Like many professionals, Wade and Kim don’t have much spare time – and that was even before they welcomed their first child recently.
In fact, this interview took place the night before their lives were about to change forever with their family expanding to three the very next day.
The couple have been together since their 20s, which they spent travelling and working around the globe. On their return to Australia about 11 years ago, they decided to settle on the Gold Coast.
“We brought enough money back to scratch together a deposit and buy a unit in Mermaid Waters. We lived in it, we renovated it. It was buy-to-live,” Wade says.
An eye on the future
The couple spent the next 10 years building their careers, paying down their mortgage, and planning a family. Wade says it was the thought of become parents that made the couple wonder whether they should be doing more to set themselves up financially.
“Bubbling away beneath that was how do I get myself set up for the future? How can we either get ourselves into our dream home or escalate our wealth in different ways?” he says.
As fortune would have it, one of the couple’s friends introduced them to Propertyology.
Wade says he was immediately taken with the firm’s affordable property investment strategy because the couple didn’t have significant funds to invest because of their carefree lifestyle during their 20s.
“We didn’t have a massive plan or vision, but I knew that I wanted to make my money work harder for me,” he says. “We don’t have a huge nest egg, so I knew that I needed to accelerate the wealth creation.”
“All the numbers said it wouldn’t cost much to hold so it shouldn’t effect our lifestyle too much and get our money working a bit for us – and that’s worked out really well.”
After engaging Propertyology, the couple settled on a property in a growth corridor close to a major capital city in March 2017.
The paid $351,000 for a three-bedroom home on 680 square metres, which attracted rent of $370 per week.
Wade says the property had previously been owner-occupied but Propertyology’s networks meant tenants moved in just two days after settlement.
Wade is one of those rare individuals who admits he’s doesn’t know as much about property investment as the experts, which meant he was more than happy to accept the firm’s recommendations about potential locations.
“I’m a little time-poor with my work and I’m by no means an expert at property, which is exactly why I wanted their services. I liked their model, which was the right zone for me,” he says.
“To be honest, I trust their model and their research and if I didn’t I wouldn’t have gone in. What I also liked about it was it did take the emotion out of it.”
Lifestyle is king
The couple have always valued lifestyle, so they decided to move out of their Gold Coast unit and become rentvesters instead.
Wade says they now “live like Kings” in the same suburb, which meant they could afford to add another investment property to their portfolio, too.
“Lifestyle is critical to us and we did look at buying to live in, but it would have been a bit of stretch, so we decided to go again because we had some more equity and more savings,” Wade says.
“So, we engaged Propertyology once again and, perhaps a year to the day after the first property, we settled on another.”
This time it was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in a major regional centre, which they bought for $340,000 in early 2018. It is rented for $345 per week.
Wade says he had no qualms whatsoever about investing in a regional location.
“I was all for it. It all made sense to me again,” he says.
“I went in with no idea (where to invest), but I’m OK because I’m paying someone to do that for me and I trust their judgment. I feel like it is a low-risk proposition with Propertyology.”
“They work in a niche and they know it really well. It worked for me because I’m of a view that the lower end of the property market has got room to grow.”
Within the space of a year, Wade and Kim have built a $1 million-plus portfolio, while working and preparing for the birth of their first child.
In fact, the loan for their most recent purchase was calculated solely on Wade’s income because of their impending new family member but was also possible because they had adopted an affordable property investment strategy.
“I’m a believer. I don’t have a lot of capital so I’m not in a position to look at $600,000 or $700,000 investment properties. That’s why I like their model. It works for me,” he says.
“It’s not really effecting the things that we find important. My wife and I are living the life that we like to live, because you’re only here once and the last thing I want is a mortgage I can’t afford.
“Long-term security is critical now. It’s about investing in the future for our family.”
Propertyology is a Brisbane-based buyers agency and (national) property market research firm. We help everyday people to invest in strategically-chosen locations all over Australia. Testament to our multi-award-winning success is Propertyology’s expertise in being the only company in Australia to forecast Hobart’s remarkable resurgence and begin investing there in mid-2014, before the boom. Now, while others fight like seagulls over a chip to get in to that market, our buyer’s agents are actively investing in a few other locations that resemble what Hobart looked like in 2014. Like to know more? Contact us here.
