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TPC Gold | Living Off Equity: Smart Strategy or Risky Move?

Welcome to the first bonus episode of 2025!

In today’s snippet, we’re answering a question from listener Lou, who’s wondering: Is living off equity a smart strategy for early retirement—or a risky move? 

Bryce & Ben break down the pros and cons of borrowing against equity, why passive income is key, and how having the right exit strategy can make all the difference. 

Plus, they unpack the common mistakes investors make when relying too heavily on equity and share insights on how to structure your portfolio for long-term success. 

For the full Q&A episode, tune in here: Episode 147 | Q&A – What’s Your Exit Strategy? Are You Retiring or Have You Bought a “Dud”? 

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Now That You Know More About Living Off Equity… What’s Next?

We hope these insights help you on your journey to building a successful investment property portfolio and securing your financial future! 

But if you’re serious about retiring on $2,000 a week through property investing, don’t leave it to chance. Join our FREE Masterclass and learn how to build a rock-solid property portfolio—without risking your lifestyle or making costly mistakes.  

What You’ll Learn in This Exclusive Masterclass: 

How to Buy an Investment Property Without Impacting the Family Budget
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How to Retire on a Passive Income of $2,000 Per Week with Just 5 Properties or Less
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Your Most Burning Property Investment Questions—Answered!
We’ve compiled the most frequently asked questions from our 40+ years as property investment advisors, so you can skip the guesswork and fast-track your success. 

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Want to Dive Deeper? Check Out These Episodes:


Transcript

Bryce Holdaway
Alright here’s the first one from Lou (via) Facebook message: Hi guys, long time listener. You take the edge off Sydney commuting, thank you. My husband and I currently have six properties in New South Wales, nothing in Sydney Metro yet, valued at $2.3 million.  

Ben Kingsley
Very good. Well done. Congratulations.  

Bryce Holdaway
And an LVR at 64% with a dollar sign at the front. 

Ben Kingsley
Almost neutrally geared right there. 

Bryce Holdaway
And listen to this…a gross yield of 8.2%.  

Ben Kingsley
Oh goodness me. Sorry, apologies. Cash flow positive. 

Bryce Holdaway
You went early. 

Ben Kingsley
Cash flow positive!  

Bryce Holdaway
That’s cash flow positive. We’re both 40ish with two kids under five. Wow, they’re busy. Our aim is to retire early with $100,000 income. Reading your book, watching the videos and listening to the podcast, I am wondering if retirement income is always based on rental income alone. Or do you ever recommend borrowing off the equity as part of an early retirement strategy? With major buffers, of course. We’ve been very wrapped up in the acquisition phase that it’s hard to see where the end is, especially when rents seem to creep up so slowly. I would love your thoughts on living off equity as part of the strategy. Thanks, Lou.  

Ben Kingsley
Thanks Lou. So there’s a bit going on there. The one thing I don’t have is the income story and I don’t have the super story. So one of the big things that we always talk about when it is your overall passive income, we don’t disseminate or dissect into what is coming off the property versus what’s the overall wealth story. So you might have some shares mixed in with that…definitely some super, unless you’re maybe self-employed and you haven’t been paying yourself super, which you should because it’s a very, very effective way to invest.  

The reality is this…we always talk about getting the money in your offsets to continually keep filling the buckets. So technically your interest is lower and at some point in time you could either retire the debt or you could have all this equity built up, all this liquidity. So it’s not that traditional borrowing and living off the equity because obviously when you do that there’s interest on interest and that’s not necessarily what I would consider a successful way of doing that because the other thing that we don’t know from Lou is: how much money do they want early versus how much money do they want late?  

So as an example, if you’re 95: How much are you going to spend of that money? Are you going to still be travelling the world? Are you still going to be jumping out of perfectly good aircraft? So you’re going to be doing all this adventure stuff or no, you sort of you know are going to be teetotaling and just sitting back and relaxing and watching the world go by and spending less? So a lot of people might want a little bit more earlier on and that’s where the idea of having that liquidity piece is important, or if they want to basically have that money indefinitely and pass it on to the next generation, then the reality is going to be that they can do that. But it all comes down to looking at those overall numbers.  

