Why being young is a bonus when it comes to property investment

For Millennials Time Is On Your Side

What are the main regrets of veteran property investors? It’s that they didn’t start investing early enough.

Each year the Sydney and Melbourne property markets get more competitive and cutthroat. And now a new HILDA survey finds young people faced with the harsh double whammy that wages are falling whilst property prices continue their steady rise. These despairing statistics are enough to make young people starting out wonder if home ownership is well and truly out of reach.

The figures back this up: home ownership for those aged under-40 has plunged from 36 per cent to 25 per cent since 2002. More young people are living at home with their parents. Living expenses are going up, even as wages remain stagnant. Meanwhile property prices keep rising, meaning that each year these young people are seeing the dream of entering the market slip further away.

So what’s the solution?

A new way into the property market

As Albert Einstein said: “in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” While it may be hard to buy a home of one’s own in Sydney, property investment is an excellent, affordable way into the market.

With interest rates remaining low, a booming population and a constant demand for housing, this is a good time to invest in property. The advantage of being young means that time is on your side. In the past, typically people wouldn’t think about property investment until they were into their forties and fifties or settled deep into a career.  The thinking used to be that you couldn’t invest until you had a very substantial base of capital.

The sheer competitiveness of the Sydney and Melbourne property markets has forced younger people to change their mindsets. Owning a quarter acre block as the baby boomers did in the 1960s and 70s is no longer realistic. Property investment offers a new way in. This means becoming a “rentvestor”, where you have the security of owning property in more affordable areas while renting closer to the city.

The earlier the better

The reality is that everyone has a time limit on their working life. The average retiring age is 65- 67 in Australia. Starting out as an investor in your 20s or 30s means you have longer to build up a property portfolio. Each extra year you can give yourself is an extra year of pouring capital into your investments, which in turn allows you to accumulate capital gains and increase your property portfolio. This then sets you up for a comfortable retirement. And, the earlier you start investing the earlier you can potentially retire.

Let’s not forget that each year as prices rise, new suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne move into a more expensive category. And not just the capital cities, for instance, suburbs in Newcastle and Wollongong are rising stratospherically. So, it makes sense to get into property investment now. Otherwise you could regret missing the opportunity to buy into an affordable area before it shot up.

So, if you’re young and want to break into property, think positive: you’ve got many years ahead of you to build up a wonderful portfolio.

In part two of this series we show you just how you can go about taking the first steps into property investment.