The 3 ways to use other people’s money to invest
Even if shares earn more on paper, property can often grow your wealth faster.
You do this by using Leverage (other people’s money). Let's walk through the 3 types of leverage.
#1 – Using the bank’s money
Let’s say you buy a $500,000 New Build investment property. You don’t need to save up $500k in cash.
You just need the 20% deposit ($100,000), and the bank covers the rest.
Now, let’s say that property goes up in value by 5%. That’s 5% on the full $500,000, not just the $100k you put in.
So the property is now worth $525,000 ($25k more than when you bought it).
That’s a 25% return on the $100k deposit you put in.
Compare that to:
- $100k in a term deposit @ 4% = $4k (minus tax)
- $100k in bonds @ 5% = $5k (minus tax)
- $100k in shares @ 10% = $10k
- $100k in property (used as a deposit for $500k asset @ 5%) = $25k
Even though property doesn’t go up in value as fast as shares, by using leverage/other people’s money you can get a larger overall return.
Although this does come with extra risks, which we’ll come back to in a moment. But, first let’s discuss the second type of leverage.
#2 – Using equity in your home
In the above example we assumed you had $100k to invest. But what if you don’t have a cool $100,000 in the bank?
Most Kiwis don’t, so how do you start investing in property?
This is where the second type of leverage comes in. That's using the equity in your own home to fund the deposit for your investment property.
Over the last 5 years the median house sale price in New Zealand increased from $628,000 to $780,000 (Dec 2019 – Dec 2024). That’s a rise of $152,000.
Let’s say you bought a home in 2019 for $628k and it’s now worth $780k. That’s an extra $152k of wealth (equity) you have in your home.
You can often borrow against some of that equity and use that as your investment deposit. For example:
Let’s say your house is worth $780k and you have a $500k mortgage, you could borrow up to $124,000 as the deposit for an investment property.
That’s because you can borrow up to 80% against the value of your own home. So:
$780k x 80% - mortgage = your usable equity.
If you used all of that you could potentially buy a New Build worth $620,000.
So with the first two types of leverage (other people’s money) … you can potentially buy a house without cash.
But then you have a big mortgage, which brings us to the final form of leverage.
#3 – Using your tenant’s rent
And finally, you’ll rent out your investment property.
You then use your tenant’s rent to pay most of the mortgage, rates, insurance, maintenance, property manager and more.
But sometimes the rent doesn’t cover all costs, especially when interest rates are high.
So sometimes you’ll need to “top up” the property each week. This often happens if you’re using all 3 types of other people’s money.
In this case you might contribute $150–$200 a week.