While many Aussies are nervously waiting for news about interest rates today, there’s one man with multiple mortgages who simply isn’t worried.
Graham Whitfield owns multiple properties but isn’t worried about whether interest rates go up or down today.
Mr Whitfield has amassed a property empire, but surprisingly, unlike some Aussies who are depending on the cash rate to drop in order to finally get some mortgage relief, he isn’t too concerned.
The 40-year-old from Perth said lower interest rates are a “positive sentiment” for the market but it doesn’t impact his dealings.
He isn’t looking at interest rates. He is looking at sale clearance rates, vacancy rates and area growth.
“It is about a lot more than interest rates. For me, there’s opportunity in all markets,” he told news.com.au.
For example, Mr Whitfield said that Perth hasn’t been negatively impacted by the interest rates holding for over a year at 4.35 per cent; the opposite has happened. He argued the market has “boomed” because of interstate investors.
He understands that the same can’t be said for Sydney or Melbourne, but he’d argue that every market in Australia is vastly different.
“When interest rates started going up in 2022, a lot of buyers went away and markets like Melbourne and Sydney have had it tough,” Mr Whitfield said.
The property investor argued that “owner-occupiers listen to the news” and wait to hear about rates, but he isn’t as dictated by them.
This was all compounded by the fact his wife fell pregnant, and while that was a huge joy, it was also expensive.
“We were living week to week. My wife was having twins and we lost her income, which was another $70,000 to $80,000,” he said.
Mr Whitfield explained they went from a couple earning a combined $300,000 to needing to service multiple negatively geared mortgages off his $150,000 wage.
Things weren’t looking great, but he always had the confidence their financial situation would turn around because, at his core, he is a “doer” and someone who is prepared to work for success.
Interestingly, after some tenants trashed his property, leaving $35,000 in damages, he got the idea to start flipping his investments, renovating, selling and then reinvesting in the property market.
“I knew the market was starting to get better and this was my opportunity. So I renovated and realised the uplift and how much value it could add,” he explained.
When he flipped that property he made over $70,000 in profit and that was like a “light bulb moment” for the Perth father.
Four years later, he has bought over 27 homes, with two currently in the works, and flipped at least 20.
“I’ve made in gross profit $2 million, which doesn’t include the ones I’ve kept and a couple of million in equity,” he said.
In saying that, Mr Whitfield is also at least $2 million in debt on all his properties, but he calls it “good debt”, the kind you can generate an income off and certainly nothing he is losing sleep over.
“If you’ve bought an investment property and you’re not too negatively geared, the debt isn’t a bad thing. It is a good debt because you’re using leverage to create wealth through property,” he explained.
The financial success has “changed everything” for the property flipper, who has been able to provide for his family more than he ever imagined.
Once he realised how much he could make by flipping property, Mr Whitfield wanted to diversify and find different ways to create multiple income streams.
He toyed with the idea of opening a buying agency firm but he fell in love with the idea of coaching people and helping others amass their own empires.
“They don’t teach how to make money in school,” he said.
“I started sharing content and people would ask me to coach them and it grew.”
Mr Whitfield said someone he coached recently made $500,000 in profit within the first 12 months and another made over $400,000 in property flipping while he was coaching them to success.
“I’ve had people quit their jobs and flip full time,” he said.
The 40-year-old said he knows people can be “close-minded” about his theory on how to amass wealth, but Aussies need to get away from the traditional ideal of buying one house and paying off one mortgage before investing in the market.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is by taking action it opens up more doors for opportunity and exploring all possibilities,” he said.
The property flipper is so dedicated to making money from property that he doesn’t see the point in just buying a dream home to live in.
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Right now, he rents for $1200 a week, and he thinks that is a great deal.
If he ever was going to buy and build a home for his family, there’d need to be a way to make an income from it.
“I’d rather just keep buying investment properties. If I was going to buy some acreage and build the dream house on it, but I’d only do that if I could make money from the property with a venue or something,” he said.