Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Richard Crabb on how to protect and prosper in the Australian property market

Episode Date: November 10, 2018

Richard Crabb is the Managing Director of Aspire Network where he has been able to combine his 20+ years of personal and professional experience across property, finance and business leadership. He has created a leading edge, professional and national platform to help you find, secure and deliver the best property solution to achieve your needs, strategy and 'sleep at night' factor. Richard is as passionate as I am about the need for independent and impartial professionalism to protect and secure your interests in the property market. And his commitment to improving and regulating the professional standards of the industry has been rewarded with his recent inclusion on the highly respected Board of PIPA – the Property Investment Professionals of Australia. During our highly engaging and wide ranging discussion, you will not only hear about the best possible investment approach, you will also: Hear about the future of the property market Find out what impact the Federal Labor Party’s sweeping changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax treatment will have on the economy at large and everyone of you personally as a home owner, renter or investor Learn about PIPA, what they do and how they can help you Find out how to find a professional independent team that you can trust in all of the key aspects of property to protect your interests and minimise any risk If you enjoy what Richard has to say and would like to find out more about the Aspire Network, please get in touch with me at [e-mail] or phone [phone]. Aspire Network - https://www.aspirenetwork.net.au/  PIPA - http://www.pipa.asn.au/  Richard's Book List: How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki Get Invested is the podcast dedicated to time poor professionals who want to work less and live more. Join Bushy Martin, one of Australia’s top 10 property specialists, as he and his influential guests share know-how on the ways investing in property can unlock the life you always dreamed about and secure your financial future. 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.

You don't know what you don't know, and we all either learn and learn things and have life experience, but sometimes we try to do things or do it ourselves, and we maybe don't really have the expertise or understanding. Welcome to the Get Invested Podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how on 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 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 bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening, and now let's get invested. Hi, Freedom Fighters.

Are you still searching for that perfect and elusive, wholly-grower investment strategy that's high-reward, low-risk, safe and affordable and that'll allow you to live more, work less and secure your family's future? You know, that ideal investment solution that will safely and affordably allow you to secure a multimillion-dollar portfolio

that'll replace your income and sustain your family's lifestyle long-term. But in the meantime, it won't limit your lifestyle by adding into your salary or savings, but it will put an extra $8,000 to $20,000 a year in your pocket, and it will help you to pay off your home loan years earlier, as well as save tens of thousands of dollars in loan interest. an investment solution that will enable you to spend your valuable time focusing on building your career and income while spending your limited spare time with your friends and family as your trusted independent professional team looks after your interests so that your wealth grows by remote control now i know what you're already thinking this doesn't even sound possible well here's the good news yes it is and sonia and i are actually living proof of its effectiveness

you see it's the approach that i've detailed chapter and verse in my recently published book the freedom formula which you can get on amazon or download onto your kindle and surprisingly it's not rocket science it's just a subtle art that relies on combining all of the right proven principles, processes and people in the right way at the right time. Get it right and it's great. Shortcut it, leave something out or do it in the wrong way or wrong order and it can quickly become a disaster. It's a bit like baking a great cake. You need a good team of professional chefs using a great recipe, top quality ingredients, combining the right quantities at the right time cooked at the right heat for the right time get any of this wrong

and a great tasting delicacy can quickly turn into an awful mess now in my reading and research over the last 20 odd years i continue to find that any endeavor continues to demonstrate that only about 5% or 1 in 20 achieve real sustainable success and today's guest is going to open your eyes and ears to how you can successfully optimise this opportunity and be in the 5%. Richard Crabb is the MD of the Aspire Network where he's been able to combine his 20 plus years of personal and professional experience across the property finance and business leadership arenas to create a leading edge professional and national platform that will help you to find, secure and deliver the best property solution to achieve your needs, your

strategy and your sleep at night factor. Richard's as passionate as I am about the need for independent and impartial professionalism to protect and secure your interests in the property market and his commitment to improving and regulating the professional standards of the industry has been rewarded with his recent inclusion on the highly respected board of PIPA. which is the Property Investment Professionals of Australia. Now, during a highly engaging and wide-ranging discussion today, you'll not only hear about this best possible investment approach,

but you'll also hear about the future of the property market, and you'll find out what impact the Federal Labor Party's sweeping intended changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax treatment is going to have on the economy at large, but also each and every one of you, either as a homeowner, a renter, or an investor. You'll learn about PIPA in terms of what they do and how they can help you and you'll also find out how to find a professional independent team that you can trust in all of the key aspects of property to protect your interests and to minimise any risk. If you enjoy what Richard has to say today and you'd like to find out more about the Inspire Network, please get in touch

just me either by shooting us an email at bushey at khgroup.com.au or give me a buzz on our landline at 0883836990. That's 83836990. But for now, get out your notebook and be ready to scribble furiously as you listen and you re-listen to Richard Crabb. Welcome back Freedom Fighters, it's Bushy Martin and for those of you who know me pretty well, you'll know that I'm fiercely passionate about the need for independent professionalism in property and finance and that it covers all aspects of strategy, finance and most

importantly property delivery. And today's guest, Richard Crabb, shares my vision in this regard for the industry and he's recently been appointed as a board member on PIPA, which is the Property Investment Professionals of Australia, of which I'm a member and also a supporter, and he's also the Managing Director of the Aspire Network, which is an independent property research and investment property delivery arm that acts in the interests of investors, not real estate agents or builders and developers. So welcome aboard, Richard.

Great. Thanks, Bushy. I appreciate the time to come on board today. Yeah, and I've been pretty keen to talk to you for a while, given your active interest and involvement in PIPA and the awesome work that you're doing with the Aspire Network. But for those who don't know you, mate, can you just elaborate a bit more on who you are, what you're doing, and where you're heading at the moment? Thanks, Bushy.

So the Aspire Network, I founded a bit over seven years ago. Coming out of financial services industry in very much a niche market, I used to work for Medfin in medical finance, So working with doctors and professionals, which was very much based around the philosophy of look after people, build long-term relationships. Came out of that and a couple of colleagues of mine have been in the property investment space and sort of approached me and said there's nothing in this space that has any sort of standards or ethics that we see. And when we really looked at it, because it is actually, it's an unregulated space. and what we wanted to try to do was actually create a framework with structure

actually based on the principles of financial planning as if the industry was regulated. How would that look? Very similar to sort of 20-odd years ago when the finance industry, banking and finance, went through regulation and changed and we wanted to apply the same principle to the property investment space.

Yeah, awesome. Now, just sort of... Sorry, mate, just jumping in there, for those listeners who are getting their head around the financial planning exercise, because there are a number of people who have a varying level of comfort with financial planners, and what Richard's really talking about there is the due process that financial planners take people through. And while the property industry has been pretty cowboy in that regard, financial planners in terms of their needs analysis of developing strategy and really identifying what's right for a client is a very good process. And it's really been seen in the property industry, and that's certainly something that I and my team, I adopt, and the reason why I feel so comfortable with what you're doing with Aspire. So sorry, mate, go on. I just wanted to clarify that point. Yeah, and look, that hits it on the head, Bushy, as well.

