Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1 - How Simon Borham learned to buy once and buy right

Starting point is 00:00:00 so i saying i live by because it stung me so many times early on is poor people pay twice um i was always looking for the cheapest way to get what i wanted yeah um and and i paid a cheap buyer's agent to give me terrible advice and i got what i paid for frankly um and i also i spent a lot of time then and a lot of money like a master my master's degree wasn't like you know 40 or 50 grand whatever it was um educating myself where had i just hired the right people you know six or seven years earlier i could have leveraged off their experience um their time their money um to have gotten their advice and followed their ideas welcome to get invested on the property hub podcast channel the leading weekly show for australians who want to

Starting point is 00:00:50 learn how to unlock their full self health and wealth potential i'm your host bushy martin and each week, I go deep with the best investors, experts, leaders and founders to find out what it takes to break free from the grind, discover freedom and to live by design. Subscribe now and join me and get invested in the life that you really want. Let's get started. Hi Freedom Fighters, are you better off being a generalist or a specialist in life, work and property? Let's explore this because as always, the answer is that it depends and it may be more of an and response than an all decision because generalists often enjoy a better overall awareness and understanding with increased potential versatility, diversity, adaptability

Starting point is 00:01:35 and flexibility where risks can be spread but it's likely to require more time and effort to become and stay informed across the broader spectrum and overall rewards and returns may be lower as you miss out on opportunities that are specific to a particular niche. Specialists, on the other hand, enjoy in-depth expertise in a particular niche or chosen area, allowing for more informed decision-making and a competitive edge by becoming an expert, leading to high potential returns, as you can potentially identify and capitalise on unique opportunities as you focus on the specifics. However, concentration can require more in-depth research to stay up-to-date on local developments and trends, and it can make things more vulnerable to fluctuations in your specific location,

Starting point is 00:02:21 leading to higher potential risks if the chosen niche performs poorly for a period. So which side of the fence are you better sitting on, the generalist or a specialist? Well, ultimately, the best approach depends on your individual circumstances in terms of your goals, timeline, knowledge, capacity, risk appetite and personal time availability. But it's also important to recognise that this is likely to change and evolve over time. so it's not static it may end up being more of a transitioning spectrum so whether it's life your work or your property investment i suggest you adopt a changing hybrid that incorporates the best of both the generalist and the specialist realms let me explain whenever you start something

Starting point is 00:03:02 new you need to begin as a generalist as you absorb and then learn as much knowledge as you can as quick as you can about the subject so that you get a broad sense of the underlying principles and how the overall jigsaw fits together and then you're able to deep dive specialise into the area or niche that promises the best opportunity while leveraging the best fit with your past experience and best manages your and matches your interest, outlook, expectations, capacity, time availability and your sleep at night factor. In this way you can employ what I like to call a T-shaped hybrid approach where you have broad understanding of a subject at the horizontal top of the capital T combined with deep specialist knowledge in an area represented by the vertical leg of the

Starting point is 00:03:44 capital at a C in order to enjoy the best of both worlds because starting general and staying general is likely to lead to what I call diversification instead of diversification as average returns spread too thinly may avoid risk but may also limit performance so an element of specialization may improve your odds and if you doubt me just ask Warren Buffett who once famously said that diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you're doing, which highlights that diversification is a good strategy for investors who really don't understand what they're investing in, but not for those who are a strong understanding and can make better informed decisions. In property investment terms, this means investing

Starting point is 00:04:28 first in gaining broad knowledge and understanding of property investment fundamentals and principles on how it all works, so that you can outline your own long-term investment GPS strategy before you specialise in a property type and location at your achievable and affordable price point, in order to achieve superior performance and results over your investment horizon. For most investors in the initial accumulation phase, this means focusing initially on residential property in order to optimise equity growth from a low base. That often results in leveraging into three to four bedroom homes and tightly held areas at your achievable price point, they're in the sweet spot of demand and are likely to experience

Starting point is 00:05:08 superior growth from gentrification and or new infrastructure, industry and income escalation, as opposed to lower growth cheap units and apartments. After you've secured a growth property in your specialist location, you can then adopt this approach across a number of states to build in general portfolio diversification and limit land tax impacts. Then, once your portfolio is projected to meet or exceed the size of your required income producing nest egg that's needed to fund your lifestyle and or you're needing to transition rationalize or convert your high growth low yield assets into maximum tax effective cash flow income at the point when you've accumulated significant equity and bigger capacity and or you want to stop or reduce your active work

Starting point is 00:05:53 then the focus needs to shift to higher yielding properties like commercial properties or units and apartments and or other high yielding assets depending on your capacity. So it's about going for growth and then converting to cash flow as you adopt an evolving generalist to specialist to generalist approach as I discuss in detail in my book The Freedom Formula. Now I need to stress that I'm talking generally here because I'm not an accountant or financial planner so what I'm sharing is just for general information purposes based on my personal experience and doesn't constitute financial advice. But distinctions between a generalist and specialist approach also apply to the property you buy and the team you engage to support you in making it happen.

