Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 2: Luke Harris on getting property fit

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

How do you know if you're really ready to invest? Property expert Luke Harris talks about this big question in part 2 of his Get Invested interview. As you heard in the previous episode, Luke is an active investor, author and founder of The Property Mentors. Now Luke continues to unpack his journey where he: Outlines the importance of knowing your strategy and a compelling plan to achieve it. Reminds us that you can’t save all of the penguins – so listen out for what he means by this. Reveals how Australian Property Mentors give you a GPS so you can successfully navigate all aspects of your property investment journey. Goes into detail on the three stages of readiness for property investment, your 3 D’s – your Dream, your Date and your Dollars. Reveals your biggest investment risk  - so keep an ear out for that. Lifts the lid on the importance of ‘stickability’ to your investment success and details what this means. And much more! Property Fit book: If you're serious about achieving financial freedom through property, grab yourself a copy of Luke’s book Property Fit at www.propertyfitbook.com.au. The Property Mentors: The Property Mentors, is Luke's Melbourne-based agency that helps you develop the skills, mindset and knowledge to grow your property portfolio. Luke's book recommendation: The Magic Of Thinking Big by David Schwartz Hour of power with Bushy: If you’d like an hour of power to talk with me personally on any questions, queries or issues you’d like to discuss about your investment strategy, finance or property portfolio delivery, whether you’re an aspiring investor or an experienced investor with a substantial property portfolio, just go here https://knowhowproperty.com.au/contact-us then click on the ‘Lets Zoom, DeepDive Meeting with Bushy’ 1 hour  option to book in your preferred time. For a small investment of just $295 you can ask me anything you want about property for a full 60 minutes.  Join the Get Invested community: And if you want to continue investing in your knowledge, join me and many other like minded investors in our Get Invested community right now. I send a free and exclusive monthly email full of practical ‘Self, Health and Wealth’ wisdom that our current Freedom Fighter subscribers can’t wait to get each month. It’s full of investment and lifestyle tips, my personal book recommendations, apps I use to enhance life and so much more. Just visit bushymartin.com.au and sign up at the bottom of the page … because this is just the beginning! 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. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do most investors only have one or two properties? And why do most investors sell them within the first five years or 10 years? I very much took a zigzag approach. And the reason I did that was very reactive. I would go out there, like a lot of investors, they're trying to make money out of property. Everyone's got good intentions. But the issue that I found was that I was going jumping from one thing to the next. And I was doing that because I didn't have any advisor around me. I didn't have any guidance to really direct me as to what to do next and in what order. And plenty of seminars that I went to, they were saying, this is a hotspot. Here's the numbers. Here's the figures. Here's the forecast. Here's the floor plan. Here's the

kitchen upgrades. But really none of that's relevant. It's putting the cart before the horse. People need to understand, you know, people ask me all the time, where's the best place to invest. My response is always the best place to invest is the property that fits in your strategy. And I go, well, what's my strategy? Well, I don't know that. Let's talk about it. You know, you need to know what the strategy is. People we actually want to help are the ones that are looking to get the education, understand the mindset of investing and how that can affect the investing strategy and to teach people how to become a better investor. Welcome to the Get invested podcast where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover

their secret know-how and where they invest their time their skills and their money and the benefits that this has created you see the truth is that everyone invests every minute of every day we're investing our time our skills our energy and our money in something some of us are investing consciously some unconsciously sometimes for good sometimes for bad sometimes for no impact get invested will help you to start living by design not by default i'm going to help you to make it happen not let it happen you'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more work less and leave a living legacy by investing now listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started make the most of your investment journey

and ultimately to be living your dream not someone else's more episodes can be found on iTunes or at bussymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening and now let's get invested. Hi Fred and fighters. How do you know if you're ready to invest? Now you may be just about to take the leap into investing or you may already own investment properties But how do you know if you're really ready to invest? Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself that question? Now, most investors think that if they have the borrowing capacity and the savings or equity, then they're ready to invest because they're just focusing on the property.

