Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1 - Tyron Hyde on insights from $26 Billion ‘Highrise Harry’

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Success in property investment starts with a great mentor, says Tyron Hyde.  Ty is a successful investor, author and podcast host who has also had the rare privilege of standing on the shoulders of titans to enjoy his own success as the CEO of one of Australia’s oldest and most well-known quantity surveying firms, Washington Brown, who specialise in appreciating depreciation and it’s benefits for property investors. As you'll hear in this chat, it is great to read books and listen to podcasts, but real learning comes from observing how it’s actually done and then doing it yourself. And much of my learning and any success that followed can be linked back to my (Bushy) mentor, the late George Lucey. In this episode I pay tribute to George and talk about what I learned from him, before talking about the power of mentoring, and why you need a mentor, with Ty. Enjoy! Next steps Connect with Tyron https://www.washingtonbrown.com.au and if you want to talk about your property cashflow challenges book a personal solutions session with me. Subscribe to Property Hub for free now on your favourite podcast player. Take the next step - connect, engage and get more insights with the Property Hub community at linktr.ee/propertyhubau Book a personal solutions session with Bushy to go deeper on your specific property needs or challenges Continue the discussion with likeminded investors and experts on The Property Hub Collective Facebook group Get a copy of Bushy's book, Get Invested, for FREE, and find out what it takes for you to invest in living more, working less Get all Property Hub info here linktr.ee/propertyhubau About Get Invested, a Property Hub show Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Get Invested is part of the Property Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights, inspiration and stories from Australia’s top property experts, investors, leaders and analysts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to get every Get Invested episode each week for free, and also get full access to RealtyTalk, Australia’s top online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from property industry leaders and influencers. Property Hub is a collaboration between Bushy Martin from KnowHow Property, Kevin Turner from Realty, show producer Andrew Montesi from Apiro Marketing and Apiro Media, and Australia’s largest independent podcast networkDM Media.  For business enquiries, email [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Harry says job, I say how high. I've got to be honest with you. He owns a company called Meritan. He's the largest service department operator in Australia now. His net wealth, as you said, is $26 billion. Oxfam estimated that for the last four years, he made $1.5 million per hour. When he came to Australia, he was a milkman, right? He was delivering milk in Chatswood. He said to me one time, he said, Tyrone, do you want to know the secret to my success? When times are bad, I buy land. Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, the leading weekly show for Australians who want to 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, Prater Fighters. How do you learn? How much do you invest in your knowledge and your active learning? Now, while it's good to read books and listen to podcasts like this, real learning comes from observing how it's actually done

and then doing it yourself. Because there's a big difference between an ingredients list and the actual recipe, which tells you how to do it step by step and what to add when, in what measure and at what temperature and for how long. But the success of your cooking creation comes from watching a master chef do it, and then actually being in the heat of the moment and doing it yourself. And you're unlikely to get it right the first time, as it's going to take you many attempts and likely many failures before you refine and perfect the process. Just think back to your first attempts at cooking.

When I first left home at fifth, I needed to start uni and shared a house with a bunch of bachelors, which is a story in itself. I couldn't even boil water successfully. But over time, I slowly perfected the art of creating a stable diet of chunky bolognese sauce, along with my mother's country recipes for tuna mornay and apricot chicken that got me through my single year. So it's amazing what you can do with garlic and onion. Now, a recipe might look right in the pictures and seem simple on paper, But it's not until you actually see an expert do it, with all the intricate nuances that transform cooking from a science into an absolute art form, and then have a crack at it yourself,

that you get to test and try, because the proof is always in the pudding. And surprisingly enough, it's no different than the ever-changing world of property and investment, because you can read every book and listen to every podcast about property investment, but until you shadow someone successful who's done it really well over many years and repetitions and understands the ins and outs until it all becomes intuitive and habitual where the devil is always in the details and then you practice the dark art of investing yourself that actually all becomes real because part of this it's all academic. So finding a guide and mentor who's done it well and is doing what you intend to do and then slipstreaming on their

success by observing exactly what they do when and how they do it why so that you can then grow your wings under their tutelage before you fly your own course is likely to make a massive difference to the size and pace of your results. So avoid the common mistake of just reading and listening to everything and everyone and then just jumping in and endeavouring to reinvent the wheel yourself because you just don't know what you don't know and you'll end up making mistakes that you're not even aware of until well after the event. And I'm a classic case of exactly that. I read and continue to read and listen to anything and everything I can get my hands on and my ears into when it comes to investing in property but when I first started investing this

gave me a bit of a false sense of confidence as I didn't trust anyone and I thought I'd actually do it all better myself because my theoretical research led me to believe that I knew what to do but I didn't really understand exactly how to do it and in real terms I actually only knew enough to be dangerous. I could see the finished jigsaw but I didn't appreciate how and in what order all of the pieces needed to be assembled. Consequently I made a lot of mistakes and learned some very expensive lessons in the early days. I started with older properties and joint names and wondered why they were costing me so much to hold until I met my mentor who opened my eyes to the very significant benefits of building investment properties instead of buying them with the

substantial benefits of building below market value, tenants and common ownership, staff duty savings, reduced maintenance and very significant tax depreciation benefits helping to manufacture equity as well as turn negatively geared properties into affordable self-sustaining cash flow. And this was all because I had the pleasure of meeting who was later to become my mentor George Lucy even though I didn't even realise it at the time. Now it's funny how the right people come into your life at the right time if you're actively putting yourself out there. You see, not long after I suffered my early life crisis in my 30s, when I ended up 30, I'd broken and broke

and was forced to start again with nothing to my name and I was hell-bent on changing my ways by no longer working for money but getting money to work for me and becoming passive-aggressive or aggressive about pursuing passive income and ensuring that everything I invested my time, energy and money in from that time on had to grow in value, create residual income and be saleable, I had the serendipitous good fortune to meet George. At the time, back in the late 1990s, my partner in all things Sonia and I had one of our many brainwave ideas to create Homer's Donuts that leveraged off the Simpsons show to build a donut and coffee stand in the middle of our local shopping centre south of Adelaide to appeal to the local demographics, and we were convinced that it was going to go gangbusters.