Starting point is 00:06:36 In terms of property type, when we're talking residential during your initial growth accumulation phase, don't fall for the trap of focusing just on securing investment grade property. Because that's a form of generalist approach that many property players and commentators like to talk about. Why? Because a location in property may tick all of the so-called investment data science boxes driven by head logic but superior value growth in properties achieved when the intangible emotionally driven aspects of the art of property are fully engaged and this is much easier to achieve in property than any other asset class because unlike other investments that offer very similar commodities and everyone has access to the same information

Starting point is 00:07:18 in property every property in every street in every suburb is different and unique to every other one of the 11 million odd properties spread across about 15 000 different areas and this specialist uniqueness is where you have a much bigger opportunity to create and manufacture value growth if you can tap into buyers emotions and provide our unique property that everyone wants because it's scarcity that really drives value so what do i mean by this well you need to buy with your head so that you can sell in the future to someone else's heart. Let me explain. When you buy a property it needs to satisfy the general baseline investment parameters and numbers but when you sell a property at the other end of your journey to convert your growth to cash flow

Starting point is 00:08:01 you don't just want to sell to another of the 30% of limited investors who are buying logically with their heads in their spreadsheets. You need to be selling to the 70% of owner occupiers who buy more on emotion and can be less price sensitive. So presenting a property that they fall in love with and just have to have through its street appeal and owner-occupier appeal will allow you to slip stream on FOMO to produce much higher capital gains. And you have the unique power and creativity to manufacture this with property where you can buy someone's problems and then transform them to create someone else's solutions. So don't be an investment-grade generalist. Become an owner-occupier appeal specialist to optimise your outcomes. As an example of the value benefits of

Starting point is 00:08:45 quality and emotional appeal over straight generalist rational logic, one of the first basic properties that we bought for about $84,000 in good old Aldinga Beaks that I've mentioned here on the podcast Cop Times has been renovated over the years from a basic pig's ear into a high appeal silk purse that's currently banked value between $1.4 to $1.5 mil compared to recent sales averaging just 950 grand for the same property profile in the area, which equates to a 50% specialist quality bonus. So the quality of creating specialised emotional appeal trumps the average general run of the mill every time, because the average property buyer has no imagination other than what they can see. So you just need to give them exactly what they

Starting point is 00:09:26 really want. And appeal quality specialisation is what's going to get you there. Now, if this has sparked your interest and you want to know more on how this is going to work for you, feel free to tap into our recent release Freedom Formula program or book in with me for a personal solution session by clicking the links in the show notes. Now, a similar argument applies to the property team that you engage to build your portfolio because property is an elite team sport and the quality of your network will create the quality and quantity of your net wealth. So instead of adopting a lowest cost-based generalist approach, I strongly suggest you pursue a value-based specialist approach to everyone in your property team. From your

Starting point is 00:10:07 property strategist, to your broker, to your accountant, to your buyer's agent, property manager, absolutely everyone needs to be an expert specialist in their field, not a generalist, if you're really serious about achieving superior property results. As Rita there once famously quoted, if you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. So don't get the cheapest generalist accountant who say they can do everything because an accountant who does your tax return but doesn't invest in property themselves just doesn't know the nuances of the multitude of tax rulings that are associated with property that can have a massive impact on your property's true cost, affordability and performance. Similarly, don't

Starting point is 00:10:47 just engage a free generalist lowest rate loan breaker to do your loans as it's likely to end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars more long term compared to an investment savvy broking specialist like our know-how property team who create a specialised unique financing strategy and loan structure that can increase your investment capacity and purchase price power by 50% while minimising your costs and your risk because property is definitely a game of finance. Now this specialist approach applies to all of your property and your professional team because in my experience anyone who says that they can do everything for anyone generally ends up doing next to nothing for no one very well. And make sure that you don't fall into the trap of

Starting point is 00:11:29 engaging a generous one-stop shop operator who tells you that they can do everything in-house for you because there are no robust discussions or checks and balances and differences of opinion in this setup which is essential to your property protection and your education. So make sure you engage a completely independent team of professional specialists who are the best of the best in their separate roles and who can keep each other honest and protect you better by ensuring that you're fully aware of the pros and cons of all your options so that you're making fully informed decisions that are in your best interest not someone else's. You just need to project manage that independent team and or have one of your property specialists do that for you and I guarantee

