Yahoo Finance Cash-poor Aussie mum jumps on millennials trend and sells $585,000 house to pay for holiday
Despite having an investment property, Emma didn't have much money available. So, she decided to sell up and enjoy the fruits of her labour.
A woman has revealed why she decided to sell her investment property, and it's not to get the keys to her next home. Some property investors hold onto their assets for as long as possible to squeeze every bit of value out of it, but Emma Lovell was keen to sell up and enjoy the fruits of her labour.
While she knew the Hervey Bay rental property was a good asset to have, she told Yahoo Finance she'd far rather have the cold, hard cash instead. So, she put it up for sale and now wants to travel the world and use the money to set up her and her family's future.
"I was cash poor and cash flow is really tight for us as a family and me and my business, and it is unnecessarily stressful when hypothetically I have $300,000 sitting there," she said.
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We had all this 'money' but not really
After doing some travelling and running her own business, Lovell knew she wanted something more "foundational", so she turned her attention to getting a home. She bought the Queensland home in 2017 when she was 30 for $329,000 with a $40,000 deposit.
Seven years later, she's sold it for $585,000.
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"Last year, I realised that cash flow was really important," the 37-year-old business coach told Yahoo Finance.
"And then we have this great asset. We have all this 'money' apparently, but we couldn't access it."
While the property had gone up massively in value since she bought it, she thought it was enough to get out while the getting was good.
"Things felt really tight and I wanted the freedom to spend time with my three-year-old son and travel. It's not really wise to have my money all tied up in one thing at the moment," she said.
Millennials want leisure instead of homes
Lovell isn't alone in prioritising fun things over home ownership.
A recent YouGov survey of more than 1,200 millennials, commissioned by share trading platform moomoo, found 48 per cent of people listed leisure above saving for a home deposit (32 per cent).
Many cited it as being far more affordable and within reach than racking up the tens of thousands of dollars needed to just get a deposit together.
After getting enough cash together for a holiday, 41 per cent prefer to put cash aside for a rainy day emergency fund, 38 per cent save to pay off debt, and 27 per stash their money for retirement.
Analysis from Ray White has also revealed the generational gap when it comes to home ownership.
Only 55 per cent of Aussies aged between 25 to 39 own their home, compared to 70 per cent of Baby Boomers when they were the same age.
Life live to the fullest while you can
While Lovell eventually wants to get her dream property with her marine biologist husband, she also wants to live life to the fullest while she can. She has plans to travel to India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Europe this year alone and hopes to be able to go wherever she wants in the near future.
"I'm going to invest in travel and enjoyment," she told Yahoo Finance.
"I'm going to put some of the money from the property sale into our offset for this current home we have so it can sit there. We're gonna put some of it into a high-interest account and then I'm gonna put some money into shares and things like that and see what that can do.
"That money can help me now and it can potentially grow. That $300,000 is a lot more [in my hands] than if it sits in that house for another 10-15 years."
Lovell preferred the idea of having multiple revenue streams like shares rather than a property that she hoped would go up in value.
She explained that you only need around $100 to start investing in the share market, which is a far easier entry point than the mean dwelling price in Australia, which is $933,800, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
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