Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1 - John Pidgeon on the new 'Australian dream'

Starting point is 00:00:00 I think my ideal life, you mentioned by design and that's I think a really important aspect of people's I suppose wealth creation is you don't want to just make money for the sake of money, you want to be able to create life, lifestyle, dreams and outcomes and I suppose for me it's always been well if you're going to design it you've got to take the action and don't leave it up to anyone else. Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, the leading weekly show to help you unlock your 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 live by design.

Starting point is 00:00:51 Subscribe now and join me and get invested in the life you really want. Let's get started. Hi Freedom Fighters. Do you want to get invested in your future freedom? It's probably something that you want to invest in more. But what are you waiting for? What's stopping you? What's holding you back? Now don't bother giving me the age-old excuse that you're too busy because what you're really saying is that it's not important enough because we always seem to be able to make time for what's really important because where there's a will there's always a way. We just need to make room for the important over the urgent and stop putting it off until tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes. And don't fool yourself into thinking that you've

Starting point is 00:01:36 still got plenty of time and you can afford to put it off, because after talking to countless retirees over the years, I know you're going to regret it. As you know, if you've been listening to us for any length of time, you'll know that I'm a firm believer that financial freedom and sustainable success in anything lies at the intersection of self health and wealth or shw for short where self is about what's between your ears in terms of your mindset beliefs outlook attitudes and expectations your health is about the happy habits rewarding rituals and daily disciplines that you develop day in day out and these two spheres combine to allow you to achieve your sustainable wealth goals however you decide to define them because it's different for everyone

Starting point is 00:02:18 and there's no one size fits all. Now these three core pillars of sustainable success are a bit like a three-legged stool. Ignore or stop putting continuous energy into developing any one of them and it's all going to come crashing down. Because continuously challenging and nurturing your inner self, your essential health and growing your wealth are actually lifetime considerations. But the good news is that none of this is set in stone. Yourself, your health and your wealth is all directly within your control. And with the power of neuroplasticity and action, where your brain and body are continuously changing, you can constantly change and evolve everything about you and your life by embracing the power of compounding returns and the law of exponential growth to

Starting point is 00:03:02 achieve wealth on your terms. You are truly the constant creator of your destiny, so there's no room for a victim mentality or excuses. So ignore the blame game of the harried herd and learn to swim against the current and take personal responsibility and accountability for your life because your future is in your hands and you have the power to turn your dreams into reality. Now this is simple but it's not easy. It's simple to comprehend but definitely not easy to achieve because you need to grow and develop the mental patience, persistence, resilience and dogged discipline and determination muscles to overcome the inevitable hurdles, hassles and resistance that you're going to incur along the journey to your version of freedom and it's not quick

Starting point is 00:03:48 sustainable success in anything takes time and continuous commitment because at the end of the day it's all about time it's about wealth by stealth you need to invest the time now to use the time you've got to get your time back so that you can actually become a time billionaire so take the action that's required you know those things that deep down you know you should be doing but you just keep putting off. And embrace time as your friend instead of your foe and enjoy the journey of constantly sharpening the sword, safe in the knowledge that it's not about where you are now but where you're going that really counts. So get comfortable with being uncomfortable as your life and the world around you continuously evolves. And this all starts with a crystal clear

Starting point is 00:04:33 vision of your ideal lifestyle and exactly how you want to live that leads you to answering the core question, how much is enough? How much is enough for you to live your definition of your ideal life? Not what you should do, or not what you're supposed to do, or what looks good on Insta, but what's truly right for you and your loved ones without worrying about the Joneses or anyone else. It's about designing a life so that you have the choice and freedom to do the things that really make your heart sing, so that you can fill your days with joy, where you have the time and financial freedom to give freely to others without expecting anything in return because this is the essence of true fulfillment which is far more rewarding and enduring than

