Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 2 - How Richard Bharata grew a $10M property portfolio in 4 years

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Where there is a will, there is always a way with property. And Richard Bharata is living proof of this. As you learned in the previous episode, Richard is a retired engineer who has tackled adversity head on, starting with less than nothing around three and a half years ago, and has now built a portfolio of 17 rentals spread across 13 properties across three states that’s achieving remarkable growth and rental yield with a total value of around $10 million. As we continue the conversation with Richard, you'll learn the importance of taking action, getting educated, making mistakes, learning and growing on the journey to becoming a successful property investor and building the life you really want. Enjoy! Connect with Richard ipropertyfinder.com.au Find your Freedom Formula Success in property starts with your 'why', and then the 'what' and 'how'. Let me, Bushy Martin, lead you through it! Sign up for my Freedom Formula program. The first session is absolutely free, and it only takes around an hour! Find out more https://bushymartin.com.au/freedom-formula-course 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. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to get every Get Invested episode each week for free. For business enquiries, email [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yeah, so until property number 10, including the home, so non-investment property. So we only use our engineering banker, my wife is a bank of serviceability. Yeah, so my strategy when I first started was simply just to get into the market. So the first property that was $10,000, about what I think the market value was, because there was literally the same beta property selling for $370,000. So I bought this one for $380,000, which is not better, but more expensive. And that was because you were starting out, so you're trying to get into the market quickly. And it's been rewarding.

The property is worth almost $700,000 now, even though I bought it above market. So that was first. And that's the same with the second one. When I bought the third investment property, that's when I started to don't want to overpay. I want to get below market and start training myself that way. and subsequent purchases always like that you try to buy below market

now it's coming fast forward to now I'm trying to either focus on the cash flow prophecies which hopefully were more than likely positive cash flow

from day one at 80% of VR or I buy in a market that is early like Melbourne you know regional Victoria and regional East South Wales

that is still not yet certain but the signs are showing 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.

Welcome back to the concluding part of my ongoing conversation with Richard Barada, where we unpack our very deep dive that dissects the nitty gritties, along with the good, bad and ugly of Richard's rapid property portfolio accumulation. Where you're going to hear and learn firsthand how someone just like you has managed to go from below zero to property hero by securing 13 properties across four states in just four years that are now worth over $9 to $10 million and counting. And Richard's example is a very important one to share because, quite frankly, I get sick and tired of hearing that it's now too hard and too late to build your wealth and property.

Yes, things have changed and they always will. But where there's a will, there's always a way, as Richard quite clearly demonstrates today. So stop telling me and yourself why it can't be done and why now is never the right time because there will always be some self-justifying excuse. And start following the example and learning from those who are continuing to do it. Because what it really comes down to is how much do you really want it

and how much are you prepared to do in order to make it happen. It won't come easy and it's unlikely to come quickly, but if you're determined, keep an open mind, get creative and stick to it relentlessly through thick and thin, then you're going to make it happen. And don't let anyone convince you otherwise. As you'll remember from last week, Richard's an early self-retired engineer, husband, father

and a very motivated investor who's turned buyer's agent now to help you achieve your lifestyle goals with property. So I challenge you to get invested in your future self now and take some action today because if the example that Richard's about to reveal doesn't inspire you to make the move, nothing's going to. So get ready to get motivated as we get invested

and continue my great conversation with Richard Browder. Let's dive into your investment journey with a focus on property. And I guess the first and most obvious question around that is why property given that you started to dabble and look at the equities market why property uh why did you decide to invest and what triggered that interest in property so yeah at first um share was the the thing because it was really easy there's no barrier to entry you just it's like saving basically if you put in the etf and then why property is because

as i was learning about shares you know the use of algorithms and everything will start eating you and then we'll talk about properties like for some reason i got presented these um property things and then i watch a youtuber in america who basically do what we're doing here but more aggressively because you know you camp over there um and then i start i started learning and doing a comparison which one is better property or shares at first i didn't really get it um why the property that is assumed to grow at five percent is better than the shares that are growing at 10 15 i didn't really get it like and properties you have maintenance it's real thing it's illiquid and then i only came to the leverage the concept of leverage basically using someone's someone

else's money through the bank and that's why the five percent growth in property would and very likely to overperform the 10% or 15% in shares. So that's the problem. Let's just touch on that. For those that are listening to us who haven't delved into property yet, this is a really fundamental point because I've done the numbers myself and I did exactly what you did earlier. I was actually trading CFDs when I first started investing way back when

and run the numbers and I talk about this in the book. The fact that you can effectively, if you're only putting 10% deposit down and you're borrowing 90% of the value of the property, you're effectively 10 times in the equity base that you're able to take control of. And if you look over time in terms of the performance, while yes, the growth in shares might be higher because you've got such a much higher asset base, then even at a lower percentage growth you're still going to end up with a much bigger nest egg to the tune of you know i've done the numbers at three and a half or four times uh more in equity at the end of the

journey in property than we share is because we're using other people's money allow the banks to soften that blow and therefore uh leveraging uh the power of our own money and using less of it to to control those growth assets so yeah great great point there mate so yeah go on with that so So when we talk about that, you started to realize that property had that opportunity. Do you have any initial fears or feelings of concern before you actually dove in and bought your first property? No, the first property actually we didn't buy with the investment mindset. We actually bought our PPR in Sydney. We bought it in early 2021, February 2021.

