Dawn Fouhy on Future Proofing and Gaining $280,000 Equity in 3 Years

Timestamps:
00:52 | Intensity
03:31 | Closer Each Day
07:27 | Going With the Flow
11:15 | Micro Moments
13:52 | Everybody Has a Story
17:48 | Tight Quarters
22:36 | Peter Pan Mindset
26:33 | The Team With the Dream

Resources and Links:
Ireland
Home and Away
South America
Inca Trail
Coogee, NSW
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Bondi Road
Meekatharra, WA

Transcript:
Dawn Fouhy:

[00:25:02] We were outside on the balcony and we heard an auction happening. Now we'd only been together a year. And we were like, 'Oh my God, that's all for, like, $300,000. That would be cheaper than the rent we're paying'. So we were in our mid-20s, I think. And that was the real lightbulb moment for us that everything snowballed from.

**INTRO MUSIC**

Tyrone Shum:

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode we’re speaking with Dawn Fouhy, the founder of Future Proof Property Advisory. With a passion for helping people in property and through all the ups and down of life, her story has taken her across the world and Australia. Now a Melbourne local, she can’t wait to help others in her line of work make the most of their opportunities.

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**START BACKGROUND MUSIC**

Intensity

Tyrone Shum:

Dawn Fouhy is Irish by birth and has called Australia home for the last 14 years. Living in Melbourne and working as an intensive care nurse, she divides her work life into both nursing and property investment. Also a founder and director of her own buyer’s agency, she’s passionate about helping others in nursing achieve their property and financial goals.

Dawn Fouhy

[00:00:52] [I'm] doing both part time. So I work 60 hours a fortnight as an intensive care nurse. So I've always done that. I manage one of the intensive care unit pods. And then [I] work really hard on the buyer's agency part-time, helping other nurses find financial freedom through property.

[00:01:39] The shifts are 12-hour shifts. So we do a rotating roster. I do 50% nights and work that around our son's childcare. He's two [years old]. So my partner Melissa—she's very supportive. She works Monday to Friday. I do shift work. So we just make it all work.

Tyrone Shum:

She grew up in the rural Ireland countryside, a childhood many of us can only dream of. While she loved the experience, she had somewhere away from home on her mind.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:02:36] I'm one of four. I'm the oldest kid. [I] went to [the] local village primary school. Went to a convent secondary school. I had a very lovely upbringing, but very sheltered. So then, Irish people in general want to chase the 'Home and Away' dream.

[00:02:59] That's what we would watch every day after high school; go home and watch 'Home and Away'. And so then, that's what led 10 of us traveling together to Australia. You know, it wasn't anything like 'Home and Away'.

Closer Each Day

Tyrone Shum

Her dreams of Summer Bay didn’t quite match up to reality, but this was far from a negative for her.

Dawn Fouhy

[00:03:31] I think my first impression was there was just so much to do and to see. And it's such a young country in so far as being a settled country. But before that, there's so much rich history with the First Nations people and learning all about that. I did a lot of work in the outback [during] my first few years here in Western Australia and Queensland, and doing some Outback nursing there helping an Aboriginal community. So that was fantastic.

Tyrone Shum:

As for her childhood in the Emerald Isle, much of it was spent outdoors in the fresh country air.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:04:42] I felt like we never wanted for anything. And we didn't necessarily grow up wealthy. There was nobody in our family who ever did property investing. My parents worked really, really hard. We never really had, like, a lot of stuff.

Dawn Fouhy

[00:05:02] We played outside a lot. We played a lot of sport, building our own cubby houses. And there was a lot of focus on going to university and getting a good job. It was always to follow that trajectory.

Tyrone Shum:

Her father works in construction, so working long hours certainly runs in the family. In that same vein, she followed her mother’s footsteps in regards to her career.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:05:30] He would work away a lot. [He was a] really, really hard worker, always working real physical, labour jobs. And my mother then—she's the best. She was actually a care assistant. So she would go around to people's homes, helping them get dressed and shower and sort out their meals. And she's such a caring person. She'd been doing that job for 30 years. So yeah, she's a real inspiration—my mum.

[00:06:13] To be honest, so how nursing came around— So I actually was trying to pursue radiography and I didn't get the points for it because I didn't pick up standards. I just didn't achieve the max to get it. So then my second choice was nursing.