The reason why we base it on the principles of financial planning is that property investment is an unregulated space. One of the things that actually took us the first three years after I founded the company, working with underwriters, a professional services, so a dentist, a doctor, a financial plan or a solicitor, they are professionally insured with professional indemnity insurance because they're all regulated spaces. What we'd spent that time and effort was improving to the insurance underwriters that even though this is unregulated, we've created a framework that they were comfortable that

now means that all of our property investment advisors actually hold PI insurance, don't have conflicts of interest and actually work under a code of conduct and framework in the Investor's interest is not someone who's just selling something to a client. They're actually working with the client, not for themselves. Yeah, brilliant. Awesome. So that's very clear and quite a niche position in the industry given what you're just talking about

because for most people who haven't had the opportunity to enjoy that independent professionalism, they're often at the mercy of a builder, a developer, or a real estate agent whose vested interest is in selling the property and quite often is painting a picture that's serving them rather than the benefits of the investor themselves. So I can see that the Aspire Network is going to go from strength to strength in that regard and also the reason why myself and our team

know how I've been enjoying building a relationship with you, mate. Tell us a little, before I sort of jump back into your personal personal and professional journey from earlier on. Tell us a bit more about PIPA and your role there and where you see PIPA and the property investment professionals in Australia assisting potential investors in looking after their needs. The reason why we joined PIPA

and now why I've also actively joined the board, PIPA have been trying to drive for regulation in this space. you know and they're actually very strict even though it's a member-based not-for-profit organization um and member-based they are very selective with you know the members that they approve that that they have to act under a code of conduct so very aligned to what we built our business on um pipper has done the same thing in the in the property investment professional space you know trying to weed out and actually have people that agree to adhere to a code of conduct have the ethics and standards

and ultimately as an industry body people are pushing to try to get some level of regulation into this space and that's why we've joined on board because the more we can bring into this space to get rid of unfortunately some unscrupulous players

that are out there that we see all the time it's going to be better for the end customer because investing in property can be a very rewarding experience but unfortunately You know, a lot of people get bad experiences when they're misled by people that aren't doing the right thing. And I think that's where PIPA's trying to, from their side,

trying to push it. You know, they're lobbying government. You know, their members do adhere to that code of conduct as part of the membership. And so it helps people, I guess, have a starting point to identify, you know, the people that they should be dealing with and the people who they shouldn't. Absolutely.

I mean, I guess from my perspective on that, Richard, have always said that successful property investment is an elite team sport and you need independent, objective and transparent players who will all cohesively work together to achieve the client's needs, but they are all independent businesses and therefore don't have a conflict of interest in dealing with the process end to end. So what I'd like to reinforce for the listeners today is that if you are looking to surround yourself with an independent team

in each and every aspect of the property delivery exercise from the initial strategy piece through to the financing through to the property delivery end, whether it be by buyers, agents, project managers or businesses like yourself in Aspire who operate under that code of conduct, that's a very good place to start the journey. So awesome, and I think PIPA, given some of the machinations that are about to potentially happen politically around property moving forward if there's a change of government federally next year, PIPA has a very important part to play in educating, communicating and getting players at all levels to understand what's really going to make the industry work.

So awesome work. Now, mate, I just want to pivot here for a minute if we can and go back to the beginning of your journey because what I'd like to do is, for my benefit and the benefit of the listeners, get some understanding of what your decision and motivations were in both your professional career from early on but also share with us in parallel with that your investment journey. What have you invested in?

What have you learned from it? What's been good? What's been bad? What's been ugly? And then work through to how that's then allowed you to enjoy the success you're having with Aspire. Yeah, I look the same, man. Happy to share. I think I'll start with if I knew now what I knew then.

If I knew, sorry, if I knew then what I know now, I think my, you know, things would be different, as always. You learn along the way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I shake my head with some of my early investment decisions and kick myself for others because, you know, I think as they say, one of my favourite quotes is, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And, you know, we all either learn and learn things

and have life experience and, you know, but sometimes we try to do things or do it ourselves, you know, and we maybe don't really have the expertise or understanding. So, me, I started back in financial services, sort of out of high school and worked through a career. Just jumping in there, why, mate? Is that where you wanted to start, or...? Yeah, I'm interested in the why.

So what made you decide to go down that road? Again, it's really interesting. Actually, in school and growing up, I was a computer geek by hobby. OK. And my vision and goal going through high school was I wanted to be a computer programmer. grammar. I'd started computer programming and a friend of mine who was doing the course

said his brother had just got a job at this finance company, which at the time was Avco Financial Services. And he said, oh, look, they're hiring. And he goes, maybe you should have a chat. And I actually never forget it because the reason why is I went in, my first interview went for three and a half hours. And the guy who interviewed me just gave me a path but one of the things with Avco at the time especially their pathway

the way that they basically trained you to run a business you know you'd start at the front counter they had such a structured training program they moved to branch manager and they trained you to run a branch but back in those days a bit unlike today

where it's all very decentralized they gave you a career and a journey and you know And he painted that picture for me over three hours and I got the job the next day and then didn't look back. I then spent the next two years working through their training program and was the youngest branch manager ever promoted. Awesome. But you learned everything about business. Yeah.

And then I spent the next seven years working with GE and branch management and then I actually ran Australasia as national operations manager, running the whole branch network across Australia and New Zealand. Yeah. so it sort of gave me that exposure of running I learned how to run a business you know run big big networks and scale and you know both from dealing with one on one consumers you know at the front end

when I was in branch management level you know to then going to the national so that was again a complete career change but just it was something I learned I was passionate and you know you learn to skill and you know continue to get good success

And then from there, I went to another finance company, which was actually Medfin, which is medical finance, so very Avco or GE money, because GE bought Avco, was consumer, was mom and dad investors, small consumer loans, consumer lending predominantly. so then we went into a special and the evolution of that was moving into a niche market which is actually a very small demographic

so just doctors, dentists we only lent money to medical professionals and I spent the next seven years originally I ran South Australia I actually set up an operation there got to the stage in South Australia where

my South Australian business was more profitable than Victoria. Right. And Victoria had four times the staff and five times the population. Yeah, let's drill into that. Why? I'd be, again, interested in how you managed to achieve it. What do you think were the key scenes of your success? You know, aside from, obviously, the hard work,

but there's probably one word I'll use, and that's relationships. You know, the biggest thing with a niche, and this is, again, predominantly the principles of where I founded Aspire later on, was that time in Adelaide, Adelaide's a very niche market. It's a very small, you know, as we all joke, everyone knows everyone in Adelaide. And it took the first sort of 18 months, but it was just about relationships.

I, you know, I'd go to all the, I pretty much knew every dentist. I'd go to every, you know, dental seminar or a medical seminar and it was about word of mouth. You know, people, and it actually got to the stage where I actually didn't take on new clients because I had too many clients. I built that relationship and they just, any time they needed finance, they'd pay rich, I need this.

Yeah. And great. And, you know, the first one was always the hardest, but you treat every client the same, whether it was for a $5, you know, for a $1,000 laptop or, you know, a $2 million practice fit out and surgery set up. Yeah. You treat every client the same.

