Aussie Expats in London: Building Equity Back Home

To be honest, until I met you guys, I had no idea that a buyer's agent was someone that could help me in the way that you did. When you don't have that team and process around you, it turns into gut feel, family opinions and friends. And unfortunately, familiarity doesn't equal results. We wanted to make sure that what we already had was going to be working for us rather than sitting there obviously doing well, but wanted to make sure it maxed its potential. When you're earning a currency that's so strong, especially in the time we have right now where it is a lot stronger than before, people forget that you're not actually needing to save the whole property, you're needing to just save the deposit.

Welcome to another episode of the Property Nerds podcast. I'm your host, Arjun Paliwal, and I'm tuning in here all the way from London. So we're recording here talking to Aussie expats. There's clients of ours who were living in Australia, decided to move over to London, live, work, spend some time over here, but instead of investing here, took their hard-earned money, invested back home because either A, more comfortable, felt like they knew what was going to happen there or knew more about investing back home, had the team, friends, family, others that did it, or like some of the other clients we chat to, actually wanted to maybe go back one day, live there again, and know that they've got money working for them. So we're in a bit of a series kicking off the tour with London, then we go over to Liverpool, then we go over to Dubai and start to talk to multiple clients, Aussies who've moved abroad in search of a life where they can explore their career, explore different parts of the world, but still build wealth back home whilst they're spending that time living and working overseas.

So this is the first of the chats here in London with one of our clients, Damien. Damien and Tanya actually looked at building a portfolio further beyond their first investment that they had in Australia, expanding it to the second and now beyond, and we unpacked that decision from a few years ago, how that's performed, what the nuances were from living in the UK and buying back home, and some of the things that have gone well, including if you stay till the end, some of the biggest mistakes I actually see many expats make if they don't build a team around them and what they were going to do instead, but we actually cover off what we did not only there, but the actual decision we made for Damien and how much that made him in terms of equity. So let's tune on into this episode, my chat with Damien about his journey with Tanya investing back in Australia as expats living and working in London. Nerd alert! Property nerds, the home for data-driven property investors, where we uncover Australia's hot and cold markets, latest headlines and trends.

Well, Damien, mate, welcome to the Property Nerds show and all the way here in London. So, mate, good to see you. Great to be here. Great to see you as well. It's been a few years since we'd first picked up the place for you in South Australia now.

But I want to go back a bit older than that and go back in time to when you first decided to basically call UK home. And what was it that attracted you to go, you know what, I'm going to explore life outside of Australia, you and Tanya, and work, family, all these sorts of things, all being started abroad. What started that for you? Yeah, well, a good question, I guess. I've lived here before when I was 23, lived in the Netherlands as well.

So I've had a bit of time in the Northern Hemisphere. And Tanya and I got married and, you know, just on the corporate sort of journey, you know, career-wise, et cetera, got some opportunity to come to London. And obviously being such a vibrant city, it was like, let's give this a go. You know, let's do a two-year kind of, as most Aussies do, a two-year little trip and see what we can get out of it. And then that turned into now nine and started a business, had a kid.

And here we are investing from the other side of the world. Well, man, for those who don't know, which part of Australia are you originally from? I'm from a tiny little town. I grew up in Bury in New South Wales and Gerringong. And Tanya, my wife's from Sydney.

So, yeah, we met in Sydney and that's where we were when we decided to move to London. Well, man, you've given up Bury donuts. You've got the beach in Gerringong. Funnily enough, all the folks from here want to escape to get the sun. And you've just gone the other way around.

You don't come to London for the weather. That's for sure. Well, man, fast forward to today, you know, buying an investment property whilst you're living and working in the UK all the way back home. I guess I want to firstly understand what made you consider this? What sparked that thinking?

Because I recall you had a place already before you moved here. But what made you think, no, I don't want to invest here or buy property in the UK. I want to still buy back home because you're in a new country. You've spent nine years now. You could almost call this home 2.

0, right? I mean, some people say nine years is pretty much like you calling this the forever home. What made you think, no, I'm not going to invest over there and I'm going to actually go back home? Definitely the runs we already had on the board. But I think intrinsic knowledge of how the system works just by growing up and being in it really helps.

