How to Build a Scalable Property Portfolio with AI and Expert Guidance

Summary

In this episode, Katey Battenally shares insights on property investing, emphasising the importance of understanding your 'why', developing a wealth mindset, and leveraging technology and professional teams to build a successful property portfolio.

She discusses Dashdot's innovative system, strategies for scaling investments, and how to make informed decisions for long-term financial freedom.

Key Topics

• The importance of understanding your 'why' in investing
• Dashdot's AI technology and data-driven decision making
• Strategies for scaling property portfolios beyond one or two properties
• The role of professional teams in successful property investing
• Developing a wealth mindset and long-term planning

Follow us at @the_wingpodaus on Instagram and subscribe to @TheWingPodcastAu on Youtube to stay connected to every episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Wing, the emotional and financial health check you never knew you needed. We provide tangible solutions for young women to build emotional health and wealth on their journey from school to motherhood. This is the podcast for young women in Australia navigating the big stuff. Life, money, and motherhood. From high school to first homes, babies to bank accounts, we take you on an interactive listening journey that helps you make smart, empowered decisions every step of the way.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello, ladies, welcome to another episode of the Wing Podcast. I am recording a solo episode about property investing and investing in general. So I want you to think about this as a quick tidbit and maybe your sign to start looking into what your investment strategy might be and why that's important to you. So I ran a presentation recently which was based around figuring out your why. So I'm going to get the details of that up and share it with you because I think that it's valuable. Now, this podcast is centered around Dash Dot. So, as most of you know, I have worked for Dash Dot for quite some time now, since September 2022, and I know the business inside and out. I am a client of Dashdot as well. Jake and I are both a client of Dash Dot. We have purchased our own investment property with them and experienced phenomenal growth with that property that we bought through Dashdot and using their AI, their proprietary tech, their machine learning, their uh buy, hold, sell measures to determine for well, firstly, where were we supposed to buy at the time and what was right for us and why you whether we hang on to that property, whether we sell it. When we sell it, uh, we have all of the intel that we basically don't need to think about at all because the it's a we've taken out all of the guesswork by using Dashdot to figure that all out for us. We the property we purchased is in South Australia. It's in Port Lincoln. I've never been to Port Lincoln, I didn't even know it was a place. Um, so for us to be able to achieve what we did as a result of engaging with Dash Dot, yeah, we've been able to grow, uh, grow our property portfolio even more so based on what they were able to see for us that we couldn't see ourselves. This is something I talk about a lot with through Dash Dot and speaking to potential clients of Dashdot and different partners in the that are coming to the fold into the business, is that often we buy property or we make investment decisions based on what we know or who we know about a particular area or a particular strategy and lean on certain professions. Sometimes we don't lean on professions. Sometimes we take in information from a backyard barbecue that based around hearsay, like, oh, my auntie heard about this, you know, property in wherever, and apparently that's going to be the next growth area. That type of strategy is not a strategy. It's something that can lead us all down the garden path. It can lead us to emotional purchases. We're not necessarily looking at we we may land on properties that might grow over time, but they're not necessarily properties that are going to perform the most growth in the shortest amount of time. Again, this is going back to figuring out what your why is and where where you want to be ultimately. So I covered off on a couple of things in this presentation. I also spoke in front of the Brumbies. So for you guys and girls that live in the ACT, you will know the Brumbies rugby team. Um so I spoke in front of them as well. And obviously that was a slightly different conversation because typically athletes have a different career, I guess, outlook and trajectory than the average punter like ourselves. So I was speaking with them about how they can look at building a property portfolio to set themselves up for success beyond their sporting career. Now we can be thinking about that in everyday life as well. How do we set ourselves up beyond our careers? A lot of the time we're thinking of retirement, or maybe it maybe it's a bit of an older mindset for now, but you know, how how do we get to retirement? What are we going to do when we retire? Retirement age, I think it's 65 or 67 or something. I don't know how any of us know what we're going to be doing at, you know, that point in time, no matter where you are on your journey right now. That's a very difficult time frame to kind of project and predict, rather. So figuring out what we can be doing now to set yourself up for a life of freedom, choice, and abundance, all dash dot words. Um, but it's everything we live by at dash dot as well. So this the the team work from anywhere, we're all building property portfolios to ultimately set ourselves up for success sooner and ultimately achieve financial freedom. I think it's less about finding a retirement goal and more about finding