So we found out who owned the local shopping centre and then arranged to meet him on a Saturday afternoon. And I'll never forget it, because it was to become one of the most fateful days of my life, but I just didn't know it at the time. So we rocked up to a fairly run-down industrial area and found an old shed that was part of a defunct fish factory in Mile End South, which is just to the east of the Adelaide CBD,

and finally found George in a rusty and dusty old mezzanine workshop where his son Adam was up to his elbows in grease and a welder's mask fitting out an old bus, so not the most salubrious setting for what I thought was a shopping centre owner. Now George greeted me with a bright smile and looked me right in the eyes as he offered me a very firm handshake. We then pitched our Homer's Donuts concept and after listening intently and nodding his head he said, I like your enthusiasm but I'm not sure about your idea but I've got much bigger plans to you young man. And from that day forward he took me under his wing and opened my eyes to a different way of looking at the world. It's fundamentally changed the course of

our lives. And I can actually confidently say that if it wasn't for George and his family, I wouldn't be enjoying the life I have the privilege to lead today. I'd all be talking to you here and get invested. You see, what I didn't know at the time was that behind George's very humble exterior was an extremely successful self-made man. It started with nothing and built an empire and dynasty of intergenerational wealth as one of Adelaide's wealthiest property entrepreneurs. Having the rare opportunity to catch up with him regularly in the years that followed allowed me to see and learn all of his property principles, tricks and tips firsthand as he shared with me that he started building swimming pools and then went on to build all of

a big four major banks premises right across the state and then leased them back to them amongst many other successful ventures. In many ways he reminded me of my own father, the original Bushy Senior. You see George is one of those rare men where his word was his deed and everything was sealed with nothing more than a handshake. He didn't need complicated contracts and legalese to tie things up in expensive knots. He would just shake your hand firmly and always honour any commitments,

no matter how big or small. If George committed to something, it was as good as done. No ifs, ands, or buts. His word was his bond. He was a stickler for timeliness. He could mix it with anyone at any level, from porpoise to prime ministers,

and always played the long game by imagining future potential, then investing for decades and doing in days. His zest and energy for life combined with his can-do attitude and never-say-die approach inspired everyone around him and he was great at reading people and motivating everyone to give their very best. Now I'm sure these qualities combined with his extreme work ethic and his do-whatever-it-takes approach

contributed to his ability to not only build and own the local shopping centre but also to own the hectares of prime land right on the edge of Adelaide CBD that the old fish factory was sitting on and I can't even imagine what that would be worth and this is just the tip of the iceberg of his property in his real estate holdings. Now what he saw in me I'll never know but from that day forward he quietly educated guided and supported me and opened up opportunities that I never would have been able to consider if not for his wisdom and his network. Now remember that I was starting again with nothing at that time and despite this he started by getting me on the board of directors of the local community bank

and he bought me a laptop to help me work as the company secretary. Then when Sonia and I, my wife, started our property management business, he helped us get going by offering us a very cheap initial lease that increased over time as business profitability improved in brand new offices as part of his shopping centre management suite. And when we started our finance-breaking business, he gifted me and my business partners free office space in the old fish factory using second-hand furniture until we were up and running and profitable.

and later he got me into the highly coveted invitation only Adelaide club that opened up the opportunity to establish significant relationships with all of the city's movers and shakers in return I assisted him and his family wherever and however I could but our contributions paled into insignificance compared to the wisdom he shared and the opportunities he created for me some of George's lifelong lessons include that family is always enough one you need to give before you receive that honesty integrity and doing what you say that you're going to do is absolutely fundamental to your success to always invest in relationships and long-term future potential to build don't buy so that you make it happen or let it happen to only invest if you can

achieve a minimum of 12 return and to use your investments to pay down non-deductible debt and get you into freehold possession of your home sooner rather than later so you promote around your family fortress and then regardless of what happens no one can touch you. Now sadly George recently passed away at the age of 91 years young but his legacy lives on long and large in my life and all of those who've been lucky enough to have been touched by his very giving spirit and I thank him and his family from the bottom of my heart. Some of George's lifelong lessons include that family's number one, that you need to give before you receive, that honesty, integrity in doing what you say you're going to do is fundamental to success, to always invest in

relationships and long-term future potential, to build, don't buy, so that you make it happen, not let it happen, to only invest if you can achieve a minimum of 12% return, and to use your investments to pay down non-deductible debt and get you into freehold possession of your home sooner rather than later, so that you put a moat around your family fortress, and then regardless of what happens no one can touch you. Now sadly George recently passed away at the age of 91 years young but his legacy lives on long and large in my life and all of those who've been lucky enough to have been touched by his giving spirit and I thank him and his family from the bottom of my heart for all of the lifelong gifts that he shared with me in terms of the wisdom and the skills he's

taught me and I'll forever be in George's and his family's debt the faith he had in me at a critical time when I was questioning myself and my future and the ongoing support that he so generously gave. So what about you? Do you have a mentor that you know, like and respect that has done in spades what you want to do? If not, why not? And what are you going to do about it? If you haven't done so already, take the time now to find them and then reach out to them. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? They can only say no or not at the moment, but chances are if they're the right person and they applaud your initiative they'll help you on your journey. So don't delay, do it today. And if you're looking for another inspirational and

motivational example of someone who's enjoyed the benefits of a great mentor then you're really going to enjoy today's guest. Tyrone or Ty Hyde is a successful investor who as you're about to hear has also had the rare privilege of standing on the shoulders of titans to enjoy his own success as the CEO of one of Australia's oldest and most well-known quantity surveying firms who specialise in appreciating depreciation and its benefits for property investors. He's also a fellow author and a podcast host and, by his own admission, is a bad golfer, a bad guitarist, and has a really loud,

annoying laugh, so you're in really good company. And I know we enjoy a great conversation, so welcome and let's get invested. Thank you so much for having me. And, by the way, I thought the home of donuts was a great idea. I think it would have taken off, and I think Adelaide was the right place. And thanks for having me on. I've done a fair bit of homework around you, mate,

and I know that we share some very similar interests and outlooks on life. And I know you well know Riley Price's industry, but for those who don't know you, can you sort of kick things off by telling us what you do differently and, more importantly, I guess, why you do what you do, mate. Sure. So I'm a quantity surveyor. So in essence, I work out what things cost to build. But I've specialised in a... Well, I actually started the industry, me and another firm called Napier and Blakely, started this little niche industry within the industry about property depreciation. So we save property investors money. So it's a