And you can live here for 20, 30 years and probably still be a little bit unsure about certain things in the system that everyone just takes for granted as common knowledge, right? So you really have to do your time to get to soak up what you need to do. And we've got friends here, Australians actually, who have bought places here and done really well out of it. So that's not to say that it wouldn't be possible, but I know them and they go deep. So they've had to spend time to do that and we just didn't have that.

So I think it's what's the easiest path to us making our assets work for us. And at the time it was Australia and I think it still would be, to be honest, because we've toyed with the idea of investing in the UK, but it's still an unknown for us and we'd have to do a fair bit of understanding and make sure that we knew what we were doing. And I think given that we already have assets in Australia that are doing well, it would be so much easier to just go again there. For sure. Enjoying the show?

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au and book a free strategy session with us today. Let's make property investing less stressful and a whole lot more rewarding. Knowing many other Aussies who also live and work here, there's a common thing that I hear often, which is something I've heard on this trip so far, by the way, which is like how many people go, I'm going to Paris this weekend. It's only a couple of hours away. I'm jumping on a plane to this part of Europe or that part of Europe.

And it feels like whilst you might come into work, earn, explore a new country, the habits of getting that financial discipline right can be pretty difficult. How did you guys get past that phase? Because it seems like everyone's just hopping countries all the time. We had a kid. We were like a couple of trips a month for the first few years.

And I guess you come here for that, right? That proximity to Europe and so many different cultures and things to see. Absolutely. And I think, you know, that experience obviously helps you grow as a person as well, which obviously adds, you know, to your own arsenal of what you can be. So I think there's value in it regardless, but obviously there's a time where you have to go, okay, what are we saving for?

What are we working towards? And, you know, London is definitely a place of opportunity. And so I think that's also to be said, you know, the sky's the limit kind of thing. When it came to buying property back home though, was the second time around very different to the first in terms of the first was living in Australia, earning in Australia. What about the particulars?

Let's get to the nitty gritties like research, due diligence, finance, end-to-end exchange through to settlement, all these terms that we might be familiar with back home. This is your second time around doing it from the other side of the world. What were some of the big differences for you this time around? Probably the finance was a big difference and having people, the right team to understand that it is so different when you're earning in a different currency and you might only be able to, you know, leverage certain amount of that salary because of the currency, et cetera. And so understanding all of that and your capacity to, you know, take on a loan, et cetera, I think is important.

And we didn't realize that it was going to be so different to get finance or even refinance, right, if we want to. But also just getting access to the banks and people like that at the right time zones and everything. So that's really hard. The rest of it, to be perfectly honest, was a bit of a blur. It was, you know, all of the legals and everything like that just sort of happened with the team we had and that made it really easy.

And even the first time, I was lucky, obviously, in my own personal situation that I had a good family contact that had industry people around her that helped us make things happen. And, you know, it wasn't possible this time because we bought in a completely different state in a completely different area. And so obviously, you know, that's where you guys stepped in and it made it just super easy. And I think so we didn't have to worry too much about that because of that fact. But I think definitely the biggest standout memory or in terms of what was different was the financing and how that would work and what we could do based on what we earned here.

Yeah, people get surprised on that all the time. Like they think it'd be way more different. Yeah. And it's actually not as different as they thought. Like if you've got the right team around you and you've got that people who know how to liaise with banks from the ex-fat view or time zones or understanding that like it doesn't need you to physically be there to buy.

Has this changed your view on just building wealth now in terms of doing it solo versus having a team around you? Like how's that shaped in terms of a difference? Absolutely. I'll make it simpler every time if I can. You know, it's to be honest, until I met you guys, I had no idea that a buyer's agent was someone that could help me in the way that you did.

In my mind, it was probably just like someone out there just with a bit of knowledge, you know, introducing me to something that might work. But having a whole team that took care end to end was like such a foreign thing. And it was actually really helpful. And I didn't know it existed. And I think I would not bother going into it again without that.

I think especially being here, even back in Australia, I think it's obviously, you know, it's such an easy service. Thank you, mate. I mean, what's wild now, if I look at these numbers, is that especially even crazy when you think of it in pounds. But you bought a property for around 660K a couple years back. Today, that's worth $200,000 more.

