don't waste time. buy buy!

To all those doomsayers, I was once one of you. I held property in the 90's only to see no growth whatsoever. Disillusioned with property i sold and saw enormous growth while i was out of the market. After seeing property prices surge so much, I thought for sure the bubble would burst. People on this forum would say so and this was back in the early 2000's. The papers were picking up on the the bubble bursting story and i was certain it would happen.

I was very very reluctant to get back into the market. Then, got back in at the beginning of 2005. I was pretty much resigned to the fact that i was going to get little or no growth, but it was purely a life choice, not so much a smart investment. Anyway, one thing i have learnt (often the hard way) is just like shares, it is time in the market that is important. Last year, the same doomsayers were at it again, cutting and pasting and a few of them were preaching the same stories back when i got back into the market. I was an inch of selling my properties last year for fear of the Steve Keens predicting 40 to 50% drops. As it turned out i didn't pull the trigger and held on. Amazingly, time has flown so quickly and one purchase, with renovations, has nearly doubled.

The lesson i learnt was that i could sit and wait for the market to crash, but surely you must be thinking that if it didn't crash last year, then what is going to make our market crash? I've seen and heard ALL the same arguments for years. I've learnt that doomsayers will find any reason to believe prices will crash. We will see the same "mortgage stress" articles. Makes me laugh when interest rates increase, we get to "mortgage stress" article. What do people expect? Do people say there is less stress when interest rates go up?

My advice is you would be very surprised how quickly time passes. Then get some equity and use that for whatever other investments you need. Five years have gone by at the blink of an eye and my place has nearly doubled. I bought my place in 2005 and i bought NAB shares in 2003. NAB shares are 10% below where i bought them after 7 years (didn't hold over all that time). You have to put your money somewhere and if you own a property, you can always diversify and by shares to give yourself a balanced portfolio.

My advice, listen to Kincella and Warnie if he is still around. I'll be checking in on this forum again next year. It will go so quickly and i will have had my places for 6 years. I'll do another valuation, might pick up a few more shares or maybe buy another property. Thank god i got back in when i did. In 2003 i was renting a place for $350 per week. I dread to think what i would be renting for today if i hadn't have bought something.