On the whole, I’m not a big fan of living off equity. I’m more of a fan of retiring the debt and obviously doing an exit strategy where you might sell one down and time that exit out. it would come down to modelling the numbers, modelling the growth story, because with an 8.2% overall gross rental yield, I’d be fascinated to have a look at what those properties are like and whether they’re getting lots of growth. But if I’m already at 64, I’d be paying those down and there may be one more in me in terms of a growth asset. So if I was looking at their portfolio, I’d probably say get me a growth asset in there and then by doing that, effectively I would sub out maybe one or two of those, even though they’re giving really strong cash flows, I might sub out one or two of those higher yielding properties that are giving me no growth in retirement. So I’d exit out of those over a period of time.  

Bryce Holdaway
Mate I like the cut of your jib. The point here is, you know, they’re relying on increase in rental alone. The important thing is if you’re effectively channelling the money back to retiring debt, you’re still increasing the rental pool through debt reduction. So that’s one thing. And two, it’s about, for me, this question, because I must admit my early strategy was the harvesting equity part of it. Thanks to you, meeting you many, many years ago, that’s swung around. But the question is, are you active or are you passive? So we would be considered active, we would be considered more likely to acquire more properties than the average person. Statistically we know that not many people buy one, and then of those who do, 73% (stop) at one. Chris Gray for example, he does that. And he’s got heaps of properties right. So he is a more active investor than someone who is more passive.  

Ben Kingsley
Correct. 

Bryce Holdaway
So therefore he’s got eternal confidence in the fact that he’s got this portfolio in the east suburbs of Sydney and will continue to grow over time.  

Ben Kingsley
And he’s value adding.  

Bryce Holdaway
He’s turning apples into apple pie. 

Ben Kingsley
Yeah, and he’s doing, you know, sort of penthouses on top of blocks of apartments and all that type of stuff. So he’s a lot more sophisticated. He’s solving bigger problems; taking on greater risk for better rewards. 

Bryce Holdaway
So that’s where people have got to work out on the scale where they are. And it’s a white knuckle ride because it relies on properties always growing and what about the fact that in the next few years we might be in a lower growth environment and if you’re racking up debt at $100,000 a year but you’re in a low growth environment, that might leave you with some anxiety around what your retirement looks like.  

Ben Kingsley
If you’ve got a $10 million property portfolio. Risking two of it. Well, that’s okay, isn’t it?  

Bryce Holdaway
But we see a lot of portfolios in this business and not a lot of people are there. So put a ring around if you see yourself as an active or a passive investor. Because if you’re passive, well then it’s more likely to give you less sleepless nights to do a debt retirement strategy and live off the passive income. If you’re active and you just get your kicks out of property and you see yourself putting on tool belts and renovating, well maybe living off equity might be for you.  

Ben Kingsley
And for these guys, it sounds like they’ve gone regional. To get those types of yield, it’s unlikely you’ll find them in any major metropolitan area. You might have one in Darwin or something along those lines. So the reality is, if you’ve perfected what you’re doing and it’s working for you, and you’re not having the tenant challenges with bad tenants in some of those locations, because I’d love to know some of the stories around each of the properties and what’s happened and the good tenants and the bad tenants, because that’s usually what you get.  

You never get a perfect run in terms of good tenants when you’re sort of looking at those types of yields in some of the regional areas. But the reality is, is if you’re up for it and you’ve perfected what you’re doing, you can keep replicating. The real question is, once you then forecast those cash flows, you’ll know when you need to stop as opposed to, you know, if you want to keep going. Because property has a high in and out cost, doesn’t it? It has a high recycle cost. Cost to get in, cost to get out. So it’s important that you don’t just keep chasing them down, when retiring the debt and living off the passive income could be the (way to) go.  

