Women and Property Investing: From Saver to Investor

Women make good savers, but we don't necessarily invest. I was a financial hot mess. I was completely broke, living paycheck to paycheck. It was really stressful. What is going on here?

That was my little wake-up call. Parents had instilled certain financial habits. They'd been saving. And then it wasn't until I spoke to so many others that I realized that that's just not normal. I think there's a lot of financial embarrassment and shame when it comes to women and money.

There's no wonder that there's so many female out there as well needing that support because it's not normal for working so young, values to be passed down, insights, learnings, lessons. Well, I would love to change the education system and actually put financial literacy in it to start with. I think that would be a great starting point. Not algebra and calculus, hey? I can't say I've used COS10 a huge amount in my lifetime.

Do you think men and women look at property investing differently? I am super passionate about helping females get ahead on their finances. Having a daughter, having my wife and I on the journey, and seeing the impact of my wife having her success in banking and financial services and all the knowledge that comes with being in the industry has allowed her to be so self-capable and successful in her finances before we even got together. So I see the impact the right education makes. Along the journey of helping so many females grow wealth at InvestorKit, we've come across others who do that brilliantly, who educate and empower ladies to get ahead.

Today, I'm speaking to one of those people. It's Molly from the Ladies Finance Club. She's helped over 70,000 females build wealth and get their finances right through the Ladies Finance Club. In this episode, we're going to jump in and go into the lessons Molly has for how females can get ahead in building wealth and some of the common mindset blockers and challenges they face along the way, alongside what she commonly sees in her community. So let's jump in and tune into Molly.

Nerd alert! Property nerds, the home for data-driven property investors, where we uncover Australia's hot and cold markets, latest headlines and trends. Molly, welcome to the Property Nerds podcast. I am very excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Well, we have collaborated a lot on the Ladies Finance Club, the shows and podcasts, the roadshows that you've done. It's been so good knowing you over the many years, but also working together. But I want to let the audience know, for those who don't know your story, could you share what started and what led you to actually starting Ladies Finance Club? Yes, absolutely. And I do want to start with saying thank you so much, Arjun, because you've been such a great supporter of what we do at Ladies Finance Club and supporting more women getting into the property ladder.

So a big thank you for that. But I guess it all started back in London. I was working for a bank, you know, like living this lifestyle of earning good money, going on amazing holidays, but I was a financial hot mess. I was completely broke, living paycheck to paycheck. It was really stressful.

And it got to this point where I was in a supermarket in London and I had to text a girlfriend for money because I had spent all my money. And it was that kind of rock bottom moment working for a bank because I worked for a bank in London, kind of completely out of cash, being like, what is going on here? That was my little wake up call. So I was like, I'm going to do something about this. So I got my girlfriends together, a few bottles of Prosecco because we couldn't afford champagne then, a few pizzas.

And I think my first guest was my roommate who worked in finance. And we're like, teach us about money. And so it was really like basic, but we'd never learned it before. We had so many questions. We're like, what's a share?

And in the UK, they have these special savings account. We're like, how does it work? And from there, it kind of grew and grew. And now we've had around 70,000 women through our programs, our corporate workshops, our masterclasses. But we just want to be that space where women can come in Australia, get information, which is really digestible, really fun, and actually doesn't make them feel silly for not knowing this stuff.

Well, helping 70,000 plus women, what an incredible feat. Firstly, you should be so proud of the work that you've done and the impact you've made. I've seen it firsthand. Your events are buzzing. The crowd is engaged, excited to be there, ready to learn.

Now, having gone through over 70,000 women that you've helped, what's the most common themes that you've seen when it comes to women on the journey of finance? I think there's a lot of financial embarrassment and shame, unfortunately, when it comes to women and money, because we feel like, oh, we should know a lot more about this, or we should be a lot more further in our journey. But for a lot of us, unless our parents taught us, which from what I'm seeing and hearing, oh, we didn't get very good financial messages from our parents. So unless our parents showed us or friends or family, or we learned it at university, there's a great chance a lot of us have never learned how to invest in the share market, how to buy property, or we've never got good advice around property. We've listened to the parents who might have only ever bought one property in their lifetime, or we might not know how to budget because we've watched parents put money on credit cards our whole life.

But there's a really good chance that we've never learned about financial literacy, and that's not something to be embarrassed about. So that's definitely a key theme I'm seeing. But on the upside, I'm also seeing a theme of women really hungry to learn. And I'll have conversations with some guys occasionally, and they'll be like, oh, women don't really care about money. I'm like, oh, we care about money.

