Property wise, we're currently between 60-65% at the moment.....we are soon to be increasing our debt to 80-90% LVR though.
When we bought we were at 90-95% each property except 1 at 80%.....so we're heading back to where we started to invest again
However saying that, if you add in cash, cars, shares, super, other assets, etc....we'd be sitting below 50% (today, not in a couple months when we leverage again)
The way I mitigate risks is have enough cash on hand (in an offset account) to cover at least 6-12 months of monthly debt repayments with no income. For me, this means I can sleep at night and not worry what our debt:asset ratio is. It doesn't really matter at all what that % is to me......as long as we can comfortably make the payments each month, I can sleep easily. Knowing we have 6-12 months of reserve up our sleeve, if tenants don't pay, hubby works less one week, kids get sick, etc, it doesn't stress me, money-wise at least. I know we won't have to make late payments or sell, and that's what I want to avoid the most - having to sell when it's not our choice to sell. Ideally I'd like 12 months+ cash reserves in our offset, which we did before kids, and will again after this next investment.
I do however stress if/when those cash reserves dwindle at times, we were just recently down to only 6 months worth of cash reserves, which is getting too low in my books, but did our taxes and back upto about 10 months, hopefully more soon
