The idea of owning your own home and being bound to those repayments is being turned on its head by the new generation of Millennials. (Millennials are born between 1980 – 2000) This generation is not seeing the value in being tied to a home in one location and having to make payments on this. Instead, they are choosing to buy an investment property. This is a much easier asset to hold and they prefer to continue to rent so they have flexibility to move where they like and have a higher disposable income because they don’t have the burden of mortgage repayments.
Owning your own home is a very costly exercise. Getting the deposit is hard enough. Once you actually have that and manage to get finance, there is the interest and repayments to think about. On your average Queensland home, this can be in vicinity of $600 per week and that is just on interest only!
By owning an investment property there are many benefits. Firstly and most importantly, you are in the property market and building an asset base. Secondly, you are saving tax and the investment property will likely cost you nothing to hold because you have tax savings and rent paying it off for you.
Either way, whether you own an investment property or your own home, the main thing is to be in the market.