Property Investment
4 min read
Te Ahuru, a small-town teacher, didn’t grow up knowing how to invest.
No one in her world talked about money – it wasn’t part of the conversation. But one day she decided she wanted something more – a future better than others settled for.
So, she started researching. First it was shares, then property. She put what she was learning into action one step at a time.
In 18 months she’s grown her wealth by $280k and changed her life.
Now, not only has she built the retirement she wants, she’s also helped her little sister start investing too.
By the time she turns 60, Te Ahuru plans to wake up and do: “Whatever she wants.”
She might still choose to work, but the key is it will by choice, not necessity.
Here’s her story in her own words:
Te Ahuru started investing when she saw older people still having to work past 65. That motivated her to find a better way to fund her retirement.
“I remember walking through a supermarket … there were a lot of elderly people still working.
“It’s all good to keep working if you want to, but they didn’t seem happy to be working. It seemed like it was a chore.
“Then I saw an older-looking person working for the council, trying to fix the gardens around the roundabout … he had a knee brace. That’s when I thought ‘There’s gotta be a better way'.
“I was fearful that might happen to me. There’s nobody in my family that’s financially free after the age of 65. They’re either living with their children or they’re struggling.
“That’s why I started researching. At first, I thought it was a bad thing to want wealth, like I was robbing someone else, but it’s not really like that.
“My whole mindset changed.”
Te Ahuru didn’t start with property.
She started smaller – putting $250 a week into shares. It was money she admits she would have “wasted on rubbish” otherwise.
But that simple habit paid off. Her early success with stocks gave her confidence, and soon she set her sights on something bigger: property.
“I thought wealth and richness was about showing off, like ‘Look how flash my trucks is’
but I learned a lot about liabilities and expenses and assets.
“So I taught myself how to invest. There’s nobody in my life, not one person, that invests in anything. I’m not showing off … but [my share portfolio] has gone up to $30k.
“Then I said 'Yep, now I'm gonna do real estate'. I started watching all your guys’ YouTube channels and videos on how to do it … and you are so entertaining.”
Initially, she thought she would be an active investor – buying do-ups and renovating, just like she’d read about in Wealth Plan.
It sounded like the perfect strategy, but once she looked into the Bright-Line test, she realised it wasn’t the right fit.
What was possible, though, was buying her parents’ house – a home she was already helping pay the mortgage on.
“I was gonna go and renovate houses, but then I read some more and it says that’s not the way to go with the Bright-Line test … so I skipped that. I went to my mortgage broker. I said, ‘I want to be financially free by the time I’m 60 or 65, and I know I have to do it through real estate.’ ”
Following that, her parents agreed to sell her the property at a discounted rate, giving her a vital foot on the ladder.
Now, with equity – and her KiwiSaver – she leveraged into her first investment property, so she decided to invest in a townhouse in Christchurch.
In just 18 months, Te Ahuru has transformed her financial future.
She’s grown her KiwiSaver to over $60,000, built a $30,000 share portfolio, bought her parents’ house, and secured an investment property.
She’s now on track to retire with $90,000 a year in passive income.
And she’s done it largely on her own. There’s no-one in her life walking the same path.
At one point she considered going back to study for a doctorate like her colleagues – but that was never really the dream.
“I’m proud of all of them [my colleagues] for getting their masters and doctorates, but that’s not my goal. Like how I said, I saw that man with his knee brace on and he was in the garden on the roundabout … my goal was financial freedom.
“I might be still working ‘cause there’s not a day that I've woken up where I don’t love coming to my job.”
Te Ahuru’s journey is far from over, but she’s proof that you don’t need to come from money – or even know where to start – to build wealth.
All it takes is a plan, action, and the motivation to find a better way.
Kathy Faulkner, Financial Adviser and property investor
Kathy Faulkner is a Financial Adviser providing 5-star review service to 100s of Kiwi investors. She is a property investor herself and has a diverse property portfolio throughout New Zealand. Her financial advice career started decades ago in South Africa and she knows what it is like to start from the beginning and build wealth through careful investments and hard work.