You give them that personalized service. You actually get to learn about the person. And actually, the most rewarding thing I got from it was I actually missed it when I moved to Melbourne because I had my client. It was actually that it helped so many people grow their business and became their trusted advisor. Of course. And it grew the business.

And then that's why the company relocated me then to Melbourne to, you know, to turn Melbourne around and fix the problems that they've been, because Melbourne has been doing the opposite. They just, I'm not saying they didn't care, but they didn't have the same ethos. So, you know, I guess the team that we built in Adelaide was, it's that one word, relationships.

If you're there for the journey, not to sell something, and you're there to work together with people, it's a sustainable business. And it's that word about people coming back again and again because, you know, you build that trust and rapport that you're there to work together with them, you know, to achieve what they want to achieve. Yeah, it's so spot on, and relationships take time.

So, you know... And it does. Yeah, you mentioned the 18 months. That's exactly right. It takes that long for someone to know, like, and trust you, but then it's exponential because if you've invested in that relationship and you've got a genuine care and like for the people that you're working for, They know it, and then the word of mouth just does the rest of the work for you.

So awesome, mate. So you then moved on to Dino Dynamics. So tell us a little bit about that. Yes. I left Medfin. That was a bit of a segue. I've spent sort of nearly 15 years in financial services in very high-level positions. I've built businesses, grown businesses, and I guess I wanted to challenge myself.

and I actually did two sort of segues out of that and I did Dino Dynamics which was helping try to grow a business but it was the same principles but a completely different industry. Talking cheese, dealing from medical professionals to motorsports

was a completely different switch but it sort of challenged me and took me out of my comfort zone. Yeah, awesome. And then likewise, Otherwise, then I spent three years running a drilling company. So, same thing. It was a family-run business.

It was actually my uncle. Okay. He had a drilling business for 30 years, very successful. It was getting close to, like, success, you know, end of the, you know, so it was really a come up, build it, grow it, sell it. Okay. And was that in Adelaide or Melbourne? It was in Adelaide for the three years.

Rockhampton, Queensland. Yeah, right-o. Okay. Yep. So three years, I did fly in, fly out from Melbourne for that period, for three years. And yeah, look, again, we did. We put all the infrastructure, the systems, the processes. We grew the business.

We got big contracts, and it was about growth. But again, I guess I've always liked to challenge myself. But I guess the one underlying thing that always pays off is if you build relationships, do the right thing, obviously you work hard. but it all pays off and then from that, I've done my job, it was supposed to be two years, I did it for three and had the exit strategy and handed it over and then came back to it and then founded Aspire because I said I wanted to build something myself and build something that we could do nationally and have a business that could help people in a space where there's

There's just so many unscrupulous players. And, you know, that's why I wanted to apply all those things that I've learned over all those years in different businesses and running companies and building businesses. I wanted to then add enough confidence and faith in myself to do it myself. Brilliant, mate. Yeah, there's some really close parallels there with being successful as a property investor because all the successful property investors I know

aren't scared of a challenge. they take calculated risks so they do the homework they do the hard work they're in there for the long term not the short run and if I look at your work history you've invested considerable time

in each and every one of those different businesses that you've progressed in you have the faith to back yourself and to see it through so talk to us directly on that then in relation to your personal investment journey today So what was the very first investment you made, and how did it progress from there, and what have you learnt along your own personal investment journey?

Yeah, well, as I said at the beginning, I wish I knew then what I know now. My investment journey, I guess I was very fortunate in some respects. At a very young age, I was earning, I was in finance, I was earning, you know, very, at the time, very good income to my age. You know, I bought my first house, which I was living in. You know, at the time, I'd sort of been in it for about seven years. And then my regret then was learning. I got two head up of, wow, I've made some money.

You know, I still remember I bought my first, my first house was a townhouse. Okay. I paid $94,000. Nice. For a three-bed two-bed. bar, you know, two-car townhouse, close to a hospital in a good area. It was in Darlington in South Australia.

Yeah, nice. You know, then after seven years, I moved to the city. I bought a place in Carrington Street. You know, my mistake then is I should have held that property. Right. And I, you know, at that time, I had it for seven years. It was now worth about, I sold it for, I think, $260,000. Great result.

So, you know, now, again, and I use the equity to buy my next property. So, initially, I did lifestyle. Yeah. Whereas now looking back, look, don't get me wrong, I have looked it up on RP Data. That property is now worth about $380,000. Yeah. So, it doesn't really, and it probably won't go much further, but going back to only paid $94,000, it would have been a freehold property that's actually earning about $380 a week rent.

Yeah, that's a pretty good yield. From the last up. Yeah, good learnings. That was my first mistake. And then, yeah, then the same with my second place was in the city. Again, you know, didn't get very – I was buying them as a lifestyle to live in. Yeah. You know, but as an investment, really, even looking back at them now,

they wouldn't have been good investments. No. They really haven't grown that much in the last 20 years. No. So, you know, the initial one I should have bought and held, it was just I should have. You know, when I moved to Melbourne, I actually bought an apartment in South Harrah when I moved in there.

Yeah. Again, to live in. Yeah. So my initial mistake that I made, I got too caught up in capital gains, thinking, oh, it was my primary place of residence. that, hey, if I just sell it now and then take the equity and buy another property, like, you know,

I don't pay any capital gain. Yes. Whereas if I just buy and if I'd, you know, if I'd held them, restructured the debt properly, you know, again, all the things that I would do today, you know, yes, there'd be capital gains, but I'd now have a significantly larger asset. Sure.

I wouldn't sell them. Yeah, good learnings. Good learnings, mate. Okay, so from there, so you're into Melbourne? Yeah, and then from there, well, two things. I was in South Yarra. I bought an apartment. Obviously, South Yarra has been ridiculous.

You know, like I was getting, even the first 12 months, I was getting great growth, and I had money to spare, so I bought another property, and I thought, well, South Yarra's just going crazy. Yeah. So I actually, again, I just went and bought a student apartment. Yeah. which by the way

if anybody wants to buy a student accommodation I'm happy to sell them one at the time I didn't make any I didn't speak to anyone I didn't get any advice I didn't do any research it seemed like a great deal

because I didn't do any of that if I sold it today and I've had that property for about 12 years. I bought it for $180,000. The best I could get, if I could sell it, maybe $135,000 at the best. Right. You know, so it was a learning experience.

There's no exit strategy. I didn't do any research. I didn't think about it. It seemed like a great idea. I didn't look at the numbers. I didn't look at the research. Just bought it because it was cheap. being cheap compared to South Yarra.

Wow, South Yarra's amazing. Yeah, you make a very good point there because a lot of us early on in our investing career, and I was exactly the same, you go for lifestyle and you buy properties that you would live in, not that are necessarily going to give you the best investment results.

And therefore, the heart tends to overrun the head. And because you like it and it's easy, you buy it without thinking about everything else that needs to be put before it. And as you would know as well as I, Richard, property is more about the finance and more about the numbers if you're going to be successful as an investor. And the property is actually almost the last thing that you consider once

you've got all the other ducks in a row. Couldn't agree more. Go on. Yeah, couldn't agree more. And as you said, you learn to, I guess, to think, you know, my last, I guess, the advantage now of working in a business where I think I'm just shy of half a billion dollars of residential property over the last, you know, five, six years. You know, we get to see so many variations and so many different properties. So my last three investments that I've done are completely different that I would never have thought of doing previously. But now I look at the numbers.