a financial freedom goal. So trying to look at a long-term vision rather than getting caught up in the now, um, zooming out and being able to establish more about what your wealth mindset might be. So I'm reading to some slides here that I had in these presentations to help you understand where you're at right now, where you could be, and where you might want to be in the future to set yourself, your family, your kids, whoever it may be, up for success. So, wealth mindset, uh, we're talking about how your beliefs can become your reality. So, with a wealth mindset, the way you think about money determines the opportunities you see. So, you might think back onto what your money blueprint was growing up, the language that was used in your home with parents, family members, influences around your life, and how you think about money. I've talked about this before in terms of whether you have a growth mindset or a if you've got a scarcity mindset. So, how how you think, yeah, like growth or closed mindset, depending where you are. So being able to identify that first is going to help you understand your wealth mindset and how you think about money and what opportunities you see as a result of money. Now, money itself is not the goal. The goal that we're looking at in in this particular topic is financial freedom. So building that wealth and learning that that wealth is not just about income, it's about strategy, patience, and belief. So understanding that your income will typically have a cap on it, um, depending on what industry you're in and what you do for a living. But usually an income, a basic income, salary, P A Y G, business income will only get you to a certain point. So it's about thinking outside the box and building this into your wealth mindset about okay, well, how else can I build wealth? And that's where investing comes into it. Investing is not just a fun term for, you know, we're not talking about, I'm quoting Goose here. Goose is uh one of the co-founders of Dashdot. The recent Instagram video I was watching of his recently he said when we're talking about financial freedom and building wealth, we're not talking about super yachts. We're talking about being able to send your kids to the school that you want them to go to. We're talking about living in the home that you want to live in. We're talking about giving your family opportunity in terms of travel or education or just general day-to-day living, eating good food, staying healthy, being able to support all of those things as a result of building wealth. And wealth is often, I guess that word in particular is associated, you know, with words like rich or words that are well not necessarily very helpful because it can seem like a pie in the sky, hard-to-achie type situation. Whereas if you're talking about wealth from a different angle, we're talking about building investment strategies that you can be patient with that are going to serve you over time. The most successful investors start by shifting how they think about money. So if you do believe that wealth is possible, you can start making decisions that create that wealth. And you can start doing that early enough in your life whereby you're not bound and you know working for the man forever. So wealth mindset in action. Successful investors share a few core beliefs. So wealth is built over time, not overnight. That's an easy one, but it's very easy to say that. But actually understanding that and being able to zoom out is going to be a lot more powerful for you. Understanding that wealth is built over time is going to help you along the way so that if you do make an investment decision that either you weren't sure about or maybe you did have a strategy behind it, you're not looking for a quick win. You need to be able to take the guesswork out of the entire process, but you're also not looking for quick wins by engaging with different professional services that are going to help you on that journey. No one's going to promise you anything overnight, but they can promise you or help guarantee your success over time. Property is a vehicle, not the end goal. So, or when I'll split that into two. So, property being the vehicle as an investment strategy, if you do it properly, is what's going to get you from A to Z. And not being the end goal. So the end goal, it might be a case of purchasing your dream home. That could be an example of an end goal, but property itself as an investment portfolio is the vehicle. So that's what's going to get you to where you need or want to be. Consistency beats perfection, applicable in all areas of life, quite honestly, but it's one of the hardest things to achieve. It's something that I struggle with personally. But I know that if I engage with certain professional services to build a property portfolio, to build a stock portfolio, to learn how we can pass on generational wealth to our kids. We have all of these things in motion as we speak. These things aren't giving us overnight success. These are giving us long-term success. But I can trust in those processes with those professional services, so financial planner and property portfolio strategists, dash dot, that their processes, their systems, their intel, their knowledge, their AI, everything that they're working with is what's creating that consistency for us. Because consistency independently, if we were to try and have a stab at all of those things ourselves, it's not going to necessarily give us the outcomes that we're after for our immediate life, our future life, and our kids' future lives. Every decision should move you closer to financial freedom. Now, a lot of the time finding out what that decision is is the most difficult part, but that's where I'm not suggesting that you try and figure these things out yourself. The message here is