Jenelle Paetow from AllianceCorp often sees the challenges that women come up against when they want to begin investing in property.
Some of them having worked through a turbulent time personally to find themselves standing on their own two feet, while others are just searching for a more financially rewarding way to move forward.
“There really is that growing group of women later in life who have come through a separation or a divorce, and more often than not, with that generation, the husband was the one managing the finances or planning for the future,” Paetow discusses.
“You have this situation where you have a woman who most likely has taken a lot of time off work to raise a family and so [she] doesn’t have a large superannuation fund there and she’s now single and having to plan for her future.”
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Paetow sits down with Your Investment Property magazine editor, Sarah Megginson, and publisher, Kym Springer, to not only share their personal property triumphs in the latest YIP Talk podcast, but also to empower women on how they can best prepare to take their own financial strides.
Paetow says that it’s important for women to be actively thinking about their financial future, at any age.
“You don’t always want to think of the worst, but if you did have to provide for yourself, it’s about ensuring that you know what strategies are available and you’re starting to plan ahead,” Paetow says.
While she says that it can at times be overwhelming to get started in property because of the breadth of information that’s available, connecting with a mentor or a group that can offer support and guidance “can really help alleviate some of that stress or anxiety so that you can go ahead and take action”.
For Kym Springer, publisher at Your Investment Property magazine, the primary driver for her initial step into property was independence.
“I wanted to have my own place with my own money and something that would grow in wealth to set myself up. So I started saving while I was still in high school” Springer shares.
“I pretty much had all my salary apart from what I needed for travel expenses put in there [managed fund] to save up for my first deposit. I had the initial fear of ‘I’m going to have a mortgage, I won’t have any money to spend’, but once I got over that and got into the market, I became addicted and couldn’t stop.”
Sarah Megginson shares that there were times in her early 20s when she would reflect on just how much she was sacrificing to be a landlord – but she says that it’s ultimately about adjusting your mindset so that you perceive those moments as an investment into your future.
“I bought an investment property with my husband, my boyfriend at that time, and I can remember paying the stamp duty – it was over $13,000, and it almost wiped out our savings. I thought, that’s a month in Europe, gone, in tax to the government,” Megginson says.
“Once you get over that first hurdle, though, investing becomes addictive! Whether it’s buying in a syndicate, whether it’s buying with someone else, [or] whether it’s rent-vesting, do whatever it takes to get your head in the right space; to get your mindset around, ‘yes, I’m going to have a mortgage and this is going to cost me, but when I project for my future, this is going to set me up and put me in a much better position’.”
To learn more about the womens’ experiences in property investing, and the strategies that can help you move towards a future that’s also built on property, tune into the latest YIP Talk podcast here.
