Hi I’m Papa Panda, I am 38 yrs old and working in the IT industry. My investment journey started in property investment at the age of 23. I Bought an old 1965 weatherboard house around Murdoch ($190k), then a rather bushy brick and tile 3×1 house in Canning Vale ($310k) 3 years later at the peak of the Perth housing boom. I found that I was already hitting my borrowing limit at only 2 houses! – Damn reading “Rich Dad / Poor Dad” was really paying off.
Mistakes were made
A few years of going nowhere and a rather hasty purchase of a gorgeous $42,000 sports car really put my housing investment plans on the road to nowhere! I really did love that car though, everyone has setbacks right? I’m not here to judge anyone 🙂 I later sold the car after meeting my partner for $37,000.
Not soon after these events a letter arrived from the council that the Canning Vale house I bought was being rezoned to R30. It was about 5 mins walk from the train station! It was one of the reason I bought the house not just because of the lovely bush. Anyway to cut a long story short I investigated subdividing the corner block, contacted a builder and basically built a new 3×2 house in the backyard. Roughly $250,000 was spent on the house build.
Head over to the property section for more details or Email me if you want more specific details on the subdivision / building process.
More mistakes were made…
Around the time I sold the car, my future wife and I decided to move in together and purchased a brand new two story townhouse together. Worst decision ever… Not the moving in with my partner but rather buying the brand new townhouse. It was a great house but there was no backyard and it had ever increasing strata fees. Love makes you do stupid things!
The townhouse was purchased for $570,000 and we sold it for $580,000 a year or so later… all up a small loss for us, if you include stamp duty, agent fees, rates and interest paid.
So we made a plan with my sister to knock down one of her investment houses and build a new 5×2 home side by side, which I am happy to say we are currently still living in. Total cost of the new family home was roughly $500,000.
Another golden letter drop!
A year or so after this another letter arrived in the mail from Canning Vale council. That old weatherboard house in Canning Vale was being rezoned to R30. Great news, but when I went out to see it, it really was about to fall over. So I decided to demolish the house and build two new 4×2 houses in a battleaxe formation. Total cost of this development project was around $600,000 which includes demolition of the old house and subdivision etc. If your interested in property investing tips check out my property investing page.
Housing Loans Status & rental income
Old Murdoch House – 137k
New Murdoch Dev – 515k
Old Canning Vale House – 270k
New Canning Vale House – 200k
Overall Financial Stats
Wage Income: $6600 a month after tax
Rental Income: $5800 a month
Super: $900 a month
Development 1 – Build in the backyard
Purchased for $310,000. This corner block was subdivided and a new house was built in the backyard facing the other road.
Development 2 – Demo and build Two
Purchased for $190,000 this old house needed to be demolished. I built 2 new houses in a battleaxe design.
Future Development – 4 Townhouses
The panda family also wants to do a larger development in an inner city location next to train station. Units or Townhouses is the goal.
The FIRE Panda Family 