build your team, establish the right professional services around you so that you can employ them to create that, those opportunities for you to move you closer to financial freedom. So your mindset here is what's going to turn the possibility into action. So being able to shift your mindset or understand your mindset, shift your mindset, and then just buckle down and do the things. Knowing your why. So this is something that comes up a lot in corporate settings, I'm sure. If anybody's been to a conference, knowing your why is a very uh common topic, I suppose, that that comes up. But I think establishing this is very important to understanding your reason for investing rather than the investments themselves. So if you can understand why you're doing it. So if it is for family, if it is for your future personal or professional development, if it is for your kids, whatever, whatever your why is, if you can establish that, you kind of, you know, work backwards from there. So the investments themselves won't, like rather than saying, oh, I want to have a stock portfolio because I feel like that's something good to do. Well, why are you doing that? Figure that out first, and then you'll be able to determine if those investments are actually the right thing for you. People invest in property, for example, to create financial freedom, replace their income, provide opportunities for their family, and reduce financial stress later in life. So your why is going to become the fuel that keeps you moving forward and keeps you understanding if you're on the right track, if you're not, how do you get on the right track and if investing in property in particular is something that is going to work for you? Your why drives better decisions. So when your purpose is clear, you can stay focused during market changes, you can avoid emotional decisions, you can think long-term instead of short term, and you can build wealth with intentions. So investors without a clear why will often stop too early. They might panic, they might think, oh my gosh, the market's changing, interest rates are going up, the market's going down. It's very easy to get distracted from your investment journey if you don't have a clear purpose. So if you've got a clear purpose, clear why, clear strategy, the right people in your team, you're going to be able to navigate all of those variables and in in market changes in particular, because you've got confidence in the process that is long-term rather than looking at, okay, what's happening right now and do I need to panic? Obviously, avoiding making emotional decisions is a big one when it comes to investments, particularly with property. We're all human. We all have some sort of attachment to either a home or memories made in a certain area, a location, the people around us, those types of things all factor into making emotional decisions. Now, when you're making an emotional decision, it's not necessarily based on logic or facts, facts and data. So when you're talking about building an investment and or andor property portfolio, you need to be thinking strategically and ultimately taking the emotional decision making out of that. Being able to identify what your purpose is and making that clear early is what's going to eliminate things, the mistakes that can happen if you're purchasing things or making investment decisions based on emotion. You're thinking long term instead of short term, as I said, and you're building you're building that with all with intention. Now replacing income. So this is a big topic and it's confusing. Obviously, it depends on your own personal circumstances. So I'm not here to give any kind of financial advice that is not my wheelhouse. This is about, it's a big question, and it's something that you might have been thinking in the past, like how on earth do I replace my income? A lot of people think retirement, okay, we'll get access to my super and that will replace my income, hopefully at some point in time. But there's different ways that you could be thinking about this and figuring out is this possible with property investing? So the short answer about replacing income with property is yes, but it requires strategy and not luck. So, and this is again, it's you're based on your individual circumstances, if you figure this out early enough with the right professional services in your corner, you're going to be able to establish if if this is actually going to be part of your journey. And if so, you can get excited about it and start to do the things. So property can create income through rental cash flow, equity growth, portfolio expansion, and strategic refinancing so that over time assets can begin to work harder than your job does. As I said, your job would typically have some sort of cap on it, whether that's a capacity of your own time or earning ability, those things can inhibit your long-term growth. So thinking outside the box, how else can you look at building your portfolio over time? So the power of compounding property. One property will rarely change your life, but a portfolio can. So there's an example path that I've got. So one property can be your foundation, right? So at least getting your foot in the market, whether that's your principal place of residence, whether that's an initial investment property, that will ultimately be your foundation for the future. If you don't already have a property, then this is the perfect time to consider a conversation with Dashdot so that they can actually see where are you right now, where do you want to be, and how do we get there. So once you've ideally, you purchase a property if you don't already have one, and then you can start to build some momentum with your next couple of properties. Now, where you're going to see serious growth is between four and six