A younger Aussie lady who owns two funding properties -buying the primary one aged simply 18 – says all of it got here down to 1 fundamental rule she adopted meticulously.
Megan Tester, now 22, has executed one thing different Aussies can solely dream of after securing the 2 properties that are actually price about $800,000.
The Gold Coast resident picked up her first property 4 years in the past earlier than utilizing the fairness from that one-bedroom unit in Surfers Paradise to fund the second.
Ms Tester mentioned her potential to get into the market early wasn’t about having an enormous revenue or the backing of a rich household.
Megan Tester owns to funding properties on the age of twenty-two. Image: Equipped
“It was all about spending as little as attainable and saving as a lot of my revenue as I may,” she instructed Yahoo Information.
For Ms Tester, that financial savings course of started on the age of 14 when she obtained her first job at Subway.
As a result of she was dwelling at house with out large family bills or payments, Ms Tester was in a position to save most of her informal wage and finally put it in the direction of her first property buy.
“From an early age, I developed the mindset that once I obtained paid, that cash wasn’t there to be spent; it was there to be put away instantly,” she mentioned.
“Creating that mindset early could make an enormous distinction and set you up for long-term monetary success.
“It’s fairly frequent for younger folks to repeatedly purchase new garments and sneakers or spend cash on magnificence therapies like getting their nails or hair executed, however I selected to place that cash in the direction of my financial savings as a substitute.
“Wanting again, the most important behavior that helped me wasn’t making more cash; it was persistently prioritising saving over spending.”
Ms Tester mentioned she noticed a whole lot of her pals viewing pay cheques as weekly spending cash however challenged whether or not new garments and new telephones actually added worth to peoples’ lives.
Ms Tester places her success right down to a robust financial savings philosophy. Image: Equipped
Eight years on from that first job at Subway, Ms Tester’s profession has modified however not her philosophy about cash. She works in buyer gross sales however nonetheless prioritises her financial savings account.
Ms Tester’s expertise is actually not the norm in Australia as many battle to interrupt into the property market.
Westpac information revealed one in 5 first-home purchaser loans issued nationally in 2025 went to purchasers aged over 40.
The typical age of first-home patrons has additionally steadily risen, now sitting at 34 throughout the financial institution’s community – up practically two years since 2020.
Dealer networks counsel the determine could also be even larger, ranging between 34 and 37.
The challenges dealing with at present’s first-home patrons are starkly completely different from these of earlier generations.
Analysis by property group SuburbTrends highlights a dramatic improve within the age at which Australians are paying off their mortgages.
In 1981, the median age for mortgage freedom was 52. By 2016, it had climbed to 62.
The 2021 Census revealed that almost one in 4 Australians aged 55 to 64 (22.8 per cent) have been nonetheless paying off house loans – virtually double the speed from 20 years earlier.

