A young woman who was priced out of the Sydney market has bought her first home in Queensland.
Kayla Rogers, 24, an online women’s weight loss coach, left Sydney in February this year and moved to the Gold Coast, where she now rents.
Before moving, she hired a buyer’s agent to help her buy a three-bedroom house in Toowoomba, which cost $550,000.
The property rents for $450 a week, which Kayla said helped her cover most of her mortgage payments.
‘Buying a house in Sydney is a bit ridiculous. So I was able to buy a three-bedroom house in Toowoomba,” he said.
She plans to continue purchasing investment properties while building capital to purchase her dream home.
“When I’m about 33, I’d love to move into my dream house,” he said.
“In the meantime, I will buy investment properties when I can, maybe every two years.”
Kayla Roger, 25, (pictured) bought her first home in Toowoomba, Queensland, after she couldn’t afford her hometown of Sydney.
The fitness trainer bought the $550,000 three-bedroom, one-bathroom brick home with substantial front and back yards (pictured) in February of this year, when she was 24. He was able to get tenants immediately and the value of the property has already increased by seven percent
Unlike many of her peers, she bought her three-bedroom house entirely on her own, without any financial help from her parents, and was able to save a 20 percent deposit of $110,000.
This achievement came after years of working seven days a week and saving diligently while living with his parents, who did not charge him rent.
“Like anything, if you want something bad enough, you will make sacrifices and work hard to achieve it,” he said.
“There’s no perfect time and I had funds so I thought I had to do it.”
The average house price in inner Toowoomba is $591,433 iIt’s almost a third of Greater Sydney’s midpoint house price of $1.474 million, CoreLogic data shows.
It’s also much cheaper than Brisbane’s increasingly unaffordable midpoint, $973,534 for a house with a backyard.
Little Real Estate executive managing director of sales and marketing James Kirkland said interest from interstate investors in Queensland property has been “staggering”.
“In some of the southern states, particularly Sydney, there are young people who want to get into real estate and are struggling to get there,” he said.
The coach said she was able to save her 20 percent deposit by working seven days a week throughout college.
“And I think it’s a great example of what’s driving investment applications in the Queensland market.”
Kirkland said there are still big investments across the state, especially homes with backyards that attract strong rental yields.
There is also renewed interest in Brisbane due to the 2032 Olympics.
“Those areas that are still strengthening are just outside that 10km radius of Brisbane, places like Logan,” he said.