While it’s easy to think investors are high-earning business people, all IT worker William Chen needed to start investing in property was an average wage and a plan.
Making around $90,000 a year in 2015, Mr Chen noticed a lot of the money he’d saved wasn’t being put to much use.
“At that time, I’m single, I don’t live in my own house, so I just rent,” he said. “I have some money, and I don’t want my money sitting in a bank doing nothing.”
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William Chen owns two investment properties in 2024, after realising it was never too soon to get into the market. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail
Recent ATO statistics reveal IT workers, along with nurses, teachers, truckies and cops, are ranked in the top 20 jobs for property investors across the country.
General managers and CEOs remained in the top two spots on the list, but registered nurses were at third place, with IT workers ranked below teachers on the list.
Mr Chen owns two investment properties: one in Brisbane and one in Bracken Ridge. The income he gets from those properties amounts to nearly $1,600 a week.
Mr Chen puts the money he earns from work and investing towards his own rent, paying off the investments and saving for his retirement.
But just because someone can do it, doesn’t make it easy. Mr Chen said it was a time-consuming process to find the right place to invest, knowing he’d be responsible for taking care of it for years.
“It’s [the] mental stress as well, especially if you have family,” he said. “For me, if I get it, get it. If I don’t, I don’t … [but] it’s definitely a difficult process.”
Mr Chen says while the housing market is more expensive than it once was, don’t expect it to get cheaper if you’re looking to invest yourself. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail
Agent Kai Liu of Harcourt Solutions said he speaks to investors from all kinds of backgrounds, with a wide variety of reasons they may buy or sell.
“They’re just normal people; they have different things happening in their lives,” he said, and added the most important thing for any investor to have is a plan.
“Most investors, they have a dream idea why they want to invest,” he said. “And they either arrive there themselves, or they [have] their financial planners.”
Mr Chen said he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to afford investing if he started in 2024, after seeing the spikes in the housing market.
“I’m not sure why and how our market has increased so rapidly – just like, How?” he said. “Even if I got the land, I probably [wouldn’t] be building a house straight away, because the building expenses are so high right now.”
Mr Chen said he doesn’t expect prices to go back down, and believes people wanting to be new investors will only find it harder the longer they wait.
“I think most [people], even me, sometimes, are hoping the market to drop, but it will never happen,” he said. “Buy if you like it, if you think it’s good investment. Talk to your accountant, get your finance right, and then … just do it.”
