My daughter is the eight-year-old property investor who divided Australia by buying a $671,000 house. Here’s why she NEEDED to do it

• Ruby McLellan, 8, bought a house with her siblings 
• Her dad Cam has hit back at trolls attacking their family
• Cam says renters can buy property despite high prices

The father of Australia’s youngest property investor, eight-year-old Ruby McLellan, has hit back at critics who tore into his daughter, saying many are envious and lack her capacity to make the required sacrifices.

Online backlash flooded Instagram and X after Daily Mail Australia told the story of how Ruby and her two siblings bought a $671,000 home in Clyde, Victoria, instead of spending pocket money on sweets and toys. 

Using $6,000 of their pocket money, Ruby, 14-year-old Angus and 13-year-old Lucy put a payment down on the four-bedroom house on Melbourne‘s southeast fringe two years ago.

Already the home has increased in value to an estimated $960,000 as the price of real estate skyrockets nationwide.

Seems like a canny investment, but online critics castigated Ruby’s parents as shameful and exploitative and others speculated it was all a tax dodge, possibly illegal – and in any case, bad parenting.

Ruby’s dad Cam McLellan, who is head of the OpenCorp property group, shrugged off the criticism and told Daily Mail Australia his children would not be reading the personal attacks.

‘It’s easy for someone who doesn’t have property or hasn’t made sacrifices, to be angry about it and easy to target a young kid who has a leg-up,’ Mr McLellan said.

He said those attacking the precocious property purchasers would be better off devoting their energies to finding extra work, slice their discretionary spending and saving money for their own first home.

‘Young adults’ lifestyles are very flamboyant these days. I worked three jobs, I didn’t go out, I sold my car,’ Mr McLellan said. 

‘Eating in cafes and shopping has drained people’s money. Even owning a car, they like to change it every five years. I had the same car for ten years.

‘You don’t want to aggressively rub that in to the young generation but they need to sacrifice and delay gratification.

‘There’s no easy silver bullet but while my kids will get enough to get started, they are not silver spoons. They have a leg up, but so can anyone in Australia.’

The three children’s purchase is entirely legal – their names are on the title, and once they have reached adulthood they will share in the profits from a sale, plus the capital gains tax.

In the meantime the home will be rented out, and while Mr McLellan understood why tenants may find it humiliating to be paying rent to children, he said the purchase was entirely driven by pragmatism, not to prove any point.

‘I want to save them from having to save for deposits down the track,’ he said. ‘I want to help them be smart property investors.

‘When I was starting out I was earning $40,000 and (a house) deposit was $7,000. Now it’s much harder to get a deposit if you’re earning $60,000 and the deposits  are $120,000.

‘In ten years time it will be worse and my kids aren’t going to be able to save that deposit – four kids, so rather than four times a $200,000 deposit, (my wife) Felicity and I are giving them a leg up now to get a house later on.’ 

He appreciated the frustration of those who are struggling to get on the housing ladder as mass migration and a consequent shortage of accommodation – both to buy or let – triggers an unceasing spiral in prices.

‘There’s a growing gap between the haves and the have nots unfortunately. That’s not to say people who own property are causing that,’ he said.

‘It’s just that wage growth is slower as opposed to property prices. Would every parent not like to educate and help their kids get property?

 ‘Historically every seven to ten years property doubles in value.

‘I’ve been investing for 30 years and now is a great time to invest based on inflation decreasing and the prediction of interest rate drops.’     

Ruby told FEMAIL it’s ‘pretty cool’ being a landlord but she had not told any of her school friends yet.

Already, she and her siblings are planning their second property purchase, borrowing against the equity of the first, again with all of their names on the title. 

The family will keep the property until Lucy and Angus are in their early 20s, which will mean they’ve waited one ‘full growth property cycle’ and they expect the value will far surpass $1million.

Once sold, the children will receive an equal portion of the profit after tax.

Mr McLellan wrote a book 13 years ago ‘My four-year-old the property investor’ which had in mind his oldest child Hannah who is now 17.

He has updated it with the new market realities, and dangers, that Ruby and younger kids will meet in future real estate transactions.

‘The industry is one that I love but there is a dark side because it’s not regulated,’ Mr McLellan said

As a teenager himself, he bought an investment property and was ‘lucky to be taught the basics by a mate’s dad.

‘I rent-vested in Elwood, a Melbourne beachside suburb, and I was kept safe from the seminar sharks,’ he said.

How to be safe from those ‘sharks’ is something he addresses in his book with ’50 questions people should ask before investing and how to avoid spruikers who say “I will make you a property millionaire” and sell you bad property in a sh*t area and get a kickback’.

Before buying the Clyde property Cam said he guided the kids through the process using ‘lots of illustrations’ to help them understand, but with Ruby being just six at the time he admitted she didn’t grasp how it all worked.

He had to keep telling her that she can’t live at the property or take her friends there.

Cam and Felicity purchased their first property together in their early 20s with the goal of becoming ‘financially free’.

As a result, the couple haven’t had to work as much over the last 15 years. For Cam, a regular week involves working ‘four hours every couple of days’.

Every year he takes three months off including all the school holidays to maximise the time spent with his four children.

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