properties, and seven plus properties, you're talking about replacing your income. So property investing is a long game, and that's where the magic happens. So you're probably thinking that's quite overwhelming. That's a lot of properties, that's a lot of transactions, and maybe that's not necessarily the amount that needs to get you to the amount. It again, individualized goals. These are things that you can step out with dash dot so that you can understand your own situation and realize, yeah, where you are now, if what your goals are, you might not know what your goals are. And that's something that can be worked through to discover if it is a right fit for you. So why most investors never achieve success in property investing? Most people fail in property investing because they buy emotionally instead of strategically. They choose the wrong locations, they stop after one property and they lack a clear long-term plan. Stopping after one property is extremely common. And obviously, purchasing a property can be a stressful experience. So if you can take the friction out of that by engaging with professionals to make sure that all of the groundwork is done for you, all the guesswork is taken out of it, then you're able to rinse and repeat. So purchasing up to seven or more properties is not as scary as it sounds because you're not actually doing all of that yourself. You've got someone in your corner doing the due diligence, finding the location so that you don't buy in the wrong location and creating that long-term plan for you so that it's not a big scary thing that you never want to do ever again. The difference between success and frustration is having a system. There's some ATO stats here. So 90% of property investors stop at one to two properties. So the breakdown of that is 71% own one property, 19% own two properties, and only 10% move beyond that, meaning that most investors start, but very few scale. So if you fall in that category and you feel like you've started, but then you're stuck and you don't know how to scale. That is a time where you can be having conversations with property professionals to help you scale the portfolio you have or that you want. So 10% build portfolios larger than two properties, and less than 1% own six or more properties. So there's a way that you can find your way into being in that 1% that owns six or more so that you are able to experience the what scale in a property portfolio can actually do for you. Why investors get stuck? So again, not having a long-term portfolio strategy, structuring their loans poorly, buying the wrong first property, which is not necessarily a roadblock, but something, if you identify that early enough, you can make changes to either sell that property, hold that property, or leverage off that property to go to your next step. A lot of people run into borrowing capacity limits, and a lot of people don't have the right team or guidance. So being able to build that team and have that guidance around you consistently is what's going to give you the confidence to keep going. So instead of getting stuck and not knowing how to scale, you don't need to stop there. You can continue and have that team around you to be doing all of that work for you. So the missing piece is often a strategy. Successful investors will follow a roadmap so that they have a clear portfolio plan, data back decisions, expert guidance, and long-term thinking. Strategy is what's going to remove the guesswork for you. Now utilizing structures. So this is this is a topic for your tax accountant or financial planner, but I'm just going to bring it to your attention. So if you're planning to scale, there are a number of ways you can do it. So there are also a lot of ways that you can purchase property, purchase it in your personal name, in a business name, in a trust, in an SMSF, which is a self-managed super fund. For those of you that have not heard that acronym before, smart investors will think just beyond just buying property. So the right structure can help with. So getting these structures established early, again, building your team around you, making sure you have a good accountant. You may or may not need a financial planner, a proper property portfolio team that are able to help you with this type of advice. It's going to assist you with asset protection, tax efficiency, estate planning, and long-term wealth preservation. So the key is using structures that support your strategy. So structuring for long-term wealth, every investor's situation is different. So possible structures include personal ownership, as I touched on, trust structures, companies, self-managed super funds. So I'm reiterating that because it hopefully that opens up your mindset to understanding that there are a number of different ways that you can purchase property and scale. The right professionals will help you ensure your investments are built for longevity so that you don't get roadblocked or you don't run into borrowing capacity issues or you don't have restrictions on your loans or loans that are structured poorly. Again, having the right people in your corner is what's going to eliminate a lot of this risk and unknown for you. Building the right team, I have touched on this, and it's very important. If you think about it like this, property investing is a team sport. So the best investors surround themselves with property strategists, financial specialists, property portfolio professionals, accountants, property managers, mortgage brokers. The list goes on. There are plenty of professional services out there that are accessible to you that are going to be able to help you move faster and avoid making costly mistakes. So your team will create momentum. So a strong team will allow you to access better opportunities, make faster decisions, reduce