Heading One Property, Two Purposes: Home & Investment
The Clients
A young first-home buyer looking to purchase a property that would be home to his parents for the next few years.
Sounds easy, right?
This was actually a tricky scenario. The property needed to tick all the owner-occupier boxes for his parents’ lifestyle and perform as a strong investment. His plan was to leverage equity and borrowing capacity to buy a second investment property within a year — so we had a lot to get right.
What Was Important to the Client
A house was out of budget, but he wanted a townhouse or villa with similar space and accessibility
A lock-up garage was essential, with internal access a bonus
Strong capital growth potential
The Search
Location wasn’t highly specific, as long as the property was within a 15-minute walk of a train station. That meant our initial search stretched from Campsie to Ashfield, Punchbowl and Yagoona — a pretty broad spectrum.
Starting wide isn’t a problem, but you do need to narrow down to optimise your efforts. Some of these weren’t suburbs I specialised in, so I really had my work cut out ensuring agents understood the brief and kept us front of mind.
We pursued one townhouse in Yagoona that ticked a lot of boxes. A very comparable townhouse in the same block had recently sold for $785,000, giving us a solid pricing benchmark. Based on that, we didn’t see value over $800,000.
We moved quickly after the first open, however the agent/owner hadn’t provided a strata report. Any offer would need to be subject to cooling-off to allow time for review. This creates risk for buyers — you’re committing without full information, and withdrawing during cooling-off still costs 0.25%, or roughly $2,000 in this case.
We offered $800,000 after the first open. Another party came in at $810,000 and we chose to walk away. That’s never an easy decision, but ultimately we didn’t see value above that level.
Just a couple of weeks later, we found another excellent property in a better location — only a 10-minute walk to the new Bankstown metro station. A total game changer for the area.
The Property
The townhouse had three proper bedrooms (a huge investment tick), was liveable but poorly presented. No styled furniture, an overgrown garden, chipped paint and marks throughout. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed easily — but enough to turn off many buyers.
It also had a lock-up garage with internal access, another big win for townhouse living.
The Outcome
After the first open, the agent indicated the owner wanted to take it to auction, with expectations above $900,000. We didn’t see value at that level, but we wanted to stay in the game.
There was no strata report available, so we accessed the strata records ourselves and completed our due diligence. Most buyers don’t have this option, but as a former property solicitor, it’s something I’ve done many times. It also meant we didn’t give other buyers an advantage by making a report freely available.
As the auction date approached, the agent’s tone began to shift around the possibility of a pre-auction offer — a strong signal that interest wasn’t as solid as expected. I made the process as easy as possible for the agent so we’d be their first choice to negotiate with.
In the middle of all this, I was hospitalised with meningitis and had an emergency delivery of my second baby — so the timing wasn’t exactly ideal!
But I was committed to seeing this through for my client. We’d come too far.
We submitted a low starting offer — not because we expected it to be accepted, but to test the waters and gauge the owner’s position. That feedback would tell us how wide the gap really was and guide our next move. The goal was for the second strike to seal the deal.
I can’t reveal all my strategies (future clients will thank me), but after three days of intense negotiations, our second offer secured a sold sign.
