Pause to review your goals
Congratulations on building the equity in your own home and on buying another property. This is a great achievement and shows what can be done with hard work and smart saving.
The things I like about what you have done are:
Housesitting. This is a great idea and can be used by people to save for their first home.
Your “sweat equity”. Leveraging Dean’s skills to update your own home and now your investment property.
Buying older homes rather than a new or fully renovated home. You can get some great prices for these types of homes – it you are prepared to put in the “sweat equity” and can see the potential in the home.
Using Marketplace to buy your kitchen. Gumtree is also a great place for furniture.
As for switching debt from one place to another, many years ago I was in a similar position to you. I had paid out the loan on my own home and had purchased a unit with borrowed money. I asked my accountant if
I could “move” the debt from my new home to my existing home. The answer was no, you can’t move debt around like that.
This is where an offset account may be of use.
When it comes to buying another property, there are many investors who are badly under water in the Brisbane apartment market. This could be a buying opportunity. On the other hand, you will be competing with other landlords to get the apartment rented. And there is little to stop more apartment building.
Now that you have purchased your second property, you may need to digest that first.
Go back to your goals – do you like your current home or would the new home be better for you in the long run? This is key.
If you sell your current home and it is your principal place of residence, there should be no CGT payable. (However, renting out the property may have some CGT implications for the time that it was rented).
In terms of investing outside property, consider salary sacrificing or making self-employed contributions to your superannuation. This should give you tax savings and a longerterm plan for retirement, and may give you some exposure to the sharemarket.
Salary sacrificing into super gives you exposure to shares