About Diana and Wayne Wanders
Apart from purchasing their own home in Sydney and a holiday house on the South Coast of NSW, Diana and Wayne Wanders started investing in property back in the year 2000.
Their first property was a newly built townhouse in a suburb of Brisbane.
This was a negatively geared investment for Diana and Wayne who did very little with this property until one day in late 2009 when someone made an offer that they could not refuse.
So they sold the property. After paying back the debt and the capital gains tax on sale, they had enough money left over to pay off the rest of their loans on their home and holiday house. So before the age of 50 Diana and Wayne owned two houses debt free, their own home and a holiday home.
Not a bad situation to be in.
Diana and Wayne then sat down in 2010 to work out what they would do next.
They looked at the return they had from their Brisbane investment property and compared this with the return from their self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) over pretty much the same period.
Their SMSF had primarily invested in shares in this period and had suffered (like many others) from some major stock market corrections in that period. Over this 10 year period their SMSF averaged a yearly return of less than 7 per cent.
In terms of the Brisbane investment property, after tax savings from the negative gearing, in the 10 years they owned the property, Diana and Wayne had invested less than $10,000 of their own cash. Buying and holding the property was largely covered by debt, the tenant and the tax man. As a result, their cash on cash return was in excess of 100 percent per year on this property.
I do not know about you, but a cash on cash return of over 100 percent beats the 7 percent their SMSF averaged. Shares had a good return, but leverage multiplied the returns on property.
So Diana and Wayne decided that property was the way to go and set about learning as much as possible about property.
Wayne, who is a qualified chartered accountant, would often was work as a Virtual Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for small businesses. In this role Wayne would act as the part time CFO for various small businesses who could not afford to pay for a full time person.
Back in 2010, one of Wayne’s clients was an investment property marketing company who Wayne continued to work with till mid 2015. This was invaluable on the job training.
After reviewing hundreds of property deals a year as part of this role, Wayne learned how to quickly evaluate a property deal. Wayne now has built his own evaluation tool they continue to use today on every property Diana and Wayne look at.
Other benefits from working in this business included:
- Wayne also managed a team of professional property managers who had responsibility for nearly 1000 properties between them in multiple states of Australia.
- Wayne had first hand working with Australian tax laws and how these impact on investment properties.
On top of this both Diana and Wayne would sit through endless presentations and seminars, paid for many courses, paid for property specific mentoring and read many investment property specific books, magazines and blogs. This has covered not only not property investing in Australia but more recently the United States.
But the best thing Diana and Wayne did was take action.
Diana and Wayne took their new knowledge and applied it by purchasing and selling property.
Wayne used the knowledge to crunch the numbers and identify opportunities. Wayne learned the tricks to building a portfolio so that you can keep going and not be stuck with one property.
Diana used the knowledge she gained to project manage various renovations. One renovation Diana completed in 2015 cost less than $10,000 and added $40,000 to the sales price on a property that sold within three days of listing. Diana has also project managed the building of a granny flat, before they were fashionable.
Diana and Wayne know that not every property for sale is an investment grade property. Knowing how to spot the right property is a skill Diana and Wayne have built up and keep on using.
Together Diana and Wayne are a formable team with skills and mindsets that complement each other.
In the period since 2010, Diana and Wayne have purchased property in multiple locations in both Australia and the United States. They have renovated property for sale to both investors and owner occupiers. They renovated property to hold as investments.
And they took advantage of the SMSF leveraging rules and have two Australian properties inside their SMSF and a third property now in the United States.
Diana and Wayne took advantage of mentoring and their own research to build up a team in the United States and buy properties sight unseen.
It would be fair to say that Diana and Wayne with having the bulk of their wealth tied up in property in Australia and the United States, they not only talk the talk about property, they walk the walk.
And more recently Wayne has built on all their experience and education to write the book “Avoid the Poverty Trap”. This book helps educate people to stop them working hard, just to retire poor. If you want more information on the book visit www.avoidthepovertytrap.com.au
Want to be notified when our next property is ready for sale?
Diana and Wayne Wanders
Far and Wide Real Estate
diana@farandwiderealestate.com
wayne@farandwiderealestate.com