Starting point is 00:05:15 the pursuit of flimsy and fleeting happiness so what are you waiting for what's holding you back it's time to take the leap and start doing all of those things that you know deep down you've been putting off to dive into the unknown if you if you've been waiting for a sign then this is it take a deep breath and jump out of that plane of fear that's been holding you back and follow the freedom trajectory of the many who've been there before you knowing that will be your parachute to help you grow your wings and guide you safely to your success because there's nothing new about this but it's only the few that have the courage the self-belief and the fortitude to slowly but truly make it happen instead of letting it happen like the great example of today's special guest

Starting point is 00:06:00 John Pigeon. As you're about to hear John's a boy from the bush just like yours truly who grew up on a farm in country Victoria not far from where I was born and he's combined his passion for health fitness and property to build a property portfolio over 20 years that or 25 years should I say that now allows him to give back by mentoring and educating others to invest in property through his property coaching business as well as helping you to secure good properties through his buyers agency. And in recent years, he co-hosts the popular This Is Property podcast, which was formerly My Millennial Property. So I'm guessing you're getting a bit older and wiser, John. And it's clear that we've followed pretty parallel paths, albeit a few decades apart. So

Starting point is 00:06:42 I know we're really going to enjoy a great conversation. So John's also just published his great new book, Sort Your Property Out and Build Your Future, which you can see on screen, which i've really enjoyed reading and i'll be making sure that we talk about this in part two of our great conversation which we'll be going to doing next week after delving into john's personal professional and property journey this week so welcome and let's get it invested john thanks for having me bushy awesome mate thanks for sitting through that epitaph but i always I'd just sort of like to set the scene for some of the subjects that we're going to cover off in this week's and next week's, mate. But I know that you're pretty well known, particularly in the podcast world, given the activity you've done in that arena for quite some time now.

Starting point is 00:07:33 But for those that, for whatever reason, haven't managed to stumble across you and may be living under a rock, can you start by telling us what you do differently and, as importantly, why you do what you do, Giles? Yeah, I suppose, as you said, Bushy grew up in the country and, yeah, growing up in farm life was always high work ethic, no bells and whistles and just get on with the job. And I suppose that's a trade that's carried through right to today for me. But coming off the land, I had this appreciation for land and the values of it and the fact that it kept going up and that's still prevalent today in agriculture

Starting point is 00:08:17 and definitely in residential real estate. So I had this fascination for property investing from an early age, I suppose, when I was away at university studying teaching. And when I lost the passion for teaching as such, I still had the passion for coaching and educating And that led me to, I suppose, following my dream and my passion in coaching in real estate, which is really what I was doing in my spare time. Yeah, interesting, Matt. Now, I guess that teaching exercise flows through in pretty much everything that you've done since then.

Starting point is 00:09:00 But before we sort of get into your journey in a bit more detail, I always like to put people on the spot and ask you, what's something unique or interesting about you you've never actually shared publicly before, John? Yeah, it's a good question, Bushy. Look, it's probably got nothing to do with property and everything to do with work ethic or maybe silliness. but I've managed to complete seven Ironman triathlons and over a dozen general marathons. So I've always had this, yeah, I suppose inbuilt work ethic and just had this fascination for running, from running around the farm chasing sheep through to, yeah,

Starting point is 00:09:41 now today running in beautiful parts of the country and overseas. So that's probably the one that springs to mind that I don't talk about too much. Well, it's, I mean, the qualities and traits, you know, and I mentioned patience, persistence and determination and discipline in the intro. For anyone who's endured those events you've just spoken about, you need to have bucket loads of all of those qualities. And I think they're pretty transferable. I've spoken to a lot of successful property investors who carry that approach across into their property. Have you found that that's the case in your own example?

Starting point is 00:10:21 Oh, look, it's so much more aligned than we think, Bushy. It's really a case of health and wealth in my life, and that's what I teach everyone and encourage them to get both of them in order because without one, we haven't got the other really in a true sense. We see a lot of wealthy people who are unfit and unhealthy and don't get to enjoy it. And conversely, yeah, it's just making sure that when we've got a healthy mind and a healthy body, we're just a better version of ourselves.