So luckily that was in the middle of Sydney boom, probably not even halfway. talking about opportunity we could have bought it in mid 2020 when kovic was at the peak and price was at the lowest you probably can buy 200 300k cheaper than what we bought it for but i'm still grateful we still live in the in the house um so when you bought that we really used all our savings and then because of that gaming we we ran out of money our budget actually went down so we really used all our savings we have to pay almost 40k of lmi because we can't put the deposit high enough um we bought for around 1.2 million thankfully sydney was booming so i was looking in my neighborhood hang on a second that house it's quite similar it's selling

for um almost 100k higher now and then the following month the same thing happened so you start feeling the taste of um capital growth like surge very high capital growth um and that's when got really more interested in investing in property um yeah so that was my first experience of of property investment so accidental um invest investment capital yeah which is pretty common actually but it's probably lift the fire that you saw wow this property's really jump let's let's now invest talk talk to us about that journey and i i what i'd like you to do is share what was your investment strategy when you first started and i'm going to revisit that question once you've gone through your portfolio to look at how did that evolve

and change over time. So let's get quite granular. Talk to us about what you bought, where and why, and then how you've managed because one thing that a lot of people that are listening to us today are going to be thinking is, well, you've managed to build an incredible portfolio in a very short space of time. Take us through that to put some shape around how that journey worked out

and then we'll circle back and ask some other questions on top of that. So your first investment property, what and where? Yeah, so before I talk about the actual investment property, I want to quickly talk about the mindset first. My end business, yeah, so basically when I bought that house in Sydney and then I became self-employed. So right after that deal settled, I changed into self-employed and I couldn't borrow anymore basically.

And I was busy buying furniture and the TV and the car and all those things that you don't really make. really in my second hand um but then towards the end of 2021 or middle to end 2021 that's when i started thinking okay we gotta start putting our extra saving into into investment now so i was still investing in shares back then um and then that's when i come across whether i should how how to buy as i understand the concept how you can multiply and make you wealthy i just don't know the hell like how to actually execute it right so i was thinking of using a buyer's agent um you know trying to use the and my decision is not cheap you know um so but then i came across

obviously pk's youtube and that's when i was contemplating between taking the course or using buyer's agent there was one time where where i was having a camping trip with my basically best friend and then i was exchanging ideas right so what do you think should i use buyer's agent someone's actually done it and getting it done or should i actually learn it myself so he's one of those people you want to surround yourself with because he always wants to see you succeed and this is i guess a life-changing moment for me because he told me was just two of us in the camping trip you know like basically you were saying you know if you educate yourself it's going to stick with you forever as long as you have done your due diligence it's not a scam

it's a proper thing that will give you value then i think you should do it and if it doesn't work just use the buyer satan afterwards right so so yeah i ended up taking the course literally the 31st of december 2021 so that was the last decision i make in that year and then smashed through it for someone who know nothing and have zero experience is very very valuable and it's worth the money for someone who's already done and have experience they might not see the value so it's different for everyone for me it was life-changing right so and that's how i did it so i took the course and then um but my property yeah i'm in february that was in perth february 2022 that was in perth four by two 600 square meters yep 380 nice nice and a great time to

be doing it before the the hotspot wave is hitting every every man dog and buyer's agent has piled into WA. So you grab that one, thread the needle, take us through the rest of your acquisitions. And what I'd like to focus on is how you were able to do it, given the changing borrowing capacity requirements of the banks and the equity contribution. How did you manage to weave that and build that ongoing portfolio

so quickly and progressively? Yeah, so even from the first investment property, I already came across challenges. This was when cash rate was 0.1%. February 2022, if you remember, cash rate hasn't gone up. My challenge was because I was a self-employed person, I couldn't get any proper lending, like standard lending. But this is where, because you already felt so much pain, there's a big sense of urgency. I have to make it happen no matter what. So I was talking to a few brokers.

There was one that actually helped me to get a low dock. Low dock was the answer for me. It was 2% higher there about the interest rate. So when everyone was paying 1.9%, I was paying 4%, 4.2%. And let me jump in here because I think, again, this is a really important learning for people because it's not about the rate of a loan. I mean, it's what the loan can do for you in terms of being able to secure the property.

So if you're able to run the numbers and you can see that the growth and the cost is still going to be achievable and affordable, then don't let the rate of the loan get in the way of keeping you out of the market because that's one of the biggest traps that people just focus on the costs of a loan, whereas that's the capacity of a loan and what the loan enables you to do to build build that equity base that's really key because as you know the the sooner you can secure the properties the the more you've got time leverage and compounding returns doing its work so uh so i love the fact that you are able to go okay well because most people go oh that's way too expensive way too risky uh you grab the low duck line yes you paid

a rate premium for but it's it's cured the property uh so so yeah that continue yeah um you know being very first investment property you get a bit nervous uh but because you now gain that confidence and there's community and people around you are doing the same thing now you feel very confident because people around you are the right people now so yeah we bought that that one in birth um in february 2022 um and then we bought another one using the same landing strategy um which is seen carries actually that was april 2022 so only two months after yep right so we managed to have the deposit just and then we bought it um the issue with that one basically it's the same thing with the first investment property we just have to go load off

and pay for it. I'll talk through the next one. And then the next one actually in Perth again, but this one is in July 2022. So if we all know, business owners, July is when you can lodge your tax. And that was like a big milestone for me because the purchase,

the third investment purchase, that was funded by number one and number two, investment prophecies. It was July. immediately i get my tax done all done so now it's proper one full year of financials go to cba because my wife works in the bank they actually allowed me to do 90 leverage we'd only know lmi if he's going for a bank yeah perfect right so all of a sudden i have the 10 from the first deal and the 10 from the second deal plus their growth and then that funded the

third investment property, which is the one in Perth, 390, four by two, 700, I think 800 square meters. I love it. Now, another thing I just want to jump into there, I can understand why you were confident buying your property in Perth because you spent a lot of time in Perth. You knew that market. A lot of people, and increasingly people are becoming borderless in their approach, but the property in Cairns, was that sight unseen?

