but instead of that I bought a bag of property trusts gpt,sgp,wdc, sgp, gmg and slf
about as much as you would need to buy say a small apartment in sydney most property trusts at the time carried about 50% debt or had gearing of about 50% d/e might have been around 75% The debt on most residential property is a lot more than 50% I knew a woman who purchased a property with virtually no deposit I think the average loan is about $250,000 a lot have such loans on a deposit of around $100,000 if they buy a place for $500,000 they might have gearing of around 50% ie $250,000 deposit and $250,000 loan
I reasoned at the time that debt was about the same and I was diversifying by buying prime properties in variety of forms of property so I thought I would be fairly safe well how wrong could I have been I am now down over 25% the interesting thing about this situation is that even though gearing in residential property is probably greater than 50% and not diversified or in prime real estate, property values in this sector have hardly fallen at all.