Starting point is 00:12:10 you'll enjoy far superior property results. And someone who clearly understands the benefits of niche specialisation within a general field is today's guest, Simon Bourne. While Simon's business falls into the generous category of commercial buyers agents, as you're about to hear, his high-level big corporate background and superior specialist project management skills enables him and his EFU advisory team to create and deliver commercial property outcomes that are way over and above the average general operator in the buyer's agency space. So this week, we're going to unpack his personal journey, while next week, we'll deep dive into his specialisation in commercial property project management and what this means for

Starting point is 00:12:50 you. So welcome, and let's get invested, Simon. Great, Bushy. Thanks for having me. Mate, I've been looking forward to this. I have been doing a fair bit of Google stalking of you in recent times, mate, to get a better sense of what you do and how you do it. But I guess just to kick things off on a light level, what's a bit of a funny story that you or others tell about yourself that you think best sums up who you are?

Starting point is 00:13:16 Mate, I think my wife would want me to disclose that I'm, I guess, a serial offender when it comes to hobbies. And I've tried just about any hobby you could probably think of. and she gets very displeased every time I come home with a new bike or guitar or some other gadget that's the flavour of the month this month. You sound like someone who has a very active mind, who's always looking for something new and exciting, mate. Would I be right in saying that?

Starting point is 00:13:48 Yeah, you've got me in one. But sort of shifting into what you're now doing and whatnot, can you also give us an initial favour on what you do differently and why you do what you do please mate yeah i think my the reason i do what i do is i think well the japanese have got this really nice saying called ikigai which is you find something that you find something you love find something you're good at something the world needs and something you can get paid to do and for me property's always been i guess that for me um you know it's what i spend my day doing now and have done for many years and and when i get home i find

Starting point is 00:14:30 myself just slipping back into you know looking at more things or reading other articles so it really is a passion of mine um the buyers agency and what drives that is probably from my own experience early on like i've worked in property for for my whole career um you know coming up to 15 years now um but when i first started out and i bought my first house i actually used a buyer's agent and i got terrible advice um i bought an awful property in the wrong area that didn't grow for about five years um and that really held me back on you know on my investing journey because i was covering the mortgage on that and not um you know able to release equity or or cash flow to to buy my next property um and seeing too many people in in the industry like

Starting point is 00:15:18 that gives me, you know, is a real drive to make sure that we're representing the industry right and doing the right thing by people. Yeah. And I love that, mate. Well, let's circle back to as far back as you want to go, really, and give us a little bit of a favour on where you've invested your time and your money over the years. And how has that all led you to where you are and what you're doing now? Yeah. So I started a business, I did a business degree with the University of Wollongong and he started around 2010 and got a role was really fortunate actually to get a role in a graduate program for a company called Unilever and as part of that I got I sort of I went into the supply chain team and they just gave the grad

Starting point is 00:16:02 all the jobs that no one else wanted to do one of those fortuitously was all of our industrial leases had come up for renewal in that year and so pretty quickly I was an inexperienced grad negotiating two to three million dollar a year leases on 65 million dollar buildings um which was well and truly above my pay grade but gave me an incredible favor for you know the industry i guess and and and a real love for i think for commercial property very quickly um and that ended up being a bit of my niche at uni labor i did that in australia i moved to new zealand and did it you know renegotiate an industrial supply chain there and then i moved to singapore and did a similar job for the southeast asian business so um sort

Starting point is 00:16:43 of fell into property um but i guess really loved it from from quite quickly when i moved back from from singapore to australia i did a master's degree in property development and i ended up moving over to aldi the supermarket to you know to buy build um and lease stores on their behalf yeah that's uh i mean uh perhaps just share a little bit more detail on that because just so that people would get their heads around the scale and the compressed timeframes associated with some of that. That is a massive task. So I'd love for you to, yeah, put a bit of shape around it for us.