Did you jump on a plane and go up and walk the streets? Talk to us about the confidence you had in buying in a location you hadn't spent much time in. Yeah, the one in Cairns is actually one of the, actually the worst performing, yeah, in comparison to the home we bought in Sydney. It's doing pretty well. Annualized growth is still about 15%, so it's still doing pretty well.

That's pretty good. The growth only happened the last 12 months, right? Since then, it was quite slow. Yeah. No, I didn't go there. I just, I utilize people on the ground to help me to do all my checks. So property managers, building inspectors, is that who we're talking about? Building inspectors, property managers, and some other locals independent, which I spoke to.

Right. I put a bit of emotion because it's got the nice mountain backdrops, which every house in Cairns do. was higher so so and i was you know again i feel a sense of urgency i actually paid i think around five or ten grand above the the what i assessed the market value was but i just need to get time and compounding and leveraging my my on my side so i just quickly bought it uh yeah and it grew regardless you know pretty well so but that was a challenge with with that purchase um the one in perth the the one funded by the first and second investment that was easy that was when interest rates started going up so sentiment just dropped yep you know hindsight is a beautiful thing but

390 in pair four by two close to the cbd like you can't get it now so it was less competitive for some reason at that time and i remember i was on the way to my snowboard trip when i signed a contract on docusign so yeah so it was a good decision that way yeah okay so so we're starting to, we're up to, what are we up to, number four or five at this point in time? Take us through the rest of the journey. Yeah, so that was investment proxy number three. And then December, I think November or December on the same year, 2022, I went to Brockhampton. So yeah, Brockhampton is another hotspot even now.

So I bought it December 2022. That was really cheap, only around $20,000. Both from Catholic Church and the rent was $500 from the get-go. So it was stretching it to the high end, but it was from the get-go $500. Awesome. Yeah, and this one is where the challenge was I couldn't get any land. Basically, I ran out of serviceability at that time with the major banks, right? Yeah.

I could go with the lower tier bank, like tier two or tier three, but the deal has to justify itself, right? But what I am going is we went with AIMS and actually, you know, they can do one year financials. Yes, exactly. And for some reason, my mortgage broker worked his magic and we could borrow 80%, actually 88% LBR even. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we bought it. It was supposed to be a renovation kind of type of property, but it was actually not in the best condition.

And then, you know, I think it sat vacant for like one or two months because we had a pretty bad property manager at that time. So it sat for like one, two months, and then we secured tenant right away as it is without any renovation done. So yeah, that was pretty good. So you're starting to hit the thresholds in relation to buying capacity and your property equity started to get challenged as well. How were you able to leverage into the other properties

as that progressed then? Yeah, so that property we secured it, settled in January. And then I think in March or April, this is where I was helping a few other friends to help to buy. um um this is where um i was basically looking for deals every day right and i know i don't have serviceability and all that and then we came across this deal in perth again it's a suburb in north of perks um um this was a really good deal but so is there a you buy you're in the buyer's agent's chair at this point in time but i don't want to call it by saying so i just call it

friend instead of clients so yeah okay so yeah you know i don't want to sound like a client to sell something but basically yes i was i was looking for a friend and then he's happy to pay me um and then um it was this deal there's what this is march 2023 so only last year um believe me or not it was expensive in perth for 500k plus last year right so he did he could but he didn't want to spend more than 500 per right but no matter how i saw this deal it was a really really good discount if i can secure it yep i i've made like a lot of comparables like from different angles i tried to find quotes with this property but i can't like it's worth like 570 580 minimum and we could we bought it for 512 ended up wise yeah fine it's like 30 new cars um you get good

granny flat easily um so and i didn't have serviceability a bushy so so what can i do she said if there is a if there's a will there is a way so so we went with uh the one of the most desperate lenders which is latrobe latrobe yeah okay yeah so very very um it's just like when you're really desperate you need to buy something you go with this guy so so yeah i ended up doing it a lot of stress i was in japan for holiday back then it was a month of a holiday by the sounds of things it was a baby moon as well so a lot of stress you know calling every day but my broker made it happen and we ended up um finding the getting the finance on this one after multiple extension as well um 512 5 by 2 i think 900 square meters and and and as you say there's

instant equity of 60 or 70 grand right off the bat yeah and that's how i justified the the tier three lender because even uh if it costs i think interest was like 1.8 percent higher than normal bank and then when you refinance you have to pay like three months three months and then i'd sort of get i mean it's the banks have got to get their coin somewhere so if you're going to exit early then then they're going to want to get some uh input for their their effort so i'd sort of i understand why they do that uh but but it certainly makes it challenging yeah and and certainly you're stretching the friendship and taking it to the limits to make that happen at that time. But again, you look at the numbers like you have, it's worth taking that risk because

there's instant equity right from the get-go. You've made money from day one as soon as you settle. So it makes complete sense to me. And again, the faint-hearted wouldn't do that. They wouldn't be prepared to stretch the friendship that much. but if you're serious about making money and taking that opportunity, you took it. Correct.

