The investors who bought when everyone else was running away are now reaping the rewards

GUEST OBSERVATION

I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be able to buy quality property in Sydney under $300,000…

But the GFC awarded me this moment in time that we absolutely took advantage of it. Campbelltown (Macarthur Shire) was the spot.

But why Campbelltown? It made for some great buying, simple!

The south-western Sydney location had all the ingredients of a great investing location with a fast growing population, great accessibility to employment in Sydney CBD or growing commercial and industrial sectors in Minto and Hoxton Park through either the M5 freeway or by train.

The last key ingredient was the GFC. This caused house prices to drop dramatically and consumer confidence to go out the window, allowing me to have no competition with other buyers and allow for some pretty low offers to secure some great deals.

This all happened for us in 2009. I was that confident in the area that I purchased eight properties there. Well, that’s all the past and now is what we want to all hear about, the results.

I am glad to say that we have had a few investors recently sell their properties in Campbelltown for what I would call “very impressive” results.

We were that confident, we even filmed the first property to be auctioned and it went better than expected!

The reason for some of our clients selling is to grab the profits they made from their investment property and pay down their home loan in a lump sum. Imagine having a home loan for $300,000, being able to drop $100,00 plus onto it in one go, making it $200,000.

Wouldn’t that increase your cash flow dramatically?

With a quick loan re-adjustment, it sure would!

But, you don’t stop there – now your cash flow has increased along with the available equity in your home, you go back out and buy two or three properties.

When two of those properties mature in value, you do the same and pay off your home loan in full!

Since this, we’ve had another great result with a client selling their house we purchased for $298,000 and sold for $412,000. 

Back to the story, I congratulate these investors doing what most wouldn’t – invest when everyone else ran away and they will reap the rewards for doing so.

TODD HUNTER is buyer’s agent, director and location researcher for Sydney-based wHeregroup.

He reached a personal investment portfolio of 50 properties in 2006 and has also started building an SMSF portfolio.