If I read correctly, the one thing he did right was to somehow get hold of a whole lot of money during the GFC. Kudos to him for having the wherewithall to buy up then.
What we did do at the end of the last cycle was sell properties and pay down debt . I'm not a buy and hold for ever person.
For someone who's watched property for a while , buying centrally in Sydney after the GFC hit was a no brainer . I don't think I even spent much time on the forum seeing what other people thought .
The properties we sold were in Logan and Rocky and they've only just started moving again , where as the properties we bought at that stage are up about 60 % since we bought them , These ones we plan to hold long term.
We had an LOC available on our PPOR ( had been untouched for several years ) , so when the GFC hit we were able to make cash offers at a time when getting finance was next to impossible.
When we're in buying mode , I usually spend a lot of time on the forum reading posts and researching . After a while you learn who to listen to and who not to.
As I said in the secrets post , it's a matter of working out what works for you individually . I've always been in favor of paying down debt and i'm happy to take a profit , pay tax , so I'm in not extended when the market is potentially going to slow down .
We've only relatively extended ourselves financially on two occasions , and that was in 2003 - 2004 and the middle of last year , and even then we have lots of elbow room if things go wrong . If we were more aggressive , we could potentially be much better off than we are , but the SANF would be a pain.
If we do buy any further properties in the current cycle , they will be in cheaper areas and bought with the specific purpose to sell and pay down debt on the ones we've bought in nicer areas . That might happen if Sydney goes up another 15-20 % in the short term . Then we can sell our PPOR , pay down some non deductible debt and gear up .
Cliff