Like, firstly, when you bring it back into the pounds world, correct me if I'm wrong with my math here, but it's like, say like circa 3 to 350K to pounds in terms of on the way in. It goes, so it's double, the pound is double. Double, yeah. So no, the pound is double. So it goes 100,000 pounds would be 200.

200, yeah. So around 350K in pounds to buy a 660K AUD property. And then firstly, do you see properties around London, houses with ocean views, brick renovation potential, but still modern enough to get what the same 350K pound, but also getting 350 pound a week almost in rent now? I mean, do you see that type of house, ocean views, things over here? Does that exist?

Not in London, definitely not. I mean, maybe outside, and there are pockets of, you know, like you were in Liverpool recently, I think there's definitely opportunity in some of those cities that are a bit smaller, but yeah, not in London, no way. I see what's crazy is not only have you had that affordable buy-in whilst, you know, living and earning here, but at the same time, it's like you're able to get lending, right? It's not like you had to save all that pounds in cash and then buy it. You're able to get lending.

Another thing is even when you think of the growth that's occurred and today's value, that's still circa, what, 430K pounds. Is that something you can get an ocean view house and probably not, right? Maybe, yeah, I don't know. I haven't really looked, to be honest. Yeah, but I mean, it just blows my mind because I mean, from around walking around here, I was seeing a million pound, like 1.

1 mil pound, and they were like two bedroom terraces. I mean, water views in London would be of the Thames, which wouldn't be amazing, but there's no way you're going to get something that is that cheap for sure. Yeah, I mean, it just blows my mind around like the potential many Aussies working here, living here have is that when you're earning a currency that's so strong, especially in the time we have right now where it is a lot stronger than before, people forget that you're not actually needing to save the whole property. You're needing to just save the deposit, the purchasing costs. And in Australia right now, like you can get 90% loan to value ratios, 80% loan to value ratios.

So it's not like certain countries where they need 30, 40% deposits for a residential home and then on top of that, all that. So how important do you see just that strength in currency, that understanding of finance, the right team is to actually getting ahead as an Aussie who's living and working here? I mean, it's pivotal. Like to your example, if I was to buy a place in London for a million, same, like loan to value ratio would be 80%, I'd have to get 200K in the back pocket. But put that in Aussie dollars and that's 400K, I would be able to buy a whole house for that that would have some gains in a couple of years.

So yeah, I think it seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? Well, mate, you're two properties in now in a portfolio, building equity really well back home in Australia. What's next for you and Tanya in terms of your portfolio building goals whilst you're living, working here? Yeah, I mean, we had to have a little bit of a pause just for the life that went on and I started a business which was directing everything into that. So I think once we sort of level out a little bit, there's definitely equity growth in our current property that you guys helped us with.

And I think, like I said, it's a no-brainer to go again if we can get that growth and use that to leverage straight away and really not gonna put us out that much. I thought you were gonna say you took a pause because too many croissants in Paris. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The two-hour trip, you've been doing too many of those of late. Too many pints in London.

Awesome, mate. Obviously, we talked about the success that we've had with that investment. I wanna try and maybe think of it from an alternate view though. Imagine you're in another universe now and you're like, time goes back again. You're about to purchase a second property but you didn't have our research, our due diligence process on this journey together and you're gonna go at it alone.

What would that have been looking like and how would you have gone about making the decisions that you need to make? First of all, I probably never ever would have considered looking at Adelaide. It's like being from New South Wales and Sydney specifically, that area. I think it's kind of like moving here to London and how unsure I am about doing that here. Like buying something here, it's the same thing.

I would just not consider it as something that I would do because there's so much involved in understanding it to the level that I understand the market that I grew up in. And so I think it would have just been very blinkers on. Where can I buy? Is it Sydney? Is it on the outskirts somewhere with ocean views or on the coast where it's gonna go off?

It would have just been based on my own personal knowledge. Maybe ask a few people, see what friends have done and just on the back of that, get something that may or may not have worked. It's definitely would have just been shaked down the network and see what I can do.