Starting point is 00:17:25 Yeah, sure. So if we look at the elderly experience, I guess, one of the things that we would look for when I joined the business in 2015, it was growing rapidly. Yeah, we were looking to open sort of somewhere between 50 and 70 stores a year across the country. and so you need to identify an area or a location or population that will support a new store once you've found that area then you need to say well where are people going to go shopping in that area

Starting point is 00:17:49 and identify your target properties you then need to go and acquire them so sometimes they're not for sale and you need to try and make them for sale by speaking directly with the owners or the agents to you know be a bit creative you know either negotiate to buy or lease the piece of land or the building and then design and construct a store um and and as you mentioned you're doing that at pace um so it requires really good data and really good insights um it requires a really really good team and i think some just some really good processes in uh knowing what to look for and making sure you're not you know you're not going down too many rabbit holes that have that have got dead ends at the end of them yeah no spot on uh you're sort of sounding like someone who

Starting point is 00:18:30 loves to dive in the deep down deep end with your floaty slash and then chew like hell and swim like make it happen to increase your knowledge would i be uh close to the mark there or not yeah it's spot on i think one of the projects i did at aldi was a refurbishment project where we went around all the stores in the country and and changed them from this horrible sort of yellow tile store to a nice sort of modern industrial fit out um we were doing 100 stores a year so two stores a week um you know you're talking as you know two to three million bucks a project starting two a week uh with a team of 15 located in sydney we were um yeah you put your back to the wall and it's amazing what you can do yeah yeah i love that uh you sound like someone who

Starting point is 00:19:14 doesn't have too many fears but uh what if anything is your biggest fear and how do you manage that mate well my fears have changed as i've gotten older um i've got i've got three young kids now um and my biggest fear at the moment is and i think probably because of like some experience that i've had in corporate i've had the benefit of working with and knowing a lot of you know very successful people um and you're very successful parents and the most common piece of advice that i've had from anyone that's you know that's had the benefit of a good career and um and a loving family is that they always regret not spending enough time with their family and so my biggest fear at the moment is that um you know that that i have that regret when i get older and

Starting point is 00:20:00 i'm building i guess my life my businesses around making sure that you know we can add value we can you know generate wealth uh but not at all costs yeah yeah not so uh a lesson that took me a long time to learn mate uh i burnt my first marriage as a consequence of the of chasing the the career and learned some pretty hard lessons early on in the place that set me on a different path. But I guess on a similar front then, Simon, what challenging event in your life so far do you think has brought about your greatest learnings

Starting point is 00:20:37 and some of your best changes? Oh, it's a good question. I think it probably links back to my time when I was at Aldi. Actually, one of the roles that I did there was um i got seconded into the role of the director of health and safety yep i got that job in um november 2019 um and i'm sure that um people will think back to what happened in december of 2019 and the subsequent lockdowns and i can assure you it was not an enjoyable time to be the the head of work health and safety at a national retailer um and basically

Starting point is 00:21:18 for that that probably next 18 months uh was when we had a six-month-old when that happened um and by the time basically lockdowns and everything were finished we had a two-year-old and another six-month-old um and my basically like my son used to call me mum um because i'd worked so much he didn't know who i was wow and you know i was chained to the desk seven days a week for weeks at a time you know trying to get through that every new press conference was a new set of rules that we had to adhere to and and every state was popping off it was my it became my problem and that was the I think it was a it was a good lesson to get it early because you know sort of as you mentioned you've had a similar you know you've had that experience and I've had the

Starting point is 00:22:03 benefit of I guess hearing from people like yourself and others that that have had that experience and wish they did things differently and I thought I'm in I'm at the point where I need to make a decision otherwise you know that that might be me too yeah yeah that's so pretty and that's how uh eastview advisory came about am i drawing the dots there yeah exactly right yeah so um halfway i think like at the end of that covid period we just decided that that um you know to get that control and that time back because i needed to go out and um you know work work for myself or yeah you know start a business so um spend a bit of time working you know the dual role the the nine to five and then the five to nine to to get everything set up and once we

Starting point is 00:22:47 were sort of ready to launch you know we had a couple of dollars in the bank to to get us through you know the sort of six twelve month ramp up period that we're going to need to to build the business and as soon as we're ready i just sort of i just jump shit yeah and again reading uh The background, the old LinkedIn special, it looks like you were probably able to leverage off some of those relationships with Aldi and Unilever to roll out some of their program under the Eastview Advisory banner. I love that you're doing that because the most difficult part of establishing any business is the cash flow of the first two years. That's generally what cripples most of them. And was that sort of able to enable you to transition a bit more smoothly into your own space?

Starting point is 00:23:38 Certainly the contacts. And I used to say this when I was at Aldi, it's almost detrimental to know someone at Aldi because they're very strict on conflicts of interest. And having been a previous employee, there was actually a bit of a barrier to get back in as a service provider. So, but the contacts and the people that I know from there, and I think also having the experience, you know, being able to walk into a meeting and saying, well, I've got a master's degree in property development. I used to do this for one of the largest companies in Australia, and now I want to do it for you, was, you know, gave me, helped me certainly with the initial credibility while I was getting runs on the board.

