‘Whenever we could': Couple that moved to Australia in 2006 now own over 18 homes
Rasti Vaibhav, 48, and his wife Rupali Rastogi, 43, moved to Australia from India with 'pretty much nothing' apart from permanent residency and a drive to build their lives together.
When they arrived they stayed at Mr Vaibhav's cousin's home until they eventually secured a rental in Sydney's inner west.
The pair secured solid jobs in IT and banking, earning a combined income of around $190,000 a year. However, they were both stunned by the high cost of living in Australia.
'The first few years we were just getting our footing in this country and it is so expensive here,' Mr Vaibhav told news.com.au.
'Your salary looks big on paper but, once you pay tax, what you have in your hand is pretty much nothing.'
According to Mr Vaibhav, the couple always planned to buy property in Australia and build a secure home, but, shortly after arriving they realised it would be an uphill battle.
Even as a dual-income couple with no dependants, it didn't take long for them to accept they couldn't afford a home Sydney.
'It took us no time to figure out that if we bought our own home to live in we would have to wait a lot longer because our savings rate wasn't much and the prices of properties were going up and up,' he said.
'The community we lived in was expensive.'
Mr Vaibhav has a background in data analysis, architecture and banking, and the couple spent a considerable amount of time determining where to invest in property if they couldn't afford to buy where they were living at the time.
'When it became clear we couldn't afford our own home, we worked out how much we could afford and let that decide where we should buy,' he said.
In the beginning, the couple were apprehensive about having to change their home buying plans, but there was simply no way their rate of saving was going to outpace a booming property market.
In 2011, they bought a block of land in Newcastle, NSW, for $180,000 with a tidy 10 per cent deposit.
On that block of land, they built a four-bedroom home and rented it out for $575 a week.
It was positively geared 'from day one', boosting their income practically overnight.
'It raised our income by $30,000 and that allowed us to go back to the bank and increase our borrowing power more and more,' Mr Vaibhav said.
The savvy pair have rinsed and repeated that cycle ever since. They analyse data in areas with high growth, purchase homes and then rent out the properties.
'It isn't about buying any property, it is about buying the right property, in the right area, at the right price,' he said.
'Banks lend money based on income and it isn't just about value of the property but the rent you're expecting from the property.'
They now have 18 properties across four states, two of which feature granny flats, resulting in a total of 20 tenants.
Their portfolio, as a whole, is positively geared but the amount they owe in mortgages is pretty staggering, at the moment it is sitting at over $5 million.
The more they've built up their property empire, the more they've been able to take measured risks.
For instance, buying a property and having it negatively geared, but that cost can then be covered by a positively geared property.
Mr Vaibhav and his wife's property portfolio is conservatively valued at around $11.3 million and they're making $122,000 a year in pure income.
The landlord emphasised that none of this was a mere happy accident; they had worked diligently to understand the market.
'We did a lot of digging and looked at data,' he explained.
They're also not constantly offloading properties to cash-up, but rather see it as a long-term plan.
'People make the mistake of selling the property to get the profit out of it, but the challenge is there are lots of transaction costs,' he said, adding that he and his wife 'buy for the long term'.
Mr Vaibhav said their strategy as always been to buy 'whenever we could' and they have always leveraged their current properties to buy more.
The couple have also been careful to minimise risk by always having a financial nest egg.
'We've always followed the rule - and the number keeps changing as the portfolio has grown - but you should have (enough cash to cover) six months' worth of mortgage repayments,' he said.
The couple are now living in the Northern Beaches, renting a $4 million mansion and living the good life.
'We're living the dream in the suburb we like to live in while our money is working really hard for us,' he said.
Mr Vaibhav argued that, if he bought a $4 million property, he'd be spending over $200,000 a year on interest alone.
He would rather invest his money in more affordable properties and keep buying multiple homes, than let it get chewed up in interest.
Mr Vaibhav is very proud of what he and his wife have managed to achieve and said the biggest lesson they've learned is to think outside of your own suburb.
He argued that the most common 'mistake' people make is trying to buy where they live, rather than where they can afford.
'Rentvesting is a powerful strategy that allows you to live the lifestyle you desire, while building long-term wealth through property investment,' he said.
'By renting where you want to live and investing where the financial opportunities are strongest, you can achieve both your dream lifestyle and financial security.
'It also opens the door to buying your dream home later, paying it off, and building the retirement funds you need.'
The couple now run Get RARE properties an independent buyer's agency where they work to help other Aussies build their own property empires.
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