Lauren Yeo

My love of property began from a young age. 9 years old in fact. My parents were renovating our family home on a sugar cane farm they had purchased in Bundaberg, about 370km north of Brisbane.

The project was quite substantial with most of the work going into an extension for a garage, HUGE machinery shed, 3 new bathrooms, new kitchen and laundry. Given the scale and cost, the bare minimum was done in the kids bedrooms, meaning we just got new carpet, new walls (removal of asbestos) and a paint job. The old wardrobes were kept with mum opting for new wardrobe sliding doors so that the old dated cupboards could not be seen.

I begged mum and dad to let me give some life back to the wardrobes. After a trip to our local Mitre 10 store I had a tin of paint and 8 new chrome drawer handles. I painted all weekend and got dad to help me install the new handles. That feeling of satisfaction in transforming a space has never left me. 

From that moment on, I was always looking at property. At 13 while the other kids were buying TV Hits magazines, I was buying House and Garden. I would watch the local property market, keeping an eye on what houses were being built and renovated, how long houses were on the market. I would think about when I grew up, which ones I would buy and how I would renovate them. Now, 25(ish) years later, 2 babies, 7 personal property purchases, 4 renovations and a few investment properties later, my addiction is stronger than ever!