This article first appeared in the January 2024 issue of the NZ Property Investor Magazine and is reproduced here with the permission of the owner. Click here to subscribe to the NZ Property Investor Magazine direct or contact us to add the subscription to your APIA membership at a discounted rate.
Investor Dolf de Roos once said, “The deal of a lifetime comes once a week.” For Sarah Wilson, these are words to live by.
“A lot of people are looking for an ideal set of circumstances [before they commit to investing] but educating yourself and taking action is the best thing you can do.”
Sarah lives in the leafy Auckland suburb of Mt Eden, and she’s been investing in property since 1998. She and her husband Aaron were straight out of university when they purchased their first home in Glen Eden, west Auckland, for the grand total of $165,000. They were just 23.
The three-bedroomed house on a large section needed renovating, and they spent too much on it, she recalls.
“It ended up costing more than what we expected because we needed to replace the roof and other things. But we learned a lot buying that property and going through that process. And we did a lot of the work ourselves, which I think was good.”
Their investment journey started eight years later, in 2006.
Eighteen years on they are now developing that first property and putting years of experience and education around property to good use.
Family Lead
Sarah grew up with a family of investors – her parents understood the power of property. “I think it probably encouraged me to see buying property as a good step,” she says.
Growing up...
