- Investment properties: Sixteen, with the hope of adding four more by next financial year.
- Long-term goal: “To break the generational chain.”
- Best lesson: “Invest based on data instead of emotion, build a good team around you and have a $25,000 buffer per investment property for unforeseen events.”
Arjun’s top tip: “Be proactive about understanding the value and equity in your home and check in regularly with the market and your lender to find creative ways of setting up your products for maximum investing opportunities.”
Arjun Paliwal learnt his first lessons about property investing by listening to his father at the dinner table—but not in the way you might think. “My dad was a mechanic from a poor family in India and my mum worked in the home so he used to talk about the opportunities he’d missed. There were a lot of ‘I wish I’d done that’ statements.”
After growing up in public housing in New Zealand and then emigrating to Australia with his family, Arjun was determined to change the story he’d seen play out for generations before him. “I wanted to break the generational chains.”
Having started his career as a CommBank teller at 18 and working his way up to branch manager, Arjun was keen to grab the first rung on the property ladder.
In 2015, Arjun, his wife and his parents pooled their money and bought a home in Sydney’s north-west. “It was a two-storey, four-bedroom, two-bathroom home and we all lived there.” A few years later, after keeping a close eye on the market and noting that the value of their home had significantly increased, Arjun decided to purchase an investment property using the equity they had built up. “It was an affordable home in Brisbane. I had been watching property prices around the country and realised the city was a growth area.”
Arjun credits much of his success to this “borderless investing” strategy. “A big feature of my portfolio is that it’s spread across states. For example, Brisbane and Adelaide are among the best performing capital cities over the past four years. I own properties in both those locations and bought them before the boom. In 2017, when the Sydney and Melbourne markets were declining, I invested in regional Tasmania, which doubled in value over the next four years.”
Leveraging all that he has learned, Arjun has now established an award-winning buyer’s agency and believes that the support of a good team is paramount. “I think the biggest obstacle for people is ‘paralysis analysis’—building a team around you gives you clarity about your goals.”
Tips for investors
CommBank senior home loan specialist Sarah Vesty’s best advice for investors.
