Nicole Haddow

Then I had to return to share housing to pay for that nice little place in Richmond.

But the upside is I am negative gearing my investment property.

Controversial, I know.

But if you're in a position to do so, there are a number of tax benefits of having an investment property as opposed to being an own occupier.

I'm going to brush over that because I know we're kind of running out of time.

At this point, I started to get my life back.

So it was really hard for that first 12 months, but it did get easier.

And what I would say to you is if you are looking at entering the property market, the saving process and the first year or so can be really difficult, but it does get easier.

Building your portfolio.

So what my plan is, is to use equity to take my next step.

So I'm starting to get to a point where I can do that.

Essentially, because I bought in the right place at the right time,

i can use the value of my property to borrow to purchase my next property so morty alec was never going to be my one and only and my hope is that some point i can use that equity to get into a home that i actually want to live in how long it takes depends on a couple of things building equity

It can be really difficult.

If you buy a fixer-upper and happen to add a quarter of a million dollars worth of value to it pretty fast, you're in a pretty good spot.

If you are relying on it just going up in value, as I am, it might take a while.

So you're going to need to do your research into how long it's going to take.

Relying on equity is absolutely not the answer, I should say.

absolutely risks to doing this.

If the market bottoms out, I can't lose my equity.