I'm 29 and still live at home with my parents: Here's why they let my girlfriend move in too

A young investor have moved back home with her parents so she can keep building her property portfolio.

Liela D'Rose, 29, bought her first property seven years ago when she was a McDonald's manager.

She now owns three investment properties but owes the bank more than $1million after having remortgaged and borrowed against her other homes in the face of rising interest rates.

To help her cope financially, her parents Nilofer and Ashley are letting her live with them at Alexandra Hills, in Brisbane 's east, with her girlfriend of three years, Isla Crichton.

'It's really straining on the relationship with my parents,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'There is a such a big, generational gap, they don't understand what boundaries are, no clue, but my parents are fantastic, they're so willing to learn.

'You have to respect each other and respect each other's space and compromise.'

Things are easier now there's a one-bedroom granny flat at the back of the house where she grew up.

'We don't have to disturb them - it's quite separate,' she said.

'We've only had the granny flat for the past few years.'

Ms D'Rose pays her parents $200 a week in board and relies on rental income to service her mortgages.

The latest move back home nine months ago also followed Ms D'Rose and her partner living in one of her investment properties and carrying out renovations before leasing it out.

'We were just in that constant state of renovation and chaos all the time,' she said.

Ms D'Rose, who now works in human resources at Little Real Estate, bought her first investment property, a two-bedroom townhouse at Thorneside, in Brisbane's east, for $245,000 in 2017.

She expanded her portfolio in 2022 buying a three-bedroom house at Kingston, in flood-affected Logan, for $425,000 and also renovated that house with help from her father, an electrician, and her brother.

Ms D'Rose this year bought her third investment property, this time with her partner, at Nanango north of Brisbane.

'The thing I've sacrificed in this investment journey is the lack of stability,' she said.

Tenants are already living in this three-bedroom house, south-east of Kingaroy, which the couple only bought a few weeks ago.

Ms D'Rose now owes the bank $1.021million having refinanced to $380,000 on her first investment property at Thorneside as she also pays off a $345,000 loan for the Kingston property and a $296,000 loan for the Nanango house.

The Thorneside townhouse is being rented out for $380 a week, the Kingston house is being leased for $700 a week and the latest Nanango purchase is renting for $460 a week.

As a landlord, Ms D'Rose has been mindful about not increasing the rent too much.

'I'm not about extortion - my tenant in the Thorneside house, she's been there for the past four years and I've put the rent up a little bit, she's a single mum, you just need to find that balance,' she said.

'I have rented as well and you don't want to be paying ridiculous amounts of money.'

The Reserve Bank's 13 interest rate rises in 2022 and 2023 are also stressful.

'On the other side, the investors are getting pumped with these interest rates,' she said.

Her only regret was buying a townhouse rather than a free-standing house and having to deal with body corporates when bad weather put a hole in the roof.

'I had massive trouble with the Thorneside place with the hole in the roof and the body corporate was so difficult to deal with,' she said.

'It was their responsibility - I had to chase them up for a year to try and get this sorted, it was so stressful.

'Other people in the complex had their roofs fall in.'

Little Real Estate's general manager of sales and marketing James Kirkland said his colleague was an example of a younger buyer who recognised that being a landlord instead of an owner-occupier was the only way into the property market.

'She's a prime example of the younger generation really thinking about their property investment strategy differently where generations before, it's been pretty straightforward with the traditional method of save up a deposit, buy your first home, move into it,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'The way the economy has gone, affordability issues has really encouraged the younger generation to be more creative.'

Liela D'Rose's ultimate goal is to eventually sell her investment properties and have capital growth so she can one day establish her own dog rescue sanctuary for stray pets needing a home.

'I want to try and create some kind of passive income for myself later on in hopes to open my own dog sanctuary and save every dog ever,' she said.

'I want to live on a big piece of land and give it my time to helping animals.'

To service her mortgages and pay her parents $200 a week in board, Ms D'Rose will also be doing a weekend job running a mobile vegan coconut ice cream business, I Should Coco, from a restored classic 1970s Volkswagen Kombi van.

She is hoping the Reserve Bank of Australia copies its counterparts in the US, UK, EU, Canada and New Zealand and starts cutting interest rates.

'Sometimes Australia is a bit behind in how we do things,' she said.