[00:06:29] So I kind of fell into nursing, moved away from home to go to university, lived in share houses, and then followed intensive care nursing, because I just really wanted to level up on my nursing and to care for some of the sickest patients and learn how to care for them.

Going With the Flow

Tyrone Shum:

When it came to figuring out her life path after school, there wasn’t much figuring out to do.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:07:27] I guess I didn't know any better. Nobody was doing anything different. Everybody was just following the same path that was laid out for you. This is the '90s in Ireland. It was just kind of you just follow what everyone else does. And everybody goes to university, and everybody gets married and has babies. And that's just, you know—that's what life is. Right? Or is this?

[00:08:37] We were always encouraged to work when we were young. So my first job was when I was 14. Just, like, helping out in a hairdresser’s, sweeping floors. And then I went through a whole range of jobs from working in a factory. I was a phone operator in a taxi office. So those [were] the days when you would use a handheld microphone to call out, you know, 'Charlie, Charlie [unintelligible]'. It was like two-way radio.

[00:09:09] I worked in, like, supermarket[s], bakeries—a whole host of different jobs. But I think, in hindsight, that's what gave me a real interest in people and then looking after people and knowing and learning how to talk to people. Because I think I was forced from a young age to just get out there and get working and give things a go.

[00:09:37] And because I was the oldest of four, then I'd work every weekend before college, just to pay for my way through university. And that was never the expectation, but it was something that was always instilled in us—[it] was to work hard, and that everything else will follow.

Micro Moments

Tyrone Shum:

Her degree took four years to complete, and involved a lot of hospital-based training to prepare her for what was to come.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:11:15] So I was having to work, getting paid very little, if not at all, and going to university as well. And even when you're talking about the resilience piece. That there's something I remembered from when I was 16. And, people can't talk this way now. But I've done a really terrible job of baking these scones. And the owner came down and was like, the scones were so hard, he was able to just bang them off of the counter and was just basically like, 'If you're going to keep doing this work, you can find another job'.

[00:11:51] But it's all those micro moments that really build up your resilience that, like you said, I feel like that doesn't happen nowadays. I feel like it's very different to when we were growing up, definitely.

[00:12:30] You have to be accountable. You have to be accountable for yourself and your actions. And that's something that I really hold in high regard—it's accountability.

Tyrone Shum:

When she finished studying, Fouhy went straight into full-time work on a medical ward, taking care of the elderly.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:13:08] Years ago, we would do 7- [or] 12-hour night shifts in a row. And we would [have] only just finished our nursing and you would be in charge of the ward with an agency nurse. Again, lots of resilience-building in nursing in Ireland.

[00:13:22] We just didn't have a choice. You were thrown into the deep end. So I think, all through my life, I've always been thrown into the deep end and had to learn how to swim very quickly.

**ADVERTISEMENT**

Tyrone Shum:

Coming up after the break, she explains what she got up to between Ireland and Australia…

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:15:50] On the way over, we did a lot of travelling.

Tyrone Shum:

The unusual living situation from her early days in Australia…

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:18:42] I don't remember meeting a property manager.

Tyrone Shum:

She reveals where and how her interest in property began.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:24:51] So for us, we were actually renting an apartment at the time in the inner suburbs of Melbourne.

Tyrone Shum:

And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

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Everybody Has a Story

Tyrone Shum:

Fouhy’s transition into nursing was definitely emotionally challenging, but also a rewarding experience.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:13:52] I guess it's being like a 20-year-old with no real life experience, having to be with people when they're dying and making sure they're comfortable and they have dignity. And it's a real privilege to be able to care for patients like that. It's something that is a really important part of our job. And because all of these people have a story and, right at the end, it's really important that we give them the most dignity and care possible.

[00:14:41] It's a lot to take on. But more so it's the emotion of the family in the room that you take on, because they're grieving somebody. They're about to lose their loved ones. So they're having the worst day of their life in your workplace—where you work. And it's your job to look after them. So that's a pretty unique job.

[00:15:03] But then, it also gave me an extremely unique perspective in that time is a nonrenewable resource. Then when we had our son—he's 2 [years old]—we really wanted to try and figure out how we can get as much time as possible. And then that's how [it] was our real kind of foray into property investing.