And to reinforce that point, Abushi, because it's in the cul-de-sac property, the property right behind it, I think one month later sold for $640,000. Almost identical, slightly better built. So back to back, so like a twin property. I actually met the owner when I went to Perth early this year, had a tea with her

And we started talking about investment and they're building Granny Flat, which we are planning to do at the exact same mirrored location. I love it. Yeah, so 640, one month later. So I think it justified my action. 100%. So we're really starting to hit the upper thresholds now, but we're still only early in the portfolio. So talk to us through what you did then and how you were able to actually make those purchases happen

because it's starting to get challenging now. Yeah, so it's happening again. So I think there was March purchase. So I settled in May. So a long, long time because of my finance. And then I bought in Poundsville in June 2023. I bought it in July. So again, past the tax time.

so we we got all our tax done july 2023 we bought in townsville it was an unmarked property sitting for six months so um so yeah but after that i was looking for properties again for my friends and myself and then we came across this property it's really really poorly marketed this was the agent's last bill because she was retiring so he was like perfect yeah he was like this is my last deal i'm retiring lazy agent yeah and then the photo was really bad like one of those upside down photos you know afimica nokia all right whatever and really bad photos and and yeah so six months on the market i we bought it 290k yeah but that's four by one yeah big land as well 700 did you have to spend much on it to get up to show me it was just very badly marketed

You need to pay, but we're still with the existing tenant and we haven't done any renovation at all. They're happy to go on. I love it. Again, just jumping in here, what I love about this, Richard, is that you're so active in the market that when a good opportunity comes along and you're so familiar with those particular markets and locations that you're playing in, that when an opportunity

like that comes in it's going to be very obvious so uh and you know uh the the instant equity that you can secure by by grabbing onto it but the key here is uh because a lot of people say you've just been lucky you found these properties you only get lucky if you work hard enough uh and and it's by being that active and being able to see the outliers because you've got such an intimate feel for what's happening in those locations that you can then leap in and and take advantage of that so word so i love the level of of activity that you're clearly putting into this to be able to identify those those rare rare opportunities like this one that you're a lazy agent who didn't put much effort in therefore the property didn't look so good for someone who can look beyond that

to to the the opportunity there you've brought that potential with both arms absolutely and you know value is different in everyone's eye so some people might know that's really cheap but they look at the photo and they ran away, right? So in my case, I was the same old. Like photos look bad. Even the inspection doesn't look too good. I think there's a hole in the door, which you can replace for like $300. It's like a small thing.

I like those. I love the ugly ducklings because it does tend to put a lot of people off. And with some very low-cost facelift improvements, it can make a massive difference to both the yield and the value of the property. So I love that. But, okay, so we grabbed that one. Where and how from there? So, yeah, I just want to quickly talk about that one.

That one, actually, that was being very tight. Like, they wanted 305, 305. I was sticking my hard gun, like, 290. I'm not going to go any higher. Until a time where exactly next door, exactly the same property, but the only difference, it's got an extra garage and one less bedroom. But the same builder, same outlook. It was being marketed by a very high-profile agent.

in that area i knew because i've been tracking her sale profile it always sells for high number they were asking for 300 from 335 so she always sells higher than the asking price so i knew like oh i gotta jump on this one so i actually paid 300 pushy at first for this deal and it was like 10 you know difference um but then i negotiated afterwards with all the defects so yeah so i guess knowing that market you know and who you're dealing with and the market condition it can become powerful yeah so very powerful okay so so where's me from there next one was the day this property settled in the one in townsville i actually signed another contract in bundary this time i guess that was august 2023 yep yeah so bundary is doing really well um this was in

the suburb which you know i tried to pick a market where it's a bit earlier um this was on the market again for one month um but it was only on domain it wasn't on real estate.com interesting when i checked hang on a second this is only five ten minutes from the beach four by two really nice property with extra living room why is no one picking this one out so so yeah so and then i justify the value on that one and we pick that one up for $520 Yeah, I like that in Bunbury. And again

I'm assuming that you're using accumulating equity in the growth of the other properties plus perhaps the because your financials are looking better at this stage from the self-employed work and you're able to show more declarable gross taxable

income, that's giving you the borrowing capacity to keep doing this, is it? yeah from serviceability perspective it's because um yeah because it's already past the text time so we already done all our text so all prepared yeah you're rewarded with serviceability by being organized from capital perspective it's a combination of obviously higher i got promotion at work and then also and i'm not even a buyer's agent like i wasn't using buyer's agents whatever in serviceability at this time so but because i was always self-employed so you have a bit of better tax planning as you know it we can learn to yourself and pay before you submit a tax

exactly exactly you know how to use that small window 100 it's a window that a lot of people don't take advantage of and i often say that investors if you're a self-employed in the year that you want to borrow money make sure you don't uh have too many claimables because that's going to affect your gross taxable income that's going to really clip your wings and hamstring you in terms of building your portfolio yes i would no i love that so you would you grab that one i think you're back to queensland for the next one so far all of these properties have been standalone homes on a block of dirt i know that you you know the last few properties from what you've shared with me before we started you're starting to move into uh you know you've been in growth but you're going

to start shifting into potentially higher cash flow exercises and i'll circle back to strategy in a minute but talk to us about the next one in Queensland the next one actually in Brisbane Bushy so I because I miss the Brisbane market so I really want to buy one in Brisbane but you know I could the best time was 2020 2021 Brisbane probably so 2021 I used my money for my home in Sydney could have bought in Brisbane for like 300 350 but so yeah I realized I missed the window to buy in Brisbane I was looking in that Morrison Bay area where it's still good the data still looking good but houses were already 600 700k so no matter how i look at it i can't justify a market that's already grown 40 50 60 70 percent right so ended up picking up a villa