Starting point is 00:24:17 And now, you know, fortunately, I think after a couple of years, ECU's done enough that we can sort of stand on our own two feet and we can point back to the projects that we've delivered or the acquisitions that we've made as ECU and on behalf of some of our clients. So we've been fortunate to work for some amazing clients. Yeah, awesome, mate. Love that.

Starting point is 00:24:34 And then we'll dive a bit more into that into next week's show. But sort of circling back to yourself, what, if anything, do you struggle with, Simon? Oh, it's a good question. the thing for me is is time and getting every getting time for everything in life um you know wanting to make sure that you're a great husband a great father and you know a great consultant a good business person um that i'm not you know that i'm keeping myself fit and healthy enough to to hang around for a long time um and just trying to get the balance between all those areas of life

Starting point is 00:25:13 um and i i think that's that's becoming more common um it's something that i hear it from a lot of people um yeah across sort of all walks of life he's trying to get the balance right um and that's really something particularly being a bit of a workaholic um that yeah the minutes the kids are in bed it's it's hard to resist turning the laptop back on and and having you know just sort of making sure you're on top of everything and everything's going the way you want it to yeah i think uh it's a never-ending problem mate uh i'm a bit older than you and uh it's still a challenge so when i think when you've got that sort of personality that that uh really wants to move the needle on things uh then uh yes having a good partner certainly helps but uh because they

Starting point is 00:25:59 can tell us things that we can't see in ourselves but uh you know i think it's a bit of a life lifetime challenge and something that a lot of us have to focus on mate but now I want to sort of jump now into your own personal property journey if we can and get you to take us through the degrees of what you've done what you did and why what challenges you've overcome what's worked and what hasn't and what have been the learnings of all that if you can put some shape around all that for us yeah yeah for sure um the the first prop the first property is probably not going to paint too too well in painting me a good picture but um i my first property i was 24 um i bought i'd saved up a 25 or 30 grand deposit whatever it was um i utilized the first home buyer scheme

Starting point is 00:26:50 um and i bought a i used a buyer's agent and and i was advised at the time it was about 2014 or something to to buy a property in um in brisbane and if anybody has bought a property in brisbane between 2014 and 2019 you will share my disappointment um in the fact i think i bought that house as a four bedroom two bathroom property on 400 square meters off the plan for 385 grand yeah and i um got the next part's the cruel part is that i sold it in 2021 i'm sorry 2020 uh the start of covid for about five thousand dollars less than i paid for it five years earlier out five years later what a double in value mate correct yeah i um i actually anyone that bought a property in narang bar or knows the narang bar market i haven't checked

Starting point is 00:27:42 the property market up there since i sold the house because i don't want to know um and it was a it was a classic of i bought the wrong house at the wrong time in the wrong place uh i held onto it for too long and then i sold it too early but it sounds like you were led down that path by a bit of a a probably pied piper that was telling you all the the wrong stuff am i right yeah and and you know i've got to take some personal responsibility that i effectively i chose that person but i and i didn't do enough background checks um and had i done the background checks i would have found out that the person was a marketing and sales background and they're incredible at marketing and selling uh the property they also had some conflicts of interest

Starting point is 00:28:25 that were undisclosed that the land that i bought was owned by his uncle and the person who built it was owned by the building company was owned by his dad um and um you know just basically everything that could have went wrong went wrong um and it basically left me in a position where you know i wasn't a high income earner at that point i was a graduate you know i might have been earning 70 grand a year or 80 grand a year um and because it was negatively geared with the interest rates the way they were in the rent that it was uh all my savings was just going to topping up the mortgage and um you know for the period of time that i held the house it was incredibly difficult to to save and i wasn't getting the equity growth so i was basically just stagnant for

Starting point is 00:29:07 for you know five years and it kept me out of the market wow that's well there's some good learnings there but i'm i'm guessing that the the next step from there has gone better can you sort of walk us through what happened from that point yeah so from that point uh it was around 2018 um i was just really getting jack of it and just thought i need to think about this a little bit differently like i can't i can't just keep crossing my fingers and my toes that this thing's going to go up in value and i can use that equity to to go and um you know buy another property so i thought i'm gonna have to take matters into my own hands here and that's when i really started looking into property development um was when I started doing my master's degree I thought if I'm going to do

Starting point is 00:29:47 it I'm going to learn about it so I went to UTS they've got a really good master's program for property development and um I actually at the time one of my best mates his mum was um she's getting on a bit and she had a house sort of falling down around her but she lived on a big block and I went and had a look at it with him and said look I think we could subdivide this and you know we could build your mom a brand new house and um you know we'd be able to sell what's there and cover the cost and make a bit of a profit yeah um and so that's what we did we ended up um we you know we signed a joint venture agreement i managed the construct i managed the whole project um so you know design through to construction and delivery um my mate funded it

Starting point is 00:30:33 and his mum signed the paperwork to let us put a mortgage on the house. So lots and lots of trust involved. But we did that and it was an amazing project. My mate's mum got a brand new house out of it that she never would have been able to afford. We sold, you know, we subdivided and sold off the original dwelling. We made about $70,000 each. And then that was a real kickstart into starting to get me

Starting point is 00:30:58 into the next lot of projects. Yeah, I love it. Very different style and approach from the first one. And as you've said, you're really controlling your own destiny by manufacturing the growth rather than hitting and hoping, essentially, is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Where did it go from there, mate?