vital part of the thought when you want to make that property positively geared so we can help people save money basically a bushy uh why i did it well when i was 18 i didn't know what i wanted to do as someone suggested to me why don't you do this thing called quantity surveying which is a combination of construction costs and um and mass and i was really good at math at high school um so i did that for a couple of years and um and then i deferred for three years i did what all good young aussies should do i backpacked around the world for three years right and the number one thing i learned from that bushy was that i never wanted to work for minimum wage again so i came back and i finished my degree um and in the final year i wrote this thesis on property

depreciation uh which turned out to be quite a good thing because in 1997 the laws changed and they said anyone with my degree can uh will accept an estimate the ato will accept an estimate if you don't know the construction cost and i guess the passion about trying to save people money came from seeing my father lose all his money um when i was younger when i was 13 my father had a stroke he was paralyzed on the left hand side so he became a cripple and what happened was they then retired him early from his like he was the smartest man i knew he had four degrees but he's also a lecturer in psychology and they retired him early um in 1987 and he invested all that money had 250 000 as a payer which is a lot of money back then still a lot of money but it's

more back then he invested in one company called estate mortgage right i don't know if you remember them but they have they advertise themselves to be safe as houses they're investing in bricks and mortar but what they're really investing in was mezzanine finance and when the rates went through to 70 well the cards fell down like you know how the house cards fell down and he lost he lost pretty much all his money i think he ended up getting seven cents in the dollar back um and it wasn't the stroke that killed him it was seeing getting these letters every quarter on from the Liquid Air saying, yes, Mr. Hyde, you're going to get $0.07 back. Seeing the stress of that, that killed him in my opinion.

So the passion to teach people about educating and property and not to lose money is what my podcast is about. The final question is, I ask all my guests, I ask them, how do you not lose money, right? And I guess that's because I've done pretty well over the years. I don't want to leave a bit of a legacy for my daughter to one day go back and look at these interviews that I've done with, and I want to get you on, by the way, Bushy, to successful people.

and ask them the same 10 questions to unlock the keys to their success. And that's a bit of a legacy in why I do what I do. I know that was a long-winded answer, but I hope something came from it. No, that's great. That certainly gives us a pretty good picture of the drivers. Seeing your daddy, it sounds a little bit like the rich dad, poor dad story to me. You know, the smart dad, but the poor dad who's got all the degrees, but didn't really understand money, became the driver for you to jump in.

Tell me a little bit more about why quantum surveying, because there's not many of us that wake up in life, you know, most of us want to be policemen or fire engine drivers or pilots when we were kids, but not many putting their hand up for quantum surveying. Talk to us about that. And I only 20 graduate a year, so it is pretty niche. I think that's a good thing as well in terms of that you end up

with a degree in construction economics, and it's a practical degree. But as I said, I was the type of kid that I'd be walking along a pit street in sydney and there'd be a hoarding and there'd be a square little you can see through the hole a little window through the hoarding and i would just stand there looking looking at the cranes i love that right and to the point where my girlfriend at the time she'd grab my hand and and well we come on get away we've got the movies running late um i ended up by the way i ended up marrying that 17 year old girl i've been we've been we first kissed at a high school disco um um so the combination of construction love plus i i was like did three unit maths in in school back

then i i think i was the only caucasian mathematics back then uh three to mass so it was mass was a passion as well so it is a perfect combination for me i mean when i first started in quantity surveying it wasn't not normal quantity surveying is more about estimating construction costs for developers and that's what my original that's what we did and we'd go out because as you know bushy when you when you borrow 10 million dollars to build a development the bank doesn't go here you go here's 10 million bucks we they get an independent valuation and they get an independent of construction costs from Aquatisva. And so then if the number's right, what you'll do is,

as Aquatisva, you'll go out every month and do what's called a progress claim. And you'll say, okay, the slab support, the brickwork's done, it's up to level one, you've done 15% of the project. And of that $10 million, the bank will release $1.5 billion and that will go to the developer. The developer should pay the builder, the builder should pay the trades if all things go well.

It doesn't always happen that way. So going out to building sites every morning and doing all these, sitting around having a coffee with the Lebanese builders or whoever it was. And I really love that stuff as well. But as I said before, what happened was when the laws changed and the ATO said, oh, look, we'll accept an asset by you. And I'd just written my thesis on this.

I went, woo-hoo, I've got a little business here. So I actually left Washington Brown and I started my own business called Property Depreciation PTY Limited. Not very original, admittedly. It's on the can. What's on the can is what you did. I like it. In hindsight, it would have been good for Google SEO, but there was no Google back then.

And that business started taking off. And so then my partner said to me, Tyrone, why don't you come back and we re-merge? You will go 50-50. And my site took off so much, and I ended up buying him out. That's how I ended up with this 45-year-old company, even though I'm 54. I didn't start it when I was 10, but that's how I ended up with this, what I call a dinosaur company. no i love it because i i'm very familiar with qs's uh and tie because uh you probably know i used to be an architect in the past life and did that for seven nine years and i had a very

love-hate relationship with qs's that it started as a hate relationship because uh whenever you design something you throw it at the qs and you'd say that costs too much you'd have to print it out so it became a love relationship when i used to get a qs on board right from the get-go right before i even picked up a pen and started putting shape around the the dollars so that uh when i was designing we knew that it was actually going to come within budget and then it was actually workable and i can still remember the guy was you probably know these guys uh right a hunt with it that we used to work with and john buckham was a guy that uh i used to work very closely with for many years uh back in the adelaide scene so where i know that the real

hour of QSs, they can make a massive difference to the cost management of a project and are worth their weight in gold. And applying that sort of science to the property investment arena and depreciation, there's some massive benefits there, which we'll talk about in part two of the exercise. So look, I know you sort of started as a cadet with Washington Brown and then you now own the company. How did that come about? so as i said before so when i when i came back from university well sorry when i came back from

traveling i was because i deferred for three years i i thought oh i'm getting like i i went back in i thought i'm getting too old to get into the industry so now i was like 24 at this point in time and i i look at 24 year old now i think you know you're a baby right but at the time i felt i was really old and i went to university one day and this was before seek.com.au was a thing right So I've gone there and there was these job ads on the columns and it said Cadet Wanted, Washington Brown. I'm like, whoo, Washington Brown. That sounds like a fancy company.