actually right so about 200 square meters three by two a real real bargain on this one because comparable was like 490 500 520 this one we picked for 450 yeah so so yeah for the sake of diversification and putting an eight in Brisbane market and also for the sake of you know that's my budget so so we ended up picking a good discounted deal. I love that and you then continue with some units in Queensland tell us about those. Yeah so the next one is actually it's a standalone that this is back in Townsville this is in January this year actually so this is actually a duplex so it's not a unit so it's actually a standalone house three bikes through on the 800 square meters but it's got two kitchens two toilets two living rooms so you can

rent it separately this was the first taste of a really high cash flow property it's giving 11 yield so awesome you know i think we borrowed uh 80 90 lvr it's still positive cash flow even after all that so so yeah this was pretty good uh 330 we picked up four so yeah and then from here it's pretty much um yeah just continue scaling the next one i'll talk about um so my buying window is normally between july and january why because because of the yeah the financials yeah because of text after you submit text at your shopping time and you have windows and then you go on hibernation for a few months until until the next sex time so i haven't been active since january until july so just basically looking at markets um and then i bought in in

in melbourne melbourne in july 2024 so that was only five months ago in brazil and this is you know i tried to get into the melbourne market early and get experience there and build relationship and all that is this part of this part of your diversification strategy uh because in the context of all the media hype at that time melbourne was pretty much on the nose uh what made you think that it's worth putting the ore into victoria at that time diversification is one thing because i'm very exposed to w in queensland right so and you know melbourne i do see value because i do make a lot of comparison between okay what what happened if we put this house in the same suburb with similar income and similar proximity to cbd in perth and do it the same for sydney and

do it the same i didn't do for brisbane actually i probably did for brisbane yeah and then i can see it's actually cheaper than a property in in perth you know um and then and when i check with sydney there is similar suburb in sydney who actually grew like to the 1 million plus now even though it was bad and then you have suburbs like blacktown campbell town like you had a really that stigma right um but probably one of the best forming suburbs so so i realized okay if i can buy in melbourne for for diversification come in early but at a good price there's no rush uh then i'll give it a go you know yeah and then we did yeah so we bought it there 560 in melbourne so i love it and then the again without uh going too much fit on this you bought uh some units in queensland

and a couple of sets of units and other property in WA. Tell us quickly about those. Sure. So after that Melbourne purchase, I went back to Townsville because I was just presented a really good cash flow property. So it's a standalone 900 square meters, but again, you can rent it to two separate family. So that's a bit expensive, $760.

Very good. So a decent cash flow yield. Yeah, it's one and a half grand cash flow. so so that's positive even at 100 finance so um and then i the next one i bought it um recently in october that's in in carrollton actually so um it's relatively early that's really cheap 350 i bought it there for yep 800 square meters three by one brick arms where can you get it and it's a big city like it's big gun for 40 years yeah it's got critical mass there's no question yeah so that one is is done and then we we bought another one a block of units actually

this one is in in makai so i don't think i makai is at the bottom of the cycle but it's still relatively early compared to some of the other markets so we picked a block of units there so yeah i love it so so the i i guess threading the needle through all of this because everyone's going to be going how the hell have you managed to keep doing this no because most people hit the ceiling pretty early what i'm hearing is that one you've got the equity growth so there's your deposits that are funding it even though it's 100 borrowings but but i'm also sensing that you're able to keep increasing your incomes collectively between your partner and the bank and what you're doing both uh employed and in the the business side you're you're able to uh continue to improve

your borrowings because you're effectively your income collectively is is growing at the same time am i right in saying that yeah so until property number 10 including the home so nine investment property so we we only use our engineering in banker my white visa bank of serviceability after that starting the melbourne one because that one is in july august that's when obviously the real estate business starts. Got it. And again, what I'm liking here is that you're buying cheaper properties, so you're not maxing yourself out early.

You're diversifying and creating a number of opportunities that allows you to keep going on that. But you've been enjoying pretty rapid growth because you're going into areas at the right time. uh tell us um you know i'd love for you to share what your investment strategy has been both early on because you most people start with one strategy and then it starts to evolve and change over time uh take us through your thinking on on on that if you can yeah so my strategy when i first started was simply just to get into the market so the first breath property that was 10

thousand or above what i think the market value was because there was literally the same better better property selling for 370 so i bought this one for 380 which is not better but more expensive yeah so and that was because uh you know um you know you were starting out so you're trying to get into the market quickly and it's been rewarding that property is worth almost 700 now even though i bought it above market right so yeah um so there was first and that's the same with the second one when i bought the third investment property that's when i started to don't want to overpay i want to get below market and start training myself that way and subsequent purchases always like that you try to buy below market um now it's coming uh

fast forward to now i'm trying to either focus on the cash flow uh prophecies which hopefully were more than likely positive cash flow from day one at at 80 percent of vr um or i buy in a market that is early, like Melbourne, regional Victoria and regionally South Wales. That is still not yet certain, but the signs are showing. So that's what I'm doing now, and potentially commercial property as well. Yeah, but I'm still educating myself in that front.

