Infinite Wealth

Akshay is from Melbourne but has spent the last few years working overseas. Good money, one problem: no time and no way to manage anything on the ground back home.

He wanted a passive income strategy ready for the day he returns. From the other side of the world, it felt impossible.

Since April 2021 we have helped Akshay purchase four investment properties, all while he has been overseas the whole time. Three years in, his portfolio is worth over 4 million dollars with a million dollars in total capital growth.

His outcome is his own and reflects his circumstances and timing, not a promise of anyone else's result.

But it proves one thing. Distance was never the barrier. The barrier is having nobody on the ground you trust.

General information only, not financial advice.

I have never once lived in a house that I own. When I say that, people question the numbers, so this time I pulled them live.

The most expensive rental in Perth: a house in Cottesloe for almost 3,000 dollars a week. RP Data values the same house at 7.72 million.

Buy it with a 20 percent deposit and you still owe over six million. At current rates that is about 308,000 dollars a year in interest, almost 6,000 a week, roughly twice the rent.

So renting the most expensive house in Perth leaves you around 150,000 dollars better off every year than owning it.

The question is what that 150,000 a year, and the deposit, could be doing instead. For me it has always gone into assets that pay me, and the assets pay for the lifestyle.

Figures are estimates for one property at a point in time. General information only, not financial advice.

People say you can tell someone's character by how they treat a waiter. I do not buy it. Character is not revealed in comfort. It is revealed under pressure.

I watched the toughest man I have ever known, my dad, ex military, ex farmer, collapse on a staircase in tears. Not because he was weak. Because financial stress had broken him.

You do not judge people by how they act when life is easy. You judge them by how they show up when life is hard.

Being kind to strangers is the easy version. Strangers do not share your history. Your partner does. Your kids do. And if all your graciousness is saved for strangers, that is not kindness, it is image management.

Real character is the tone you use with the person who loves you, the patience you find when your kids are overwhelmed, the softness you choose when your ego wants to snap.

Money stress presses on people until the best of them buckles. Nobody should meet that version of themselves without a plan behind them.

Rising unemployment sounds like bad news for property. The reality is more interesting than the headline.

A slowing jobs market cools the economy. A cooler economy eases inflation. Easing inflation gives the Reserve Bank room to take its foot off the brake. And lower rates expand borrowing capacity, which supports property prices.

So the number that reads as weakness is also one of the preconditions for the next phase of the cycle.

And here is the part everyone misses. Even with unemployment ticking up, roughly 95 percent of the workforce is still employed. That is what underpins housing demand even while the economy softens.

The headline says weakness. The strategists see the conditions that have historically preceded the next phase of the property cycle.

Always read past the headline.

General information only, not financial advice.

Thirty eight thousand dollars left on his home loan, and over a million dollars up. That is where David sits today.

When he came to me, he had one property in Victoria Park and one goal: pay off the mortgage. Every cent went into the home loan. Disciplined, sensible, exactly what everyone is told to do.

I told him I did not think it was the smartest use of his money, because doing only that meant everything else stood still.

So we helped David buy three investment properties alongside it. The result: over a million in capital growth, and the original loan down to its last 38,000. One property and a big mortgage became four properties and a home that is nearly clear.

He did not choose between paying off the home and building wealth. The two happened together.

His result reflects his circumstances and timing, not a forecast for anyone else.

General information only, not financial advice.

The most important word in business, according to the man who wrote the most famous money book of all time, is cash flow.

I found a clip of Robert Kiyosaki teaching the lesson that changed my life. An asset puts money in your pocket whether you work or not. A liability takes money out whether you work or not. Which is why his rich dad said the family home is not an asset, and paying it off just makes it a cheaper liability.

Here is the Australian upgrade. The debt on your own home is generally not tax deductible. That is the expensive debt. The debt used to buy an investment property generally is deductible, subject to the current rules and your circumstances.

Same book, same lesson, better ending if you live here.

General information only, not financial or tax advice.

You want to buy 500,000 dollars worth of shares. How much money do you need? Five hundred thousand, obviously.

Now you want to buy a 500,000 dollar house. How much do you need? Just the deposit.

That is leverage.

Now flip it. You have 50,000 dollars. Into shares at around 12 percent, the Australian average over the last hundred years, that is 6,000 a year. Or use it as the deposit on a 500,000 dollar property growing at around 8 percent.

Eight percent of 500,000 is a whole lot more than 12 percent of 50,000.

The honest part: leverage cuts both ways, property carries interest and holding costs, and long run averages are history, not a promise.

But this is why property keeps appearing in wealth plans. It was never about the growth rate. It was about what the growth rate applies to.

General information only, not financial advice.