So because I thought I was really old to get into the industry, I went and stole all the job ads, Bushy, and I was the only one that turned up. I love it. It's a true story. But it was only just one person that was working there. His name was Tony Brown, the Brown in Washington Brown. And I said to him, look, I'll work for you for nothing for the first year

just so I can get a leg in the door. And I had no money. I was working nights to fund myself, working, wash it around three or four days a week, and then going to uni, writing a thesis on depreciation. It was a busy year, but anything, and it worked out okay in the end. I'm glad I did that, to be honest, because I did feel like I was really too old.

You know, in high school now, because a lot of times then, you just have the one job, right? But now people have seven jobs, eight jobs, which I think is better. But back then, it felt like really stressful that you have to get your, you know, get your foot in the door. And so I guess that was also a catalyst for the success of that I've had in my life, to be honest, so doing that for nothing. So if anyone wants to work for me for free out there,

please feel free to send your CV to the start of something good. Well, it's funny you should say that because when I finished architecture, there was no jobs for architects at the time. This was back in the early 80s. And the only thing that was being built in Adelaide at the time were headstones. basically so I ended up working for free for quite a period just to get experience and then I ended up jumping on a plane and going and working for a crocodile farmer in New Guinea

to become his in-house architect so I know that billing mate but the experience was worth more than the money to me at the time it didn't worry me that I wasn't getting paid because like you I was doing work outside of that to get through but not many people would have the gumps and the courage to to do that in this day and age sadly but he the tony brown was uh he was my original mentor and he his thirst his knowledge of construction costs and laws so i used to sit there just listening in there'd be boardroom meeting after boardroom meeting and because it was a small office i could i could listen to all the contract law so i know so much about that side of it not just the depreciation side and that having someone like he was probably 55 back

there so lots of experience again he also went broke during the late 80s same thing so he was starting again so but he had a lot of contacts so he'd have all these meetings with major developers and i'd just be sitting there up till nine o'clock at night ten o'clock well these meetings went on and negotiated the contracts between the builders and the developers and i just my you know my ears are like buzzing it just i was right i was typing on the one side but really i'm like listening going what what can i learn from this no cause that you're talking about what are the what's what's dilapidations what's what's extensive time clauses etc etc etc and um you know i think that that knowledge of learning about building contract law was a real good catalyst for my success to be

honest yeah i love that mate i know that uh you know talking uh off air that we've both got an absolute love for barley and that you actually ran the company from a bamboo school in the jungle where on stage tell us a bit about that well i because i've been with a small buying company for so long my wife and i we always toyed with the idea of traveling overseas and look let's face it isn't that why we go into business to be able to live the life you want and to be able to and for me living living and working and running a company of 50 staff from a bamboo school in the jungle was a big tick box right i know it's out there but there is literally uh and my wife was reading this article in the magazine in the sunday magazine one the good weekend she said oh she was

like she's italian background why don't we go live in italy for a couple years like it's a bit of the time zone it's not that easy you know and then one day she's read this article said what about barley and i caught her bluff bushy i've been there a couple of times before i love barley you know i can do barley so we we went there we we went over to and the main reason was because of the green school which is this bamboo school in the jungle if you're watching this or listen google it it's um it's an architectural feature as an architect you would love it um it's it's almost but bamboo school in the bamboo structure in the world there's no air con so it's hot There's dropped toilets.

The kids wear thongs to school. There's no exams. There's cows and rabbits on the playground. The gym is made of reused airplane tires, right? Love it. There's a lot of good stuff that goes on within the community as well. So every day at 3 o'clock when the Western kids go home, 300 Indonesian kids come in and they learn English,

provided they bring in two kilos of plastic, right, which is pretty cool. As I said, there's no exams. say the kids learn angles by building mud brick pyramids right and then working out the angles that way rather than getting out a book and trying to work it out with the so it's more and there's only 12 kids per year so per classroom with three teachers um so and the educational it is more steiner steinerish kind of educational model um but the community itself is unbelievable so half the school hangs out at this green school during the day and they've actually got like a we work situation there so i was literally running this washington brown from a bamboo school in the

jungle i came back because of covid i'd still be there to be honest well no i love it man i think the benefit of the world we now live in and covid's actually made this easier is that we can operate our national businesses from anywhere anytime uh that the freedom of that that gives a lifestyle i've said you off there that you know we're traveling around the country at the moment and we're operating the business that way. And I'm currently in East Gippsland enjoying the best-kept seat, which is Lakes Entrance. It's just a beautiful part of the world.

And if you've got the passion and you've got the technology behind you, it's very easy to do that now. But I love the courage that you share in saying, well, we're just going to make this happen. A lot of people talk about it but don't do it, Ty. So I love that. Now, I know – This was just before COVID.

So it wasn't really a thing yet, right? But when COVID hit, we were COVID ready. I'd already ended up the staff. And you've got to understand, my business is not a bunch of digital nomads. There's people on the ground inspecting properties. There's, I won't say real people, but there's actual physical inspections that need to be done. It's not just like we're all coders. So when COVID hit, we were ready.

We already outsourced everywhere. I'd sold my office. Literally, I sold like a 350 square meter office in Pitt Street two weeks before COVID. Thank God. good timing it was good times like a that one was a fluke um but yeah so we were covered ready which i guess and now in hindsight you look back you go well you know why did some of my staff need to travel an hour and a half from newport to the city every day to be there at 8 30 when they could be spending three hours with their kids right and we haven't gone back we still i have a small office

now in the city but literally everyone is still the same no one wants to go back to work myself And I don't mind because that means I have to go back. And I'm good. I'm good where I am. Exactly. It's all about lifestyle at the end of the day. And the so-called chat about work-life balance, I reckon it's bollocks, Ty. I think if you integrate your life in such a way that you work when you want to, where you want to, and how you want to, that's the best combination there is.