But the property is just the tip of the iceberg and generally the last thing you need to think about if you're serious about achieving sustainable success in property investment long term. and it's this singular focus on the product of property rather than the principles, the people, and the process that you need to embrace that's the undoing of 95% of property investors and the biggest reason that most fall short of their dreams. So how do you know when you're really ready to invest

or to continue investing and invest properly? It's a question that our continuing special guest Luke Harris delves into in part two of our great conversation today, and it's a pivotal issue that he reveals in his recently released second book, Property Fit. So let me share a brief excerpt to whet your appetite on this critical subject. How do you know that you're ready to invest? Now I agree with Luke that there are three fundamental components in being truly ready to invest, which he calls the three stages of readiness. These three stages are vital to

acknowledge before going out into the marketplace. While you don't always need to be 100% ready in each of these areas, being aware of their existence and how they can affect your results is extremely important. So the first of these is to be financially ready, which is probably fairly obvious. Every investor needs some capital to work with, so you need to be financially ready to get into the property market and start investing. Now not all property strategies require a lot of capital, however it certainly helps and gives you more options. Not only do you need to have some funds available to invest, but you'll also need to ensure your financial house is in order, plus have a good credit score, little or no bad debt, as well as a financial

buffer. And it's often these last aspects that are given not enough due consideration. Secondly, you need to be emotionally ready. Yes, emotions are important when it comes to successful property investing. But we're not talking about your emotions taking control. It's more that you need to be emotionally connected to your investing goals, because there'll be times when you've had enough and will want to give up. being emotionally ready means you're in control of your emotions and connected enough with the end goal to get out of your comfort zone this is what i mean when i talk about your why your vision and your values becoming both a magnet as well as a compass if you take the time to be crystal

clear on what the end game looks like for you and what your investment is going to enable you to really do with your life then this vivid and exciting future will inspire and motivate you as your magnetic force of attraction to overcome the inevitable hurdles you're going to experience on your investment journey. But it also serves as a compass to guide your day-to-day decisions in terms of whether your choices are taking you closer to

or further away from your ideal lifestyle. And then thirdly, you need to be educationally ready. Now, education is key, but of course, education must be specific to the goals that you wish to achieve. This doesn't mean you have to be an expert on everything property before you're ready. However, it does help that you have the education behind you that aligns with your goals. Essentially, you need specific education rather than broad-based education that may not just be relevant to you.

And continuing education and learning will be paramount to your evolution into a successful investor. because as your knowledge, experience and understanding increases, your fears recede, the risks reduce, your capacity increases and your investment results prosper as a consequence. Now this is very similar to my approach to getting raw with yourself where raw breaks down into being ready, able and willing. Being ready is about having the savings and equity deposits and rainy day buffers to invest in property.

being able is having sufficient buying capacity based on your income and liabilities and the last and most important component of getting raw with yourself is w for willing do you have the right beliefs mindset outlook attitudes and expectations to invest successfully this is about what's between your ears as it's the internal rather than the external that will determine your ability to achieve sustainable success. Now, this is just the beginning when it comes to the principles, concepts and strategies that Luke reveals in his book Property Fit, which builds on the lessons he's learned in over two decades of property investing experience and success

that's enabled him to personally build an enviable property portfolio and acquire an extraordinary depth and breadth of experience across business, property and investing. and now Luke and I share an ambition to help you and other investors to grow significant wealth through property helping you to fulfill your own dreams and ambitions and Luke does this through his business the Property Mentors a Melbourne-based agency that helps you develop the skills mindset and knowledge to grow your property portfolio. Now last week Luke opened up on the highs and lows of his own personal property journey and the learnings he's taken from this. So this week we continue Luke's journey where he outlines the importance of

knowing your strategy and a compelling plan to achieve it. He reminds us that you can't save all of the penguins so listen out for what he means by this. Luke reveals how Australian Property Mentors gives you a GPS so you can successfully navigate all aspects of your property investment journey. He goes into detail on the three stages of readiness that I've just outlined along with the importance of knowing what he calls your three D's, your dream, your date, and your dollars. Luke reveals what's your biggest investment risk, so keep an ear out for that. He lifts the lid on the importance of stickability to your investment success and details what this means. And he reveals what it takes to be fully property fit as a precursor to reading his book of the same name,

which you can get at www.propertyfit.com.au. So if you're serious about knowing whether you're truly ready to invest successfully, whether you're about to start with your first property or you're already an investor and it's just not working for you, feel free to reach out and have a chat with me personally on any of your questions, queries, concerns, issues or blind spots that you'd like to discuss about your investment strategy, finance or property portfolio delivery that are getting in your way. So just jump on knowhowproperty.com.au, hit the purple book appointment button in the top right hand corner, then click on the let's zoom deep dive meeting with Bushy one hour option to book in

your preferred time and for a small investment of just $295, you can ask me anything you want about property for a full 60 minutes so that I can help you free up any blockages that are getting in the way that you just can't see because you're too close to them. In the meantime, enjoy part two of this engaging chat with Luke Harris from Australian Property Mentors as we pick up our conversation where Luke's questioning what he's going to do next in relation to getting into property full-time. What am I going to do next? I wanted to do property full-time, but I didn't really have a plan or strategy around that.