I look at the research. I look at the data and, you know, looking at it for the long term is what's going to give me and my family the best, you know, the best chance for, you know, the most growth and lifestyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome. So what have you done differently then compared to, in your most recent acquisitions, compared to what you were doing earlier? Yeah, look, again, the biggest thing now is I don't buy with emotion.

Yeah. You know, it's not about whether you can drive past it, see it, look at it. You know, I guess what really now I do differently is delve into the numbers. Yep. Look at the research. Part of what we do with our platform, you know,

is we use all the different independent research that we pay for. Yeah. So, you know, you can... I don't look at marketing brochures. They're a waste of time. You know, what you look at is actually the real... You delve into the census data, you look at the area statistics, you look at the ratio

of owner-occupiers to renters, you look at the type of demographic in the area, look at the population densities. One of the things we look at now, unless there's 100,000 people within 20Ks, wouldn't even start to look at it. Yeah. Because then you start looking at exit strategies. Yeah. What's the potential for growth?

So, like my last property I bought, I bought a house and land property, which actually just went unconditional last week, and the reason why I bought that was the data. And an interesting side story on that one, I've just bought, myself and my wife have just bought that house and land off plan, so the land won't title now until probably February, March next year. And one of our other, and again, I buy what we have on our platform. It's like a kid in a candy store. I see all these opportunities that come up.

I'm like, I want that one, I want that one. So this property is like, and to put that in perspective, and I've been using this story that the property that I've just purchased, one of our investors in the network purchased the same property. So it's in the same estate, or the land estate, but they bought in one of the earlier stages. Yeah. Now, their lot size at this time, one of our investors did,

is actually an identical house, identical size block. Yeah. The house and land package that I've just paid for, now this client's land is now settled. They bought it about 14 months ago, roughly, I think. Sorry, I think. Yep. My purchase price that I've just paid,

now I wasn't in a position 12 months ago to buy that one because I'd just done other things. Yeah. I just paid $100,000 more for the exact same package that a client purchased a bit over 12 months previously. Yeah, and that's all land value growth, I'm guessing? Well, as I said, the land values alone have gone up over 10% in 12 months. Yeah.

And obviously an increase in the build. But overall, even though I'm paying $100,000 more than this investor paid for the exact same product, There's still room to move, like the median price in the next suburb over is still $150,000 more. There's a new employment precinct that's just gone in. There's a development overlay on the suburb, which means there's not going to be the urban sprawl.

Once the supply is gone, it's gone to the lifestyle location. It's 65% owner occupiers. Nice. Very few renters. It's a desirable location where people actually want to live. Yeah. Which, again, which is why the land value's gone up so much, is because land's in such high demand

by people wanting to buy it to actually live there. The values are just going up as they release each stage in this estate. It continues to grow. Yeah, and the other good thing about what you've just mentioned... Sorry, mate, with those overlays that are eventually, once the development's complete, will constrain ongoing land availability, then suddenly you've got a contained exercise

with high demand and no further supply. So the ongoing opportunity to enjoy the capital growth that most investors are looking for is very well positioned. So that's awesome. And there's a number of key things that you've mentioned along that discussion around why that property in that area is good. And if I was to summarise that for the listeners, The difference between what I see successful investors like yourself doing, Richard, and those that don't do quite so well is you're putting on your future telescope and you're looking at this area in the context of what's it going to be like in 10 or 15 years, not what does it look like now or what has it performed like over the last couple of years.

because quite often I see investors piling into areas where it's just been through a fairly big spike in growth and then it's just going to plateau and sit flat for anywhere between five to eight to ten years, whereas the smart investors are looking at what's committed, what change is coming that's going to affect demand and supply and where is the employment and the jobs with strong incomes and growing incomes in that location that are going to continue to support higher prices. So you've sort of covered off very neatly on a lot of the very key parameters

that investors need to start thinking about, and that is throw away the rear-vision mirror, get rid of the microscope that looks at today and put on that telescope that looks at, okay, well, what's going to change this area and is that going to be a benefit to property values in that particular location? So that's gold. Yeah, and you summarise that beautifully

and it's that desirability too we sometimes see a lot of product this is why when we look at the census data very carefully my acquisitions manager is the only one that I know that got extremely excited about census he was like a kid in a candy store now we look at all that data very carefully But we also pull out those really key things, which is what you just said,

looking at the ties to professionals, what type of jobs are around, what type of people are living in the area, what's their median income, and also the desirability of the product. When you look at one of the good things in census too, if you're building a four-bed, two-car house and land, and that suits the demographic, you look at the number of cars per household. So if the average cars per household is two cars and you go and build a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment,

that might not suit the demographic for that area. Spot on. It's also making sure the suitability of the product, because you're going to be renting it out while you're holding that asset. Yeah. And looking at those things around that you're matching the type of property, is actually going to match the type of people that are actually living or wanting to live and rent in those areas.

Yes, that's a very good point. And the other point on that too, and one thing that we're very passionate about as well, as well as type of people, put your tenant hat on for the people in your rental pool, as well as the demographic. You don't necessarily want a low socioeconomic demographic. But it's the little things. We always make sure you've got stone benchtops.

sometimes quite often in investment in investment properties they use laminate and it looks cheap what type of appliances are going in? Some of those little things when you delve into the suitability of the product for the location, type of tenant that you want to walk in to go wow I want to live here and make this my home and we find that makes a big difference too. Massive difference you touch on some really good points there because there's a but often said there's a

massive difference between low cost and low and and uh best value and uh what what i mean by that is that the quite often the first time investor is looking looking cheap because they want to get the cheapest property they can and that and and if that's your only driver then you end up buying the wrong style of property in the wrong location for all the wrong reasons, and I'll drill into this a bit with you shortly after we've cut off some other things, but quite often you can spend more money, but it ends up pulling less money out of your pocket if you've structured it the right way, and those little things, some of the little things on the property front that you've picked up very well, because my wife and I owned a rent roll business,

as a property management business for over a decade. And we used to say to clients who would ring us and say, right, we're going to build a property in this location. We're just going to build a three-bed, one-bath, one-garage. And we'd say, well, we've got a question why you're doing that in this particular location because families are predominantly the renters, they're professionals.