Starting point is 00:10:53 So there's so much crossover in that. The consistencies that we imply, you want to stay healthy, you eat well, you sleep well, you train regularly, no different to real estate. You're just doing consistent things day in, day out, whether it be cash flow management, monitoring that, keep reassessing, setting new goals, et cetera. Yeah, beautifully said. Now, you've clearly achieved pretty great success in most areas of your life, but I'd love for you to dig deep and share with us sort of what challenging event in your life so far has brought about your greatest learnings and best changes, John. Yeah, it happened quite early in life for me. As I said, I grew up on a farm, went away to university in Ballarat.

Starting point is 00:11:37 As you know, Ballarat quite well being a country Victorian. But in the sort of October of my first year, as anyone that goes away to university, they're just living life freely. There's no challenges. It's all fun and exciting. and the world sort of rocked me a bit when Dad passed away in a farming accident and it was really a case of why me? Everyone else had their father and their mother and health

Starting point is 00:12:11 and this was taken from me so he's my biggest mentor and it's hard for me to still talk about today but it made me mature, it made me grow up, It made me really take life by the throat and just live every day to its fullest and really just get everything out of it that we can and, yeah, still lives with me today. Yeah. How old were you when he passed away, mate?

Starting point is 00:12:42 Yeah, not long turned 18. So, yeah, and obviously people in life have ups and downs and things may be way worse than I've experienced, but it's your version and that's out of a really massive negative became what I see as a real positive in my life because I just got to grow up and get on with life so much quicker and it probably could have gone the other way to be honest and it may have if I didn't have good people around me

Starting point is 00:13:13 but yeah, it's like anything, it's mindset approach and taking a positive in everything that comes your way. Yeah, full admiration and respect there, mate. It's a pretty critical time and a critical age when, as you say, it could have gone either way. But the qualities you've already talked about with the physical focus that you have in your life on health is pretty evident of the resilience that comes out of that.

Starting point is 00:13:42 And as I've said, you've achieved a lot. But what do you still struggle with, John, if anything? Oh, look, yeah, I think, to be honest, Bushy, I think we're always wanting to achieve more, which is an unbelievable trait to have, but at times we need to sit back and smell the roses, and I think I probably don't do that enough. and my wife keeps me very grounded and puts me into shape every now and again to say, look, you don't have to be always go, go, go and you don't always have to put so much pressure on yourself. So I think that's probably my biggest struggle, which, yeah, as I said, is an unbelievable positive to have

Starting point is 00:14:25 but can also backfire when it comes to the intensity that you live your life with. Yes, I suffer similar ails and like you, mate, I've got a great wife who slaps me around and keeps me honest and keeps me focused on what's really important. So it sounds like we're both pretty blessed in that regard. But I want to now switch into the beginnings of a subject that's close to both of our hearts. And I want to start with your relationship with money and investment. So can you start by telling us what does money mean to you? Yeah, it's a really interesting one and it

Starting point is 00:14:59 really sets the foundations for your wealth creation, doesn't it? Especially in property. and I talk to a lot of school groups right around the country and I did one yesterday in Ballarat actually and I always talk about the story of me growing up having really no relationship with money because money to us wasn't spoken about. It was if you had too much of it, it was greedy. If you didn't have enough of it, there was shame sort of thing.

Starting point is 00:15:28 So really had this, I suppose, not a negative connotation around money but we just never spoke about it. Hence, went away to university, had the work ethic to earn the money and enjoy the lifestyle, but it all went missing pretty quickly. Whether that be over the bar or down the street or whatever that was. I think it took me a while and I was probably into my late 20s where I really started to think, hang on a minute, I'm actually throwing away a fair bit of money here. And even though I was investing and I knew that that was the key to financial wealth, I was missing the major foundation of actually having a good cash flow management plan, having emergency buffers, not taking on any bad debt, car loans, personal

Starting point is 00:16:22 loans, credit cards, all these things. So it took me a long time to mature in that sense. And I don't blame my family for that, but I really am on a mission to talk to young people that, A, money needs to be spoken about at the dinner table, and then, B, you need to, as soon as you start working, you need to have your structures in place. You save some, you enjoy some, and you give some. Yeah, beautifully said. And now I want to sort of lead me straight now into the property arena, which is at the heart of both of our passions. And I'd love for you to just, in a fairly brief moment, break down your own property journey. And I'd love you to start with why did you decide to invest in property and what triggered your initial interest? Can you remember?

