🔥 From $12/Hour to 15 Properties by 27 | The Strategy That Changed Everything For Jake McGregor

At just 28 years old, Jacob McGregor has built a property portfolio of 14+ investment properties — starting from scratch on a $12/hour apprenticeship.

In this episode, we break down the exact moment everything changed…
From struggling with his first property and wanting to quit, to discovering how equity, growth markets, and strategy can completely shift your financial future.

We unpack:

• The “lightbulb moment” that made him realise property could replace his income
• How he turned a $50–60k gain into a repeatable strategy
• The 3-part framework to scale a portfolio fast (growth + discount + value add)
• Why most investors get stuck at 1–2 properties — and how to break through
• The importance of cash flow, borrowing strategy, and using the right broker
• How he reached $70–80k passive income by 27

This episode is for anyone who:

• Feels stuck early in their investing journey
• Wants to understand how to actually keep buying property
• Or is trying to build a portfolio to replace income or upgrade their lifestyle

 If you’re serious about building wealth through property, this one gives you a real, practical blueprint.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

After I got that valuation back, it came back 50 to 60k higher. That was the light bulb moment that opened my eyes up to like, wow, if I can make 50 to 60k in that short amount of time on this one property, if I own 10 of them and they do 50 to 60k each over the six-month period, that that's some pretty crazy money.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I look back in that something that I bought in Perth, one of the places I bought in Rockhampton in Walmart, 129% growth in the last five years. Mental. All right, Jakey Megarega, welcome to the podcast, mate. Thanks for coming all the way down from the Gold Coast, all the way to lovely Crenella. Mate, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Thanks for having me on JT. It's been a long time coming, I think. I think so. I'm pumped to be here and get my story out there and yeah, hopefully inspire a few, a few young investors.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Nice, man. Well, you've you've had a probably one of the most interesting stories as a property investor. You got into this very young. Well, you're only 28 now. 28, 27? 28 now, yeah. 28 now, and you've got well over 14 investment properties.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And it's um it's very impressive. Like I'm in my mid-30s, and I've got six, and I've been like, I've gone to six, I've come back down, I sold some, bought like bought some more. And it's been interesting to be well mates with you over the last few years and just seeing your journey and your development, your maturity in regards to your business and also your property investing. But tell us before all of the property stuff happened, before all of the um investing happened, young Jake McGregor from the Goldie, what are you doing? What was early life? What was your ambitions around how to make money, how to get ahead?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Early life, I'd have to say it all started. So, how would you feel if you were in high school? You're coming to the end of high school, and all your mates, they knew what they were doing, right? They knew they had their life set out for them, they're going to uni, they're doing this and that. And I had no idea what I was doing. I had literally no idea. Um, and I had a couple mates have a little digs at me and go, oh, we'll see where you're at in a couple years, and we'll see, we'll see where I'm at, this and that. And like it's a contentious thing, eh? Yeah, at the end of high school. So I think that's where it started. That's what really um that's what really gave me the fire to want to do something. I still didn't know at the time what I wanted to do, but I knew You wanted to prove it to him. I needed, yeah, I needed to prove to him, you know. I didn't want to be left behind, basically. So that is when that's when the fire started.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

What did most of your mates do? Like, are they all are they all tradiers? Like around here in the Cranola, majority of guys are getting into a trade. Yeah. Well in the goalie, what was most of your mates doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

At the time, a lot of them were actually going to uni. So yeah, a lot of like there were a few guys doing trades and stuff as well, but majority of them were going to uni, like engineers, wow, stuff like that. The guy that told me, um, we'll see where you're at, see where I'm at. He was going to uni to be an engineer. Um, yeah, and that lit the fire in me. Where's he at now?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Just quickly, before we move on, where is he at? What's he doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I'd say I don't know, to be honest. I haven't checked on, I haven't checked up on him.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

You don't even match with him anymore.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