And the difference between, let's take the garage as that example, the difference between a single garage and a double garage is the difference between $10 and $20 a week in rent. And if you're looking at that rental yield helping to subsidise the cost of holding onto the property, if you look at that over the period of time you're going to hold it for 10 or 15 years,

that's a massive difference just by spending a couple of extra grand on an extra car space. So it's the jigsaw that is really important. And while property isn't rocket science, It is a jigsaw and it is a cobweb and you need to have all the strands and all the pieces of that jigsaw together to make sure that those that are successful and I don't know about you, Richard, but I think the average, if I looked at the true success in property in any other arena, there's about 5% who generally do extremely well and the others do mediocre. if you join all the dots on all these things that you're you're covering off on then you're reducing the risk and increasing the the chance you're going to have a a much better result over the long term so um so that's really good mate now what i'd be keen to now jump into using that

telescope that i'm talking about if if we sort of focus a bit on uh what is your perfect lifestyle and what I mean by that is, you know, what does your life look like? Perfect day, perfect week, perfect month, perfect year. And is there a difference between that and what you're doing now? And if so, what are you proactively investing in on top of your business and your current investment properties that's going to help provide the income that's going to sustain that ideal lifestyle for you long term? Yeah, look, for myself personally, you know, I guess if I look at my ideal week, preferably not being on a plane because sometimes I do have to travel a lot and I forget what state I'm in.

Yeah. But look, really, to me, it is a balance. You know, life's about working on your passive income. You know, I guess continually, for me, it's about balancing between work and family. and, you know, I guess all the things I invest in and try to do is trying to create a life, you know, trying to create that passive income, you know, minimise tax, you know, to really maximise, you know,

basically the ability to have cash flow and be able to do the things you want to do, whether it's travel, spending time, doing things in the home, family, you know, but you create all that by, you know, working hard and doing things that give you either passive income, which is probably the biggest thing I've learnt too, and one of my personal goals is to be as,

what's the best way to put it, deleveraged. There was a time in my life there, high flyer on very large corporate incomes, but I also had just the same amount of income on my credit card that I was racking up. Which is not unusual. oh look at you go i went through that you know you sometimes you live outside your meet and you know i guess what i what i actually enjoy more now is not i don't have a credit card um

anymore you know whereas at one stage in my life i had a six-figure sum on credit card you know and a bit embarrassed to say it but yeah again i was i was earning big incomes to support that, but I live and learn, and now not having those debts or that pressure also helps make better decisions, because if you're not too heavily geared or don't have big debts or big outcomes, you get more incoming than going out. It gives you the ability to make more informed decisions and not do knee-jerk things if things change. Yeah, that's a really good insight.

and there's a lot of professionals who find themselves, and I was no different either years ago as well, Richard. Living the high corporate life, I felt like I had to keep up the Joneses. I felt like I had to present this picture that I was a hero and I was suffering what I now call lifestyle inflation. The more I earned, the more I spent. And it's the old story. It's not what you earn, it's what you spend

that actually makes a difference between someone who does well financially and someone who doesn't. But it's probably a wisdom thing, mate. For blokes like you and I who, you know, we're quite career-focused, we're pretty ambitious, we want to look and feel like we're making a big difference, so you do put yourself in a position early where you're probably living above and beyond. And then the danger with that, of course, is that you have to work harder and harder to sustain that exercise

and it becomes a treadmill that's very difficult to get off. So it's some pretty valuable lessons that you've learned along that journey. And, mate, that's been really interesting. What I'm keen to do now is change gears a little bit because it's still related to the future, but something that I guess I have been doing quite a bit of research on and have some concerns around is that the talk of the Federal Labor Party introducing,

almost revolutionising the tax regime, not only in property and other areas but for small businesses and as a very active property investor myself, the elimination of negative gearing on existing properties and cutting in half the capital gains tax discounts is, from all the research I've done, and I've been tapping into some very good independent research done by the RiskWise group

who are very clearly indicating that everyone's going to be affected by that and that's not just the investors. Homeowners, the general homeowners will be affected and renters are going to be affected so there's no-one who's likely to escape from the impacts of this and the sort of projections that RiskWise are doing on some very conservative modelling

is they're seeing 9% to 12% drops in property values generally. They're seeing rents rise quite substantially because the supply end will drop off because people just won't invest. And the thing that they can't put a number around is the impact of the perception of property. And what I mean by that is that the value of anything is only based on what people perceive as value.

And if Aussies move from our love of property to a point where we lose confidence in property because of those changes and no longer see property as the place to park our money, then there's a very real chance that we're going to see quite significant slips. and the real concern there, obviously, is that given that most Australian families, the majority of their wealth sits in the value of their home, we could very easily slip into a recession that we didn't need to have. What's your views and thoughts around that, mate? Just interested in getting your take on all of that.

Look, it is a real concern and I was even just having this conversation yesterday with one of the other board members of PIPA. You know, PIPA getting on the front foot to be lobbying and talking with government, you know, to not do the wrong thing. Because as you said, it's ripple effect. It's a whole big picture that it just affects so many things.

It's robbing Peter to pay Paul. If they try to use it as a, for some reason, and say we're going to get more money and then send more money on X, but so many layers, it could affect people, both from the building and construction industries, which employ hundreds of thousands of people, through to the mum and dad to, as you said, have equity tied up. Even from the housing supply, the concern there too is,

and you just said it previously, people invest, and while you make an investment decision, is to get a return. And, you know, the negative gearing and those offsets, you know, give the ability for people to buy property and hold, offset their holding costs, and it provides housing for people. You know, if people start pulling out of that market, it inflicts employment, it inflicts growth, as you said, price values, you know, and then that ripple effect goes down to the rent. if there's less people buying investment property to invest in as a return because the government's now made it not a viable investment, people will park their money elsewhere.

Yeah. And it will have an effect across. So, look, I know from PIPA's level, we'll be lobbying and talking very heavily with the political parties. Yeah. Because, again, it could do something no different to when they change the depreciation laws. You know, it's also the way it's communicated.

Yes. You know, unfortunately, because unfortunately, you know, even like recently, the thing that I get, when it's communicated by the media or the media communicators, doom and gloom, it also sends ripple effects through, you know, the whole market and consumer confidence. Just like when 60 Minutes did an article not long ago on, you know,

the doom and gloom of property values dropping. which, don't get me wrong, there is areas around Australia that 100% are overpriced, and they will have correction. There's also lots of areas that is good buying. There's always good and bad anywhere in Australia. Well, interestingly enough, just reinforcing that very point, and you're right, the 60 Minutes and a number of other media outlets love to feed on either greed or fear, and fear tends to sell newspapers.

Yes. But if you look at the cold hard facts, out of the 12 major areas around the country, only three of them have seen negative growth over the last 12 months, and that happens to be Sydney and parts of Melbourne. and the other interesting fact around that also Richard is that while Sydney has seen quite meteoric growth over the previous four years if you look at the last 15 years Sydney was actually the worst performing area for property in terms of capital growth around the country

and what we've seen there is a catch up and then an oversell and all we're seeing now is just the normal market correction that happens cyclically every 8 to 15 years. So, unfortunately, the media and the pollies and now the banks who are taking advantage of the villainisation of investors, trading this two-tier lending environment

and making investors pay a lot more for the same thing. And I think the overall concern there, as you've very well pointed out, is it's the way the message is communicated and it comes back to providing all the information, not just the bits that scare people, that can portray it. And you're right, my joint fear with you is that the fear-mongering around the negative gearing

and capital gains treatment can amplify the issue to the point where people are making ill-informed decisions that's going to have unintended consequences on everyone in terms of whether they're renters or property owners. So, yeah, thanks for sharing your thoughts on that because it's a sleeping giant issue, I believe, that isn't really getting highlighted to the level that, because people aren't appreciating how much of an impact it's going to have

on living conditions, wealth and living costs across the board. So some interesting challenges in that regard. But in talking about that, and I guess it's fair to say, Richard, that one of the lessons that I think you and I have learnt along the journey, because I, like you, early days my properties were more lifestyle-driven from a decision than they were all existing properties. But the holy grail for any investor that everyone's trying to achieve the magic code is a situation where they can build a potentially multi-million dollar property portfolio

that puts money in their pocket every week. It doesn't impact on lifestyle. It doesn't bite into salary or savings. It can keep anywhere between $8,000 to $12,000 a year of income in their pocket and it can enable them to pay off their home loan years earlier and save tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest as a consequence of that. You and I both know what the secret to that is.