So I love that. Now, I know that as a business, you've worked with the heavies in the industry right across the board for many years. and one of the most notable of those, of course, is High-Rise Harry or Harry Trigomoff. He's often referred to as the $26 billion man and you've worked with him for nearly 27 years, I understand. So can you talk to us about how that came about and more importantly, what you've learned

from working with him over that sort of period of time? Sure. Yeah, no, look, he's been a, I wouldn't say mentor, but he's certainly been an inspirational person in my life. I must have had hundreds of meetings with him, But he doesn't sit down and say, Tyrone, you need to do this. It's, you know, when Harry says job, I say, hell, I've got to be honest with you.

But how it started was, so to put Harry, if people don't know, he owns a company called Meritan. He's the largest service department operator in Australia now. His net wealth, as you said, is $26 billion. To put that in perspective, if you were to merge Suncorp Bank, which owns Vero, Amy, API, Shrods, Bingle, and Suncorp, together with AMP, you still haven't reached his personal wealth right that is ridiculous isn't it oxfam estimated that for the last four years he made one and a half million dollars per hour right so when he invites me for a two-hour lunch bushy i'm shit scared he's gonna send me an invoice for the next fortnight now i don't know about that as well it's wrong it is i scary thoughts anyway so when i first

met harry he's the greatest storyteller i've ever met right he i was 27 and he was doing depreciation by himself, and someone recommended to him, you're not very good at it, true story, you need to get to be Washington Brownie, and I just started doing this. And for the first, it was a 30-minute meeting, and for the first 29 minutes of it, all he did was tell me stories. In the last one minute, he said, can you help? The stories were like how his parents led communist Russia

to live in China because of anti-Semitism, or how he was first, when he came to Australia, he was a milkman, delivering milk in Chatswood, Well, how he nearly went broke in the 70s, he borrowed money to do developments from Citibank. And Citibank called in the loans. And he said, what do you want, half-completed buildings? No bank wants half-completed buildings, right?

So he said to him, well, I'll finish them. And he did. And then he said to him, and I'll never borrow a cent again. And he hasn't, Bushy. Nothing. It's on the public record. I'm not talking disclosing client confidentiality. You can Google it.

So when you see those 50 cranes on a site, all paid with cash. Not literally cash. Probably used to be, but he's upgraded to the Commonwealth, I think. What have I learned? Well, the first thing I've learned, I actually talked about this recently. The first thing I've learned from him, he's the ultimate 1% guy. He's a 1% man. I don't know, have you read the book Atomic Habits by James Clinic?

I have, it's a great book. Great book, great book. I highly recommend it. It talks about a guy by the name of Dave Brailstead who became the British cycling coach. Yeah, yeah. And he changed these little 1% in the British cycling team. Things like getting doctors in to teach them how to wash their hands properly so they didn't get sore or teach them how to use a neck pillow correctly, right?

Apparently, 1% has compounded to have this transformation, the British cycling team. They ended up winning six Tour de France's and they hadn't won one before and they won like 18 gold medals at the Olympics. So this compounding, I'm reading this book and I'm going, oh my God, this is Harry Triguboff and I'll tell you why. So he invites me up to lunch one time at the World Tower. The World Tower is a 75-floor building in the city.

It's the largest, or was at the time, the largest residential structure in the Southern Hemisphere. And he kept the top third for himself, as you do, but he kept the top, top floor purely for entertaining. So you get the lift up, the butler opens the door. I'm walking around and it's the whole floor. And it looks like owning a whole floor of Centrepoint Tower. I'm walking around, I'm going,

there's something wrong with this floor. and I realised there's no bedrooms push. It's just got a kitchen, right, and a bathroom. Then he's just using it for entertaining. I was thinking, clearly Harry doesn't sleep. That's probably why he's got it. No, no, no. He said it's too good to have bedrooms.

And he came up there and he's at the table. He sits next to me. He says to me, come next to me, come next. So I sit down next to him and I said to him, I've actually got a photo of it. Here we are. Here's a photo of, if you can see that on TV, I'll send you the photo.

But here we are at this lunch. I said, Harry, I've written a book. He goes, very good, very good. That's how he talks, very good. I said, it's about property depreciation and tax and investment. He goes, very good. I said, Harry, there's a chapter in there about you. He didn't say very good, Bushy.

And so I said, look, I think it's only fair that you read it before it goes to press. So I give him the chapter, and he starts turning over the page and reading it. There's silence. There's always an entourage with Harry, and there's just, you could hear the pin drop when he read it, right? It was pure silence.

And he finishes the book, sorry, the chapter. He looks up and he goes, very good. Anyway, so I gave him a pen. I gave him a pen. I said, Harry, can you sign something for the book? He grabs a napkin and he writes on the napkin. And he wrote this. He wrote, I made up my mind to work with Tyrone when I saw him.

I never went to another quantity slayer and I never regret it. And he hasn't. And you know why he wrote it on a napkin? Because he's never used a computer in his life. He doesn't need a computer. If he knows he can buy land for $150 per site, build it for $350, sell it for a million bucks, the site works.

He doesn't need a Macquarie Bank algorithm. He didn't start with one of those. He didn't start with a computer. Anyway, here comes the one presenter. So the book gets finished, published. I send him the first copy off to the press. His EA rings me up a week later. Mr. Triggerboff would like six more copies, thank you.

I'm like, okay, why? He wants his executive team to know what you do. I'm like, okay, that's pretty cool. And then for the next year, every week invites me in for five minutes summons me in tyrant takes me something new about depreciation by week 38 i'm running out of tips and tricks i've got to be honest with you but i'm thinking if that's what he does for me this little niche business of that if he's doing that for all these engineers for everything his one pounding compounding effect is just off the

richter his thirst for knowledge is like nothing i've ever seen push so that's one thing i've learned from him so i don't know how many investors can portray that into their own things but you You know, the thirst for knowledge is a compounding effect. I've got seven of these. That's the longest one. Shall I keep going? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give us a couple more of the real key ones, I reckon, Ty.

Kiss. The kiss. Keep it simple, stupid principle, right? So Harry, he's stuck in his lane. Like for me, I don't know about you, but I've started so many different businesses, right? And sometimes, like from due diligence reports, dilapidation, I created a competitor myself once, and I even created a competitor at realestate.com at one point, which didn't work. But not Harry. No, he's just stuck in his lane.

