26 properties and still working at my day job (happily)

Hiya peeps,

Good day to you all. This is GC, back on Somersoft forum.
Some of you might remember me & some of you were not even born then :D
naah, just kiddin. Have not been a major major contributor here, but have managed to learn some and give back some to this awesome community. Btw I don't rake up 'number of posts' statistics by one liners either ;-)

My investment story which started in 2007 is that I have managed to accumulate 26 properties till date.

13 in Australia (NSW, QLD, VIC) and 13 in US (Atlanta).

All CF positive (touchwood). No big techniques used either, just a normal invest, wait, revalue, invest type thingy.

I still work at my 9 to 5 day-job and have started enjoying it now.
Surprise surprise!
Retirement was my plan when I started investing as I hated going into work, but I guess when you know you can leave any time you just continue to chip away and stay there I guess!

(Cash-flow security from rent = Job-satisfaction = higher productivity = Higher Titles at my office = Delay my exit)

Experiences abound and happily Investing still. Always sniping at the next big deal. Always looking to make the next deal better than the previous one.(note - it does not read "looking to make more money!", which it does any ways as a by-product!)

My next move is a 3-4m transaction in Aus. Maybe a Unit-block or several single family homes (SFRs as they call in US)

Sydney/Melbourne - 11 O'Clock I believe, a few more good stories and then the papers will be littered with 'shattered dreams' as many first home buyers will not be able to afford the mortgage at these prices and we will see higher foreclosures.

I am looking at suburbs at the 6 O'clock mark.
Markets which ave not risen beyond 3% year-on-year over the last 5 years. Any suggestions?


Thanks,
 
Can you provide anymore details on your journey? i saw that just 5 years ago you "only" had 7 properties, quite a big jump!

Maybe http://somersoft.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=4 ?

It is not a big jump Jamie,

something simple, chipping away at the same strategy, investing on 3 or 4 properties every year.

Buy +ve CF, Hold and wait, revalue and borrow, Reinvest... nothing more, nothing less ;-)

Also attribute it to the most powerful force in the universe ... power of compounding.
 
It is not a big jump Jamie,

something simple, chipping away at the same strategy, investing on 3 or 4 properties every year.

Buy +ve CF, Hold and wait, revalue and borrow, Reinvest... nothing more, nothing less ;-)

Also attribute it to the most powerful force in the universe ... power of compounding.

Great work GC sometimes the simplest approach is all you need :)
 
A real inspiration GC! Your journey is a mirror of the one I to hope to embark on - I.e. loving the day job, loving the life but having the security in the bacl-end of no money strife!

CF+, CG-likely are property types I look for too. Peeps think these are hard to find but the truth is, at any given time in the course of 'time', there will always be suburbs in the doldrums of 5 - 7'o'clock on the property clock. Find these first, ween out the duds that have no CG factors, this whittles it down. Then just go for the ones that then number-crunch as CF+ (oh, AND aren't infested with termites.. Side note and seeing as everyone seems to be jumping on SEQ right now; Brisbane is one of the most termite-ridden cities in Aus so choose carefully on houses there! About 2/3rds of all house b & p reports will actually come back with some kind of treated or untreated termite history!!)

By I digress, love your style GC; more power to you :)
 
It is not a big jump Jamie,

something simple, chipping away at the same strategy, investing on 3 or 4 properties every year.

Buy +ve CF, Hold and wait, revalue and borrow, Reinvest... nothing more, nothing less ;-)

Also attribute it to the most powerful force in the universe ... power of compounding.


Also better returns from your Atlanta properties now that the Au$ has fallen back to around 76-77. Great results.

With sourcing additional properties in US are you using US income??? or perhaps you are now able to source finance??? very curious:)

All the best
 
Yes DN : Simple approach = Extraordinary results! :)


C-mac : Thanks for your kind words, btw, termites is not a bad-word in the investing world in my humble opinion. If managed properly (like yearly termite treatment that costs you $500) it is just another variable to your investing world. I won't discount the property just because it has termites, which you will know.

Hey MTR: yep, when I went in to invest in the US in 2011/12, AUD was:

2011 : 1 AUD = 1.10 USD
2015 : 1 AUD = 0.78 USD

So there is an FX value appreciation to the tune of about 30% plus.
Plus Capital growth. On average between 80 - 110% on most deals pre-2013.

Now I am working on bringing USD into AUS through Equity loans on the US property portfolio. Note your mainline banks like Wells fargo, bank of america or Chase won't touch you even with a pole, without a SSN (social security).

However, there are a lot of Investor loans opening up now.
They are usually around the 5-6% mark. Good companies.

Depending on Loan size, Loan to value ratio and ROI. Cost of raising this capital will be between 3-5%
there are hard-money lenders too who charge between 8-12%, they have very little criteria and work on "no-money down deals". Avoid them is my advise, unless one is too desperate.

