A couple from Sydney, Australia, who both earns average incomes, have managed to buy 19 homes in a span of 12 months, without relying on financial help from family and friends.
Emily Sharp, 25, and Luke Rogers, 24, have a total of $3 million property portfolio which includes homes that they bought in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Queensland.
Ms. Sharp works a graduate position in marketing while Mr. Rogers is with the army. The couple relied on clever home buying strategy and savings from their salaries to avail lots of homes.
The Sydney couple share their story to the Daily Telegraph.
According to the report, Ms. Sharp and Mr. Rogers started saving for their very first home investment when they were young and they have agreed not to buy luxury stuff and keep their budget tight.
Mr. Rogers said that the strategy they used to buy 19 homes in a single year may appear complicated but in reality it can be done by anyone. "The trick is to have equity in the home the day you purchase it. You then take out that equity to buy your next properties," he said.
They devised this clever tactics after being dissatisfied with their first home in Queensland. They conducted a research on how to make money in real estate and their queries led them to Nathan Birch of Binvested, a Western Sydney native who bought more than 150 properties before turning 30.
The couple decided to follow the footsteps of Mr. Birch. They searched for homes with three criteria in mind: the home must be in an area where prices are about to go up fast, the monthly rental income must exceed their mortgage repayments and the price must be below the property's true market value.
With these approach, after only a few months of ownership to a property it will be worth more than they paid for, then they refinance their original loan and use newly gained equity as a deposit for their new home.
They employ the help of mortgage broker Graham Turnbull of Zinger Finance to negotiate their loans and a buyer's agency Binvested to assist them find homes selling under their value.
As of now, the couple owns a total of 22 homes with no plans of adding any further. "Our rental income is now higher than the income from our jobs, which is great, but I think we'll stop buying for a while." Said Ms. Sharp.