Yeah, and you're getting the equity growth to do that. Projecting forward then, given the sizable exercise that you have, what's your ideal lifestyle and and when is your ideal lifestyle going to kick in yeah so ideal lifestyle so actually on my desktop i have like a like a vision board showing what it looks like so i'm just gonna look at it so i can see a picture of uh snow here so that will be uh like i want to do as much as possible if i can i can see just a standard car family car where we can you know maybe go camping go to the snow i can see uh flying first class so i can't justify the cost now even though we we can do it but it costs like ten thousand dollars and it's hard to

justify maybe we'll explore like credit card hack and all that stuff you know maybe that will work and then my wife wants to go to hawaii so we'll try to make that happen within the next one to two years in canada and then we've got two children that's what we have envisioned so so ideal lifestyle is really having able to do all of this without thinking that money is part of the equation so it doesn't guarantee happiness right it doesn't it doesn't guarantee happiness but it's a big part of the equation it is 100 it's a fuel that basically enables you to do what you're doing yet you sound like a detailed planner when is your ideal lifestyle um so i have a target 2030 so that's in about uh five years five six years so that's why i'm started already

buying cash flow properties now because these properties are actually covering the negatively did prophecies so it's really yeah i love that the the other question i want to ask alongside that had and it goes hand in hand with your approach to life because what i'm sensing uh is there there's a and the reason i'm sensing this is a bit of an addicted personality because because and the reason i can say that is i've got an addicted personality myself i'm either all in or out there's nothing in between what i'm sense is you went all into gaming and then you went all into property uh and you're still all into property uh how much is enough for you i think as long as we are still um enjoying the process and then somewhat providing value um i think there

is no end really so there's obviously milestones in between so the 2030 is my milestone where okay if i don't want to like zero work my wife and i the the cash flow from these prophecies are enough for our humble lifestyle like going holidays and paying the mortgage and all that stuff but that doesn't mean we will stop there because that's just a milestone right so i think as long as we are providing value love what we are doing and then you're good at it money will follow like it's an automatic byproducts of if you are doing something good in offering value for people so yeah if that's the case then continue on so yeah okay not not love it uh something i I just want to touch on, and there'll probably be some of those listening in that have got

this question on your mind. You've managed very astutely to purchase properties in growth cycles in the suburbs and areas that you've gone into, perhaps with the exception of the Cairns property to some degree. What, if anything, will your approach be when these areas and properties inevitably go through the slight price correction because most areas that over spring come back a little bit and then they quite often go uh or they plateau or guys go sideways for a period uh has that been in your thinking and what if anything will you do differently when that starts to occur that is definitely in my thinking um my my philosophy now and it can change later because you always

learn and grow if i don't have to sell i probably don't have to sell but if i have to sell i already know which one i want to sell so the one in korea there are basically two suburbs next to each other i'll probably sell one when they the indication is there at the peak and then there's also one in townsville because i've got three in townsville and they've made a lot of money but i think having you know that's probably just to reduce the risk into an area right so i already know which one i want to sell if i really have to come come the time when maybe my serviceability is already at limit or maybe i can repurpose that money profit capital into somewhere else so yeah it's probably in at least one two or three years from now yeah i love that because it's a cost benefit analysis

that if you can be using those funds to put into an asset that it is going to continue to grow this is something that's going to go sideways uh once you do your numbers selling cost buying cost tax implications it's still a more positive opportunity why wouldn't you do that so word And I love the fact that you're actually being thinking about that because a lot of people don't. They just sit, forget, and then walk away. But if you're going to continue to grow, then that's the real opportunity. Just as sort of putting a bow around this,

what do you say to others that are just starting to invest or those that feel stuck because they don't believe they've got the equity or the buying capacity required to continue to build their portfolios? i think it all comes down from the big why before anything but property you know it applies to everything you have to feel the pain that you need to do something about it like i haven't been going to i did start again yesterday but i haven't been going for one month because i just got back from overseas and i was sick for a few weeks i feel like if i don't do something like going to exercise which ironically i didn't this morning even though i'm trying to um i feel it like i have to do it

like that's why tomorrow morning i will wake up earlier and actually start implementing the habit again um why why am i doing that abushi because i know if i don't do this habit start now start getting momentum in six months or even worse in 10 years i will look at myself and hate myself so i feel that pain already even though it's not there right it's the same with property but we're talking about financial here you're a doctor you earn 500k a year or even more a lawyer what if you stop working right so what will happen can you actually do the same kind of lifestyle you're doing now um or do you want to downgrade your lifestyle right so feel that feel that pain you know like if you stop working um if you think that's a problem then you have to find

a solution for me property is the solution right because it's proven it's predictable somewhat predictable less risky than business or crypto crypto is doing really well now so but yeah so for me that that's why like start taking x start thinking the future first see where you want to be and how you want to be and start thinking that time is actually your most precious resource because you can't get your years back like once it's gone it's gone like say you live until 85 maybe 75 who knows but after 70 it's like it's a bonus to be honest after 70 years old probably a bonus so how do you want to live your life you know in your face what's the same so yeah exactly back yourself how many go well what about the growing number of people who have hit the threshold

they've hit the ceiling because they just they they a lot of them are struggling with buying capacity what do you say to them because you've continued to be able to just power ahead and build your portfolio. What do you say to those that feel like they've hit the limit? Do you really have to buy now? If you do, then you have to find a way. Speak to a lot of brokers, find a good one. Speak to Bushy as well.

So, you know, you will find a way. Like I've got friends who are buying in their late 50s now, right? But she found a way. She found a good broker and she got pre-approval, so ready to buy. so um but you gotta feel that pain first like do you really have to buy if you don't have to then don't force yourself don't put yourself in a situation where uh your extra saving doesn't cover your cost to hold the properties so you have to know how much you can save first and then how much buffer you can have if the if you can save one thousand dollars a month but the property

is costing you two thousand as it's in melbourne maybe then don't do it because you'll be very negative you know so unless you can actually increase your saving by adjusting your lifestyle or increase your payment so yeah so start taking action and start feeling the needs to do it don't put yourself in a situation where you're under the water and yeah once once those are clear really start taking action because the market's not waiting for you and exactly right exactly right if you're to sort of boil down the key takeaways from your journey so far for those that that are either wanting to get into it or actively? What would you be saying?

