About this episode

Dave Gow discusses his transition from investment properties to ETFs and the challenges faced during this process.

Most people sit firmly on one side of the property versus shares fence. Dave Gow spent 15-plus years on both, building a property portfolio, hitting the borrowing ceiling, then selling down to fund the ETF portfolio he now lives off. In this episode Hayden puts him through a barrage of listener-style questions on how the transition actually works, and why most property investors have never honestly audited their returns. In this episode we'll discuss: 💸 Why the property-only plan stalled: maxed-out borrowing capacity, and cash flow forecasts that looked grim even with the properties paid off 💸 The mechanics of the switch: sell a property, park the lump sum in an offset, live off part of it, and dollar cost average the rest into ETFs over a couple of years 💸 Why holding maximum debt while living off your portfolio rarely works, even when the maths of leverage looks appealing 💸 Surviving the brutal years: Perth rents falling while expenses rose, negative cash flow on a falling asset, and why Dave banked on mean reversion 💸 The self-delusion audit: anchoring to purchase price and forgetting stamp duty, holding costs, selling fees and CGT. "I bought for 600 and sold for a…

People in this episode

Host: Hayden Smith

Guest: Dave Gow

Topics covered

• investment properties
• ETFs
• financial independence
• property investing
• debt management
• cash flow

Keywords

• property portfolio
• borrowing capacity
• dollar cost averaging
• negative cash flow
• mean reversion
• selling costs
• retirement planning

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