Tyrone Shum:

When she arrived in Australia in the mid 2000s, she didn’t come straight from Ireland.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:15:50] On the way over, we did a lot of travelling. So we traveled all around South America, did the Inca trail. So we were a bunch of nice, young, naive Irish girls who didn't know that the Inca Trail was a real physical feat. We thought it was a little hike. And so, I just had a pair of Converse and, at the time, I was smoking and it was—oh my god.

[00:16:07] Anyway, I managed to complete—made it to Machu Picchu with my Converse on, somehow survived the altitude sickness and made it. But so naive, like ridiculously naive. Crazy. That sounds so— [it's on so] many people's bucket lists, and they train and they do this and that. And I think we'd been out the night before and [we] got straight on the bus. And there we were. I had all these llamas overtaking me on the Inca Trail, and I was, like, barely able to breathe.

[00:16:44] I think maybe the alcohol from the night before maybe kept you on the high. So that's why you couldn't really do anything.

[00:17:19] We had a great time. We did a lot of cool things. South America is an amazing place.

[00:17:26] And then [I] came to Australia. Landed in Sydney.

Tight Quarters

Tyrone Shum:

Much like many young people arriving in Australia from overseas, Fouhy and her friends didn’t have any concrete plans other than the one to follow their hearts.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:17:48] We got off the plane, and we stayed in a backpackers in Coogee. And then, we eventually got a rental place on Bondi Road. So I think at one time, there was seven of us in a two-bedroom apartment—not even an apartment. It was actually beautiful, thinking about it now—it was like this art deco. It was almost like a house that had been turned into a whole section of rooms.

[00:18:17] It was beautiful. It was a really nice place. But yeah, that was just how we lived—all of us in together. There was four of us in one room at one stage—all single beds or double beds—and it was like 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.

[00:18:42] I don't remember meeting a property manager. I remember it being like [laughs]— I remember it being just a thing that was passed, kind of, through Irish person to Irish person, you could rent this place. And I think it was all just done directly through the landlord. And they made a nice profit.

[00:19:04] It was a great location: Bondi Road. It was fantastic.

Tyrone Shum:

Once she was settled in one of Australia’s most prestigious locations, she went off to work in various hospitals in the area before moving on.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:19:26] We were really in the mindset of wanting to experience life and experience Sydney and everything Australia had to offer, so we wanted work to come second to that. But six months in, we were partying a lot, going out a lot. So we all decided to go off and do our own remote and rural nursing contracts.

[00:19:45] I went on my own to a place called Meekatharra, middle of WA, [about] 4 hours outside of Geraldton. And also, [I] was in a nursing post in a [unintelligible]. So I was, in my early 20s, and I was the only nurse manning this, you know, clinic basically in a town of 300 people. So it was just me. The nearest hospital was hours away.

[00:20:21] Well, at the start, I didn't feel anything. I think I was so naive. And then it got more overwhelming as time went on. The responsibility and, you know, we would have to run clinics for children and expectant mothers and people with, you know, like mental health conditions and anything.

[00:20:41] We could have someone come in, and they would be having heart attack symptoms, and I would have to triage them and try and find some way to get them out of this little village so they could live. And that was only in my early 20s. So yeah, it paid really well, because, obviously, nobody wanted to do it, except for like [laughs], you know, young Irish nurses.

[00:21:07] It was an amazing experience.

[00:21:11] And the hospital I worked at in Meekatharra was fantastic. There was a few nurses that live together in like kind of like a boarding house, and the hospital was literally like 50 metres away. So we would just do shifts, go back and yeah.

[00:21:26] I was there probably four months, all up in between those two locations. So I managed to save up a lot of money and then met up with the rest of my friends in Darwin. And we traveled all down along the east coast. Campervans. I remember packing in like car parks and the Gold Coast in, like, our campervan or camping on the beach, and just a very live-by-the-seat-of-your-pants lifestyle—just a real day-to-day 'work hard, play even harder'. And we survived that somehow.

Peter Pan Mindset

Tyrone Shum:

Life continued on the same trajectory from there, travelling around before she found a reason to settle down.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:22:36] A real kind of Peter Pan mindset, same kind of thing. We moved to Melbourne again, almost like a rooming house, eight of us together in a two-bedroom apartment.

[00:22:50] I was doing a lot of agency work and meeting a lot of different people. And I guess I only really started to see a future and a pathway to my life in Australia when I met my partner. So, she's Australian. So I think that was the real moment for me that I saw a future in Australia.

[00:23:11] The plan was always to come here a year as working holiday. Leave it off. But life had other plans.