and I didn't want to go and do traditional real estate because it doesn't typically help people the way that I like helping people and throughout my 20s, I'd helped a lot of friends and family to start their property journey and start buying investment properties and that's what I loved.

I loved seeing the fact that it was working for them and I had friends at a very young age that they bought an investment property over in Melbourne. They lived in Perth. I helped them to do that and eventually they sold the property after about six or seven years after the Melbourne market had really started ramping up.

Yeah. And they sold that. I think they made a couple of hundred thousand dollars, paid down their mortgage in WA. Yeah. And ended up with a $50,000 mortgage as 20-somethings. Nice. So they were very happy.

And just to see the, you know, they didn't want to build a multi-million dollar portfolio. Their goal was to pay off their house. Yeah. And that was it. Then go and make some babies and that was it. That's all they wanted and they're completely happy with that. Yeah.

And, you know, that was really fulfilling for me. And so really that's where I started saying, I need to really work in property, but I need to work out how I'm going to do this and do it differently. I've been to, like you probably have over the years, all sorts of seminars, seen all of the gurus out there. I've been to the seminars where you stand on the chair and high-five the person next to you. That's an accident waiting to happen, really. The OH&S, work safe and have a field day. But all those sorts of things, I just cringe when I go to those things.

And, like, I've been to them and they get you all amped up. and then all of a sudden you see people running to the back of the room to sign a property contract. I thought, this is insane. And they literally did it. I thought, there's something not right about this. And, you know, like I've covered in my first book, Let's Get Real, there's plenty of sharks and cowboys out there in the property industry.

You know, the sharks are circling, looking for the right moment to strike and the cowboys are the ones that are blatantly out there flogging rubbish to people. They don't care. They don't care about their name and reputation. They're happy to do it. and I just cringed I've seen all of that and I just didn't like it and so I sort of assessed the property industry as a whole but also spend a lot of time looking at myself as an investor

and reflecting on all the decisions that I'd made and actually started writing down what process I went through for each property how did I make the decision what did I do right what did I do wrong and for me just just documenting all of that it took some weeks to do that because I sort of picked it up and put it down again picked it up and put it down rather than just blast it all out one hit because i really wanted to think about the the actual thought process that i'd been going through yeah and going through that i realized that the biggest thing that was missing for me was the actual plan and the strategy and realized that i didn't have one first and foremost yeah the end goal was to be rich yeah and that doesn't that doesn't help any anyone it certainly didn't

help me and it didn't help me to have conversations with my advisors because yeah you know they would give me advice on that specific property but there was no overall yeah big big picture plan yeah and i didn't even know that i needed one that was the problem yeah and so reflecting on all of that i realized that a lot of investors are doing the same thing why do most investors only have one or two properties and why do most investors sell them within the first five years or ten years yeah no compelling vision of where it's taking them exactly right mate yeah exactly and i think that's the missing link and i thought well how do we help more people to achieve that i know that we can't help everybody i had an assistant that worked with me um many years ago and when we're talking about

investing and uh her name was casey and she she always said luke you can't save all the penguins and i said what do you mean by that some of them are going to fall off the rocks and smash their heads and then they're just not going to survive it's a very blunt way of saying it but you know some people can't be helped and as much as you want to help people you can't help everyone so So I think the process is, you know, as morbid as that was, it really helped me to understand is that you can help people that want to be helped and you can teach people until the cows come home.

But if they don't want to learn, then there's nothing you can do about that. So help the people that want to be helped. And really that helped me to put a bit of structure around it, saying who are the people that we want to help? Yes, we want to help everybody. The people we actually want to help are the ones that are looking to get the education, understand the mindset of investing,

and how that can affect the investing strategy and to teach people how to become a better investor. And plenty of seminars that I went to, they were saying, this is a hotspot. Here's the numbers. Here's the figures. Here's the forecast. Here's the floor plan.

