After 30 years’ worth of their savings was wiped off the face of the earth, this Sydney couple scrambled to salvage their quality of life.
A southwestern Sydney couple were left devastated back in 2008 when they saw their retirement plans go up in smoke.
Marc and Susan Pickering used a self-managed superannuation fund that they had built up over the course of 30 years being in the workforce but 45 per cent of their money was wiped out during the Global Financial Crisis.
“It was like a sucker punch,” Mr Pickering recalled to news.com.au.
“It takes you years to develop a base level of money in the share market.
“[I realised] there’s not enough time in my working life to recover if I lose half of that. I thought, ‘How am I going to make that money back?’”
The dad turned his attention to the property market, realising this might be the only way to salvage their retirement plans.
Now, in the space of 14 years, he has built up a five-property portfolio worth $3.4 million and is due to retire “comfortably” next year.
Marc and Susan Pickering lost half their superannuation during the GFC.
Mr Pickering, now 64, decided property was his best bet to salvage his future.
The former apprentice electrician, who called himself “just an ordinary bloke”, pulled together enough money to buy an investment property in Leumeah, just five kilometres from his own home.
He purchased the place in 2012 – he would have been 54 at the time.
For two years he fixed up the place, all the while reading books on investments and renovations.
The couple have managed to salvage their retirement plans.
He eventually sold the property and conceded “we did quite nicely”.
“When I sold that one it gave me a base amount of money to feel comfortable to put some skin in the game,” he said.
However, during Mr Pickering’s rigorous reading of investing in property, he realised he had made one huge mistake.
“You’re not supposed to buy one close to where you live,” he explained.
Diversifying your portfolio is key, according to the books he’d read, so he looked much further afield for his next purchase.
They own three investment properties in Brisbane and two in Melbourne.
Mr Pickering said he was just ‘an ordinary bloke’.
In 2014, the Pickerings forked out around $290,000 for a 499sq m empty lot in Greenvale, Melbourne.
They spent a further $240,000 to build a dwelling and soon got renters in.
As of the latest data available, that property is now worth an estimated $775,000.
Over the next few years, the couple made one more purchase in Melbourne and three more in Brisbane with similar returns.
Each time, it was a block of land which they built a house on.
The Greenvale property they built.
They built houses in the Brisbane suburbs of Mango Hill, Warner Lakes and Heathwood as well as the Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn.
In July last year, during the nationwide property craze which saw houses boom to a level that hasn’t been since the mid-1980s, the Pickerings decided to sell their Craigieburn house.
The cost of the land and the construction was $488,000 but when they sold it, they got $540,000.
In total, their property portfolio had cost them $2.5 million in loans but they would make just under $1 million in profit if they cashed it all out now.
The Craigieburn property.
Ms Pickering managed to retire a few years ago and he plans to stop working next year.
“I probably started building my portfolio a little later in life than is ideal,” he said as a word of advice other aspiring property investors.
“Start investing in property as soon as you can, don’t procrastinate.”
He added: “The other aspect is the exit strategy.
“My goal is to hold for as long as possible because time adds value.
“At some point I’m going to sell them off to give me a bit of cash to play with.”
Read related topics:
Keyword: How couple salvaged their retirement after losing half their life savings in GFC