risk, and focus on long term growth. Behind every successful investor is a team working with them. So you might know somebody who seems to be investing and you maybe don't know how they're doing it. I would guess that that investor has probably got a team of professionals behind them working alongside them so that they're guided consistently in the right direction. And that can be you. So I'm gonna give you the spiel on Dashdot because I have done it in a previous episode, but I feel like I needed a little update and refresh. So hopefully this makes sense to you and you can start to understand why I'm passionate about Dashdot and how they're able to help you grow your property portfolio. So Dash Dot's portfolio growth system combines advanced technology, artificial intelligence, and personalized strategies to make property investing simple and powerful. This isn't just a property buying service, it's a complete system designed to deliver results, mitigate risks, and help you achieve long-term financial independence. So after many years and millions of dollars in development, Dashdot's portfolio growth system guides you through four key phases plan, finance, acquire, and optimize. So the unique combination of service science and software makes property investing easy. Every decision is data backed, every move aligns with your goals, and every opportunity is curated for you. So Dashot is a very custom service. We have a very specific framework that we follow for every client, but everyone's situation is different. So we're able to establish that with you early in the process before you commit to anything so that you can understand where you are now, where you want to be, how do you get there. To give you an idea on the power of Dashdot's technology, it uses advanced artificial intelligence, which I mentioned. It's a proprietary tech, so it belongs only to Dash Dot. And the data and science that are behind it all, there's an entire data science team that work on Dash Dot full-time. So Dash Dot's system is powered by insights gained from analyzing over 2.9 billion data points. So that is going to save you a lot of time than scrolling around the real estate portals, having a guess on realestate.com or domain on what you should buy, or all of that guesswork is completely removed. You'll be able to maximize returns, reduce risk, and streamline decisions so that you're not playing a guessing game in the property market, and you're actually able to build a useful property portfolio that will serve you long term. There are a few elements that power DashDot's portfolio growth system. So there's a portfolio growth plan, which ultimately is your guideline, your mud map to your future. So it's a proprietary tool powered by AI and neural networks. The PGP crafts personalized property portfolio plans tailored to individual goals. So continuously refined with real-time data, these plans optimize pathways to maximize returns and minimize risks. If you don't have a plan, you don't know where you're going. So being able to establish a plan early is going to be impactful for building your property portfolio, and this is something that they will do for you. We have a suburb selection platform. So our internal platform uses advanced algorithms to pinpoint the best emerging markets, ensuring clients enter high growth areas at the perfect time. So right property, right place, right time. This is all going to come down to your individual circumstances, where you're at right now, where you want to be. REME, so that's a real estate market intelligence tool. It's a proprietary system that analyzes suburb level data, including growth, cash flow, affordability, and socioeconomic factors through machine learning, delivering high-quality investment reports for targeted, high-growth locations. Try and find a tool that does that for you. It doesn't exist. So we have it at Dashdot. That is the core of what our team do day in, day out, and have done for many years to be able to achieve the growth results that they have for clients, myself and Jake included. There's also suburb price and rent forecasting models, which is unique to Dashdot. So the forecasting models predict suburb level median property prices and rents up to 15 months in advance. So that's just visibility you would not be able to get yourselves. I'm telling you that for free. Then there's portfolio performance optimization. So it's not just a tick and flick, here's your property, off you go. There's an ongoing relationship that you will have to make sure that your portfolio is consistently optimized. A goal without a plan is just a wish. So every great achievement in life begins with a clear, actionable plan. Investing in property without a plan is like setting off on an adventure without a map or a destination. So no matter how motivated you are, you can end up lost and on the road to nowhere. Might sound cheesy, but it's true. Dash Dot have a team of specialists in property investment finance as well. So they work with a lot of different clients. So if any of this rings true to you, whether you're self-employed or a business owner, if you're an employee on PAYG, if you have a self-managed superfund, an SMSF, or if you have trusts and corporate structures, or that's somewhere you want to get to, you definitely are able to experience help from the Dash Dot team. The unique strengths of the finance team will be that they'll be able to maximize your borrowing capacity. They'll be able to structure loans to boost serviceability. They'll give you plenty of lender possibilities and education and guidance along the way. As a client of Dashdot, it's a pretty simple way to engage. So what you would do, and you can click my link because you will receive a discount off their strategic acquisition service, but let's go back a few