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News.com.au
2 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
‘Whenever we could': Couple that moved to Australia in 2006 now own over 18 homes
A strategic couple have revealed how they own 18 properties after only moving to Australia in 2006. 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 '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.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE This couple moved to Australia from India with nothing. Now they own 18 properties - here's why they say it makes no sense for Aussies to buy a home of their own to live in
A savvy migrant couple who own 18 investment properties are advising Australians against buying a house or unit to live in if their goal is to live in an upmarket suburb. Rasti Vaibhav, 48, and his wife Rupali Rastogi, 43, came to Australia in 2006 with a background in IT and banking. They only had a 10 per cent mortgage deposit when they started their investment journey in 2011 by buying land and building a $440,000, four-bedroom house in the Newcastle suburb of Fletcher. Now, they own an impressive portfolio of 18 properties around the country - in Sydney 's outer west, Melbourne 's north, on Brisbane 's fringes and south of Perth. The investment properties cost them $5.8million total - and they conservatively estimate they would now be worth $11.3million. To Mr Vaibhav, the biggest mistake Australians can make is spending years saving up for a mortgage deposit to live in a nice suburb of Sydney, as an owner-occupier - only to find prices have increased and put their dream out of reach. 'It's very emotional - "I live in my own home and I can choose to change the décor as and when I like it" - but just be aware that's very costly,' Mr Vaibhav told Daily Mail Australia. 'The traditional way of what people have learnt about debt... is that "I need to have my own home and then when I am actually paid off, then I'll be looking at investments".' Mr Vaibhav and his wife have turned this on its head - choosing to live a much cheaper life renting at Narraweena, near Dee Why, on Sydney's northern beaches, rather than buying their dream $3.5million home nearby. Meanwhile, as house prices grow at a much faster pace than wages, the couple have set themselves up for life by nurturing an impressive portfolio. Mr Vaibhav said his annual rent of $100,000 was much cheaper than repaying $230,000 a year to the bank for the same kind of house in the area a short walk to the sand. 'The price in Sydney has been going up and up and up,' Mr Vaibhav said. Sydney's median house price is now approaching $1.5million, which means those saving up for a 20 per cent deposit and stamp duty end up being priced out. 'They have to keep saving, keep earning and if you look at the average rate of saving, that will take a few years for them to get to that point but by the time they get there, the price has already shot up further,' he said. 'It becomes unaffordable for a lot of people on average. 'We chose the path that's not so conventional. 'It's much easier to think about rent-vesting. Live where you want to live for the lifestyle, for the friends, for the school, for the workplace.' Ms Rastogi said that after living at Epping in the city's north, they moved to the northern beaches and rented, first in North Curl Curl, then Narraweena, to be near a selective school - and the ocean. 'Our daughter always really wanted to live next to the beaches just for the lifestyle,' she said. The family believed that was better than buying a house to be an owner-occupier in a far, outer suburb that was a long way from the beach and the city. 'When people can't afford to live in their desired suburb, what they do is they go a bit more further and when they're priced out, they go further out and all of a sudden, they realise they are so much (more west) to the CBD that they're spending about one-and-half hours one-way to their workplace,' Mr Vaibhav said. 'To us, saving that three hours per day is more important. 'It's also about the time and the peace that they're able to spend time with their loved ones in pursuing their hobbies that they want to do.' Mr Vaibhav argued renting in an upmarket suburb, despite the prospect of eviction, was a risk worth taking, to build a property portfolio and have a desirable lifestyle. 'We are actually at the whims of our landlord - there's a risk we are taking on our lifestyle that we're not sure 100 per cent that we will not be asked to leave the property,' he said. 'But we have always signed leases that gives us surety - currently, we're on a two-year lease; it's kind of a house for us for the next two years.' The couple, with a background in IT, have lived in eight rental properties since moving to Australia from Singapore in 2006, two years after they married. During the Global Financial Crisis, they leased a home at Kensington near the University of New South Wales as Mr Vaibhav studied for a Master of Business Administration, while his wife became the main breadwinner working as a Westpac insurance analyst. Even on a combined income of $200,000, a little later, they realised saving up to live in a rich suburb of Sydney was beyond their reach - and saw an opportunity to build up a portfolio of houses in more affordable suburbs. 'I learnt that money is not enough here, even as professionals in a good industry,' Mr Vaibhav said. 'We realised the cost of living was so high and there's not much we can do about owning a home and paying it off as a loan.' After buying in Newcastle, they bought investment properties at Campbelltown and Dharruk in western Sydney, the New South Wales Central Coast, Melbourne's north, Logan, Ipswich and Caboolture near Brisbane and Lakelands and Warnbro south of Perth. 'We really want to keep it very, very affordable,' he said. A young person daunted about high prices in Sydney can look for a house selling for $600,000 in an outer suburb of another capital city, and capitalise on good rental yields and capital growth as an investor, he said. 'They can choose to start making that money work harder for them,' he said. Rising prices also meant someone could borrow against that property to buy another one, having more leverage in getting a loan as population growth fed house price increases. 'When it goes up in value, you go extract equity out again and do it again, treating this as a business,' he said. Investment properties incur a capital gains tax with a 50 per cent discount while owner-occupier homes are free of the capital gains tax. 'Rent-vesting isn't about choosing between a home or an investment; it's about having both,' Mr Vaibhav said. The couple have, since 2020, run buyers' agency Get RARE Properties or Get Rich and Retire Early. Eventually, they want to live in their own home as owner-occupiers but are achieving this as investors first - planning to eventually sell several houses to ultimately buy their dream home. 'We have just delayed our buying a home - it doesn't mean that we'll never own our own home,' Mr Vaibhav said.