Starting point is 00:17:12 Yeah, my uncle who incidentally lived in Ballarat, he was in the banking system at the time. And I spent a lot of time with him because I was down there at university. And I always like to sort of question what he was doing and how he was doing it. And one thing I remember him saying was the wealthiest people that walk through the bank and sit down in front of him are either business owners or those that own a large portion of land, whether that be farming, whether that be residential, whether it be commercial. and I suppose I took it from there and ran with it. But the logical thing about real estate for me was, especially residential real estate, is everyone needs one. They need a house to either live in and rent or they want to buy one because that's a great Aussie dream and that still rings true today, as you know. So it was just black and white for me. It's like when I look at property

Starting point is 00:18:16 v shares and no disrespect to shares i invest in shares um not very well but i do it um the property just made sense to me i can touch it i can feel it and everyone needs one yeah beautifully said now where i don't think there's a person on the planet who didn't start with some initial fears around that given the you know the big financial commitment that's going with it so again if you sort of take yourself back can you remember what your initial fears and feelings of concern where about property and uh what helped you overcome that to actually take the plunge i don't want to sound blasé when i when i say this but i i actually didn't have any real fears when going into my first property um and and albeit property prices were very different back

Starting point is 00:19:04 then my first property was in 1999 in horsham country victoria and we paid when i say we my sister and I went joint ventures in a $64,000 house where I put down $3,000 and she put down $3,000. We didn't get a stamp duty concession, so we might've had to pay a bit more for that. But when we did the numbers on the rents, it was a case of being positive cashflow. And I'm like, what's the actual downside in this? I can't see any issues with putting down $3,000 of my hard earned and letting it do its thing without me having to put any more money into it it just seemed a no-brainer for me and that was probably my ignorance coming out because not not all my portfolios um been like that but it just kicked it off and and when it got results again without any

Starting point is 00:19:58 research of mine in the first few years i'm like wow how good's this like i'm just um at at night sleeping while the value of that house is actually going up. It just was an unbelievable concept for me when I was 22 years of age. Yeah, I love that. And Horsham, I spent a lot of time in Horsham in my early years. I've still got family in Horsham actually, so I know that neck of the woods pretty well. But I'd love for you now just to take us through a bit of a reader's digest on how your property journey continued and with a bit of a snapshot on what you invested in why what sort of challenges you overcame what worked and what didn't and what have been the learnings from all that john yeah so i um i continued on investing i moved to adelaide and started up my own business

Starting point is 00:20:52 in the health and fitness scene and continued to invest over there when i was there i was still renting so i was essentially rent vesting without me really knowing that that was a thing um and i never had any real desire to live my own home that just numbers just worked for me to do that i could rent cheaply and buy where i wanted to buy without any real emotion and so that moved to adelaide and i actually bought a block of land off a guy i knew over there and built a house on it and he managed a lot of that for me, which worked out really well because I got to learn a heap of information along the way. And that performed really strongly for me. I learned the art of depreciation. I learned the art of someone living in a brand new home and paying good rent to you.