Here's the kitchen upgrades. But really none of that's relevant. No. I've always said, mate, that if I've got a better growth and a better return out of investing in kebabs, that's exactly what I would do because the property is just a vehicle to help you actually achieve

whatever your lifestyle goals are. But if you're not sure what your lifestyle goals are, then how are you going to know what to invest in, how to actually achieve that? It's like a chip of that or rubber. Well, that's it. And it's putting the cart before the horse. People need to understand.

I get people asking me all the time, where's the best place to invest? My response is always the best place to invest is the property that fits in your strategy. yeah and i go what's my strategy well i don't know that let's talk about it you know you need to know what the strategy is i even have friends now and in christmas times the time you and i probably get these conversations every christmas time you're catching up with friends and family haven't seen for a little while especially with covid oh hey tell us where you what you know where's the best place to invest you know but the best place for me may not be the best place for

you so i think going through that and actually um analyzing the thought process for me was one of the biggest shifts in my property investing journey and so this after that 18 month mini retirement that i had i had a lot of reflection time i had a lot of time to put those processes and systems together and i did two separate european holidays i did one one holiday for two months um with my partner at the time and then um after that relationship ended the second one was on my own so two very different holidays there um and uh the second the second trip i ended up in south america and uh you know went to argentina and brazil it was just an amazing a really amazing time and it was during during that second trip that i actually started writing let's get real

back in 2011 and uh whilst the book didn't come out until 2017 i actually started the early stages of writing the book back then a lot of those concepts about the investor profiles were written back in 2011 so that really helped to structure um the things that i did next in my my business life and also the investing side of things i did take a couple of years off buying property whilst i set up my business and really after that 18 months it was sort of 2012 2013 that i sort of started a consulting business i had a really really cool name for it i called it luke harris consulting it's quite original man quite original it's very original a lot of thought went into it and um you know we came up with this little logo but essentially um that was

not really the the intent it was more about putting structures in place and starting to have conversations with people before turning it into a i guess a long-term business and what i did was use that um that period of time about a year to 18 months or so to really test and measure the systems that i put in place how do we teach people the process of investing rather than shoving investment opportunities in front of their face so that that really worked for me and it was in 2014 that i established the property mentors yeah and uh that's that's sort of the rest is history yeah awesome well let's let's talk about property mentors uh now and then i want to do a bit a dive into your most recent book property fit because there's some great juice that uh

will really guide our listeners in that regard but uh talk to us about uh the property mentors and the ethos behind it, what it does and doesn't do, so that we can get a sense of what your vision is both then and now for that. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think one of the first things that I realised is that there's good deals to be had in property all day, every day. That's one of the first things that a lot of people aren't aware of. You don't have to run to the back of the room and get the deal of the day

because the deal of the day is going to be a different deal of the day tomorrow. yeah um and so the the property mentors was really you know we're not called the property sales company we're not called the property um you know anything else it's more to get people to understand the different components of investing now mentoring really for us is about holding your hand on the journey and really sitting there in the in the front seat with you as your gps now the investor is still driving and we're very clear about this point is that um we we have a membership fee so you you pay us to be a member once you become a member then we work with you for a period of time and um you know that really sets the the stage for what you're

going to be doing for the next 5 10 20 years or more yeah and um i guess the main thing for us is that we're here to to be the gps you're still driving and still in control you make all the decisions and at some point in time you might turn the gps gps off and go your own way and that's okay we're here to recalibrate when you come back and we've had plenty of our members that have done that things have happened in their life and people have had babies and disappeared for 18 months and they've come back again going okay we're both working again let's go yeah and you know that that happens um but i think the key thing really is that there's three different stages of readiness before you invest and a lot of people wrongly assume that you just need money and if you've

got money then you can become an investor um but it's really about putting stacking the odds in your favor and to stack the odds in your favor we need to understand that there's three different stages of readiness the first one is your emotional readiness yeah you need to be emotionally ready to invest and what that really means is that you understand the reasons why and when we're saying the reasons why you're investing it's not just to make money everybody would love to just go and make some money but it's understanding the real goals behind it and i i link that to uh the dream the date and the dollars yeah so the three the three d's as i've highlighted in let's get real and it's about knowing that the dream and the goals in detail knowing exactly what you want

