This snippet is from one of our previous episodes: Closing The Gap: How This Indigenous Investor Is Pioneering The Way Forward. 

When you’re the first in your family or community to walk a new path… it can be daunting, overwhelming, and downright scary. 

In this TPC Gold snippet, we sit down with Nancia Guivarra — a Meriam (Magaram), Wuthathi and Bindal Juru woman, business owner, and property investor — who shares her journey into homeownership and how she’s quietly breaking generational barriers through action and example.  

From learning that you don’t need a 20% deposit… to choosing to act in a rising market rather than getting left behind, Nancy’s insights are real, raw, and deeply practical. 

Tune in as she shares: 

• Why she “felt the fear and did it anyway”, and what helped her push through 
• The impact she’s had on her nieces, nephews and friends who are now following in her footsteps 
• The silent cultural barriers that still affect homeownership in Indigenous communities 
• The real-world power of mentorship, representation, and community conversations 

Inspired by Nancy’s Story?

Book a chat with our award-winning Mortgage Broking team at Empower Wealth to start your path to homeownership. Whether you’re stuck on deposits, borrowing, or what’s even possible — we’ll help you explore your options.  

Take the next step toward owning your own home. 

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If You Enjoyed TPC Gold | Nancia Guivarra’s Journey to Homeownership, You Might Also Like:

• Ep 246 | Real Estate 101: Everything from Buying Your First Home to Beginner Investor Tips 
• Ep 253 | Top Tips for First Home Buyers
• Ep 303 | The Three Money Rules for Life 

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Transcript

Bryce Holdaway
You pioneered. You were doing stuff that didn’t have a pathway set before you. And so there’s a lot of wisdom in your own story. Have they asked you for advice? Have they asked you for guidance or is it something that’s too difficult to broach?  

Nancia Guivarra
Yeah, they have. Quite a few friends have, you know, they’ve sort of seen what I’ve done and then they’re kind of wondering. Because I’m working alongside others who may not have their own property, particularly in Sydney. Being in a relationship helped that for me. But being someone who’s done that… and I found it really scary too, to be honest, when I did it. But I sort of sort of felt the fear and did it anyhow.  

And I’ve had a few friends ask me for advice: How did you get there? How did you do this? I always thought you had to have a 20% deposit, but you don’t. And I feel as though that’s sort of not widely known. And I also felt that it’s better to get in at a higher interest rate with that small deposit, because when I was looking to buy the prices were going up so fast, you couldn’t save the extra that was going up by. So it was more important to get in and to be a part of that rise, than to sit on the sidelines and keep trying to save to keep up with the increase… because you couldn’t have done it. But in regional areas where lots of Indigenous people live…  

Actually to be honest, the highest density of Indigenous people live in cities, and particularly in Western Sydney. That is the highest density of Indigenous people in the nation. We think that it’s perhaps in the Northern Territory, but it’s actually really small numbers in absolute terms compared to the density of people in Western Sydney. And lots of other Aboriginal peoples live in regional areas, from the towns where those original missions used to be, right? So in those areas where mobs live, and my family are primarily in Cairns and up in the far north of Queensland from Gladstone and Brisbane upwards, those areas are cheaper to buy than to rent. And whilst my siblings haven’t gotten their own purchases, their children have. And I’d like to think that is because of Aunty Nancy, you know, (who) has in some way inspired them to do that.  

Bryce Holdaway
If someone else is listening to this, not only Indigenous people, well, probably specifically Indigenous people, but what is the first step for someone who’s inspired by your story? Seeing that your path has been multiple property ownership and clearly it’s done well for you. How do they start the conversation? How do they potentially break some conditioning around stepping forward? Because you talked about the exclusion up until 1967, has now created a legacy down the track that Indigenous Australians are behind the eight ball. How do they catch up and how do they get a bit more parity?  

Nancia Guivarra
66% of most Australians are in home ownership. Home ownership rates for Indigenous people are 38%. In regional areas, it’s even less. It’s 18% for Indigenous people. And these are government statistics done by Deloitte Access Economics and compared to 57% in regional areas. Whilst it wasn’t as common as other Australians to buy homes, there are other Aboriginal people who are in home ownership, obviously, because in that period, and I think I’ve been the spearhead of the generations that’s had all the opportunities, right? I went to high school, entered high school, I went to university, I came out, I got a good job, you know, I worked in government for quite a long time and now I’ve got my own business. There’s that number of Indigenous people coming through universities and their children are going into professional careers. In the past, apparently, they used to go into government the most. Now they’re going into the private sector. So with that, a lot more people have home ownership. So I think that most of our communities are fairly connected; I would suggest that you find someone who has done it and ask them for guidance. Find someone who you trust, ask them to advise you or point you in the right direction or be your mentor. But that’s not to say that you should listen to everything, because for people who aren’t experts I think what you should then do is build your team. And I’ve certainly done that, because some of my family I’m sure think I’m mad for having a mortgage. And you know if you get hit up for money, they sort of say can I borrow something from you? And I guess you know I’m negative this in terms of my wealth, in terms of the mortgages that I carry.  