My next plan is to raise USD, convert to AUD, leverage and Invest to the tune of 3-4m. Looked at my DSR and this figure works out well with banks.

hope this helps,
 
Good stuff GC! Well done...

Did you have to buy cash in Atlanta from Australian equity? What did you pay for these?

Where are your Aussie IPs...looks like you have a great spread. Know a few people on here who spent 40-50k on Altlanta homes plus another 5-10k in renos. Worth now 80-100k and CF+.

With the currency play net of expenses they have made 50-60k per house.

Hiya peeps,

Good day to you all. This is GC, back on Somersoft forum.
Some of you might remember me & some of you were not even born then :D
naah, just kiddin. Have not been a major major contributor here, but have managed to learn some and give back some to this awesome community. Btw I don't rake up 'number of posts' statistics by one liners either ;-)

My investment story which started in 2007 is that I have managed to accumulate 26 properties till date.

13 in Australia (NSW, QLD, VIC) and 13 in US (Atlanta).

All CF positive (touchwood). No big techniques used either, just a normal invest, wait, revalue, invest type thingy.

I still work at my 9 to 5 day-job and have started enjoying it now.
Surprise surprise!
Retirement was my plan when I started investing as I hated going into work, but I guess when you know you can leave any time you just continue to chip away and stay there I guess!

(Cash-flow security from rent = Job-satisfaction = higher productivity = Higher Titles at my office = Delay my exit)

Experiences abound and happily Investing still. Always sniping at the next big deal. Always looking to make the next deal better than the previous one.(note - it does not read "looking to make more money!", which it does any ways as a by-product!)

My next move is a 3-4m transaction in Aus. Maybe a Unit-block or several single family homes (SFRs as they call in US)

Sydney/Melbourne - 11 O'Clock I believe, a few more good stories and then the papers will be littered with 'shattered dreams' as many first home buyers will not be able to afford the mortgage at these prices and we will see higher foreclosures.

I am looking at suburbs at the 6 O'clock mark.
Markets which ave not risen beyond 3% year-on-year over the last 5 years. Any suggestions?


Thanks,
 
Well done GC
I also like working hard

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Good stuff GC! Well done...

Did you have to buy cash in Atlanta from Australian equity? What did you pay for these?

Where are your Aussie IPs...looks like you have a great spread. Know a few people on here who spent 40-50k on Altlanta homes plus another 5-10k in renos. Worth now 80-100k and CF+.

With the currency play net of expenses they have made 50-60k per house.

Hi Sash
I am pretty confident in saying that GentleC purchased similar product to me in Atlanta, the larger family homes 2000-2500 ft, in today's market you would be paying around $120-130K+ renovated. I also know one of Karina's clients sold similar product for $189,000 last month, at $77,000 purchase price.

Price for these foreclosure homes are almost back to prices of 2007 when the US market crashed.

In 2011/12 the only way you could purchase US properties was with cash as finance was not available to foreigners, unless you wanted to take a huge risk with hard money lenders. I believe there are options today at lower IR rates and I know some investors are refinancing their US properties to buy more.

From some crude cals I would not be surprised if these 13 properties generate a gross income of close to $200K pa, this takes into consideration the Au$ at around 76.

I would also be interested in knowing how much money was initially invested in US market if GentleC cares to share and whether my guestimate is about right:)

MTR
 
Hi Sash
I am pretty confident in saying that GentleC purchased similar product to me in Atlanta, the larger family homes 2000-2500 ft, in today's market you would be paying around $120-130K+ renovated. I also know one of Karina's clients sold similar product for $189,000 last month, at $77,000 purchase price.

Price for these foreclosure homes are almost back to prices of 2007 when the US market crashed.

In 2011/12 the only way you could purchase US properties was with cash as finance was not available to foreigners, unless you wanted to take a huge risk with hard money lenders. I believe there are options today at lower IR rates and I know some investors are refinancing their US properties to buy more.

From some crude cals I would not be surprised if these 13 properties generate a gross income of close to $200K pa, this takes into consideration the Au$ at around 76.

I would also be interested in knowing how much money was initially invested in US market if GentleC cares to share and whether my guestimate is about right:)

MTR

MTR,
My client bought at 86k in 2011/2012 from memory and just sold at $185k. It was a beautiful property that was well below market value at the time of purchase in Gwinnet County, I think the lowest sale price in that subdivision at the time we bought was around 120k. Very nice part of town.

Gentle Chief has bought some great properties too :)
 
MTR,
My client bought at 86k in 2011/2012 from memory and just sold at $185k. It was a beautiful property that was well below market value at the time of purchase in Gwinnet County, I think the lowest sale price in that subdivision at the time we bought was around 120k. Very nice part of town.

Gentle Chief has bought some great properties too :)

Thanks for the figures, excellent result for your client:)
I wont be selling though, I can't get these returns/yields in Australia.
 
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