Starting point is 00:31:19 Yeah, and this is where I guess my approach to property will become quite clear is that, you know, I like to take matters into my own hands. Yeah. Um, and so basically what we did from there, I thought, well, this has worked out quite well. Um, and we, my, at that point we got my, I got married, um, and we decided to buy a house, but we, um, I basically created the philosophy that I'll never buy anything that I can't control the value add to again. Um, so my next property was a house in Sydney, uh, that was, um, was actually

Starting point is 00:31:52 in an old housing commission area that they were selling off. And so we bought that, uh, quite undervalued we did about 130 000 worth of cosmetic reno um to that which we we used all the money i got from the first project as the deposit got a bank loan for the the rest to do the renovation um there's a personal loan it's a really high interest pretty high risk um and we ended up we did pretty well out of that the market um admittedly did some heavy lifting for us between 2018 when we bought it in 2021 when we sold it but we made about 600 000 in profit on that project nice um and because we lived in it it was capital gains tax exempt um so that was a really tidy sum to to get put in the bank um we then did it again so we bought our our next principal place of

Starting point is 00:32:40 residence which is a five bedroom um 300 square meter home in actually newcastle we moved to newcastle um we bought that for 950 000 we spent about 250 on it um and if i sold it today we probably get somewhere between 1.8 and 1.9 million for it um and again that's that's tax-free as well because we've lived there um the whole time so that you know that really was what that sort of that first project was what really set the course um you know to making it was around end up being around 1.2 million in capital gains tax-free gains in about four years um and that's been the i guess the platform that we've been able to then to spring off so we've still got that that house we love that house um the the office that i'm in now we bought that i bought this office um last

Starting point is 00:33:32 year um so that this office um houses eastview um and and also my wife's business we bought it um no surprise we renovated it we split it up into two units yeah um and we get about a 12 yield out of this we probably made another 300 grand in equity in the office yeah um And then the most significant property was one that we acquired in October last year, which is a 50-acre, so it's about 200,000 square metre farm up in the Hunter Valley, which is surrounded by residential properties, but still zoned as a farm.

Starting point is 00:34:12 So that was $3.2 million. And we've got that on a sort of extended settlement over three years. And the aim is that we'll rezone that and we'll subdivide it into about somewhere between 25 and 35 large lot, like acreage lifestyle properties. Yep. And, yeah, we'll sell those off as blocks of land. Love it.

Starting point is 00:34:39 I'm loving what I'm hearing is that that sort of creative property development come project management skill that you've been honing and improving over time. You're sort of leveraging that and using the success of the last property to then turbocharge the next one, which that ability to manufacture and control that exercise is a skill set all of its own. Most people don't have the skills or the time to make that happen. And by combining that within your business, then you've got a launch pad there that can do it for yourself but also do it for others, which I think is awesome. If we jump forward now then, Simon, into the perfect world, because I'm a big believer in living by design, not by default. Can you paint us a bit of a picture of what your ideal lifestyle is going to look like when money is no longer an issue?

Starting point is 00:35:37 Yeah, I think the really important thing for me is trying to get that balance. I think one of my favourite sayings is without focus. So a person who chases two rabbits catches neither. And so like at the moment, I think my focus is on the business and it needs to be to get it growing and getting it to a point where it sustains us and we've built some wealth and then we're able to do that for other people. Once we're there, it will really become a bit more about balance.

