How long does it take to double your net worth?

Obviously everybody has their own life and goals.
Some are more driven and aggressive than others.
Some change pace over their lifetimes.

Interested to know what mid-long term experiences have been achieved, or expected targets.

it depends what your starting net worth is

I voted 10 years or less in line with my CGA investment strategy.

I selected 5 years, on the basis of having a large working income to use to accelerate my investments.

Strannik said:

it depends what your starting net worth is

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This is a good point.
If you count $100.00 as your starting point and have $100,000 in 3 years, that would be massive exponential growth on starting point.

I suppose the starting point should be a significant amount, and the doubling period should be sustainable long term.
This means PAYG wages or salary would not have a massive impact as the figures get bigger.
Obviously $100 to $100,000 is by far easier to achieve than going from $100,000 to $100,000,000 !!!

Personally, I'm saying 3 years.
That's based on predictions when the current 4th 3 year cycle ends.
Been pretty aggressive in business though and only starting to move onto property development recently.
It may get more difficult to keep up this pace when reaching 8 figures, but then, more opportunities may appear then too.
Might just take bigger gambles to keep the excitement factor up there.

Long term goal I'd gues would be getting out to 5 years.

VYBerlinaV8 said:

I selected 5 years, on the basis of having a large working income to use to accelerate my investments.

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+1 but I'll also add doing decent research should maximise my outcomes....has so far.

Very difficult question to get a consensus on because there are so many variables.

It really depends what amount you're starting at, how committed you are, what you invest in, what the economic conditions are, how skilled you are, etc.

Someone early in their investing career who is willing to commit a large proportion of their income will be able to double their networth easily every 2 years because they are starting from a low base.

The more you accumulate, the harder it becomes to rely on increases just from contributing from wages and 'saving', while factors like economic conditions, asset classes and investor skill will become more important.

took me 6 years to double my net worth.

should take me another 10-12 to double it again.

Due to such a small equity base, doubling my net worth takes less than one financial year. Logarithmic growth should decrease this however to what I estimate as 3-5 years, dependant on greater economic factors.

Varies with net return (after transaction costs and tax) and how much capital you inject yourself - through your salary etc.

If you leave aside any capital injections, then you can use the Rule of 72 to work out how long to double your net worth:

Net return x 100 x Years = 72 approximately

E.g. if your net returns are 7%, it will take approximately 10 years for your net worth to double.

It can take just seconds if you put it all on black.

Others never do it at all - just live from pay to pay.

This thread is a good idea and have so much potential to map out which strategy works with which investing type.

How about posting timeframe AND strategy (eg. 4 years, all IP/ no PPR but rent myself)?

Time Frame: 10 years

Strategy:
Increase portfolio, as it will end up being the primary vehicle for retirement through steady cashflow. Heavy investment into small caps with cycling portions of profits through to blue chip earners. 2 years from now start accumilating IP's, primarily reno jobs. Aiming to control around 6 cashflow positive properties by year 10.

Review potential retirement at 10th year, make decision whether to retire then or slug it for another 5 years.

Unfortunately I tapped the last great reserves of cash this week into the market, so will have to sit and save till Jan before some big purchases.

Simon said:

It can take just seconds if you put it all on black.

Others never do it at all - just live from pay to pay.

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LOL.... so every pay day they increase their net worth exponentially! Just a pity it erodes quicker than it is generated...


For me, I have a 6 week plan to double my current net worth.... that is how long until I reach a milestone to qualify for a "defined benefit" It might be 'cheating' but it is how it is...

I voted for 6yrs though, as that is my retirement planning window, upon which time I plan to have tripled my current networth.... however, without the benefit described above, it would otherwise be a pipe dream.

While I like the idea of this poll, it cannot be properly validated and is also related to personal situations.

For me in the beginning, having $40,000 to invest, buying my first property and have it increase in value by standard 10% in the first year equaled a further $40,000. So it took approximately 1 year to double my money.

If I had never bought any more property with that $40,000 initial cash injection and look back at my per annum gain it looks as follows.

Yr 1/ +100% ($80,000 profit on leveraged investment)
Yr 2/ +200% ($120,00 profit on leveraged investment)
Yr 3/ +300% (160,000 profit on leveraged investment)
Yr 4/ +400% (200,000 profit on leveraged investment)

This is just one investment property, and I used some of MY money to buy it.
What happens if I buy another and didn't use ANY of my money to purchase it???

Huh, well lets see.

Once I had waited 1 year and had doubled my money ($40,000-$80,000) I pull out $40,000 and buy another property.

Yr 1/ 0% gain-$40,000 so back to zero% gain. Haven't lost, nor gained.
Yr 2/ 200% ($80,000 profit on leveraged investments)
Yr 3/ 300% (160,000 profit on leveraged investments)
Yr 4/ 500% (240,000 profit on leveraged investments)

So we see that it depends on net worth (leverage)

It took 1 year to increase my $40,000 by 100% doubling my net worth.
And if I had stopped at two properties, in the 4th year would have increased my starting net worth by 500%

So generally speaking, it takes around 1 year to double your net worth with property.

investor2009 said:

It took 1 year to increase my $40,000 by 100% doubling my net worth.

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Leverage works both ways. It can take 1 year to decrease your $40,000 equity to 0% and even move it into negative territory.

When I started my investing about 12 years ago I had about a $100k net worth. It took me less than 2 double my wealth.....then another 3 to double again.

The next doubling took me 5 years.

To double again it would take me 5-7 years...depending on the market.

Once you have a couple of million on netwoth....if you can double it every 7 years you are doing okay.

I think as time goes buy it becomes increasingly hard to double for much the same argument that property can't double forever (because mathematially the numbers become ludicrous)

it's easy to find a deal that will make you a couple of hundred k and if you are worth $100k then you have achieved a nice multiple. Finding a deal that will land you $5m is not so easy, even if you have $5m. I know you can just leverage it all into a devy and double it that way however the stakes are rising each time

I want to have a crack at figuring this out, I'm not sure tho'-Investor2009's sounds around similar maybe:

Yr 1/ 0% gain-$40,000 so back to zero% gain. Haven't lost, nor gained.
Yr 2/ 200% ($80,000 profit on leveraged investments)
Yr 3/ 300% (160,000 profit on leveraged investments)
Yr 4/ 500% (240,000 profit on leveraged investments)

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I'll figure it out properly.

..and this:

Finding a deal that will land you $5m is not so easy, even if you have $5m.

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..but what if you have a lot of little deals?