‘I really did not want to be poor’: 27-year-old reveals how he built a property empire before turning 30
A young Aussie has revealed the wild reason he ignored two mortgage brokers in a row.
A motivated Gen Z Aussie who did not inherit wealth has revealed the simple way he amassed a property empire before turning 30.
Tyler Carroll owns four properties in Queensland and told news.com.au that he thinks there is a misconception about how difficult it is to become a homeowner.
“I don’t think it is as hard as people think,” he said.
He doesn’t say that to dismiss how tough it can be to get into the market; he just wants to let people know that, if he can do it, anyone can.
Mr Carroll bought his first property in 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He explained that the vendor was selling her investments and cashing out as she feared the market was about to plummet.
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He was working in marketing at the time, earning around $75,000 a year, but had saved about $30,000 for a house deposit.
He scored a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-car park apartment in Varsity Lakes, a beautiful suburb in the Gold Coast, for $430,000.
“I got it for like $50,000 less than what it was worth, so I had made money straight away,” he said.
The 27-year-old didn’t come from money.
He didn’t even grow up middle class; in fact, his family really struggled, but he was just always determined to get ahead.
He moved out of home at 17, supported himself through university and finished his degree broke.
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Then he landed a marketing job and saved like mad for two years, managing to save up $30,000.
It was enough to get his foot on the property ladder because he used a First Home Deposit Scheme, which meant he only had to put down a five per cent deposit.
Looking back, Mr Carroll didn’t feel like he was depriving himself when he was saving for his first home, but he also wasn’t living the same lifestyle as most of his friends.
There were no ski trips to Japan or European vacations, and he wasn’t buying new clothes or treating himself much.
“It didn’t feel hectic,” he said.
“I just really didn’t want to be poor.”
The property investor said that, after only a year of owning and living in his first apartment, he did an online evaluation and discovered it had jumped in value.
Mr Carroll’s apartment went from being worth $450,000 in 2020, to being evaluated at over $600,000 by 2021.
He got into the market just at the right time, because Queensland property has done nothing but boom since 2020.
The median price for a home in Queensland in 2025 is north of $900,000, but back in 2020, the median price was $600,000.
It made the 27-year-old keen to pull equity out of the apartment and invest in another property, but not everyone thought it was a good idea.
“I talked to my broker and he was like, ‘No, you can’t do it’, and then I talked to another one and he said, ‘No’, and then I spoke to a third one and he said, ‘Yeah, you can do it’,” he said
. Once he received the green light, he pulled out around $15,000 of value in the property and bought an apartment in the upcoming suburb of Logan in Queensland for $250,000 in 2021.
Once again it was a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with two car spaces and close to a hospital.
“In terms of like actual cash, it was f**k all, it is not much. The initial property I paid like $30,000 and every time I’ve refinanced since I’ve pulled out about $15,000,” he said.
“The actual cash I’ve invested in properties is less than $100,000.”
After buying his first investment property, Mr Carroll has just rinsed and repeated the cycle ever since.
When he got a $10,000 pay rise at the end of 2021, he once again had his primary property re-evaluated and used another $15,000 worth of equity to buy a second investment property.
It was another two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment in the same suburb for around $250,000 and is now worth at least $400,000.
Then he bought his third investment property in the building next door for $250,000 and, once again, used the equity from his primary property, which is now worth $800,000.
Mr Carroll explained that all three properties are tenanted, but he keeps the rent “low”, around $400 a week, because he wants good, long-term tenants.
“My strategy is, if you buy a good property you want to live in, chances are other people will want to as well,” he said.
The properties are a mix of neutrally geared and negatively geared but he explained they’ve all increased in value.
“My portfolio is worth $2.3 million and I owe around $1 million,” he said.
“In terms of my net worth I’m a millionaire, which is f**king awesome, because we grew up so f**king poor.”
The 27-year-old knows that landlords get a bad rap, but he really does try and do the right thing by his tenants and keeps all properties maintained.
“There are some horrible landlords,” he said.
“But like, there are some bad car salesmen, but not all car salesmen are bad.”
Mr Carroll recognises that the market has changed since he first bought in 2020 and it would be harder for someone to buy their first property now, but he also thinks sometimes you have to get creative.
He didn’t have any family wealth; he had been supporting himself since he was 17 and because he was motivated and dedicated, he managed to get into the property market.
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The 27-year-old would encourage anyone, no matter their financial position, to speak to a broker and get financial advice.
Even if it is just to get more of an idea of what position they need to get themselves into to buy.
“I think people tell themselves no before someone else does. If you just go out and have a crack there are so many ways you can do things,” he said.