Tyrone Shum:

She had been in Australia for a year before meeting her partner and reaching the turning point that made her realise this was home.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:23:52] I really enjoyed the lifestyle here and just the freedom. And to me, Melbourne in particular was a very liberal city at the time. And it felt more and more like home. The longer I stayed here, the working conditions, the wages, the opportunities as a woman in nursing and in the medical field, there was a lot more progression here in Australia than in Ireland. And I just felt like I could really be 'me' in Australia.

Tyrone Shum:

Once Fouhy understood the opportunities that were available to her here, her property realisation and dream started to fall into place.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:24:51] So for us, we were actually renting an apartment at the time in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. We were outside on the balcony and we heard an auction happening. Now we'd only been together a year. And we were like, 'Oh my God, that's all for, like, $300,000. That would be cheaper than the rent we're paying'. So we were in our mid-20s, I think. And that was the real lightbulb moment for us that everything snowballed from.

[00:25:26] Because, Melissa, my partner— she's the numbers person; she's the data person. And she was like, 'You know, it's going to be cheaper for us to buy somewhere. Why don't we do that?' And then we started on the usual, you know, looking around. And we want a little dog. So we were trying to factor in—we had a little dog—we're trying to factor space into that. And we ended up moving farther out to kind of a Bayside suburb.

[00:25:54] We got a villa, [which] unbeknownst to ourselves, it was really good decision at the time. So it was two-bedroom villa. Really nice outside. And it was the front unit. It was one of, I think, one of 12 in a really nice suburb in Melbourne. And at the time, I still remember all of our friends thinking we were crazy. Why are we moving so far away? Twenty minutes down the road. And, you know, like, we're still young, we're going out, like, why are you buying a place? And there there seemed to be, because nobody else that we knew are in our life was doing that.

The Team With the Dream

Tyrone Shum:
Taking risks has always been up her alley, and became even more so once she had her partner in crime— and in life— by her side.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:26:33] And I think that's how we always operated and have operated ever since. We like to not follow the herd. If anything, we will go against it and just really trust ourselves. And so we sat in that place for about three years and saw the property prices going up and up in Melbourne. We were like, 'Oh'. So we were trying to think long term. And we really wanted to start a family.

[00:26:59] But before you have kids, you don't know the type of home you need, right? So we then ended up getting a townhouse. So you moved from the villa to the townhouse. But in those three years of having that villa, I think we've made upwards of $280,000 from that in that time.

[00:27:18] So we were able then to bring that into a townhouse and we only moved the next suburb over. But we got a townhouse, a three-bedroom, three-bath, and one living space— knowing now having kids need more than one living space.

[00:27:39] And we've been here ever since. In the townhouse. But the real thing that got us into investing was that point of going from villa to townhouse to what's next. So we were like, 'We're running out of space. Our son needs more space; you know, we probably need to buy a house'. And then this is like, end of 2021 Melbourne, [we were] looking at house prices, going, 'There's nothing that we really want within our budget. And, 'What are we going to do? Like, do we just sell off now and settle for something?'

[00:28:20] And then we had started watching different YouTube videos on property investing [and], you know, listened to the audiobook of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad'—like everybody was learning about leverage. And the more and more we consumed this content, we were like, 'What are we doing? Why are we so obsessed with getting the house?' And, you know, like, 'For who? Who are we getting the house for? Are we getting it for ourselves? Or are we getting in for other people? Are we getting it for our son? Who is that far?'

[00:28:58] And so we really had to examine, like what family meant to us. And for us, the bricks and mortar has nothing to do with it. As long as we're all together, that's it. So it was just changing our mindset around that [that] was huge for us getting into investing.

**OUTRO**

Tyrone Shum:

Dawn Fouhy’s story continues in the next episode of Property Investory. We delve deeper into her own property journey…

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:01:01] We bought it at the start of 2022. And it has served us very well.

Tyrone Shum:

How she and her partner have been navigating their portfolio…

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:05:35] Melissa was keen to diversify. And I was very headstrong in being like, ‘No, no, we need to go back to Perth again, this is just too good’.

Tyrone Shum:

She explains why hindsight is one of the most important things we can have in our toolbox.

Dawn Fouhy:

[00:12:56] And we would be done by now, we would have had the passive income.

Tyrone Shum:

And that’s next time on Property Investory.

**END OUTRO**