We've got a lot to say when it comes to money, but we also just need it broken down, make it digestible, which is what we're really about doing here at Ladies Finance Club. Yeah, I feel like the positive change that's being seen of how many are not only thinking about it more now, taking action on it more. And I really do believe that family dynamic makes a big impact. So through your education, you're obviously teaching them earlier on and creating that habit so they can pass on those good habits, right? But I recall just even a client of ours, a couple, they came in earlier to record a podcast with us.

And when they recorded their story, Lauren said she'd been working since the age of 14. Her parents had instilled certain financial habits. They'd been saving. And then it wasn't until I spoke to so many others that I realized that that's just not normal as in what they do. So there's no wonder that there's so many female out there as well needing that support because it's not normal for working so young, values to be passed down, insights, learnings, lessons.

And as you said, the parents that don't have that success themselves. So do you find that when it comes to building wealth now for women, what do you see as the biggest mindset factor that blocks women on the journey? Yeah, I think there's a couple. One of them is, and you touched on it before, but women make good savers, but we don't necessarily invest. So we like to see our money in cash.

It's transparent. We go, oh my gosh, there it is. No one can take that away from me. And then I think we get quite nervous when it comes to investing. It's that fear of losing.

But if you know those basic foundations and those principles, investing in the share market, if you're investing into index funds, ETFs, it's very hard. If you've got a good team around you advising you on property, it's hard to make the wrong decision. So I think that's definitely a mindset shift that it's safe to keep all your money in cash. I think another one is I'm seeing, we see it in the media, we're getting a lot of noise. It's impossible to buy property.

It's just out of my... And I was like this for a very long time as well. I was like, I'm not even going to bother speaking to a mortgage broker because what's the point? I'm a single female running my own business. I'm never going to be able to afford to get on the property ladder.

And I see a lot of women and they will have a deposit ready to go, but something's holding them back. And I'm like, no, you're good to go. Come on, what's holding you back? And a lot of the time they're like, I don't know, I'm just really scared, really nervous. What if I make the wrong decision?

And I think that it always comes back to like, I don't want to make the wrong decision. I don't know where to buy. So yeah, there are definitely some mindset shifts. But I think another one is, yeah, I can't afford it. Just not knowing, never have spoken to a mortgage broker.

They don't know their own borrowing capacity. And as I said, I was shocked when I first spoke to a mortgage broker and they're like, you can borrow up to 800,000. And I was like, what? Someone's going to give me up to $800,000? That's crazy.

Oh my God. And then I was like, right, I need to get on this. So yeah, I'd say there are a couple of really common ones I see. So continuing further down the road of property, property seems to be a key asset class for people to build wealth. So from your perspective, how does property fit into someone's broader financial plan?

Yeah, I think we are very Prior to this episode, looking at your website and even just hearing Arjun talk about the events and how engaging they are. So what are some of the strategies that you use within that club to kind of make it engaging, make it fun? Yeah, so I think we, well, number one, at our events, we always have lots of bubbles, which is always fun. But I think as well, we always approach the education from a very like, we're starting from zero. So we like to use lots of analogies, like, especially when it comes to like, we do a lot of teaching about investing in the share market.

And sometimes you hear these experts and they'll be like, this is a tax vehicle wrapper for this. And you're like, what does that even mean? Like, can we just say it's like a box of chocolates and you know, blah, blah, blah. So it's actually finding ways to actually connect with women using their stories, using analogies. And we're very big as well on just like, let's make our slides super relatable, super fun.

Let's make sure we're really breaking down and not assuming that people have a financial degree before they interact with us. Yeah. So you talk about education. If you were to redesign the education system for young people, young adults, what would be like a sweet spot in terms of age of when you start instilling the right habits for people, for example? Well, I would love to change the education system and actually put financial literacy in it to start with.

I think that'd be a great starting point. Not algebra and calculus, hey. I can't say I've used COS10 a huge amount in my lifetime. But yes, I, yeah. Or, yeah, like it would have been great to learn about tax, not parallelograms.

Doesn't come in handy. I always say it doesn't come in handy this parallel season. Post a tax season, it would have been great. But I think like we need to be having these conversations and starting this education as early as, you know, grade one. Our money mindset is made up by the time we're seven years old.

It's heavily influenced with how our environment is growing up, how our parents behave with money, how they talk about money. So I don't think you're ever too young to learn the basics. And I have a whole chapter of it in my book, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, just talking about like what parents can start doing, how they can start having conversations and how language is so important as well. We don't realize it when we're saying that's too expensive. You know, money doesn't grow on trees.

Actually, we are choosing not to buy that because remember, we're working towards this little goal of, you know, X buying a bike or whatever that is. So I don't think we're ever, it's ever too, kids are ever too young to start talking about money. Yeah, nice. So out of the 70,000 women that you've helped, is there a standout amongst all of them, one that you can think of? Yeah, there's always a couple that kind of really kind of hit you.