Starting point is 00:21:46 But then I think I got a little bit cocky and went and bought another block of land in the time where the market was probably at its peak. And that was when my first realization of, hang on a minute, you've actually got to think about the market indicators and the highs and lows and the peaks and troughs of real estate. It's not just every property that you buy goes up in value. So that was my first key learning. I ended up selling that block without actually building on it. I think I made a loss on that, a small loss that didn't define us, but it was definitely a wake up to say, yeah, we're not bulletproof here and we need to look at it a bit more strategically. And that's when I first started really putting a lot of effort into

Starting point is 00:22:33 understanding real estate in great detail. Yeah, beautifully said. Again, I've got to test your memory a bit here, John, because it was back in the late 90s, then there's a bit of water under the bridge since then. But can you remember what your investment strategy, for words of a better word, was then when you started and how has it evolved over time and why? Yeah, so that's when I sort of started to have some sort of goal, longer term goal. And my goal was that I wanted to have exposure to $2 million worth of real estate. And I never had a fascination for number of properties. It was just, if I can get $2 million worth of real estate, which maybe doesn't sound a lot today, but back then it was, and that real estate goes up by an average of 5% per annum,

Starting point is 00:23:24 which I think is reasonable. Blue chip property generally is done about seven. So I worked on the conservative five uh my portfolio is growing by a hundred thousand a year now it's not physical cash in your hand it's just pure wealth that's growing um over the journey so that meant that in 10 years time conceptually you're now a millionaire and and that just sort of blew my mind and that was now the motivator and and and it was still probably a little bit naive uh from the real world but in conjunction with that uh one thing i learned was was making sure that um and the research i was doing why people were failing in real estate was they were looking at this negative gearing concept and saying well i'm searching for capital growth um disrespecting

Starting point is 00:24:15 the cash flow and the and just going purely for tax benefits and all these things only to realize that they have to sell prematurely um and and don't don't receive the capital growth because they can't hold on to it any longer. So in conjunction with that two mil of portfolio, I was also aiming for a 6% gross yield. So for the listeners, gross yield is the rent per week times about 52 divided by your purchase price. So we weren't going to necessarily get that 6% straight up, but I wanted to achieve it reasonably soon into owning each of the properties. And if I had that generally based on real estate over the last 50 years, interest rates around maybe 6% to 7% as an average, I felt as though I would never have to sell my portfolio. And that's one of the key learnings I suppose I teach others today is you always want to sell real estate, not have to sell real estate.

Starting point is 00:25:13 Beautifully said. And I think you've touched on something that I talk a lot about as well, and that is the ongoing holding cost affordability of properties. because that's probably going to be the thing that will trip you up most. If you're investing for the long term and you're holding your property for 10, 15 plus years and you want to be absolutely sure that what you paid for, the rent minus the costs is going to do and any tax modelling through depreciation you can inject into it

Starting point is 00:25:41 can actually create a situation where it's not burning a hole in your pocket or getting you to hamstring your lifestyle significantly and forcing you to live on baked beans and dog food but uh if you if that affordability piece is there and you can get on enjoying life while the property is doing its own thing then then it's definitely going to be sustainable so i'm glad you touched on that uh now john i i want to sort of jump into the the future for a minute if i can and uh as i've mentioned to you off here i'm a big advocate of living by design not by default so getting really crystal clear on what

Starting point is 00:26:17 your ideal lifestyle looks like uh so I'd love for you to I guess paint us a picture of what that looks like for you and you might be living it now given all the stuff that you're doing but can you put some shape around that for us well looking over the Adelaide Oval as I speak Bushy so it's not a bad day but um I think uh my ideal life um you mentioned by design and that's I think a really important aspect of people's, I suppose, wealth creation is you don't want to just make money for the sake of money. You want to be able to create lifestyle dreams and outcomes. And I suppose for me, it's always been, well, if you're going to design it, you've got to take the action and don't leave it up to anyone else. And I think for me, it's really just a simple life. We're

Starting point is 00:27:09 not looking for the for the glossy things in life it's really just spending time with family and then following your passions and hobbies and i'm very lucky to be able to i suppose control what i do each day and through through running a business and and podcasts and everything else but also make sure that we're all grounded in the sense that it's not just all work and no genuine time with family and when i say genuine time with family that's very much evolved over time i've got three kids 10 12 and 14 and i think the biggest uh thing that i'm wary of in today's living is being present with each other and not just hanging around them and being in the same room with them but actually having real conversations and i think they're going forward that's it that's