Bryce Holdaway
Is there a tall poppy syndrome if you’re doing well and you’re perceived to be very well off… is that embraced within the Indigenous culture?  

Nancia Guivarra
I think like the mainstream culture, it’s not really something that’s talked about. I think that’s part of the problem… is that we don’t openly have around-the-dinner-table conversations. Well, I don’t; not in my family anyhow. And if you don’t share that information… 

Ben Kingsley
And I think that happens in all societies, in all cultures, right? Where if a culture has a community social culture of sharing and so forth, that type of success and spoils can sometimes be frowned upon. And as opposed to households or cultures or exposures that you’ve had around people who have high aspiration and like what you said before Nancy, you’ve worked hard. You’ve worked extra jobs, you’ve done whatever you’ve done to get yourself, you and your daughter into a financial position that is comfortable and hopefully will be more than comfortable for you. And that comes down to obviously some of the fears we have about fear of failure. But there are a lot of people that also have fear of success, where they don’t know how to cope with it and taking themselves outside of that comfort zone is also a real challenge.  

Nancia Guivarra
Now, look, I just wanted to point out that, you know, given I’m that generation that’s had all the opportunities, I feel as though we haven’t had that history of intergenerational wealth building and handing on. So I often like to think that, you know, I’m hearing if I were to lose my job or if the property market were to fall over… all of that could be brought down very fast, with the loss of a job or a steady income. So I feel that that’s why I’m quite vigilant, I suppose is the right word… about how I do that and not taking too many risks in that.  

Ben Kingsley
Yeah, but you’ve organised your money in a sense that provides you with that buffer, that financial stretch for those emergencies. And you’ve done that through using offset and giving yourself that buffer. And I think that’s really important. The other thing that we want to also get out to the Indigenous community and people listening out there is around what the banks can actually do for our Indigenous and First Nations people. Do you want to share a little bit about some of the ways in which the banks can look after our Indigenous people?  

Nancia Guivarra
Yes, certainly, you know, the Big Four banks have a range of products… that they now recognise and they sign up to Reconciliation Action Plans and they have a range of products that are focused at bringing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients. I saw one just recently come in my email box from Westpac for, you know, financial literacy courses and there is a big awareness of that. So I think that if you want to look for it, then that advice is out there.  

And there’s a lot of free advice too. You know, I went on to forums online and I listened to The Property Couch from the beginning. And there used to be a channel on Sky that you could get some (advice)… Margaret Lomas was on as well. There’s loads of stuff out there if you want to look for it. But I think that the other thing to recognise is that there’s still a challenge there for those institutions to be able to think about how to bring in peoples who don’t meet the normal criteria. Or there’s, you know, the Big Four banks and they’re probably fairly traditional, but there’s a whole bunch of other financial products there at the moment that are, you know, online. This is the new kind of banking way really. And I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of innovation that they might have and bring for people who are not just Indigenous, but for other people who want to get into home ownership and sort of don’t know where to start, I suppose.  

I think the other thing to point out about that is that if you do get people who are in perhaps social housing into their own home ownership, that frees up that social housing for other people to come through. So it’s not just for the benefit of Indigenous people’s kind of abundance, I’d like to say, that we have homes and that we have abundant lives, but for the whole of the community. That would work for everybody because that generates, wellbeing for the whole of the Australian economy if we bring up everybody with us. 

Ben Kingsley
Fantastic message. 

Bryce Holdaway
So Nancy, throughout that journey, when you approached the finance, did you go straight to a bank or were you dealing with a mortgage broker?  

Nancia Guivarra
I did in the first two purchases. And that was just because I hadn’t learned as well, I think. And I went to a broker after that from all of the advice that I’ve received. And I honestly would recommend that, because they help you to negotiate something that you’re not familiar with and to be able to push those approvals through the banks. And it takes the stress off you of not knowing what they’re doing because they have a lot of inside insight into what those banks processes are, and they have relationships with those banks. And so I’d highly recommend going through a broker.