Young Aussie landlord with three investment properties hits back at claims he's fuelling rental crisis
A young property investor has hit back against claims he's fuelling Australia's rental crisis by snapping up homes. Rents have been rising in nearly every capital city across the country and it's creating stress for many.
Harley Giddings has worked hard since he was a teenager and has managed to amass an impressive property portfolio for a 24-year-old. But he told Yahoo Finance he's copped negativity from Aussies who claim he's making the rental situation worse.
"I definitely do understand there is a bit of hurt at the moment with the cost of living and rents increasing," he said. "I totally understand it would be very tough being a renter at this stage. I just think there's a couple of factors that is like worsening the housing crisis that isn't caused by renters or landlords."
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Hard grafting and studying the market
As Giddings worked "every different job under the sun", he had property investment firmly in his sights. He went to university to do a business degree but dropped out halfway through because he felt it wouldn't really offer him anything worthwhile.
He kept his head down, worked seven days a week across two jobs and saved up more than $100,000 by the time he was 22.
Giddings felt the time was right to get his first property so he went in halves with his dad.
"My parents aren't really the kind of investment-savvy people. Like, dad's a firefighter, mum's a hairdresser," he explained to Yahoo Finance. "We're kind of very middle class family. And I've always been big on investing. So he had the borrowing power because he was working full time and I had the savings."
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But they didn't look for a property close to them in Victoria, they went for somewhere thousands of kilometres away in Western Australia.
"There's 15,000 suburbs in Australia, it's highly unlikely that the area you live in is going to be one of the best performing," he said.
He bought his first property for $450,000 and then he quickly worked to build up his portfolio. Giddings used more of his savings to get the second home and then used equity from that property to get the third.
He did all this by the time he was just 23 years old.