Starting point is 00:27:58 a massive focus for my wife and I. Yeah, it's sadly becoming almost a lost art with the interference of digital everything. So thanks for focusing on that. But in that context and where you're wanting to take yourself and your family long-term, you've mentioned your property investment strategy earlier in terms of the goalposts around that. In sort of attaining and maintaining that lifestyle where you've got the freedom to do what you want, as you've just described. Is your investment strategy going to change or evolve at all, do you think? Yeah, look, we were fortunate enough to build our new home nearly 18 months ago now and move into it in what we call our dream location. So we're very much entrenched in that. That was

Starting point is 00:28:53 always our our number one goal uh when we started a family was to build and design our own home and um and then yeah not live happily ever after but just uh i suppose rewards for our um for our work that we put in over the years and uh so so that was always the number one and and like almost like finishing a marathon you do that and you sit down and say well hang on there's a bit of like it's been fantastic and rewarding but as not deflation but like what next then you've got to then uh get back on the horse and and uh see what the next sort of part of your life's going to be and uh for me it's um it's always going to be acquiring property it's just a matter of what and when uh we i love studying markets i love starting indicators and having a buyer's agent

Starting point is 00:29:46 service we see a lot of properties around the country um being transacted with our clients and you can't help but get excited to say well actually i'm going to invest in that area too because these numbers really stack up and i don't want to miss out on that either so yeah we we sort of came up for air um in the last 12 months after building um and we've since acquired one property uh we'll continue to do that into the future but not so that it uh it it um controls our life and i think that's the other part of it is making sure that uh your property portfolio is is more or less a set and forget and you're not it's not impacting your life from a cash flow perspective it should be enhancing it yeah beautifully said i think it's

Starting point is 00:30:33 something that i i take away and sort of join the dots from what you've shared so far is that and and i'm very similar to this so perhaps it's easy for me to see this but what i like about what you've done in the context of that design exercise you've you've the uh forever home that you've built 18 months ago is is towards later in the journey uh because you've invested your time and engine money in assets that it probably helped fund that to some degree rather than putting a noose around your neck from the get-go building the taj mahal and then uh not having the capacity to do anything else for a considerable amount of time am i am i right in saying that yeah you are bushina and i always had that rent vesting strategy and and so did my wife uh and then we

Starting point is 00:31:16 coincidentally we when we first met we were both on the property journey um she was a little bit uh later into the process because she was younger but essentially we were on the same page so that definitely helped uh but yeah the the aim was always to grow the portfolio to a point where you can sell down on a few of the properties to fund the the dream home and that played played through um very nicely and still be able to hold some of the properties so uh to have that result um we were we were totally wrapped with because i had a vision early on that we'd actually sell it all and um and and build our dream home and then almost start phase two of the investing which is all totally fine, but obviously with property prices

Starting point is 00:32:06 and the way they've gone, we didn't have to do all that. Yeah, that's the merit of holding property long enough to go through the cycles and the sort of once-in-a-generation benefit of what COVID's done for us all in that regard, John. So that's awesome. Now, you've sort of touched on your ongoing interest in investigating property, which has obviously led and transition from the purely educational piece that you do through your coaching

Starting point is 00:32:36 into the buyer's agent arena. Why did you become a buyer's agent? That's a good question. I got the memo a bit late, I think, Bushy, and buyer's agent services were traditionally maybe Americanized for the rich and famous, so no one knew that they'd bought a property. I think that's how it started out, but I'm sitting there coaching and educating and and absolutely loving it and really getting some motivation from teaching people how to do what I'd done. One day, I woke up and I realized, hang on a minute, not everyone wants to be coached and educated and getting all of this action taken, getting their hands dirty.

