The Property Pineapple - Morgan Jewell

Performance Property Data

“The only option I had was to sell my house.”

Morgan Jewell is a young and intelligent mortgage broker, who at the age of 23 had a terrible experience with buying an off-the-plan property. She lays out all of the details for Sharon on this episode of The Property Pineapple.

Already a property owner, Morgan was talking to her boss one day about wanting to add to her portfolio with an investment purchase. On his recommendation, she consulted a property spruiker. After a short meeting, she was presented with a list of properties within her price range for her to consider. They talked up the potential rental yields and told her the area was earmarked for development, and that this would have a great impact on prices. Being excited and spontaneous, she signed the contracts right then and there for an apartment development in Brisbane.

Signing involved becoming a part of the company’s “community”, which benefited Morgan with newsletters and information on the industry, as well as incentives such as discounts on landlord insurance. But of course, she had to pay up front for this privilege. This should have been Alarm Bell #1, because she shouldn’t have needed to pay anything up front. But Morgan admits she didn’t really think about it, and just accepted it was the way things went.

After she committed to buying the apartment when it was completed, the waiting game began. It was originally supposed to take 12 months, but when the year went by, Morgan was told that it would probably take another 12 months.

About eight months after this, she received a phone call telling her to start organising her financing. This was not good timing, as her and her husband had made some changes in their personal lives, with him going self-employed. This had a surprising effect on their ability to get financing, and none of the brokers they went to could help them.

She considered walking away, but the $25,000 deposit she had paid was too great. So she went back to the company who had sold her the development and told them her predicament. She was told the option for her was to sell her house, and feeling like she had no other option, Morgan did as she was advised and put her home on the market.

It took one month to sell, and when it did she went back to the company to tell them she could now afford to settle. But amazingly, they then told her the property wouldn’t be ready for another year.

Finally, after so much fuss, the property came up for settlement. But of course, by this stage Morgan and her husband were in a better financial position and would have been able to keep their home. It was in a suburb in Melbourne that has seen significant growth, and so losing this asset, when they didn’t need to, was devastating

Despite this, Morgan is circumspect about the experience and her old boss who referred her to the company. While she acknowledges that he got a referral payment, he also bought a property through the same company, so had at least put his money where his mouth was. Additionally, Morgan realises that had she done her due diligence, she would not have found herself in this situation in the first place.

Morgan used this experience as an inspiration to shift careers into mortgage broking. She tells Sharon about Crown Money Management, a business committed to helping people manage their finances and pay off their debts sooner.

About Sharon’s guest, Morgan Jewell…

Morgan is a Finance Specialist for Crown Money, although she made her start in the fitness industry as management for companies like Jetts and KX Pilates. After experiencing personally the insensitively shown by the big banks and other finance professionals she wanted to work for a Finance company that genuinely wanted to help people.

As Australia's leading specialist in debt and money management, Crown Money seeks to empower clients with understanding and education to help them achieve their financial goals.

About your host, Sharon Taylor…

Sharon heads up the research division at Performance Property Advisory. She is responsible for the aggregation of economic and property data sources, as well as deep analysis of the data to provide quarterly reports on each capital city of Australia.

These reports identify between 5 and 8 submarkets in each capital city, and provide an opinion as to the short term performance of each submarket. This information is vital for clients to maximise the performance of existing assets, and also for selection of new blue-chip investment locations.

‘The Property Pineapple’ is one of three segments you will hear on the Performance Property Data podcast. Released every four weeks, and hosted by Sharon Taylor (Research Analyst - Performance Property Advisory), the show presents listeners with stories from real investors, discussing their wins and admitting their losses.

‘Property Insiders’ are also released every four weeks and are conversations between David McMillan (Director Acquisitions - Performance Property Advisory) and industry leaders offering knowledge and expertise.

And ‘Performance Insights’ are released every Wednesday and Friday, giving you technical information and the lowdown on key property markets around Australia.

For access to exclusive insights and offers, become a member of the community at www.performancedata.com.au