Yeah, to me, it's always taking action and start getting momentum. Very important. Don't let your cash be eroded by inflation in your bank accounts because the reason I just think as it comes to my head, I know a lot of people that have 600K, 700K savings, and I think their mindset is money is like scarce. They have scarcity mindset. They are afraid of losing that money that doesn't do anything anyway.

giving you five percent so what or six percent offset so what so um be the head so because my money is a a terrible master but excellent servant um if you are if you are the head money will follow where you go so you want to reinvest let that money work hard for you for your future if you are the tail you will follow where the money is you feel you will hang tight to that money, and you will feel like, yeah, there's not enough of it. But you don't need 700K in your bank account. It's not going to do anything, right?

It's going backwards. It's actually going backwards. It goes backwards. It's a bit of information. Love that. Given you're very active in the marketplace and scanning what's happening around the country, what's your read on property investment conditions in the medium to short term over the next

12-plus months? and what's your thoughts on where and what are the best opportunities, particularly for growth investors? Yeah, so different area will present you with different outcomes, right? Obviously, having bought in many different towns, I can see timing and outcomes are different. It doesn't like means one area is the best or everyone expects different outcome and need different outcome.

So in terms of the short to medium, you know, this it's um regional queensland uh wa are still showing the strength there uh the downside you're not buying at the bottom of those markets so you're not gonna pick up the whole boom cycle there but if you need those equity quickly that's the market you need to get into right uh if you really want to take a bit of um calculated risk and pick up the most of the boom probably victoria is showing value some people even said darwin um right so and i know a lot of people successful investors were bought there like actually about four or five over there and they already have 15 properties to begin with so so they calculated those risks so darwin i wouldn't buy there myself

yet not for now but i'm actively in victoria and melbourne now in particular um the only thing is you have to be able to hold those properties because they are negative in cash flow. And the growth might happen, my prediction is at most is two and a half years from today, it will start the boom cycle. It can be as early as six months to 12 months. Yeah, but, you know, so there's less certainty.

What makes you say that? It's just one of the things we look at is the past 10 years of growth. So I think in Melbourne in particular, So I think the last 10 years, it's still showing strength. It's done really well. But the last seven years, it's basically done nothing. The property I bought is the same price from 2018, 2017, right?

So it can't stay for that long, for a while. And with the population growth and the fundamentals being so strong, I think Melbourne, Victoria suffered from mainstream media paralysis because of such negative messages being sent out. it can't turn in a single click, right? It just goes the other way. So, yeah, so I did take the risk there and it probably hasn't gone too much since I bought it.

So I could have made $1,500,000 in Queensland since I bought it in July. But that's anticipated outcome. Totally. Well, you're in early and you can ride the wave when it does occur. And, I mean, everyone's talking about it now, so that always tells me that the focus,

because people will start piling in and then next thing you know, you'll start to see values rise. So you've got enough time before the hordes, so you'll do well then. If you are starting out again, what, if anything, would you invest your time, energy and money in differently then? But currently, I don't know. I'm pretty happy and I think I made smart decisions until now.

Obviously, if I knew what I knew from property one, I'd probably do it slightly differently, you know, so a bit more patient. But you have to go through that journey. If this is your first, second property, don't let analysis paralysis stop you from getting into the market. Always, property is very predictable. If you get into the right market, not overpay too much, you will see results anyway, right? So, yeah, I wouldn't do much differently, Bushy. Perfect.

Let's jump straight into what I like to call the ambush round, Richard, where there's just a couple of quick questions that everyone likes to glean your words of wisdom, starting with what books have changed your life the most? So I like the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I think it set up my soft skill really good throughout my career and then it led to job promotion, job promotion, more borrowing power. So it's a domino effect from high school.

I learned that, so yeah. Great book. I mean, I'm showing my age now, but that book really inspired me. I read it back in the 80s, and it really energized me to do things differently. If I hadn't read that book, I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. That's how much influence it's had, so I love that. If you could have coffee with anyone, be that an alive or a dead historical figure, who would you choose and why?

I'll have it mushy, Marty, yeah. in person for coffee why not it always feels different in person loads i love it i love that that is awesome uh what's the worst and the best piece of investment advice you've ever received the worst and the the worst probably stop buying more prophecies from my mom so because they always have the old mindset no stop taking that you're all rolling over too much And even though she has felt the boom in Perth, you know, she's got, actually our family got a few properties in Perth, but always, yeah, that's probably one of the worst. The best one is keep buying property.

Yeah. I don't know who gave that advice. It just, I just felt like someone's telling me to keep doing, keep going. Love it. Love it. If you could wave a magic wand and change anything, what would you change about property investing? This can be double-edged, but you know how in America

they can lock in 2% interest rates for 20, 30 years? Yeah. Probably wouldn't be good for Australian macroeconomy, but it would be nice to have that. 100%. You have certainty over what your costs are. I've got property in the US, and I couldn't believe it. We paid cash for them, but when I was looking at the lending market

over there, I couldn't believe they were offering fixed rates for 30 years, and still very, very good rates. They were, you know, with similar rates a year, but you got to lock them in for 30 years. I mean, incredible. Now, great suggestion. I'm a big, big fan of habits are what create our destiny. So I'd love you to share a personal happy habit or a rewarding ritual or daily discipline that you've employed on a consistent basis that's contributed most to your success. Yeah.