He's just built apartments. He could have gone down the commercial property angle with his teams, industrial property, but he's just stuck in his lane, and it's worked. So I've paired back all my other businesses and just do the one now. The other thing he's kept it simple, stupid, is he's designed. designed they're square you don't see many curved balconies or curved slabs right because they cost more if you build a square building you can stack the kitchen on top of the kitchen the plumbing goes right through it's cheaper right so he's kept a simple ship so what that enables him to do is to sell a bigger apartment compared to the competing developer down the road

and look let's face it you can't live in a facade and we all know the size matters bushy um all right give me a couple more i'll give you a couple okay follow the leader is another one i would say following leader i've made a fair bit of money out of harry but if i just followed so i've got clients or had clients like lang walker he passed away yeah tim gurner harry if you follow the leader not the herd and find out when harry went into different areas over my life if i just bought a townhouse around the corner a couple of times it would have been better off doing that than what the fees I've been able to charge him. Same with Len Walker.

So follow that. And as property investors, what we can do, you can find out where the next Bunnings is being built in Cordell's. Bunnings have a team of demographers working out where to go, right? They do the work for you. So that is one idea that you can follow the leader as a property investor, if you ask me. Say one more thing.

I'll tell you the secret. I'll tell you the last one. The secret to your success. He said to me one time, he said, Tyron. And sometimes when he talks, he has a higher intonation on the last word. So he said, Tyrone, do you want to know the secret to my success? Now, I'm not going to say no, Bushy.

Yes, Harry, what's the secret to your success? And I love this. This is one of my favorite quotes. He said, Tyrone, when times are bad, I buy land. By the time I get development approval, times are good again. Now, I'll say that again. When times are bad, I buy land. By the time I get development approval, now that can be two to three years

in his case, and times are good again, right? And what does that mean? That can be a metaphor for life, for business, but certainly for investing. And what it means is ignore the noise, back yourself, right? Someone like Harry, it's not a case of whether he times the market or has time in the market, you see? So what he does is when he builds it, he keeps half his stock. So what Harry does, he does both.

With his wealth, he times the market and then he has time in the market. and if you can do that my friends you'll found the holy grail 100 he's combined both and and the other key message that i'm picking up from that is that because you you would hear this all the time is now a good time to invest i hear this all the time because it's for me it's it's never been about when it's it's you invest every time you can it's what you invest in and where you invest that that's actually going to be the the key exercise of that so i know love that mate And we could have another podcast just about that, I reckon, which we might do at some point in time.

But, mate, I guess something I'd love to circle back to your story before we jump into your personal property journey. Yeah. If you look back on your life so far, Ty, what challenging event in your life has brought about your greatest learnings and your best changes, do you think? Sure. Well, to be honest, well, me and my wife,

we struggled to have kids for a long time we had eight miscarriages and then i had a son that died so that uh that was about an eight-year period of of hell to be honest um that was a very challenging moment i might get emotional here but uh i guess learning to take life but you know appreciating life is which is the greatest thing i've learned from that um so it was very hard especially for for both of us i don't get emotional now so um but um you know So that was definitely the greatest hardship I've had. Burying my son was bloody shit. So that was tough.

From a business point of view, I guess changes in tax laws have been a personal thing. Out of the blue in 2017, the government said, we're going to stop investors claiming depreciation on secondhand plant equipment items. And no one saw that. So I'll just explain that to the audience. If you buy a brand new apartment in our house, you can claim all the ovens the dishwashers the bricks and the concrete but the moment that i sell to you one day later um you can no longer claim all the others the dishwasher you only

claim the structure of the building uh and but that's a large proportion of what we do um we're going out is expecting those so that the the the product that we have is being limited and so what i did was when the laws changed that that was in 2017 when the laws changed i said all to my staff oh by the way i just want to piss off and live in bali for a couple of years let's work it out as we go we already made plans um so that was a challenge it didn't look it didn't affect us as much as i thought um but at the beginning it was definitely a bit nerve-wracking for everyone so that was a challenge what i think that that that's always going to be an issue with my business is the legislative change could come along and change and and say you won't you'll be able to

i don't think they'll ever stop depreciation for new property or commercial property because there are powerful industries like the property council who have good better lobby groups than the residential property market and the way to stop it for new property because developers rely upon those numbers to help sell the property right yeah the last thing all i do now is hand in supply construction costs are doing a good job of that by themselves right so i don't think i have to stop that but they could stop it for secondhand properties will stop which i well i I think, and again, this is a message that I'm banging loud and hard to anyone will hear, that while there's a lot of short-term reactive, short-sighted policy stuff that's coming out

of government at the moment, that it's targeting our private mum and dad investors as the villain in the whole housing affordability, housing supply exercise. My own view is that 80% of residential housing stock is still in the rental areas provided by mum and dad investors, we need to be taking a lesson out of when negative gearing was reversed after Keating and how it brought in the legislation that's incentivised mum and dad investors to get into property using appreciation as a big lever in that. I think we actually need to be reversing it to actually embrace residential property investors, that's the answer to the housing affordability issue, not the problem that

they're being painted as. So now one of the things I'm pretty keen to do is to make as much noise as we can to as many people as we can, that actually thinking hard and smart about depreciation as another incentive to reapply it back to existing property may actually go a long way to alleviating the housing crisis that we're currently suffering. What's your view on that? Absolutely. So I had this conversation with Terry Ryder the other day. We went toe-to-toe with three ideas that we could balance to help the housing crisis. One of mine was a bit controversial and Tender said,

Zach, what you just said then, we could increase the building allowance to encourage activity. And that's what it is a tool to leave the government can pull. So people might not know, but there are certain building types that get a 4% building allowance, which is like service departments. And that's why they say, oh, we need hotels now. We'll give you a 4%. They're doing that with the bill to rent at the moment. They've increased it, but they could – I don't know if they see why people –

so in order to get the 4% allowance of the built rent, you have to be building 50 apartments, right? Not many people can afford 50 apartments, so why not make it more available to the mum and dad investors as well and increase it to the 4%? They get it back and they claw it back when you sell the property anyway. But I do think they could tinker with negative gearing. I think they could – if I was to solve the negative gearing issue,

I can see why people have problems with being able to claim that loss back onto your personal income, right? So you could quarantine it, in my view, to that property. That's what happens in a lot of places around the world. So that will have – it won't hit the coffers as much until you sell the property. And probably saying, oh, you can only do one property or two properties is – what happens if – there's a lot of problems with that because you can have it in many different entities, right?