Would you like to share your learnings around that and the way you're now approaching the property side to achieve those things? Yeah, look, definitely. And if I could just quickly go on with it, but there's just one little point I just want to go back over what you just said about the fear-mongering with the media. Sure.

Just to close off on that, if you don't mind. Yeah, absolutely. One thing that gave me a bit of a laugh, you know, 60 Minutes did this doom and gloom about how the end of the world was coming for property. But, you know, when you step back and actually look at it from an objective perspective, television stations are there to sell adverts, ultimately.

Yeah. But the, and I don't know if you might have noticed, but the adverts that they ran during that 60-minute segment was Channel 9's The Book. Yeah. Which is why, so it's, you know, even that TV station is trying to present a, you know, a 60-minute documentary thing and then in the ad breaks they're advertising one of the most

highly overcapitalised, you know, properties that you can think of. Yeah, and high-risk strategies. Sorry. A high-risk strategy, well overpriced, buying an emotion, you know, and it's just, I guess, when you really look at it, the media portrays these things, you know, and really they're just trying to sell papers. Sorry, that's just my point.

No, and actually I'm glad you went back to that because I was actually part of that 60-minute story, Richard, and what really appalled me and disappointed me, mate, was that when they interviewed me for that story, they said, oh, we've heard people talking about potentially 40% drops in property values. What's your commentary on that? And I said, it's never going to happen.

We're seeing a normal correction in the market that's going to be anywhere between 9% and maybe 15% in very isolated areas. very isolated areas and that's normal and expected that this we're just going through what we if we go back through the cycles of property over the last 100 years this is a normal part of the cycle so i have no concerns about it whatsoever yes yes in every exercise where people have bought at the the peak of the market and they've leveraged to the max and they're living above and beyond their means,

then they are going to get caught. So there's going to be an isolated number of people that will be caught by that and that's more about their ignorance than their intelligence in terms of getting caught up in the emotion of feeling like they're going to miss out and they have to get in. But reinforcing your point,

the disappointment for me is that all of the positive information that I communicated during the interview with the 60 Minutes team was cut out of the story. And the only bits that they grabbed onto were the bits that were reinforcing the gloom and doom exercise. But here's a good thing, and you've touched on it as well, and I've made these comments to others.

60 Minutes' role is to highlight a situation and by going to the extreme, that program was now six or eight weeks ago, We're still talking about it. And the fact that we're still talking about it, I think, is positive because it gives people like you and I an opportunity to share what the real facts and figures are so that people are getting the information

that they need to be making much more informed decisions on what the truth is. So, thanks for coming back to that, mate. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. Yeah. Sorry, go on. That really actually...

So, thanks for letting me go back. But that also leads into what you just asked now, which is that buying property can be a rewarding experience, but it is about making sure, again, this is where the right advice and the right structure is. The key thing that we make sure, and as you said, property can be very easily positively used. From a cash flow perspective, there's lots of different strategies with the right advice and the right people that you can implement what they call an ITWV, so Income Tax Withholding

Variation. So if you are a PAYG, you know, you have got the ability to have the benefit of maximizing your tax, you know, and getting those deductions to offset, you know, the investment, you know, so that the tax plan does help. In a classy example there, we had a lady, she was a professional. She was earning $230,000 a year on her income. Yep. We sat down with her, and we actually did a what if I had, and we said, look, right, and she's a very busy professional, high income, obviously at that level she's paying 50 cents

in the dollar tax, nearly, in the top tax bracket. We actually said, well, here's your tax return. Had you bought an investment property on the 1st of July for that financial year, we worked out on all the conservative numbers, One, she was actually going to be about $5,000 a year positive in her pocket as a minimum. And then even at very conservative capital growth, I think she basically lost about $20,000 and this has been highly conservative by not having an investment property. And it was purely because she's in a very high tax bracket.

But regardless of your tax bracket as well, the advantage, there are tools out there that you can, as you said before, structure your finances right, gear it correctly, maximise the tools that are out there such as, and that income tax withholding allows you, it's basically the equivalent of getting your tax refund in advance. Yes. So, as you said, from a weekly cash flow perspective, there are strategies where, you know, submit to the government, you know, if you would have got maybe a $10,000 refund because of all the property deductions at the end of the year, you can actually apply to have that with your employer, you know, not taxed during the year. So, it just means it's giving you weekly cash flow, importantly cash flow, rather than waiting for a lump sum when you submit your tax return. So little strategies like that, and as you said, don't over-gear. Well, and there's a couple of key things there that are sitting underneath this as well, and it's the penny drop that you've obviously recognised and I did sometime into my journey, and that is the benefits of building over buying.

And it's become the gap between those two is actually widening from an affordability context because with the minor tweaking of negative gearing last year when plant and fixtures and equipment were removed from depreciation unless you put them in new, the massive benefit of building is that, one, you're only paying stamp duty on the land, not the full value of the property. So, you know, depending on where you are,

that can be a saving anywhere between $10,000 to $20,000-plus grand. and then the depreciation benefits on the capital, the plant and the equipment can significantly reduce that taxable income and as you say, depending on how much income you're earning, we run detailed analysis of this all the time but it's not difficult for someone on an average combined household income to be keeping somewhere between $8,000 to $12,000 a year in their pocket on a $450,000 to $500,000 property.

And when you put that back into the mix and then apply what you've talked about there with the PAYG tax withholding variation so that, you know, let's say the 10 grand that you were going to get back as a lump at the end of the year, you're getting it back every week when you're paid. So there's, you know, just shy of 200 bucks a week going back into your cash flow.

That's the difference between the average first-time investor who, you know, over 50% of first-time investors sell a property within the first five years. And I know damn well, for all those that I've seen in the time I've been in the industry, that's because they haven't structured it the right way to make it cash flow affordable. And when they start having issues with employment

or they're sending their kids to private school, because it's actually been biting, you know, $200 or $300 a week into their pocket, it becomes unsustainable and then they knee-jerk and get rid of the property early. Whereas if they'd seen through the advantages of buying a real home for real people in a gross suburb and then structured it the right way in relation to the financing structure but also the taxation structure by having a good accountant on the team, then you turn

quite a costly exercise into something that's cash flow neutral at worst. And therefore, they can get on with their career focusing on growing their income while their property portfolio financially is looking after itself without impacting or hamstringing their lifestyle in the process. So for me, that's been the holy grail, without doubt, and it took me a while to work that out. It's something that the reason why I... You hit on the head there too, Bushy, with it is about the numbers.