Starting point is 00:36:11 um i love i love working um and you know you can only sit on the beach for so long so i want to make sure that i've got the time to go and sit on the beach when i choose to um and and can sit on the beach with the people that are that mean the most to me with my wife and my children um i want to make sure that i'm still working and adding value and i've got a purpose in life and i want to make sure that i'm looking after myself so um what that really looks like is you know i think i'm fortunate with my job that a lot of it can be done with the technology that we have now so um i'd like to spend as much time as possible in the next 10 years in in our caravan traveling around the country um seeing cool things experiencing cool things and still

Starting point is 00:36:50 being able to to work and contribute yeah i love that so you're sort of the developed strategy that you've got which is buy develop and then either hold or sell or a combination of both you see that changing moving forward to achieve that ideal lifestyle or how does that look yeah i think so like it's obviously it's obviously risky the you know the i guess the the type of projects that i take on now i think as i as i get older and as i accumulate some more wealth that my appetite for risk will change and it'll change from a you know an accumulation of wealth to a protection of wealth type strategy um and that's where you know something that you mentioned in the intro is you know how you're investing changes as you get older and your priorities

Starting point is 00:37:37 change um you know i'll be looking to to park a lot of money in a grade commercial assets with asx listed national tenants on long leases um and and benefit from benefit from that that really strong income yeah i love it love it uh if you sort of sum up your journey so far and then what you've seen others do with either working with them directly or otherwise but what do you believe are the sort of keys to successful property investment and why then Simon um look really really basic I think doing something um is is such a good piece of advice um and it's a lot of the time when I'm talking to clients is um I can't always quantify how I'm going to add value but I always can um and it's generally in in three different areas it's either getting you to do

Starting point is 00:38:30 something when you otherwise wouldn't have yeah telling you not to do something that's about to cost you money um or you know fighting and negotiating a really good property um but i i think like a lot of people get stuck in that analysis paralysis where i want to do something i don't know what um what about this what about that and five years later they've done nothing and so you know some i think sometimes the best advice is just do something um and you're going to learn along the way you know like i guess my my first property was awful and it was it was a bad investment for probably every reason it could have been but if i hadn't had that i wouldn't have thought differently and that wouldn't have set me up to do the next you know five six seven projects

Starting point is 00:39:11 that we've done personally successfully um and it wouldn't have given me the ability to have the business that i've got where i can help people do those things as well yeah i love that very sage advice because uh and i think not only should people do something because time does a lot of heavy lifting in the property sphere in particular uh but you are learning and i think the the other important thing i can take from your personal experience is that you know a lot of people after that experience in the the first property in queensland would have packed up their ball and bat and walk walked away from property and never come back to it uh what i like about yourself as you've gone no let's have a look at this uh what have i learned from this what am i not going

Starting point is 00:39:53 to do next time what am i going to do differently that's going to give me a best result i think that combination is is something from you know your own what you've been able to do is a bit of a an example for other people to follow so uh well but uh if we if we look back on your journey so far then mate if you were starting out again what if anything would you invest your time and do money indifferently look i i always think the best thing um no so i saying i live by because it stung me so many times early on is poor people pay twice um i was always looking for the cheapest way to get what i wanted yeah um and and i paid a cheap buyer's agent to give me terrible advice and i got what i paid for frankly um

Starting point is 00:40:42 um and i also i spent a lot of time then and a lot of money like a master my master's degree wasn't cheap like you know 40 or 50 grand whatever it was um educating myself where had i just hired the right people you know six or seven years earlier i could have leveraged off their experience um their time their money um to have gotten their advice and followed their ideas um so yeah i think you've got to invest in yourself and you need to get another one of the things you were talking about in the intros around that that generalist specialist you need to educate yourself so you know what you know you know what you don't know um and how to bring people on that can help you um and you know you certainly have to look at the the value of things over the

Starting point is 00:41:27 price because you can get stung way too easily um trying to find the cheap way out yeah beautifully said, I love that expression, poor people pay twice. That sums it up very neatly, I think. But we've only just touched and scratched the surface, but we're going to get into the nuts and bolts of commercial property in a lot more detail on next week's episode. But what I'm going to do now, mate, is give you the old blindfold and a cigarette and hit you up with the fast four questions that you get machine gunned with just about every podcast you appear on uh so first of all i thought that if i if you can have a coffee with anyone whether they'd be alive or or a dead historical figure or anyone you choose who would you choose and why

Starting point is 00:42:13 uh this might sound like a bit of an obscure one but um craig bellamy from the melbourne store um is a is a coach of the melbourne storm nrl team um and the the reason i'd love to have a coffee with him is is probably two things one most like coaches is an absolute merry-go-round um and you're an absolute glutton for punishment i think if you want to become one you know three or four of them get sacked every year worst jilt be world i reckon has to be it has to be um he's been the head coach of the melbourne storm for 20 years straight um and has got an incredible record with with winning um and i just think somebody that that's done that that level of excellence for that long must know something that other people don't and i'd just love to hear what it

