Sample strategy · Real clients, names withheld
What a strategy session actually produces.
Step one of our process is a strategy session with Tom, our Head of Strategy. Most agencies describe theirs with adjectives. Here's ours with numbers: one real client session from June 2026, names and addresses removed, figures as modelled on the call.
The clients
A couple with good income, fresh cash, and a deadline.
Combined income of $440k. Around $330k in cash after selling their home. One investment property already, worth about $795k with a $700k interest-only loan on it. Two consumer loans (car and boat, roughly $30k each) quietly eating $2,000 a month.
The plan: move to the east coast in about three years. The question they brought us: buy the future home now, or wait until they're ready to move?
That question is the whole session. Get it wrong and you either sit in cash watching the market you want to live in run away from you, or you lock up your borrowing power three years too early.
The starting position
- $440k combined household income
- ~$330k liquid after the home sale
- 1 investment property: ~$795k value, $700k IO loan
- ~$60k of consumer debt costing $2k/month
- ~$2.0M borrowing capacity. We capped the modelling at 5.5x income instead of the 6x the banks would wear
The strategy
Buy the three-years-from-now house today, and make it pay rent until they arrive.
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Clear the consumer debt first
The car and boat loans go. That frees $2,000 a month and lifts borrowing power before a single property gets looked at. Boring, unglamorous, and worth more than most "hot suburb" tips.
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Buy the future home now, as an investment
An older beach house on a big block in the Sunshine Coast corridor they want to retire toward, in the $900k to $1.0M range. It rents from day one. Migration-driven demand, tight supply, and they stop being spectators in the exact market they need to buy into eventually.
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Manufacture equity with a renovation
An $80k renovation shortly after settlement, funded from equity, lifts the valuation and the rent. That uplift becomes the deposit engine for the next step.
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Add the granny flat
Five to six months after settlement, a granny flat build (modelled at $250k to $275k) goes in the backyard, funded by drawing equity back out of the improved asset at 80% LVR. Granny flats rent for $550 to $750 a week in that corridor. Combined rent was modelled conservatively at $1,450 a week across the site. The property goes cashflow positive, which protects them against rate rises and actually lifts their borrowing power for the next purchase.
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Keep the cash, use the equity
Nearly everything above gets funded by equity draws, not savings. The modelling deliberately kept a $66k cash buffer untouched, on interest-only lending at 6.5% to preserve monthly cashflow. At their savings rate (~$3.5k a month), the buffer rebuilds fast.
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Structure the next one properly
A second purchase (~$900k plus granny flat) was modelled for 2028, likely in a company or trust to protect borrowing power. To be clear, the final structure call belongs to their accountant, not us. We model the scenarios; the tax advice stays with the people licensed to give it.
And when they make the move in three years? The investment becomes the home. The granny flat keeps paying rent, or houses the adult kids when they visit. Nothing gets sold, nothing gets unwound. The strategy was pointed at their actual life, not at a spreadsheet trophy.
The fork, in dollars
Three futures, side by side.
Tom didn't model one plan and call it the answer. He put three versions of the next ten years on the screen: change nothing and keep the property they already own, make one good purchase with a granny flat, or run the full strategy. Same couple, same income, same starting cash. The only variable is what they do next.
| Strategy | Equity after 6 years (FY32) | Equity after 10 years (FY36) |
|---|---|---|
| No further moves | $621,000 | $1.18 million |
| One purchase + granny flat | $1.5 million | $2.53 million |
| The full strategy (recommended) | $2.04 million | $3.42 million |
Going it alone usually looks like the amber bars. Not because people are lazy, but because without the modelling you can't see what the next move is worth, so the safe call is no move at all. On these numbers, doing nothing costs this couple about $2.2 million of equity over ten years against the full strategy. Our fee is $20k. That's the maths of the whole industry, honestly.
Ten years out
Where the winning line lands them.
Modelled on conservative settings: growth tapering to 6%, rents at the low end of the local range, lending capped below what the banks offered.
Projected portfolio value by 2036 across the properties and granny flats.
Projected equity at the same point, with the portfolio LVR near 46% and falling.
The clients' actual goal: home debt-free by 60. The modelling gets the PPOR there inside ten years.
These are projections from Tom's modelling, not promises. They rest on stated assumptions: interest-only lending at 6.5%, growth starting at 10 to 12% and tapering to 6%, conservative rents, and a 5.5x income cap on borrowing. Change the assumptions and the numbers change. This page is general information about how we work, not financial advice, and your numbers would be modelled from your situation, not theirs.
The bit most agencies wouldn't publish
At the end of the session, the clients didn't sign anything. They took a month to think it over, and we told them that was the right move. A $1M decision deserves a month. If a strategy only works when you're rushed into it, it isn't a strategy.
Keep following the workings
The strategy is step one. Here's the rest of the paper trail.
The area report that comes next
Once the strategy is set, the search starts at the council level and works down. Here's a real one, published in full.
Read the sample reportWhat the buying produced
Three real purchases with the before-and-after numbers: Skye, Sydenham and Corio.
See the resultsWhat all of it costs
$20k flat, in writing, including exactly when you pay and what happens if we don't deliver.
See the pricingFree tool · Run your own numbers
Want to poke at a portfolio before talking to anyone?
The modelling on this page wasn't magic. It's Zapiio, the portfolio tool Tom drives in every strategy session. You can open a free account with our code and punch in your own income, debts and properties, and watch the same projections move. Fair warning: the tool gives you the numbers. It won't tell you which suburb, which structure, or when you're kidding yourself. That part is still the session.
Your numbers will be different. The rigour won't be.
Every client starts exactly here: your income, your debts, your timeline, modelled properly by a CPA before anyone talks suburbs. Standalone, a session like this is valued at $3,300. Inside the $5,500 retainer it comes with the suburb research as well.