So going to exercise, I start going to the gym early in the morning. i think that becomes your your me my me time and then listening to podcast so you're still educating yourself and getting your body moving actually so that's that's really a really good habit that she left done this morning but um next one is spending time with hugo which is my son he is 14 months now it's just so amazing and this is what makes you realize time is really really precious because it only felt like yesterday you couldn't do anything now he's running around saying hi to me like time is very precious especially when you start seeing your son or daughter growing very quickly and and um and going to the snow that's the ultimate goals like

we're going many times like four or five times now so we so we start practicing living our ideal lifestyle now so even though to be fully transparent the properties we bought haven't really served us as in in terms of cash flow i mean i can sell half of them and live off the cash flow i can do that if i want to but um we already start practicing and making it a real a real lifestyle now so we went to holiday visit our um our family overseas we can do that now because we have the flexibility to do yeah i love it and you make a good point because i think there's a fallacy that the properties that you buy early on are going to fund the lifestyle.

They're not. What they're going to do is grow the nest egg that you can then convert to the cash flow at the end of the journey that will fund your lifestyle for as long as your heart keeps beating. So that's the real opportunity there. What's one final thought that you want to leave us with? To the audience, to everyone.

Yeah, look, I'm always happy to connect with people to like have this kind of conversation it doesn't have to be recorded like this having a coffee if you're beginners or you're experts if you're experts i want to learn more if you're beginners i want to share my learning and i always learn even from beginners because sometimes you have the brightest idea you never thought of like for some reason i would i'm a thing but i had those things right so so yeah so um but the thing is start taking action yeah getting educated start taking action property really rewards action taker like me for example bought my make money by accident by buying my place to live in right obviously it's better if you calculate the decision

but over the long term you always makes money taking action is the absolute key talks cheap and a lot of people are doing it but actually getting your hands dirty rolling up the sleeve and taking the action is where the rubber really hits the road. And you are the perfect example of that because I hear increasingly people who say, oh, it's too hard now. You know, I've missed the boat. It's all right for you, as I've mentioned in the intro, but you're living proof that you can still make it happen.

You've just got to have the passion and take the action necessary to make it happen. And if the obvious routes aren't open, keep searching, keep asking questions find the people that are going to help you to to get there as as you have done and continue to do and last question if i ask you to get invested what does it mean to you get invested um what it means to me uh get invested so i didn't prefer this one so what does get invested means i think it's not just about property or money it's also about your time I'm a firm believer

you know wealth property is making you money but at the end of the day it's still a lifestyle you want to you want to live in so

I send you an attachment Bushy I don't know if you saw it it's like a box with numbers in it from 1 to 85 representing age

of people and you see every year it's gone by you become older and older it's about get invested

meaning living your best life it's actually if you look at that attachment there's a a few ages that I highlight in green that's uh what i want to live my best life be like i don't know how it looks like i have an idea of how it's going to look like but it might change um but don't be like 95 99

percent of people may work until 65 67 because the government tells us that's when you retire don't be like 95 97 percent of people um you only have one life uh on this earth um how do you want to live it like yeah start getting invested and totally doesn't have to be property can be businesses crypto whatever shares uh but ask yourself how do you want to live your one and only life on this earth exactly we don't get much time uh so we we've got to optimize it while we're here and and if you're open to it uh we will uh share that uh spreadsheet uh in the show notes because what I love about that is you are thinking with intent around how you want your life to be.

Just taking that action makes a massive difference and I love the way that you've actually done that and colour-coded it so you're really clear on how that is. And yes, it may change, but at least it gives you a GPS that's going to guide you and motivate you to continue to invest as you currently have. So look, we've only just scratched the surface, Richard. I'd love to get you back at a future time to talk about more issues that are near and dear to both of our hearts.

But I just want to thank you for taking the time today to both inspire and educate us on how we can still achieve financial freedom through property, despite our current challenging times that everyone talks about. But before we go, if anyone watching and listening would like to explore further how you can free up your time and create an income for life by investing in property properly, whether you're new to the game or an experienced investor or property player feel free to explore your why what and how of successful property that also unpacks my four decades of property and life experience by tapping into our recent released freedom formula course program that you can enjoy anytime anywhere at your leisure just by clicking the link in the show notes now or going to bushymartin.com.au forward slash freedom formula course where the first module is totally free and you can then decide if you'd like to donate a small amount where the profits go to a charity

for the homeless so you can then complete it. In addition, if you'd like to confidentially delve deeper into your specific needs or challenges, feel free to book in with me for a personal solution session by clicking the link in the show notes. It takes you to the knowhowproperty.com.au webpage where you'll have the complete, dedicated and unavoidable attention of my 40 years of investment experience to help you solve your challenges and answer your questions for a full hour and to continue our great conversations with other like-minded investors and learn in a safe sound and supporting environment where you can ask any question and get answers about any of the bs in a place where you'll never be sold to or pressured to do

anything join us in our property hub collective interactive facebook community by clicking the link in the show notes and that brings us the end of a another great property investment conversation So remember to always get invested in your knowledge and your network before you invest in your assets. So thanks again for getting invested and let's keep the conversation going, Richard. Thank you, Wishy. 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 Invested inspiration along with every episode of Realty Talk, Australia's top online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from industry leaders and influencers and finally I'll see you next time