all right if you want a 1968 mustang and it's bright blue great put it on the list but don't put you want a car let's let's get really let's get really clear about what it is yeah um you know so it's about being clear on the dream the date that you want it the date you want to achieve that goal and the amount of money the dollars that you actually need for that and that all comes back down to that emotional readiness of understanding why you're doing it but also emotional readiness also comes down to understanding delayed gratification and understanding how that can impact you and understanding how you know maybe you need to cut off your netflix subscription for 12 months maybe you need to read some books instead maybe you need to get the emotional side

of your thinking in order before you put your money into the marketplace. And that might be 12 months before you invest. But it's understanding your emotional readiness. And I always say to people, on a scale of 1 to 10, how emotionally ready do you think you are to invest? You know? And it's the first time people have been asked that question

in their lives. Yeah. Most people never get it. The broker's not going to ask you. Your accountant's not going to ask you that question. Yeah. And so when people actually, they're forced to think about it, it really makes them sit back and go,

well, maybe I'm a five, maybe I'm a six. Why not a 10? What do you think it's going to take to get you to a 10? So getting that emotional readiness is really key. The second component is educational readiness. You need to make sure that you've got some education behind you before you go and put your money in the marketplace. You need to understand the fundamentals of the investment

that you're putting your money into and understand that you need to have some knowledge of finance, some knowledge of tax. You need to have some knowledge of the way that you're going to build this portfolio from an education perspective and also understand why certain investments work better than others and understand your tax situation, why a new property might actually help you for the long term

because of the depreciation and tax benefits. And just getting that general understanding of property and I ask most investors that are just starting out, what's your education on property like on a scale of one to ten yeah they vary anywhere from one to to eight but i very rarely get a nine or a ten yeah so there's often work to be done and of course the last one which is usually the first one is financial readiness yeah so you need to be financially ready to invest and that doesn't mean just having a deposit or just having a pre-approval or a borrowing capacity from a lender it means really having good money habits yeah and really

understanding how you how you behave with money how you how you navigate through when you get that paycheck every week or when you get your business income what do you do with it and and how good are you at paying your debts and have you defaulted do you understand your credit file all of these things sort of come into the financial readiness so when people have these three different stages covered off there may not be a 10 on all of them and over time you're going to you're going to change your emotional financial and educational readiness is going to go up and down like a yo-yo the more you learn the more you realize you don't know yeah and so the main thing is is if we've addressed these points at least we're aware of the mindset behind the investing

in the first place and that's really what the property mentors is here to do is to help people on that journey to really understand themselves as an investor yeah because without that without you as the investor see people always say what's the biggest risk with investing yourself it's you yeah what do you mean what do you mean i'm the biggest risk well you're the one that signs contracts you're the one that gets the loan you're the one that buys and sells you're the one that manages the property managers and you're ultimately it yeah so if you're not right things could go wrong yeah but uh it's very rare that people have had that conversation and when we go through having that conversation with people to really understand what type of investor they

are unless you unless you identify that you can't change anything yeah love it and you've got a great section in the book that talks about the property investment profile which sort of starts to capture the essence of who you are as a person before you even start to think about what you invest in and how you do it and again that's a missing piece it's almost a you know the financial planners have a very crude crack at it from an equity perspective but no one really tackles that from a property perspective I think the way you sort of incorporate risk and look at your asset position and then they consider the exit strategy and the the time that you that the big missing piece I find and this is where you and I've got very similar beliefs is the thing that I said a

lot of investors not do is choose an investment vehicle that matches the amount of time they've physically got to manage that asset and if if they're not taking that into context then people can get themselves into a lot of hot water without realizing it uh what's your thoughts around that like i agree and i learned this from a book or a magazine or something a long long time ago is never invest in something you don't understand yeah and uh most people uh most most of your listeners no doubt um know somebody that lives or owns a property which should be everyone uh You know, and I think if you understand property, look, the problem in Australia is that we all love property

and it's a problem, it's a blessing in disguise in some way, but it's also a curse because people see the shows like The Block and various other things that, you know, I can't watch them really. I really struggle because I'm happy to look at the property stuff but all of the arguing and, oh, jeez, I can't handle it. And that's not really reality anyway. I've met a couple of people that have had connections with those types of shows, not the block in particular, but apparently they come in afterwards

and they have all the tradies come and fix up all the mistakes they've made. What a surprise. That's another story. But I think, yeah, look, Australians love property. In particular, we've all got access to Bunnings, and that's a scary thing because I've got a PowerPass account at Bunnings, and every time I go down there for a new tool of some description or $2 worth of light globes.

