An Upgrader’s multi-year journey

Jared first called Chris in 2017, “back when it was just Chris” and Chris was building a following on social media. That first conversation was a strategy session, not a rate quote — and he and Chris discussed the apartment Jared went on to buy.

He is an equity owner of a business, and by his own description has been “pretty much fully leveraged the whole time.” Over the years he's referred numerous people to the team.

Strategy first — including the case for not buying. What won Jared over was that Chris was as willing to argue against a purchase as for one. “Some would argue there's a bit of a conflict that exists there. But from what I've seen, he talks people out of purchasing just as much as he talks people into purchasing.”

Turn rising values into a cleaner balance sheet. When prices moved, a refinance released equity to pay down business debt, freeing up capital for other things.

Find the lender who can, then settle both sides at once. For the latest purchase, the answer was a specialist equity-release product from a major bank that would lend at the higher LVR he needed — on Jared's reading, the only one on the market that could. The sale and the purchase settled on the same day.

Keep a sounding board on tap. Ben runs the numbers on the fly — what's achievable and what isn't. And when Jared asked Ben, a couple of years early, whether to upgrade now or later, the answer matched his own financial planner's.

Three purchases in eight years: the apartment Chris pointed him to, a bigger home after COVID, and most recently a move structured so the equity released paid out his business debt, with both sides settling in a single day.

He puts his loyalty down simply: “Ben answers the phone every time, gets back, explains things simply… pretty much down to top class service.”