Graeme Holm Success Story: From Broke To Owning 6 Homes In 3 Years

Megan Andrews, 32, and Jeremy Craig, 37 of Perinth, were like many young couples in Australia, who thought that owning a home was out of their reach. They had splurged and overspent on an extended holiday and a lavish wedding in South Africa, and afterwards they were struggling to overcome debts that summed over $37,000.

A meeting with financial advisor Graeme Holm, CEO of Infinity Group Australia, changed everything. They learned that they could turn the tables around and began to make necessary changes to their lifestyle. “We had to get rid of all our wasteful expenditure,” Jeremy said. “A lot of our money was going to things we didn’t need.”

Graeme helped Megan and Jeremy put an end to their costly spending habits and set up monthly budgets to ensure that they did not spend outside their monthly income. This razor-sharp accounting is one of the first steps Infinity Group does for their clients, to help them save money that can be used for mortgages and investments.

“All it takes is old fashioned budgeting. You’ve got to go back to basics, save hard, and delay gratification a bit,” says Graeme.

With the strict budget in place, the couple were able to climb their way out from under their debt. Then, with a little help from Jeremy’s parents who offered to let them draw equity from their mortgage as a loan, they paid the deposit on their first home in January 2018. This home was a modest property in Ipswich, and led to the purchase of another house near Toowoomba last August.

Each of their first two properties were $420,000, and they were dual residences, so it was like buying four houses for the price of two. It was also four sources of rental income.

This approach to buying property may be unconventional, but for Megan and Jeremy, they saw it as easier and a better strategy for their future.

With Graeme’s advice, they decided to abandon the search for their “dream house” and purchase investment properties instead.

For their own housing, they built and live in and a granny flat on Jeremy’s parents’ property. They just recently purchased another home, with 2 residences, in Redbank that earns an additional $600 per week.

In just three years, the couple paid off their debts and have built a property portfolio with six homes, worth $1.5 million, earning an average of $80,000 per year in rental income.

“We were stuck in an old mentality. You work hard and eventually you pay off a house,” Megan said. “We’re not doing that anymore and the way we did it was so much easier than we expected.”

Read more on Megan and Jeremy’s story at https://www.realestate.com.au/news/couple-go-from-broke-to-owning-six-homes-with-aggressive-savings-plan-and-help-from-parents/.