Starting point is 00:33:19 They actually want someone to do it for us, so I must have had a bit of dust in the eyes from farming to to not pick that up sooner but um yeah it was a really easy transition to be able to do that uh because a lot of our coaching surrounded by research and knowledge and and data that being able to commence a buyer's agent service was extremely seamless it was just finding the right team of people to to join me yeah well said uh certainly uh buyer's agents have become pretty much flavor of the month in in recent years and there's there's a like any fledgling industry there's good bad and ugly amongst that i'd love your take given that you're sort of as you say coming into a light with a with a very strong personal and an educational background around

Starting point is 00:34:07 property what's one idea in the buyers agents space that had that a lot of people talk about but you'd probably disagree with? Oh, that's a good one, Bushy. What do I disagree with? Oh, look, I don't totally disagree with it, but I touched on it before the whole major focus on maybe negative gearing and tax benefits. And I think they're a nice by-product of investing,

Starting point is 00:34:37 but I think too many people focus on maybe the growth aspect of property, which arguably is correct like the cash flow pays the bills the capital growth sets you free as as they say but uh yeah it's the biggest thing also out of our control so i think yeah we i don't disagree with negative gearing but i just uh can't understand why someone would lose 30 grand a year in the hope that something might go up 100 yeah good call uh something else that i wouldn't mind expanding on because unlike a lot of people in the buyer's agent space who rattle on endlessly about buying existing and poo-pooing the new build development space, which I personally don't agree with as the right fit for the right person at the right time. And given you've got your own

Starting point is 00:35:28 hands dirty in that new build space, what are your thoughts around that from a buyer's agent perspective yeah i'm very level-headed when it comes to to real estate in general so it's all about the data and research for me we've we've had clients that have um bought land built houses and and made really good money um we've we've had the same happen with existing houses so it's it's all about supply and demand it's about location it's about vacancy rates it's about a whole range of indicators um and the type of property whether it be old or new um does play a part in that but yeah there's definitely for me it's not no we don't do any new or we don't do any existing there's um and i did work for a company that was doing uh all new um and i learned a lot in that

Starting point is 00:36:21 space which was extremely valuable um but yeah there's no one size fits all yeah no beautifully said it's it's about the the right opportunity for the right person given their own particular needs and we'll dive into a fair bit more on that when we unpack your book in in part two but if you were i just want to stop and prop now and look back on your journey so far uh if you're starting out again john what if anything would you do differently do you think yeah good question i think i probably would have went harder uh i um and i laugh when i say that because um friends and family think i've already gone too hard but i think uh i maybe there was a period there where i had um four years or five years maybe even off buying real estate when i probably could have

Starting point is 00:37:16 uh took the eye off the ball a little bit there um and that was uh arguably when i was sort of starting a business and so maybe it wasn't possible but i think um if i look back on it if i was purely focused on it uh we i would have probably bought more early on um and and not wasted so much money in my 20s yeah i probably most of the guilty of the same thing was having too much fun at the time john but uh i i understand the sentiment and i feel exactly the same way i i feel like i started way too late on the journey but uh mate i now want to jump into the first of what i like to call the bushfire rounds which is where you get the the cigarette and the blindfold and i ask you four quick questions that that we answer pretty quickly uh so to kick those off uh

Starting point is 00:38:05 i guess the first one i'd like to ask you is what's been your best and worst investment and what have you learned from each of those well look arguably my best investments been our over-occupy home i think um we bought in a blue chip suburb uh prior to covid it um the land value obviously went up uh as a result of um of buying in that particular location but then the ability to add value through the build um and the design and no uh no kudos to me that was absolutely my wife's doing. She has a real passion for designing and interior and layout and she can just see things that I can't and 30 years of scrapbooking and magazine cutouts and things like that. She designed a beauty. So, that definitely put a massive amount onto the value

Starting point is 00:39:02 of the property. So, that's been our best performer even though there's been some really good investment properties and still are today. My worst property would be, well, that block of land didn't do exciting things for me. We moved that on pretty quickly, but there's an off the plan apartment and this was years ago. We actually still hold it today and it's highly positive cash flow. So that's really the only thing it's doing for us at the minute. It hasn't had a hell of a lot of growth in the time that we've had it um but like 10 15 years ago whenever it was um it all sounded good at the time and and that was a key learning for me around well uh not not all not all houses or apartments are created equal and you've got to look more seriously into the whole