You can also have three that are positively geared, two that are negative. Does that counterbalance them out? So I don't like that as a strategy. I think that's just purely a political talk making me look good, right? Oh, we're going to crack down those needed years. So what I would do is I would quarantine the loss until you sell the property or positively, because they can be positive as well. So it goes both ways.

You can actually be positively geared as well. Totally. And so if you have a property that was, say, negatively geared at the beginning and then became positively geared, and when you sell it, they even themselves out well there's no cgt payable that is within that property within that one entity to me that would make a bit more sense than what's the current what's currently out there as an idea um and what i guess is the the political ideas i guess yeah love your thoughts on that now i want to sort of jump into your personal property journey if you can because you you've worked with

the biggest the best and the the latest and the greatest uh talk to us about uh what interested your personal entry into property and take us through what you did, why you did it and the good, bad and ugly and the lessons you've learned on your personal investment journey. Sure.

So I guess I've always been bullish on property. I love property and I guess being a project auditor on a job, which is the first property that I bought, actually, in fact, the first property I ever bought, which was 1995 or something, actually worked out to be

the best return on investment I ever made. So I was the project auditor on a job in Balmain, Darling Street, Balmain, which means I would go out every month to do those progress claims that we talked about. And I got to know the developer. I put $1,000 deposit down for this apartment. It was like for $240,000. And back then, they didn't even want the 10% until we settled.

But what happened was the builder went broke, and the project got delayed for two or three years and I helped him manage the project out. Now, by the time the project had come to settle, the property was already worth about $350,000, right? And so he didn't ask me to put in more. He asked some of the other developed interests to put in. The sunset clause had gone.

So he asked some of the other clients to put in money. But he didn't ask me because I helped him project manage the job out. So that $1,000 ended up turning into like a $120,000 profit over a three-year period. Now, that's a pretty good percentage increase, right? So that was a bit of a catalyst for me to go into other properties. And so most of the early properties I had, because I had no money when I started, were with other people.

So fractional investing. And with my brother, my girlfriend, so I became a wife. We went three, freezing. And the first three were all involved with the jobs I was working on. I was at the finger wharf at Willamaloo. Len Walker was the client. So I was like, I would get all the plans. I go, well, I know this developer's good.

So you could say I was cheating a bit. But, you know, if you're a carpenter, you're not going to charge yourself out and you're going to do what you do, right? And that worked out well. So I worked out the other day, I bought 22 properties in my life and I've never lost money on property. I've lost a shitload of money on shares, but never on property. I guess that is in my wheelhouse.

And if I look back on my time, I would have probably just stuck to property, to be honest but i do like share investing as well i think i find that the um the challenge of shares are beating the market something i you know i was competitive by nature bushy it's really hard to beat the market i was gonna say yeah i've been there myself and the fuck for myself let's spend a fool's hour and have that one on and on myself because i you try and outpace it and and if you look at all of that or it says that the best investors are dead because they don't try and toy with it or muck around with it but uh but mate But can you think back to what your investment strategy was

when you first started, if you had one, and how has that changed and evolved over time and what's it look like now in terms of where you're heading? Okay, so it definitely was at the point at the beginning to be able to do anything just to get into the market. Again, as I said, I didn't have any money, but I knew the mathematical equation of it because I was doing right by thesis on depreciation

and all that kind of stuff. But back then it was just to grow as quickly as I could. and via into investments with other people just to get into the market. Over time, I guess as you become more wealthy or whatever, I've done down now. I'm the worst property investor in the world now in terms of gearing. Like I don't really have any gearing anymore. I'm very, you know, it sounds like a wanker, but it's a nice position to be in.

At one point, I used to have so much debt, I couldn't sleep. And a lot of it was on the stock market, not on just property. We'll go back to property, but a lot of it was on the stock market, and I couldn't sleep at night. And so having twice lost the GDP of a small African nation, I decided I don't want to ever borrow money ever again. I know that sounds like, oh, you need to put it on your resume. It's like Harry now, mate.

Yeah, well, it's just, yeah, but it's not because of that. It's just because the stress that I went through to try and be the richest man in the grave nearly put me in there. And so when you can get into that position, it's very nice to not have to bloody worry about a bank. 100% agree. If you look back on your investment so far, you mentioned your best.

What's been your worst? Learn from that one. Okay, Cairns. Cairns didn't actually make me any money. I paid about $154. I thought that was really cheap. So sometimes buying the cheapest isn't the best you can do. But it went okay.

I ended up selling for like $1.60. I held it for 10 years. And with that low price point, you end up spending more time on paperwork than growth, you know. And if the tenant's not good or so, it paid an average yield. But there's a lot of problems in those price problems up there with insurances and all those levies that I didn't, you know, you don't factor in the fully.

I think like there was a flood up there that just doubled. It was like how do you predict that into your forecast modeling, right? So I think Adata has probably been the worst property investment I've had. Even though I didn't lose money, it was probably the opportunity cost of what I could have done with that money. But I'm a bit – I had Chris Gray on my podcast, and he's pretty much buy blue chip, right? That's his goal.

And I think if you can do that, or even with others, it is a lot safer. Like they're not building any more land in Bondi. But you know they're saying, oh, probably they're not building anymore land. That's a myth because they are. They're chopping up sites and subdividing it, right? They are building built lands. So don't just dig investors out there

that you can never lose on property. You can lose, definitely. We see it a lot of the times because we do reports and we say, so I bought this property 10 years ago and today it's still worth the same. You might not have lost, but you've lost. So they are building more land. Don't fall into that myth spruced by other people

saying, oh, you'll never lose on property. And if someone says you have to hold this property for 10 years to work, there's a reason why, because there's so many fees involved. So if you've been told you have to hold it for 10 years to make it work, run. I like you thinking about that. If you were starting out again, Ty, what, if anything, would you invest in differently, do you think? I probably would have bought Bitcoin when I first heard about it.

