Either the demographic here are rather young, or I am rather surprised that many suggests towards rental instead of property purchases. Yes, if you buy your first property when you are younger, you would have to make financial sacrifices but then again, the hard work would only make you tougher over time. I remembered purchasing my first house when I was in my 20s. My salary then was RM1.5k (these days, many fresh grads start off with RM3k easily); and after deductions for the house and car instalments, some monies towards my folks, I was left practically with a pittance. But take a look at it today, and the same house had appreciated by more than 4 times of its purchased price (especially after the LRT plan was announced for Mutiara Damansara)- you could never go wrong with properties located at the right (location, location, location). All my properties purchased and flipped over time were at key locations in Klang Valley, and rental income has been good.
The key is to go step by step as your disposable income improves over time; and not go for those speculative MLM-free-advice-buy-few-units-at-the-same-time-with-guaranteed-returns as any spanner thrown in the works and your financials get screwed as per one of the forummers' sharing above. If you start young and start right, you could have gained a portfolio of choice properties a few decades down the road; and that would meant that your kids would be set for an easier time (since you started with zero back-up from family as you mentioned, so you would understand what I meant).
I'm rather passionate about properties- if you are in doubt, you could drop me a PM and I could give you my 2 sen's worth if it helps. So go ahead, go get a good property that you could afford- and after things settle down over time, then you could go for other short-term gratification hobbies such as cars, bikes, and watches. And by then, you could really enjoy your hobby.
I agree with you. And similar to you, I also bought my first property in my 20s. But then again, when we were in our 20s the property prices are four times cheaper. You said this yourself. And I also started with a salary of 1.5K. You also mentioned that fresh graduates today has a starting salary of 3K. But the prices of properties have already gone up by fourfolds and prices of cars, almost more than double. Not to mention the price of fuel etc etc. You get the drift. So buying and committing to something that big and that expensive are not as easy. When inflation has only doubled our salary but put everything else three, four and five times the prices of yesterday.
Please don't get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of purchasing a place of your own. And and many of the things that you mentioned makes sense. What I am very strongly advising here is to rent first while saving and/or investing your money. Just to ensure that you are able to sustain your mortgage payments, so that when the s**t the fan, you are not that greatly burdened.
What I do is to ensure that I have 6 months worth of mortgage payments for my property sitting in my FD before I commit to buying. And to top it all off, FD rates these days are not that shabby.
Always take care of your investments first, then let your investments take care of you in your later years. I am no business man nor am I by any means rich. I am just your average salary man who has learned the tough way and similar to the OP, I have zero financial support from my family.
So there you have it...it is OK to rent first. Then buy when the time is right and when your finances are in place. Then later in life when your investments bear fruit, the time will be ripe for you to indulge in what you like and love, like watches or hi-fi or cars etc...