(Aidan Devine’s post from REALESTATE.com FACEBOOK on 13 November 2025.)
Sydney investor now owns 56 properties after buying
18 in last five months: Property investor Bharat Patel, 43, first came to
Sydney as a student and now has 56 homes across the country.
An IT worker who arrived in Australia as a student
20 years ago has revealed he now owns 56 homes, 18 of which were bought in the
last five months – but he claims he isn’t being greedy by buying so many.
Sydney resident Bharat Patel, 43, said his properties were worth a combined $20 million and the rents he pockets from his property empire totalled nearly $780,000 a year. He added that he only holds about $7.5 million in debt against his $20 million portfolio because the values have skyrocketed since he purchased many of his homes.
The portfolio is reportedly positively geared. Mr
Patel claimed that he pockets about $108,000 a year in passive income after he
pays his loan costs, insurances and other ownership costs. He brushed off
suggestions his property buying spree could be denying others homes given that
many Aussies were struggling to buy even one, saying he hoped he could “inspire
others”.
“I know some people who have hundreds in
Australia,” he said. “When I read about them I get motivation. They worked
hard. One of his recent purchases was this unit block in Dubbo, with a blank
parcel of land next to it that he plans to subdivide and develop.
“I am sure there are others who might also want to
work. I want to pass on the message that you can do it. If you think it is too
expensive, it’s not. I expect there will be positive and negative comments.”
Mr Patel explained that a new strategy started this year allowed him to turbocharge the growth in his portfolio, with 18 homes purchased in only the last few months. These included an entire block of six units in the Surat Basin region of Queensland, along with unit blocks in Dubbo in NSW and Townsville.
“I buy in bulk,” he said. “I buy whole apartment
blocks, which I can usually get for cheaper than if I’d bought them
separately.” His portfolio comprised 38 properties in June and but will grow to
56 when he soon settles on a block of six units he recently signed contracts
on. He also bought this block of units in Queensland’s Surat Basin region
earlier this year.
It’s a far cry from when Mr Patel started his
empire in 2009. Back then he was earning about $54,000 a year in an IT role,
equivalent to about $85,000 in 2025. He had about $50,000 in savings to put
towards his first purchase, a $322,000 house in Western Sydney, and his income
was supplemented by a second job at a fruit market.
He had arrived in Australia from India in 2004 as a
student, studying a course at the University of Technology Sydney. He received
permanent residency a few years later. His income increased in the years that
followed and he was earning in the region of $120,000-$150,000 for much of the
late 2010s, with additional income coming from his wife Vaishali. His peak
earnings were about $200,000 a year before he started a property business in
2021.
“I sacrificed a lot to get where I am now,” he
said. “I live a basic life. I don’t have luxuries. I just want to fulfil my
goals.” Bharat Patel has invested with wife Vaishali. Mr Patel noted that in
the beginning he mostly bought cheap homes selling for “under market value”. He
targeted properties where the rents covered most of his mortgage payments.
Other properties were supported with negative gearing tax claims.
He also researched areas likely to see huge spikes
in home values – often due to a coming infrastructure project. Rapid rises in
local prices meant his equity stake in his early properties quickly grew.
He would then refinance his properties to draw the equity out to use for the upfront costs of subsequent purchases – a process known as leveraging. This strategy helped him acquire more than 30 properties, but he started to hit a brick wall when trying to get financing for new purchases as he already had considerable debts.
It was at this point that he shifted tactics and
began his “bulk buying” approach. “If you’re buying a unit block with more than
three apartments you can qualify for a commercial loan and it’s easier to get
finance,” Mr Patel said.
He added that the benefits of a commercial loan
were that banks put much more weight on the rental income when assessing loan
applications. High rents relative to the loan size meant banks were more likely
to greenlight a new mortgage. The catch was that the deposit burden would be
higher, requiring 30 per cent of the purchase price in some cases.
Mr Patel said he believed anyone could replicate his success if they were willing to work hard – but he added that most people didn’t have the risk appetite needed to get started. “I don’t stress (about debt),” he said. “I have never been worried by debt. I buy where property is going to make me money. I go where the market is going to grow.
“With every purchase since 2010, I buy below the
rebuild cost. I buy where there is more demand and less supply, so the property
values go up. “There is no magic number for when to stop buying. I am 43 now
and will keep buying until I am 50. At that point, I may sell off a few to
consolidate, but we’ll see.”
(Blogger’s Notes: The Patel’s story basically illustrates the chronic Australian Housing Problem from the failure of successive Australian government’s tax policies and Reserve Bank’s excessive printing-cum-creation of Australian dollars since 1990s.
Negative Gearing for investment properties and
halving of Capital Gain Tax (CGT) in 1990s have basically transformed
non-productive residentital homes into the most profitable money-makers, and
the excessive printing/creation of Austrailan dollars last 35 years by the
Australian Reserve Bank are causing the rapid appreciation of home prices
especially in Sydney.
We cannot really blame the Australian commercial
banks for obviously preferring lending massive amount of money (being
continuously injected into their lending funds by the Australian Reserve Bank) to
people like Patel rather than to Australian productive businesses for the
greedy banks know so well that lending money against houses would bring better and
sure profits.
We cannot blame also the new landlord class of people like Patel the Indian immigrant, who sees the rare opportunity given to some clever people like him by the successive Australian governments’ spinelessness in reforming the tax system which encourages investing in non-productive assets like residential-houses rather than in really-productive assets, for taking greedy advantage of Australian people desperately struggling just to own a singe home to live in.
Borrow the Australian money from Australian banks first and then buy the Australian houses, for the stupid Australians
will rent them and their expensive rents will cover the bank-mortgages. Poor Aussies
are rapidly becoming landless and homeless serfs because of (1) their spinelessly
short-sighted governments, (2) Excessive-Money-Printing Reserve Bank, (3) stupid Australian commercial banks, and (4) new greedy landlords like Patels. In 1960s 80% of all
Aussie families owned their homes and, you will not believe this, in 2020s only
35% still own their homes outright.)
