The shock axing of Brisbane Broncos head coach Kevin Walters late Thursday was met with dismay by fans, but he was savvy enough to have a $6m fallback plan.

The five-time Premiership winner with the Broncos – and former Captain with 241 premiership games as a player – told fans in a statement released by the Broncos Thursday night that “aside from playing here, it’s been the greatest thrill and honour of my life to have coached the Broncos”.

Mr Walters has retreated to his Auchenflower home so close to Suncorp Stadium he can hear the crowds roaring from his balcony – a location that’s a key part of his fallback plan along with another property he bought in December last year where he could make some serious profit.

His personal wealth is linked to the two Auchenflower homes valued in the region of $6m at today’s prices, with his street just 2km from Lang Park and within Brisbane’s hot inner city 5km ring.

Mr Walters, whose annual salary was estimated at around $550,000 – and reportedly would have jumped to $1m if the Broncos won the premiership – bought a neighbouring three bedroom workers’ cottage just over two months before the start of this year’s Round 1 knowing it had strong redevelopment potential.

The man who coached 99 NRL games – making him the third longest-serving coach of the Broncos – paid $2.5m for the property and in the nine months since then has already had an estimated $400,000 jump in value for it.

The cottage sits on an almost 800sq m block giving him redevelopment options too in an area that just can’t get enough housing to meet demand. He could certainly coach a group of tradies to get it into top shape or co-ordinate a bigger project on the large inner-city block.

He already has his original five bedroom Auchenflower home bought in 2001 for just $605,000, which is now also estimated at about $3m too in automatic valuations.

That figure could run even higher with real estate agents repeatedly seeing sale prices beat estimates. If he rented it out he could make an average worker’s salary off it, given in 2001 it had a rental price of $1,000 a week on it.

Mr Walters is a Queenslander through and through, born in Rockhampton, and grew up in Ipswich running around with his brother Stevie, his twin Kerrod – a real estate investor – and mate Alfie Langer.

According to News Corp rugby league specialist Peter Badel, Mr Walters was “one of the lowest-paid coaches in the NRL” during the period leading up to the grand final last year on about $550,000.

“But,” he said,” his contract extension had a number of performance clauses related to bonuses. “They were incremental bonuses based on making the top eight, top four, grand final and the big one – the NRL premierships.”

In a somewhat bittersweet reminder to the club, Mr Walters said in his parting statement “we have come a long way from the wooden spoon (under Anthony Seibold) to last year’s run to the Grand Final”.

The Broncos have not won a premiership in 17 years.