quite in the lifestyle to buy my principal place of residence at that point,” she says.
“What I loved about the team at Propertyology was that they gave me the information but they never pressured me, whatsoever, and I really respect that.”
Sarah says she wanted to make sure the property sale proceeds didn’t end up being “dead money”.
Rather, she wanted the money to work for her in the background, while she continued to live her life the way she wanted to live it.
Then a long conversation with Propertyology’s Bryan proved to be a catalyst for her future investment plans.
“I got so much information all at once that I was like, ‘Wow! This guy really knows what he’s talking about’,” she says.
“There was no airy-fairyness to it and it was in a language that I could understand because I’m not a property mogul by any means.”
The depth of research that Propertyology undertakes for each one of their clients also resonated with Sarah.
In fact, it was almost like a match made in analytical heaven.
“I’m not property-minded, I’m a scientist. Yes, I understand the collection of the facts and the depth of the research that goes into it, but I’ve not looked at a place and gone, ‘That’s going to boom!’ It’s not come to me naturally,” she says.
“The level of research that goes into it is what sung to me. When they presented it all to me upon the recommendation for the first location, I was like ‘That all makes so much sense. The lights have come on. I like where this is going!’
A positive future
In November 2016, Sarah settled on her first property bought with the help of Propertyology, which was a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house in a major regional centre for $215,000 and an impressive yield of 6.5 per cent.
A few months later, she was happily signing on the dotted line on her second investment – a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house bought for $320,000 in a major regional location and with a yield of 5.2 per cent.
Now 31, Sarah will buy another investment property in another year or two, but in the meantime she’s continuing to live life on her own terms as a rentvester while building a nest egg for her future.
“The wonderful thing with these investments is that I really don’t have to think about them a hell of lot,” she says.
“You need to stay on top of the property management but financially it’s working for me in a way that it’s not impacting my day-to-day life.
“I don’t feel like that I have this ball-and-chain around my ankle. I think I’ve made a smart decision about my future and I feel very positive about my future – but I don’t feel like I’m chained to a mortgage for the rest of my life.”
