Girl, 8, buys four-bedroom home after investing pocket money

A schoolgirl has purchased her first house at just eight years old, after she and her siblings lumped together the pocket money they had saved up.

Ruby McLellan has earned the title of ‘Australia’s youngest homeowner’ by investing money she made doing chores for her parents.

With the help of her siblings Angus and Lucy, who are 14 and 13 respectively, the trio managed to put down $6,000 (£3,092) as a deposit on the four bedroom property.

The home, which they purchased for $671,000 is now worth $960,000 – a whopping $289,000 growth in value over the last three years.

It’s not purely a case of pocket money inflation, though, as Ruby’s parents spotted them the leftover cash for the deposit and all their names are on the title.

Ruby standing outside the house she owns with her siblings (Picture: McLellan family)

Ruby is yet to tell her mates at school about her business venture, but told Mail Online it’s ‘pretty cool’ being a landlord.

The home is ‘positively geared’ – meaning that rent paid is higher than mortgage repayments, so it is not costing the family money to hold the asset.

Ruby and her siblings are already planning their next investment by using the equity in the mortgage of their first buy.

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Cam McLellan, their dad, is the CEO of property investment company OpenCorp.

He has been keen to get his kids into property and teach them the basics of investing, so they can get a head start.

‘In ten years time when our kids might start looking to buy their own homes, the deposits are going to be $200,000. There’s no way kids of today are going to be able to afford a home without help from mum and dad,’ Cam said.

‘We have four kids and might need to fork out $800,000, so the obvious thing to do is to use one small deposit now, buy a property, let it double in value and then sell it.’

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