That had only done well. Look, I probably would have stuck – okay, here's one thing I would have done. I would have learned about exchange-traded ETFs, right, exchange-traded funds in the stock market because you don't have to worry about knowing the financials. And the reason is that companies can lie, and so they can budge the numbers a bit. And so rather than worrying about one company with one industry,

you're buying an ETF, whether it be the whole of the ASX 200 or into an area. You can buy ETFs just to focus on AI, right? Which I've got. So if you think that AI is going to be here for a long time, don't worry about buying, this is not financial advice, don't worry about buying one or two chip makers. How about you buy a fund of AI?

So buy the theme rather than the company is something that I would have wished I'd learned a while ago. Yeah, I love that one. I've often said that, particularly in equities, you've got to bet on the race, not on the horse. if you've been on the horse you'd likely be a loser but if you think the race overall is going to do well and if you buy index funds or etfs you're basically buying a chunk of all of them and as long as it's going in an upwards direction over over the long term you're going to do very

well and it doesn't take much time or energy or emotion uh to do that so there's some other benefits in that as well mate i love you sharing all that uh we're now going to jump into what i affectionately referred to as the ambush or the bushfire lightning round where i ask you uh four fast questions that the listeners all want to get your words of wisdom on and i guess the first of those in part one and we'll do the same in part two is what superpower do you wish you had and why ty oh i wish i could fly who wouldn't hey with the traffic in sydney if you could nip over to north sydney quickly that'd be handy i definitely wish i could fly that would be just how cool would that we'd be able to fly.

100% agree. I often thought the same thing. You've had some copies with some great people over your time, Harry and Len Walker and others. But if you could have a copy with anyone, either alive or dead, who would you choose and why? Sam Altman. The guy that just is founder of ChapGP.

I'm really fascinated in that kind of way. Pick his brains on where is that going because it's going so quickly. i'd really like to know it's look it's scary and bad um but it's just fascinating like i i typed in the other day i said i'm starting out write me a business proposal and how on um creating a property depreciation company in australia the answer just blew my mind away it also said it came up with a SWOT analysis it said uh your your major threats would be washington brown that's what it said i know you're bloody smart uh i love that i love that uh if um uh i guess the next question back in the literary field for a second what what would be the title of the book about you

well there already is one let's go keep claiming it not all good bookshops yeah okay answer that pretty well uh back on the investment subject for the last one of the round What's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received? The worst was, it wasn't actually spoken to me, but I was reading a brochure from Leverage Equities and it looked at it and it showed you how good shares can be

if you're leveraged into them. It didn't really show you how bad they can be, but it showed you how good when the stock market goes up, right? And it can be. The problem with leveraging into shares is that when the market falls, the shit hits the fan and even though you have good stocks, the banks are ringing up, people go, you got to sell, you get margin call. And so there's a snowball effect of what happens to your investments. And so whilst you may have had good

investments, you could be reselling them at a ridiculously stupid price. So that's probably the worst investment I got. The best investment I got was advice probably, which I didn't take, was don't ever borrow money to buy shares. So I wish I did, but I certainly would. That would be the most number one investment advice I'd give anyone listening to this. Never, ever borrow money for shares. Someone said to me once,

if you can't own a share outright, don't. And so I would wholeheartedly agree with that. One of the things I used to, well, before I got into property many years ago when I was getting myself back on my feet, I actually traded CFDs. oh yeah exactly they were leveraged 101 and i was getting into the sectors because i was on a hell bend mission same thing wasn't thinking of the risk where there was nights where i'd have

guaranteed stop losses and everything else in play to try and manage the risk but if the market closed at one one level and then opened well below that didn't matter what the guaranteed stop loss did you took the hit you know i would lose 30 grand overnight just like that and so I 100% agree with what you're saying there. Even if, the thing is that you're right, that's a very good point about guaranteed stop losses. If the company goes into a trading hole, right, and then open and says, we've just, we've got a revenue,

we've forecast revenues going really bad, it just bypasses your trading, your stop loss. So be wary, take a hit. So I agree with you, very volatile. If you don't have the risk appetite and you don't have a big trading float that's going to cover that, don't even think about it. So I love that.

That sort of brings us pretty close to the end of part one. So if you look back on your personal, professional and property journey, what's the one question that you wish I'd asked you and how would you have asked it, Harry? Ty? You even sound like Harry, mate, the way you've been finishing your sentence and so on, but been thinking Harry.

What's the one question you would have liked to have asked me? um i guess what have you learned from the podcast um and i'd say so so my podcast is called 10 with ty and i asked the same people with 10 questions and i think the number one thing i've learned from that podcast is education like i didn't it's funny how i asked the same 10 questions and i get completely different answers to everyone from everyone right and one of the questions i asked is if you could go back in time and uh tap yourself on the shoulder 20 year old self what would you tell yourself and another question is something like if you had if your 20 year old son came up today what would you what would you tell your 20 and he's got 20 grand to invest what would you

tell him or her your daughter uh and a lot of those answers have been about educating yourself at that age it's not you know rather than going putting an equity trying to find something there and i think that's true i think trying to educate yourself spending that money on self um education at that younger age would be a key to success. And I'd encourage that. And I guess the good news is now there's so many good podcasts like yourself that you can, which weren't around when we were 20. So there's definitely educating yourself with something.

Yeah, beautifully said. And that education never stops, Ty. I'm a bit older than you, and I'm still learning something every day, whether listening to a podcast or reading another book. There's never a day that goes by where you can't add to your knowledge. So look, I really want to thank you for taking the time to share the ins and outs of your awe-inspiring and entertaining journey so far, Ty.

And before we close off, if anyone would like to explore the inspirational information further that Ty shared with other like-minded investors in our very safe, relaxed, and no-pressure environment, feel free to join us on the Property Hub Collective Facebook community by just clicking the link on the show notes.

And we look forward to connecting with you and continuing the conversation there. We now look forward to continuing our chat with Ty in next week's episode. where we're going to deep dive into how you can significantly improve your property cashflow affordability and save yourself some money

using the little known and underutilized benefits of appreciation. So we look forward to getting invested with you again then, Ty. I can't wait. So we're going to talk about the sexy stuff next week. 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. Make sure you subscribe to Property Hub for free get your weekly dose of get investing 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