steps. The recommendation is to book in a 15-minute DC. So 15-minute discovery call with the team. It's very simple. You can do a Zoom or a phone call, you have a chat to one of our consultants or advisors, and determine whether we're a right fit for you and you're a right fit for us. If you are, you will move on to a 45-minute SS, which is a 45-minute strategy session. That will be with one of our advisors. So that's a deep dive into where you are now, where you need to be, how you're going to do that. Ultimately, then you'll be able to make a decision if you are ready, first of all, to go ahead with a strategic acquisition of an investment property. If you are, and you go ahead, well, you can get a little discount as a result of listening to this podcast and being connected with the wing. And you'll move on to the process. So the process itself is very like low intensity from your perspective. So we require about five hours of your time across the whole purchasing process for the acquisition of an investment property. But Dashdot will take everything off your plate. So I'll read you a couple of things that they'll be doing for you. This list is quite long, but they'll be able to analyze properties against 147 different criteria to make sure they're correct for you. They'll reject properties that aren't suited to you. They will create cash flow and growth forecasts, estimate cash required for the deal, complete pre-purchase inspection, complete thorough assessment of property as a perfect fit for your portfolio, share full due diligence on a selected property, create detailed presentation with information and insights that you need, meet with you to answer questions and agree on a game plan, negotiate and secure the property, coordinate the contract, liaise with the conveyances and brokers, share contract key dates with you and help you stick to them, coordinate structural inspections, review inspection reports and renegotiate if needed, support you through the loan process, collect insurance quotes, introduce you to vetted property managers, ensure any agreed works are done before settlement, coordinate and review final inspections, support you through settlement, debrief on entire process once settled, and you will be able to benefit from the team of experts in your pocket, regular progress updates and market insights, tailored educational resources to help you grow, and ongoing strategic guidance if things change. So that's the whole package. And those are a whole bunch of things that come up during the acquisition of any property. So to be able to take that off your plate and have a do-it-with you approach is highly valuable. Not only that, the results that you're going to achieve in a shorter time frame without having to worry is where the real value lies as well. Just so you know, the purchasing ethos of Dash Dots. So we only buy investment properties, not homes to live in. We only shop residential, not commercial, only purchasing established properties in established neighborhoods. We never buy off the plan new builds or work with developers. We never accept kickbacks from project marketers and sprukers. And we only buy what suits each client. So not we don't grab from a stock list. We buy assets that best suit your strategy, so houses, units, or complexes. And ultimately we buy Australia-wide wherever the timing is right. The team are responsive, which is super helpful. So we use Slack as our internal communications tool. This is something that you would get access to if you did engage with us and decided to go ahead with a property purchase. It's very live, is probably the best way to explain it. So our team are active. They're going to reply to you whenever they can and to make sure that if you are going through an acquisition, that it is all kept on track and it is smooth. So, first step. Hopefully, well, first of all, I hope you got some value from that. My goal is to help at least one person every episode. So if I can help one of our listeners by listening to this, then my job is done. Now, if you are ready to enter the property market, so or maybe you're not ready. It really doesn't matter. Either way, have a 15-minute discovery call with the team at Dash Dot and just at least that's going to be your starting point. Whether you own property already or you don't, you're still going to be able to pulse check where you're at and where you need to be. If we are a right fit, then you'll move on to the to the subsequent steps. So you'll move on to a 45-minute strategy session after that. So, and the process will go on from there. You'll be prompted through the entire thing. But for now, all you need to do is reach out to Dashdot, follow my link in my bio, and be able to assess whether this is a right fit for you or not, whether the timing's right. If it's not, if the timing's not right, it's not a roadblock. You can, we can re-engage again in the future. But these are things that you can determine now so that you are not questioning what's happening later. Thank you all for listening to this episode of The Wing. I hope that's been the message from the universe that you needed that investing in property is an achievable thing for most people, given the right advice with the right support. So hopefully, my intel on Dashdot has been helpful and uh some chat there about wealth mindset and figuring out where you are, where you want to be, and how do you get there. Um, if you were madly taking notes while listening to this podcast, good work. If you weren't, you could probably drop me into ChatGPT and uh it'll give you a summary. Either way, I hope you enjoyed the episode and look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the wing. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

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