Bryce Holdaway
One of the more profound statements I heard you say very early on when we first met Ben was you said: This is my goal. This is my passive income goal. I don’t need many more properties before my portfolio is done. Job is done. You speak to Jane Slack Smith, job is done. She’s not acquiring anymore. And that was counterintuitive at the time because you can have this sense that you just gotta keep buying. Gotta keep buying, gotta keep buying, gotta have 20, 30, 40. And he who dies with the most property wins.  

But the reality is if you’ve got a clearly defined end point and you reverse engineer what that end point looks like….it takes away all the mystery and it gives you a step-by-step approach of what you actually need to do. So the fact that you can put the cue in the rack and then over time have no pressure to keep up with the Joneses, no pressure to keep up with the person who wants to be on the front page who’s got 10 or 12, because you’re actually progressively walking towards your goal with three or four or five properties.  

Ben Kingsley
Yeah, and so it’s never about the number. It’s about the income that it gives. And so if I was to go back and think about what I was thinking in 2005, it was around that $140-$150k mark. Once we were able to sort of develop the simulator and the cash flows and all of that type of thing, I’ve tweaked it little bit. It’s gone up to $160k. But it’s been at that $160k now for probably five years. And now I know what I need to do. So I’ve got one more acquisition to make, and then basically retire the debt out, and I’m done.  

Bryce Holdaway
Very good. So there you go, Lou. I guess the last point on that is The Rule of 25, Ben. If you know how much income you want, multiply it by 25 and it gives you the amount of income producing assets debt-free you need. So for example, if you can live your life off $10,000… multiplied by 25, you need $250,000 worth of income producing assets outside of your family home. But if you need to do that by $100,000 (then you need) two and half million. So you work out your number and then reverse engineer that income.  

Ben Kingsley
And so the beautiful part about that is that’s working off of 4% yield. So people will understand that it’s obviously four 25s or 100. That’s how it works. If you’re chasing a higher yield like a 5% yield then it’s the rule of 20. So it’s as simple as that. But we call it “The Rule of 25” purely to base on if we’re in this historically low interest rate environment, then it’s better to be conservative and it’s better to sort of say yield and rental yields might sit around 4% for a longer period which means capital growth is still going to be pretty strong. So it’s always a good point to make.  

Bryce Holdaway
Hey good question Lou, I think it’s on everyone’s mind Ben, as they’re building a portfolio. “What does my exit strategy look like?” So hopefully that’s been helpful to the folks. 

 

493 | $160K Dilemma: Should I Walk Away From Paper Profits?

 

Emma’s partner has a $160K dilemma: He’s been offered a refund on an Off-The-Plan apartment that’s been delayed for two years. Should he take the refund or ride it out for a potentially higher sell price? 🤔 

Kieran faces the decision of investing in smaller units versus two individual homes. Which is the better investment decision for him, and how can he align it with his goal of helping others? 🌍   

And in Simone’s Retirement Plan: How does this single mum and schoolteacher with 5 properties reach a target of $2,000 per week for retirement? How does this stack up in today’s economy? 📈 

Folks, this is a massive Q&A Day where we link age-old questions in today’s nuanced context.  

From diving into the psychology of Loss Aversion to understanding why “C” is the hardest to achieve in our “ABCD” foundational principles, you’ll want to save this episode for future reference.  

Listen now folks! 😊  

 

P.S. Stay tuned till the end to discover how to type…without typing!?  

   

Free Stuff Mentioned

 