I come out with hundreds of dollars worth of rubbish that I don't need, you know, even as recently as yesterday. So I think that's the thing is it looks easy and everybody seems to know somebody that's made money in property in Australia. They know somebody that's done well out of property or they know somebody that knows somebody. And the problem is it looks easy and the thing

with property investing is it is simple but it's not easy. yeah and those two things are very different and i think that uh yeah it is it is something that needs that stickability you need to you need to hang in there for the long term and it's not a not a get rich quick as i've said totally agree and i think the big miss for me makes a lot of investors uh is they they focus on the price of the property and all the rest of it they don't look at closely enough is the true cash flow of the property because if you're going to last the 15 or 20 years you need to really enjoy the sort of growth that will take you through a full property cycle, then it's got to be affordable.

And I just don't see enough investors focusing their strategy and their structure around creating an affordable vehicle. What's your thoughts around that, Luke? Look, I think affordability is definitely a key. And one of the things that I focus on is not so much the property. The property is definitely part of the long-term plan. You definitely need property to invest in property. But at the same time, you need the property to work for you

because if the property is not going to work for you, then you're probably going to give up after a few years. And this is the biggest challenge that we've seen. And the ATO and the ABS statistics don't lie. The numbers are what they are. Most investors don't hold more than one or two properties and very, very few property investors own three or more properties. And so the reason for that is it's not because they can't buy more properties in most cases.

It's that they've structured themselves in a way that they can't. And if they'd structured themselves correctly, they could continue buying properties. And one of the things that people harp on about a lot in various media channels and so forth is that new properties are bad. Now, I don't have an issue with buying new properties. A lot of my properties have been – new properties are off the plan. But the key thing is, is that if your first property is a brand new property, a lot of the times there can be some tax savings. If you, you know, house and land, for example, you're only paying stamp duty on the land in most states and then you just pay for the build. Yes, you've got holding costs while you build it, but it's typically less than the stamp duty.

The thing is, is that you've got a brand new property there. The repairs and maintenance is very minimal. so you're not having your cash flow uh debts in your cash flow um that are affected because of huge repair bills i've got a house uh in ely beach at the moment a beautiful location but it was one of the first houses in the area the whole floor of the bathroom's just fallen through we've got to put a whole new floor in right um now that's not a good investment for most people it is something that's going to be you know in my portfolio for some time i'll lock it down and put a nice little property on it one day but that's that's it's my plan and strategy not

others you know to spend five thousand dollars on a floor it that will hurt a lot of investors and then the hot water system goes then the roof leaks and then something else happens and the problem is if people feel that their own money has to go into their tenants property even though it's their property they feel like it's not working for them yeah and you know your own cash flow is affected because of the type of property that you bought whereas a new property you typically have less hassles and also the demographics and population in Australia is changing people want to live in rentals people want to rent and there's a lot of people renting for longer periods of time and they want to live with the modern conveniences that we have they want dishwashers

they want nice carpet they want stone benchtops and new properties provide those things so I think people buying the wrong property to start with can really set themselves up for failure from the outset. Yeah, totally agree. Well, let's touch on what's become evident to me, Luke, is that I'm going to need to get you back on because I think we'll break down some of the, because we've sort of danced across a lot of info, but I'd like to deep dive on some of them. But where I'd like to, I guess, bring this together before we jump into the old ambush round is, I think, a key question in the context of what you and property mentors are doing and that is how do investors determine the right property fit?

I love the name of the book because it's fit in terms of fitness but the second meaning there for me was the right fit for them. Can you sort of give some thoughts around that because I think it sows a seed in the mind of the listeners of the importance of making sure that they are determining the right property fit for their circumstance. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the first thing that you can do is read the book.

That's going to help a lot. But yeah, look, I think the key thing to fitting the property in is understanding it has to fit into a long-term plan. And when we talk about a property plan, that's not a financial plan, right? You go and talk to your financial planner about a financial plan. But what we're talking about is a plan of attack, okay? and the way that I look at property fit is very much like a jigsaw puzzle. You've got to have the end picture in mind.