I know one was a lady who's still a member. She was one of my first LFC members and she came to Ladies Finance Club. She was in credit card debt. Her budget was a mess and she was just, she'd been divorced for a number of years and she was kind of coming up to retirement in like the next 10 years. And so by the time, I think it was like, it would have been like a year and a half into Ladies Finance Club coming to our like online masterclasses, using our experts, yeah, reaching out to the community.

She'd gotten herself out of debt. She had topped up her super and she'd bought an investment property, which was performing really well. And then she found out that her daughter had been diagnosed with a blood cancer, the same one my sister had had actually. And so she said to me, she sent me this email and she said, I could just give her money and I could be there and support her and I've never been in that position before. And she's like having the ability to be able to do that, whereas I wouldn't have had before was everything.

So it's like those stories where you're like, wow, their life has really changed because of this education. And we see, I see it all the time, all women who've never invested and now they've got $60,000 invested in the share market or people who've never even saved their first $50 and now they have the first $1,000. So even small little changes. So yeah, that's probably one of the ones that sticks out the most to me. Awesome.

From what I've heard, Molly, it sounds like you deal with a lot of younger women investors and largely sort of first time investors who are, like you said, building up the foundations and just starting out their journey. Are you seeing any sort of property or general investment trends when it comes to people who sort of fit within that demographic? Yeah, I think what's probably quite interesting is yes, they're first home buyers, but they're not necessarily what you'd consider like young, like in their 20s. It's women who are 30s, 40s, 50s. I mean, I still call them young.

But you know, so it's not necessarily just those, you know, the 20, I don't know what it is now, Gen Alpha or Gen Z. But I guess what am I seeing with trends? The rent vesting would be the main trend where they're now going, okay, maybe I can't afford to live where I am. What are other options out there? Also seeing a lot of women come out of separation and divorce who are now also wanting to get on the property ladder for the first time and then also seeing this demographic where they're receiving inheritances and going, okay, how do I, number one, protect myself and protect myself going into future relationships, but how do I make the most of this as well?

Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to rent vesting, I'm actually personally a rent vester as well, so I'm a big advocate and probably, you know, a little bit biased when it comes to me asking this question, but how do you view it? Do you view it as a really good strategy to use or are you, you know, like Jack said before, you know, a lot of people are living in capitals, things are a little bit more expensive, is it a bit more of a compromise that we just have to make? Yeah, I'm a rent vester as well. So I have two properties in two different states, nowhere near where I live, and I think it's a great strategy because there's no way, I live in Bondi, I live like literally 30 seconds from the beach, there's no way I'd be able to afford that mortgage or that property, but it's allowed me to get on into the property market whereas I wouldn't have otherwise and it's allowed me to grow my wealth.

So that first property I bought, it went up 100 and I think we're up like 150K at the moment within like a year and a half, which was crazy growth. I couldn't have made that like in a year if I was working my corporate, like a corporate job. Like, so it's just, you know, that was so awesome to have experienced that. But again, I always say using professionals, I definitely did not find that place by myself. In fact, the ones I did find, I sent to the buyer's agent and they were like, absolutely not.

What are you even thinking? I was like, well, it's good I'm not doing this by myself. And then what that allowed me to do was I had such growth that I was able to buy my second property in Tassie. So yeah, for me, it's been a massive game changer and especially doing it as a single woman, even though I do have a partner now, I still was very much like, I want to do this by myself because I consider myself a role model for all these other women to show them if like this hot mess who was crying in a supermarket because she couldn't afford jam can, you know, get her act together, buy a property, buy another property. If she can do it, then other people can do it as well.

Yeah. I mean, firstly, congratulations. That's so awesome to hear you started from what you said, maybe not being able to pay for groceries into getting, you know, making these really good decisions. And if I were to ask around the best decisions that you've made with your money, would you consider that being the best decision or do you have any other sort of parts of your journey where you felt you made a really good decision or maybe even one that just taught you a really important lesson? Yeah.

I mean, I don't think you can ever go wrong investing in yourself. So I, when I got back from living in the UK, I invested in a business course, which really helped me grow, learn. I had a fantastic business mentor and he really helped me with Ladies Finance Club. So that was definitely a really good investment I made as well as investing in the share market. I was doing it a little bit when I was younger, but I had no clue what I was doing.

And so it wasn't until I really started taking others on the journey and would get experts in, break it down that I actually started practicing what I was like helping others learn as well. So I'd say investing in the share market, investing in myself and then buying that first property. But it took me a while to do because again, I had to do this mindset shift of going, oh, I actually, I could do this. I can, I've got the money. I can actually buy this property, which I think a lot of us, we get so fearful of.