Yeah. And doing that detailed analysis is awesome. Yeah, it's spot on, It's the reason why working with yourself and the Aspire network has given me that confidence because you're getting good quality properties, they're good quality new builds, you're putting the energy into the specifications and the areas where you're spending the money that's not only going to attract a better tenant and then ultimately a better buyer at the end of the journey, but you're also tweaking that so that you're getting maximum depreciation

out of those fixes and fittings on the new-build property that's then reducing the cost of holding it. But the other almost counterintuitive exercise that a lot of investors don't see is that if we've structured a property in such a way, and let's say we're putting $10,000 a year or a bit more back into their pocket because the taxman's taking less, and that same $200 a week is going into an offset

against your home loan, then you're going to pay that home loan off years earlier and save tens of thousands and perhaps even over hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest depending on the size of your mortgage. So it's this old philosophy of, well, I'm just going to pay off the home loan and then live off my super.

I don't want to invest in properties too risky. That strategy is actually higher risk than investing in a good quality new built rental property that's going to help you get the title back to your home years earlier than what you otherwise would. What's your thoughts around that? Buying new is, I guess, all I've done now. And as a network, that's all we do is brand new property.

There's so many more benefits we've found with buying new. I guess a couple of things there is the ability with brand new, you get the most amount of tax deduction, which can also then help you maximise your deductions and enable you to actually pay off personal debt sooner, because you should always be trying to pay off non-tax-deductible debt while you've got tax... Instead of all my properties now, I only ever buy brand new.

Some of the other key things is the cost savings too. Judy, as you said, you say significant amounts there, along with also the lower maintenance and making sure it's a more desirable product. You know, there are different strategies. You can buy existing and renovate and pay more money. Where buying brand new or building, you know, a house and land, you're buying a building of a brand new house.

So a lot more desirable, a lot more deductions up front can certainly help, you know, offsetting those tax bills we get from the ATO. And a more desirable product that people want to live in for your tenants. Because, you know, like buying a brand new car. When a house has got a brand new house mill, you know, it's a lot more desirable than living in a house that's 30 years old. Yeah, that's a very good analogy. And I guess something I'd like you to expand on as well, Richard, is that often people can hear and see the benefits of new building, but they're too scared to go through the process because either they've never done it before,

it can take, you know, an extended period of time. If you're buying an existing one that's done and dusted in three months, if you're going to go and find a block of land and then get a builder and is the builder going to look after me? And, you know, there's a lot of fear around the risks perceived with that building process. What do you say to them when you get that sort of feedback? Look, you know, that's, again, something we've been passionate about.

It is a complex process, but when you do it every day, it's easy. And that's what we do. And it comes back to whether it's one of our network or having the right team. You know, there is people out there that know and understand the process. And there's some really, there's some very good builders out there. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad builders too. But with the right team, you know, and keeping that monitoring and tracking. One of the things we do very carefully, you know, we track, it is a process.

You know, we've built a very structured system around tracking that process. having the ability for investors to be actively involved by having logins to a platform where they can track what's happening, what's going on, getting progress photos. You know, there's a lot of, you know, builders have got license and obligations. You know, there's things you can do throughout the process to make sure there's quality control.

You know, it can be a very simple and easy process. Yeah. But again, I think it stands back to what you mentioned very early in our chat today is have the right people around you. Yeah. You know, and, you know, get that guidance and property investing can be rewarding. Look, as well as obviously I love being an active investor myself

and, look, I know the process because I, you know, we deal with it every day with people right across Australia but I actually get more enjoyment from when we see, you know, see first-time investors or, you know, see people who are trying to build a portfolio actually implement because we've been able to work together with them and coordinate that team with all the right professionals doing all the right things to make something seamless,

again, a rewarding and enjoyable experience so that they're excited to go on and build or buy the next investment in their portfolio because it has been a good experience. Yeah, and I guess talking firsthand, Richard, on my personal experience with your team through the Aspire Network, because I've been a big advocate and personal fan of building investment properties for a long time.

And up until coming across you and your team, I've personally burnt a lot of hours and a lot of time travelling the country, talking to builders on the ground, property managers, all the necessary people that you need to make this happen. but as a one-man operator effectively and certainly we've got good results from that but what has attracted me to what you're doing is not only do you have an awesome communication platform

that documents everything, every communication is there as a track record so that the client, ourselves and everyone else is on the same page but what you bring to the table is the quality of property research that you bring in terms of identifying, you know, where's the highest growth location based on this particular price point.

And then once you drill into that location, because you've got such a strong leverage position to be able to bring on board only those builders who meet the standards in terms of quality, time and cost and therefore have the ability to negotiate much more strongly than an individual investor or I would be able to and then to keep them honest because if they don't do the right thing, they're off your panel and won't ever be able to offer opportunities again

gives you quite a unique position in that regard in making sure that not only are you looking after the investor's interests but you're able to secure better properties at a better value with a better result than what either they could or others would try to do. Yep. Look, and thank you. Look, you hit it on the head.

One of our key things with our business, you know, things go wrong. You know, things, you can't just say it's always going to be a good experience but things happen. And what we've learned over the years, there's a couple of key things. So one, with our builders and vendors, we've been able to build some great relationships. But one of our key underlying principles is we have a one-strike policy. If things go wrong, and they do, but it's not so much about what goes wrong. It's about what they do to work with us and the investor to resolve the problem.

You know, and that's what we're, you know, if for some, and we've had, you know, there's a lot of builders and suppliers that we won't touch or we won't deal with. Either through we've done our due diligence on them and we just won't start doing them, or if we have done a build with them and they don't do the right thing, they get blacklisted from our whole national network.

We're not interested, regardless of who they are or what they do. If they don't look after the client, and the client doesn't get a good outcome, we move on. So that's sort of one level. But to get to that level, I guess, as you said, one of the things I was passionate about doing was powering, giving people like yourself with our network the ability to have an engine behind them that, as I said,

just in our research and acquisitions team, we've got five full-time staff. Yeah. And one of those travels the country on a plane visiting locations, the locations, meeting the builders, going and visiting their previous builds, looking at the finished product when they deliver their first property with us, we go and look at it, you know, we get independent inspections, you know, we have that quality, we've built relationships and, you know, our vendors know too that we won't accept, you know, a good

outcome for our clients and, you know, that's I guess the power of having a national network is we've been able to build those relationships, you know, and it gives a bit of weight, you know too because us it's about the client because the client we want the client to have a rewarding experience so they're they're not you know not put off to go and buy the second their third their fourth their fifth property you know yeah and you know that and that's as you said yes things go wrong but you know we we're here for the whole journey and you know we've had you know we've had experiences where yeah things have gone wrong but then as a network i can pick up the phone to the builder's director and go are you going to fix this yeah um i'm quite often bad cop

unfortunately if i have to be um yeah but the fact of the matter is if i if joe if someone goes direct and it's just mr and mrs smith building a property with a builder who does you know 500 bill a year you know it can sometimes fall on deaf ears but when obviously as a national network you know we'll quite often do more than one or two bills a year with them yeah they're quite keen to normally listen to us when we pick up the phone and call the director of the company. Yeah, exactly. That volume leverage that you bring to the table

in terms of getting issues resolved and ensuring the ongoing quality and responsiveness is you can't put a value on that, Richard. So, mate, that's awesome. Thankfully, we don't have to do it too often, but when we do, and again, that's why it's a one-strike policy. There is a lot of really good people in this industry. There's a lot of bad ones, but there is a lot of really good ones out there.