You've got to have the cover of the box. If you're going to have a picture of a panda, right, that's the first thing that comes to my head, right, then you want to pick all of the pieces that look like a panda, right? You don't want to pick the pieces that look like a bridge. And I think the key thing is that fitting every property into the mix, fitting every decision into the mix has to fit into that long-term plan. yeah the cool thing about property investing as as you would know with your your years investing

as well you can change your plan yeah it's your plan yeah and the key thing is unless we've got a starting point and we know what direction to head how do you know if you're going left or right if you're starting you're starting your journey in sydney and you want to go to perth right you don't have a road map you don't know how much fuel you've got you don't know if your car's any good you start driving anything could go wrong and and it has gone wrong for a lot of people that haven't done those checks and balances first so having that mud map first yeah and again i think your early analogy you're being a gps rather than a map is is appropriate because it allows for changes in the dynamics of the property market the dynamics of your own goals because they change

over time uh if you've you've got a a fix on what the end destination looked like but it allows you to meander a little bit to accommodate those things then all of a sudden you've got a magnet that's going to draw you to it and it's compelling enough to overcome the speed bumps that you're inevitably going to incur along the property journey but it's also a compass in terms of guiding your day-to-day decisions on whether something you're doing is taking you closer to that destination or further away from it well that's that's exactly right and i relate this this exact quote back to my own life i actually it's popped into my head one day i wrote it down and stuck it on the fridge is what i'm going to do today going to get me closer to or further

away from what i'm trying to achieve so if you go to jb hi-fi and you see a new piece of tech equipment because i love buying techie rubbish that i don't need um you know you go in there Like, this is going to cost me $600. Is this going to get me closer to my goal or further away from my goal? Yeah. And it's just a little check on yourself to make sure your spending habits don't get out of control. Do I need a 43-inch TV in the bedroom? Probably not.

Yeah. Could I put that towards a deposit for my next property? Maybe I could. Yeah. Yeah, I love it, mate. Love it. Well, look, I feel like we've only just started to scratch the surface, Luke, so we're definitely going to get together again to dive a bit deeper on this

and uncover a lot more of the gold that you've revealed in both of your books, actually. But to shift gear into the ambush or the bushfire, lightning round, as I like to call it, what's your favourite quote and why? Oh, my favourite quote is something, I don't think it's written by anybody, but it's something that I've taught myself, is just because you care doesn't mean you should. and uh the the reason the reason why i like that quote because it applies to pretty much everything in life it applies to property investing in that well just because you can buy something you know a penthouse on the gold coast doesn't mean you should um you know just

because you go there on a holiday and you want to buy something um you know just because you can go buy a development site or do a renovation doesn't mean you should right um and i think a lot of people they've got the money but they don't have the sense behind them to to make that work and And I say that because of my own experiences. Yeah, love it. Love it, mate. In the literary field then, apart from your books, what's the top book that you'd recommend listeners have a read of and why?

It's hard to narrow it down to one. I did think about this, but I still think The Magic of Thinking Big is by David Schwartz. I think that's definitely one of the key books that made a difference for me in the early years. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a cracker. gain another timeless time. This one's a little bit left field, but most Australians still believe they pay way too much tax, or my own view is if you're paying a lot of tax, it means you're making

a lot of money. But what's the top legal thing that you've done to minimise the tax that you pay? The top legal thing that I've done, and not that I've done anything other than that, but the top thing that I've done to pay less tax is get good advice. And I think the key thing is to get good advice and pay for it. Free advice can be some of the most expensive advice that you can get. And so I pay my accountant quite well. He's certainly not the cheapest out there and he's certainly not the most expensive, but him and his team have been fantastic at helping me to pay less tax. So there's no one silver bullet to help me pay less tax. One of the things that I've done is structured by a portfolio in separate companies and trusts and various other

things, but I could talk for an hour about that. But I think the top thing that I've done to pay less tax is get good advice and pay the advisor what they're worth. Don't try and negotiate with your advisors for discounts. They're there to help you build wealth. You need them on site and you certainly don't want them to be having to negotiate on their fees. Yeah, totally agree, mate. It's not what it costs, it's the value it gives you. That's exactly right. Now, turning back to the investment piece for a minute what's the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received today it's hard to think of a worst piece of advice uh the probably the worst piece of advice is advice that i gave myself saying you can do it on your own