Starting point is 00:43:03 is i think he'd be a he'd be a he'd be a wonderful leader he'd be a very people orientated person and i think you'd have a lot of lessons to teach um that i could learn from him that's an awesome pick no one's mentioned him before but just listening to what you've said i'm going yeah absolutely he'd be a cracking person to sit down spend some time with love that one back on the investment sphere for a second then simon what's what's both the worst and the best investment advice that you've ever received um yeah it depends who you talk to um so some people have told me not to take risks and other people have told me to take risks um and therein is the best and worst advice i've ever heard um not taking not taking risk is a risk um because if

Starting point is 00:43:48 you don't do something you know that there's an outcome there too um and so you may as well you know there's a there's a great a great quote by jim carrey that he gives a an ending speech at a university and he says um you can fail at what you don't want so you may as well have a crack at what you do um and and so i you know he talks about his dad never wanted to be an accountant but he did it because it was safe and he ended up getting fired from his accounting job um and so yeah i think not taking worse is not taking risk is really bad advice and and taking you know structured managed well thought through risks um is really really good advice yeah and i think you just hit on there when you know what you're doing it's no longer a risk it's a it's a a calculated

Starting point is 00:44:35 opportunity that may have an upside or downside but that's very different from a risk that you don't really know what's coming and you don't know what's going to happen what you're going to do about it so uh no that beautifully said uh completely different subject what superpower do you wish that you had and why mate i would love to be able to read people's minds um i you know i i negotiate for a living right and you know i was at an auction last week and the property was about to be passed in and they're you know they're telling you all these things and you just think i would love to just know the truth um you know i would love to see what's going on beneath the covers i think it'd be geez it'd i'd it'd really help with my job i think it'd be a

Starting point is 00:45:17 pretty cool power to have yeah awesome power to have and you'd probably get a bit of a surprise and shock of what people are really thinking on what they're saying too i wouldn't imagine well i'd want to be able to turn it off yeah can i add that on it i'm going to be able to use it selectively uh last one and because i'm a big big believer in regular habits and discipline to to achieve sustainable success over time so what's what's a a personal happy habit that that you employ that you think's contributed most to your success today the the best one that i do at the moment is um is guaranteed family time i call it so um you know i do have the flexibility to to work to my own schedule um largely at the moment which is you know which has been which has

Starting point is 00:46:04 been great and so i i always make sure i basically i never miss a dinner is my rule um i'm home at five o'clock the laptop is closed the phone is on silent in the bedroom and i spend two of that two hours with my kids every day um because that you know that for me it's really important time for them it's really important time for me to be able to to connect um and you know any anything else can wait outside of that no that's uh love a thought on that uh last question for the chat this week uh in terms of where and what you've invested your time energy money in so far what's the most important lesson and takeaway you've learned in your life today good question the most important lesson is i think to trust yourself um you know i've had uh you know even when i when i

Starting point is 00:46:53 decided to leave aldi like a lot of people in my life were like really you you know you've got a good job you've been there you know eight ten years whatever it was um you're living really comfortably you're not wanting for anything why do you want to mess that up um and it was more people told me not to than told me to um but i sort of knew in my gut what i what was right um and you know so so far so good it's not to say so you know it's not going to continue that way but But, you know, I certainly had opportunities that I wouldn't have had had I, you know, played the safe game. So I think trust your gut and back yourself.

Starting point is 00:47:29 Yeah, and I think what has become evident in our chat today, Simon, is that you're able to pivot. You're pretty flexible and adaptable and you're quite creative. So I think you're the sort of person who can get thrown into a situation and be able to work out what you need to do and make it happen. that's a rare skill to be quite honest because there's a level of resilience

Starting point is 00:47:52 and self-belief there that I think would carry you and the fact that you've achieved such big results in Eastview Advisory in such a short space of time pretty much speaks volumes to that so look really want to thank you for taking the time to share your growth

Starting point is 00:48:09 and personal journey so far before we go if anyone listening would like to keep the conversation going in a very safe and open forum where you can take your property knowledge to the next level by sharing and learning

Starting point is 00:48:21 with other like-minded property investors and property professionals so you can get all of your property questions answered. Join Eddie the Frenchman, myself, and a host of others now on the Property Hub Collective Facebook page by clicking the link in the show notes. We now look forward to continuing our conversation

Starting point is 00:48:35 with Simon in next week's episode where we're going to unpack his unique commercial property secrets and development opportunities. So remember to always get invested in your knowledge and your network before you invest in assets and we look forward to getting invested with you again then simon thanks for she thanks for tuning in to get invested on the property hub podcast channel your home for property investment insights and inspiration make sure you subscribe to property

Starting point is 00:49:02 hub for free get your weekly dose of get invested inspiration along with every episode of realty talk australia's top online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from industry leaders and influencers. And finally, I'll see you next time.

Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1 - How Simon Borham learned to buy once and buy right

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