Starting point is 00:39:52 supply and demand of things and uh and and where you where you're building it and the time in the cycle and the vacancy rates and all these things. Yeah, that's some great learnings there. Similar sort of take, what's your favourite money or investment hack and why? As I think I said it before, save some, give some and spend some. There's got to be a really good balance in life that it's not all about you. So you've got to give, even if it's just a small amount and you've got to enjoy the now as well. But put that in perspective as to how much you want to save for future you as well yeah well said uh now a completely different take john that if you could have coffee with anyone either an alive or dead historical figure who

Starting point is 00:40:40 would you choose and why i definitely be my father um from from when i lost him back in the years uh for sure but i think today living uh there's plenty of inspirational people out there i can't put a finger on anyone in particular that i'd that i'd maybe want to have a coffee with it'd be it'd be some yeah some inspirational ceo um yeah i don't know elon musk or some like it'd be just someone that is maybe out of the box that's not mainstream um like i am i suppose i just interesting people from left field really interest me as to which angle they're coming from and uh Yeah, just someone different, it would be. Yeah, okay.

Starting point is 00:41:28 Well, last one of these questions. I mean, you've just published a great book, which I've enjoyed reading, but what would be the title of the book about you if your worst enemy wrote it? A worst enemy wrote it? I don't know. That's a hard one. It'd have to be Why Did You Leave Me Behind? okay that's good enough that is good enough

Starting point is 00:41:56 that could go in a thousand directions but we'll save that for another day uh that that's pretty much brought us to the end of this exercise john but uh is there one final thought based on your journey so far that you'd like to leave us with now look i think um the key learnings for me is is action you've got to always be taking action no matter what it is um one one step at of time and and not looking too far out into the future just do what's in your control um for anyone listening that needs some sort of guidance on how to start or if they're early on in the

Starting point is 00:42:32 journey it's like well that you've just got to make a start it it might be just one thing today one thing tomorrow but action gives results right and and nine ten nine out of ten people will not take action that one person that does take action even if it's a wrong move they're still going to learn from it to keep the ball rolling forward so yeah it's definitely action for me yeah it's absolutely spot on mate i really want to thank you for taking the time to share the ins and outs of your own journey so far and before we close off if anyone would like to ask john myself or other property professionals any questions on their property approach as a result of what we talked about, or you'd like to further discuss anything we chatted about with other like-minded investors

Starting point is 00:43:19 in a pretty safe, relaxed, and no-pressure environment, feel free to join us on the Property Hub Collective Facebook group by clicking on the link on the show notes. So we look forward to connecting with you and continuing the conversation there. And in addition, if you'd like to delve deeper into your specific property needs or challenges, book in with me for a personal solution session by going to knowhowproperty.com.au and hitting the purple book appointment button in the right-hand corner of the homepage and then select the personal solution session option

Starting point is 00:43:48 where you're actually going to be able to have a completely dedicated and undivided session with myself for a full hour. Now, we now look forward to continuing our deep dive chat with John in next week's episode and we're going to unpack the ins and outs of John's great new book, Sort Your Property Out and Build Your Future.

Starting point is 00:44:06 So remember to always get invested in knowledge first first and I look forward to talking with you again then John. Stay tuned for part two of this interview next episode. Thanks for tuning in to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel your home for property investment insights and inspiration and don't leave yet until you've taken the next step towards living by design by getting my award-winning book Get Invested absolutely free when you sign up at knowhowproperty.com.au or busheymartin.com.au. And finally, make sure you subscribe to Property Hub to get your weekly dose of Get Invested inspiration, along with every episode of Realty Talk, Australia's leading property show for red

Starting point is 00:44:50 hot property investing news and insights, direct from industry leaders and influencers. Remember to always get invested in your knowledge, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1 - John Pidgeon on the new 'Australian dream'

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