uh thinking that i was going to be the the hero and the and you know it's going to be the the coach the captain you know the the whole team right uh thinking that i could do it on my own i think that was something that was self-taught uh and that sort of relates back to my favorite quote just because you can doesn't mean you should right i think that's somehow self-taught as well um the best piece of investment advice i don't think i've specifically received anything that really stood out other than you know the the quote that i mentioned earlier from dad that was um if you're going to do something do it properly and you know that that really has has been you know structural for me and everything that i've done in business and in life in you know if you're

going to do it do it properly the first time because if you don't you're gonna have to go back and do it again anyway and you know i like being efficient and i think that having to do the same thing all over again uh you know it's not fun especially if you're doing something that's hard work and when it comes to investing it is a long-term thing so if you're going to do it right uh if you're going to do it get do it right the first time and it's going to be long-term and sustainable yeah i love it last one what's a personal habit or a rewarding ritual that you've adopted that has contributed most to your investment success today i think the the key thing the personal habit i've got is to check right check yourself right as in checking checking in

on on yourself to review the goals review where you're at in in your personal and professional life and and of course in your investing career and just checking in on yourself to make sure that you're okay checking in to make sure that what you're doing is still what you want to do life changes and you know people get busy doing what they're doing and you know the whole process for me and the thing that i've learned in in life as a as a wise old 41 year old now is that uh is that um you know you've got to check that what you're doing still makes you happy because you know this is one of the things that i learned when i was 30 that's not all about super yachts and fast cars and big houses those things those things can come from successful investing don't get me wrong

but the things that i've learned as i get older is that time with your family um time with your loved ones looking after your own um your own health and and the things that are important to you that's the important stuff it's it's the time that you spend watching couch you know watching movies on the couch with your partner it's you know those little things that you do um Yes, it's nice to do that in a nice car and it's nice to do that in a nice house. But there are things that you don't necessarily need. So I think checking yourself and making sure that you stay real and that you're not, you know, you don't let your ego get in the way of your success. Yeah, love it.

Love it, mate. Wrap things up. Big question. If I gave you a microphone that spoke to every single one of the 7.7 billion odd people that are currently alive in the world and I gave you a minute to talk, what would you suggest they invest in? Look, I think the short answer is probably not even going to take a minute is to invest in yourself, invest in your education. Before you go and invest in anything else, learn. Again, if we're trying to capture all 7.7 billion people, that can apply to anything and not just investing. So focus on education, learn as much as you can, and then learn from people around you as well.

Learn from people that have actually done what you want to do rather than people trying to teach you that haven't done what you want to do. Yeah, brilliantly said. Mate, what's next new and exciting for you and the Property Mentors team? And how can listeners reach out to you and get involved in what you're doing to start guiding their own journey? Well, what's next for the Property Mentors team? We're actually growing our team. We've got some new people starting in the new year, but we have a company trip every now and then, and COVID sort of got in the way in the middle of last year. We had a trip to Tasmania planned,

but we're all heading to Cairns early next year. So that's what's next for the Property Mentors team and get our little bi-annual getaway, and we have a lot of fun on those trips. A lot of interesting phone calls, a lot of interesting work meetings and what can I say, business dinners. It's got a bit of a smell of Vegas to me there, mate. A little bit of Vegas attached to it,

but we've got a lot of fun people in the team and it's good to see everybody have a bit of a relaxed time as well to sort of get together. We've got a really fantastic team that really work well together, so it's good to have that little reward every now and then. So that's next for the property mentors and, you know, we're having a lot of fun doing what we're doing. And as far as the book's concerned,

you can grab a copy on propertyfitbook.com.au or you can go to our main website, thepropertymentors.com.au. Yeah, love it, mate. Look, really appreciate your time, mate. We really have only just skated across the surface and it's great to be rubbing shoulders with someone of a like mind. That's a bit of a rarity in this space, unfortunately. So I'm looking forward to getting you back on too.

We'll focus in on specific subjects and deep dive on those, but really appreciate your generous time on the show today. Thanks, Bushy. Appreciate your time. Thanks, mate. To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au. Or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au

forward slash GetInvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the GetInvested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.