Timestamps

  • 0:00 – $160K Dilemma: Should I Walk Away From Paper Profits? 
  • 1:49 – Interest rates, budget release & TPC survey winners  
  • 8:01 – New Tracking Tools in Moorr! 
  • 16:34 – Mindset Minute: Just focus your eyes on the captain…” 
  • 23:38 – Q1) Get Deposit back or Wait for Growth 
  • 27:26 – Learning Experience or Loss Aversion? 😱 
  • 28:02 – How to Avoid Loss Aversion: Step-by-Step  
  • 32:55 – “A bird in hand vs two in the bush” 
  • 36:31 – Why Off-The-Plan means YOU are taking all the risk  
  • 37:12 – This refund is a red flag 🚩 
  • 43:14 – Q2) Small Complex vs 2 Individual Properties 
  • 45:00 – When passive investing stops being passive  
  • 47:37 – To help others, you need to be in THIS position 
  • 49:52 – Why houses over units? 🏘️ 
  • 53:53 – Q3) Archive Question: $2k per week in 20 years’ time 
  • 56:41 – How we calculate the $2,000 a week in retirement  
  • 57:31 – The Power of Compounding, Offset Accounts and Qs to ask 
  • 1:00:07 – Why “C” is the hardest to achieve in our ABCD foundational principles 💰 
  • 1:05:09 – Thank you to all our Question-Askers!  

And… 

  • 1:05:45 – Lifehack: How to type…without typing?! 📱 
  • 1:07:20 – WMPN:  The State of the Housing System 

492 | The Hidden Cost of Get Rich Quick Schemes

 

What would you do if you worked 16-hour days on the road and were utterly exhausted the few days you were home? With a family to care for and a past of previous divorces, you’d probably want to change your lifestyle. 

But what if it’ll cost you $42,000 A YEAR? 

Or, what if you’d made the #1 biggest investing regret of your life in a get-rich-quick scheme and had lost half a million dollars?! How would you recover and get back on track towards a comfortable retirement  

In this Case Studies episode, we’re mapping out two plans for two couples (names have been changed for privacy 😊) whose stories testify to the fact that there is no one “right” way to invest in property. 

Psst – we bet you’ll be intrigued by the unexpected turn of events in Case Study #2. It’s a reminder that the path to financial freedom often involves tough reality checks to see new opportunities.   

It’s an inspirational episode that holds many cautionary tales, tune in now to avoid falling into the same traps!   

   

Free Stuff Mentioned

Timestamps

  • 0:00 – The Hidden Cost of Get Rich Quick Schemes 
  • 1:22 – Even the sun shines once 😉 and a message from Kurtis  
  • 5:23 – Thank you for all your feedback!  
  • 6:31 – The magic in “Sliding Door” moments  
  • 7:49 – Mindset Minute: Grant Mayo on how to figure out if you should buy it!  
  • 11:01 – Don’t listen to our pod if you love flashy cars 😉  
  • 12:43– Case Study #1: Not All Lifestyle Design Is Measured In Dollars 
  • 15:22 – The Problems: Past divorces and a $42K pay cut?! 
  • 18:43 – The Power of Automobile University  
  • 20:28 – Moorr: Brand-new insights to track the impact of your offset on your total debt levels! 
  • 22:04 – “Investing isn’t just for rich people” 
  • 24:09 – The Plan: How James will get his energy and life back while paying off the mortgage 
  • 29:04 – Buying for $600k in 2028: But why don’t they act NOW?  
  • 31:53 – Risk profiling, recency bias & the perfection solution  
  • 35:09 – The hard work behind the scenes  
  • 40:12 – Results & 5 key takeaways  
  • 43:34 – Case Study #2: The True Price of Get Rich Quick Schemes 
  • 46:07 – His #1 biggest investing regret  
  • 50:20 – They were unclear on THIS important knowledge  
  • 54:04 – The fears & their penny-drop moment 
  • 55:51 – The Plan Pivot: The dream home was not feasible?? 🙁  
  • 1:02:13 – “Sometimes healing comes from bringing the darkness into the light, in a place of trust”  
  • 1:04:02 – The Result: Debt free 2 years before retirement 
  • 1:09:26 – Is it time for your engine check?  
  • 1:11:19 – The Modest & Comfortable budget needed in retirement 

And… 

  • 1:13:32 – Lifehack: How much does it cost a day to blow $10K in a year?!  
  • 1:14:55WMPN:  46% of Commonwealth Bank’s customers in 2023 were from THIS generation 😮  

491 | The 3 Stages of Retirement & Why Most Don’t Think Beyond Stage 1?  – Chat with Jennifer Langton

 

“What you do with your home will have the biggest impact on your fees and charges and how your cash flow works in residential aged care.”  Jennifer Langton  

Folks, there’s A LOT of considerations and work to be done to “get your ducks in order” before you retire. It can be overwhelming, from managing your pension to strategically positioning your home and investment properties.   