If we can help match people, and also behind that as well as the builder, the other part which you mentioned too, which we're passionate about and we pay for a lot of independent research, we built our platform as a communication tool, but to deliver unbiased information. When an investor looks at a property, we present it warts all. actually give them all the facts, independent research, analysis, so that together with their professional, they can digest that to understand it, to make an informed decision. There's no crystal balls, but if you look at the data and look at the right data, and if there's one takeaway as well from my side, don't look at the glossy brushes, and there's

some great, very pretty brushes and marketing material and sales material, but that's what it's fast material, you know, delve into the data, you know, and that's where the data and the numbers and the structure and everything else and dealing with the right team, that's always going to help make it a sustainable, long-time and enjoyable experience. Yeah, no, very well said, mate. Awesome, mate.

Now, I'm mindful of your time, so I want to switch gears a little bit into what I generally refer to as the ambush, which is the bushfire lightning round that just plays on the old bushy tag, mate and it's a just a five quick questions that uh all of the listeners keep uh wanting uh the answers to so uh yes and you might have mentioned this one already but what's your favorite quote and why yeah very very simply as i said earlier i wish you know i wish i if i knew now so if i knew then sorry if i knew then what i knew now I would have made different decisions

but in saying that you live and learn you know and I think it's just about taking that on right advice and listening to people don't always try to do it yourself get the right advice from the right people you know and that way young Richard you know 20 years ago

you know if he'd maybe gone and talked to some people rather than thinking he knew it all himself might have made different decisions yeah well said what about reading material What's the top book that you would recommend people read and why? For me, there are two sort of mindset-changing books. There's probably three books for me that have really,

in both either on audio or print, I quite enjoy listening to audio books. If I can give my top three, it's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I think that's a very I mean it's an old Dale Carnegie going back to the very early years but the principles just

apply to so many things in life the second to me was the four minute four hour work week by Tim Ferriss especially moving into the more entrepreneurial that book was quite fundamental

in me taking that next step in my career and early on from the property investing which again I wish I'd read earlier

was Rich Dad Poor Dad yeah it's a classic very early yeah they're probably some of my

top three yeah and they're enduring each of those have been bibles to me as well

Richard at various stages of the journey and they're just I reread them

and Dale Carnegie's was written in the early 1900s but it's still as relevant today as what it was then, so we're quite enduring in that regard. Mate, what about if we switch to a topic

that is top of mind to a lot of Australians because there are a lot of hard-working Aussies who feel they pay too much tax. What's the top thing that you've done to minimise the tax that you pay? The biggest thing is through property and making the right... Using property as a vehicle

but structuring those to have the biggest tax deductions possible and also working closely with my accountant as well to pick good records to make sure that I can get the fullest deductions possible but also have that record keeping and everything. But property by far, as far as minimising tax, both when I was a PAYG and obviously a business owner, the biggest deductions overall has been through property investment. Yeah, that's very good advice.

Mate, talking to the personal side of things, what's a personal habit that you adopt that contributes to your investment success? Yeah, look, I think it's about taking emotion out of it. for me and it's a originally i was more emotive driven um i guess the biggest learning was twofold was one take like the helicopter review approach don't just you know the devils sometimes they say devils in the detail but sometimes you need to take a step back and the big um sometimes we can get too focused in the right here and right now yeah so learning i guess learning to take a step back and also don't be from an ego perspective don't be afraid you know as i said and like if

going back to another quote uh it's my favorite too is that you don't know what you don't know there's a lot of people out there that will happily share that and have well experience and knowledge that you can tap into from mentors and professionals that will share and help you because they've done it um so thinking that talking to people and surrounding your block people who, you know, are going to be where you want to be. Yeah, that's awesome advice. Mate, and that's a nice segue into the final question, the ambush. What's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice

that you've ever received today? The worst one was, mate, I've got the best, if you invest in me, they're going to go through the roof. I had a mate, friend's cousin's uncle heard that this company's going to go through the roof because they found oil so off I went and bought shares in Lakes Oil and you know I was supposed to go from

four cents a share up to like a dollar a share I think they're still sitting at about two cents a share that was definitely my worst yep what about the best? yeah so look the best

My best, and my joke is it's above my pay grade. My best advice now is when I want to buy a property, as well as I do my own research, my acquisitions manager, who's also a friend of yours, when I want to buy a property, because that's what he does every day, I know what I'm doing too, but he knows it better than me, and I'm not too proud to go,

right, where's the best one that we've got right now, and what do you think, what are your thoughts? And, you know, my last few properties, you know, have been guided as well as doing my own research. But, you know, my starting point was listening to someone who knows something more than what I do. Yeah, that's absolutely awesome advice. And if we can keep our egos in check and keep humble enough to recognize that we're smart enough to hone into the expertise and experience of people who know better, then life will be a lot easier. And it took me a long time to learn that lesson, by the way, Richard.

Mate, that has been... Yeah, mate, me too. Mate, that's been absolutely awesome. Mate, sort of bringing it to a close, what's next new and exciting for Richard Crabb and the Aspire Network? Look, we're really excited. You know, as a business, we've obviously continued to grow nationally, and we're helping more and more investors every day.

One of the exciting things for us, again, we've got a lot more businesses now because we've actually been at the forefront. We're getting more people coming to us now as far as big businesses who are looking at ways of helping their clients coming to us. So we're really excited.

Ultimately, from Aspire, I just want to see getting the message out there So people gain advice from the right people. Yeah. And that's what I'm passionate about, you know, and that's both personally and professionally, you know, that if you help people, what goes around comes around. Yeah.

I think that's a great message to finish on is, you know, recognise that anything, and including property investment, isn't a late-team sport. Make sure you're surrounding yourself with people who are better than you and know more than you. And make sure that each of those is independent, objective and transparent in their communication, which is exactly the reason why I'm now talking to you today and working with you to help other investors enjoy that level of professionalism.

And, mate, it's been a real pleasure having a chat to you. I know the Aspire Network's going to go to bigger and better things because if someone with someone like myself on board. And I am pretty fussy who I outsource my reputation to, Richard. And likewise, we've been privileged to see what you do too. Yeah, thanks, mate. Look, keep up the great work. We'll obviously continue to be doing stuff together.

And we'd like to check in with you again in the future on and get invested to see what's happening and to talk about sort of common areas of interest. that investors want to learn a bit more on. Look, that's been great. And thank you again for the opportunity. And yeah, happy to help and share and discuss anything at any time.

Thanks, mate. Appreciate your time. Cheers, Richard. Likewise. Thanks, Bushy. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? 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.bussymartin.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.