And it’s not just for elderly folks or those who are about to retire. Gen Xs, we’re talking to you too!   

To help guide you through Australia’s complex Aged Care system, we’ve got an exceptional, first-time property couch guest: Jennifer Langton!   

Jennifer is the Head of Personal Advice at Aged Care Steps and is an Educator, Financial Adviser, and Speaker who is an FAAA accredited Aged Care Specialist for Senior Aged Care and Retirement Living.   

Together, we unpack: 
✅ The 3 Major Phases of Retirement & why most people only think about Phase #1!  
✅ Why you want to avoid “Hospital Carpark Decisions” at ALL costs  
✅ Why You Don’t Want A Scottish Castle In Retirement!  
✅ How your home is assessed (Psst: It’s different between your aged care and aged pension!) 
✅ The intricacies between interest rates and pensions and the new incoming changes 
✅ Jen’s top tips and tricks for aged care and much more!   

 Tune in now to discover the answer to some of these age-old questions 😊   

 

Free Stuff Mentioned

  • 2024 TPC Survey Closing Soon! Let us know what we should start, stop and keep doing and as our thanks to you, we’ll give you a Case Study Series Unpacked for FREE (usually $297). Plus, the top #5 most insightful answers will win a $100 gift card. Share your thoughts now >>    

Timestamps

  • 0:00 – The 3 Stages of Retirement & Why Most Don’t Think Beyond Stage 1? 
  • 2:44 – 2024 Survey Closing Soon: Fill yours out & get our FREE Case Studies Unpacked Series 
  • 5:02 – If you are a Gen X, you’re going to want to do this…  
  • 6:08 Mindset Minute: Dream while you’re awake    
  • 9:53 – Welcome Jennifer Langton!  
  • 10:29 – We NEED to change these Aged Care myths  
  • 14:29 – Jen’s career from Flying to Financial Planning 
  • 16:50 – Her Traditional Money Backstory  
  • 19:04 – “Sit down and have that cup of tea”: The first big steps to financial literacy  
  • 21:30 – How Jen has always stayed in control of her finances  
  • 22:38 – The big transition away from a traditional upbringing 
  • 23:26 – The 3 Major Phases of Retirement  
  • 27:21 – The options available in Australia’s care system  
  • 32:03 – Who and what should you be considering when it comes to retirement?   
  • 33:54 – Application to approval codes: The Assessment Process  
  • 37:37 – The Scottish Castle: Why it matters WHERE you live 
  • 41:27 – “Your home is assessed differently for aged care and aged pension”  
  • 44:45 – Avoid ‘Hospital Carpark Conversations’ at all costs! 
  • 46:44 – THIS is where Financial Planners shine  
  • 48:12 – The messy middle of 1 investment property  
  • 50:27 – Option 1: Do Nothing?!  
  • 51:12 – Case Study: Beryl, aged 87  
  • 54:55 – The fine print: Refundable Accommodation Deposits (RAD) 
  • 58:06 – New changes coming out to interest rates and aged care?  
  • 1:01:55 – The wealthiest generation around the world    
  • 1:04:12 – Tips & traps of aged care 
  • 1:07:53 – The Granny Flat Catch  
  • 1:09:30 – Summary  
  • 1:10:23 – What options do you have for your home in retirement? 
  • 1:11:43 – Why we haven’t been talking about Superannuation 
  • 1:13:47 – Advice from one of the best in financial and aging care planning   

And… 

  • 1:16:04 – Thank you for turning on the lightbulb, Jennifer!  
  • 1:21:36 – Lifehack: Apple has added a game-changing feature for podcasts  
  • 1:23:40 – WMPN: Construction has hit new lows & the most expensive property on the planet?!  

 

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