No, not really. It's um it's been a while now, it's been 10 years. So um though that's what that's so that's what lit the fire in me. I um my old man from a very young age, he did own a few investment properties. He used to bring me along with him. He always he always um drove into me, like, you gotta buy a property, buy property as quick as you can. The Australian dream, this and that. Yeah, Mr. McGregor. He was all over it. He was all over it. Um, I used to go and work with him on a few of his investment properties. He'd bring me along with him, he'd do the maintenance on them. And uh from a young age, I'd always say young age, how old were you? About 10? About 10, 10, 11. So yeah, I'd go along with him to his properties. And I remember thinking, like, why does this guy have two houses, three houses? Like, we're living in one of them. Yeah. What what what's his other one for? And that that's how it all started. He'd explained to me um investment properties, how it works, why you do it, this and that. So from a young age, I he kind of he kind of planted that seed in me. These were local properties.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

He you guys lived in the Gold Coast, and he had bought other properties as investments in the local area.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Local area. He was he was one of those investors, like all his properties, same suburb.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

So he wanted to go past it, check on the tenants.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, he loves it. Like he loves working on him himself. He loves getting emotionally attached to him.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

He just What's he do for work? What was he doing for work, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

He uh plumbing, so he's always had a plumbing business. Yeah. Um, my mum had she was in hairdressing, hairdressing business. Yeah, so from a young age, I always seen like we didn't come from heaps of money, but like it I was taught from a young age you really had to work for your money. Yeah. Um too hardworking profession, bro.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Hairdresser, just slogging it out all day on your feet. Yeah, 100%. Plumber out there digging holes, like digging holes on the shovel.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Good work ethic. Yeah, so that's that kind of instilled that work ethic in me from a young age. I saw it from such a young age. Um, yeah, and basically that is so that's that's where the seed got planted for property investing, and then the fire got built going out of high school from old mate telling you, like, see you where you're see where you're at in company's time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, well, I got to do something. I only got a couple months until school's up. Yeah. I saw what my um dad was doing. So he was in his plumbing business. I saw he was going pretty well, had a couple properties ticking along. I'm like, well, I'm just gonna follow in his footsteps. I may as well I like I I can't can't get any worse, got no, no plan at the moment. So I went into I went into plumbing and set the goal to buy a property as quick as I possibly could, just get into the market. How old are you at this time? What year was this? This this was um, I would have been halfway through grade 12, um, getting to the end of grade 12, so it would have been about six uh 16 or 17. 16, 17, and this would have been what back in 2020. Oh, 20, I'd say 2017. 2017, okay, nice. So that was that that that that lit the fire. That's where the um goal come from of buying a property. I went into plumbing, um, plumbing apprentice, doing constructions on like residential properties. Um was getting I started on seven dollars an hour, digging holes all day, every day. It was it was real hard work. Um I I it took me a couple years, obviously, to save a deposit up.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Um you make more money at Maccas or something.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah. Now I look back on it, I'm like, should I just became a Maccas manager or something? Seriously, yeah, literally. But um, nah. So I took it took me a couple years to save up a deposit. I was working, you know, 12-hour days, six days a week for years. Like it's I bought my first property in 19. So what's that, 16 or 17? I was saving two to three years. I had a couple a little bit of savings before that as well. I managed to scrape up 60k.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

60 grand as a 19-year-old. That's not bad. That's that's quality, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah. So I was getting I was getting good overtime, good um, because I was doing so much overtime. Um what's that, 14 bucks? And now it'd be like double the time. Yeah, I think when I started, my apprentice was on seven bucks. By the time I got around to actually buying the property, I think big, big pay increase. I was on 12 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

So you you you scroll away for years to buy your first to save your first deposit, you save 60 grand. What do you buy?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

So I bought in a suburb on the Gold Coast that is the neighboring suburb to where I grew up in. Um at the time um back then it was the tram line was a big thing on the Gold Coast. It was everyone was talking about the tram line. And I had the, you know, I didn't know much about property investing. I was just buying a property to buy property, right? So there wasn't too much strategy involved other than I knew where this tram line was going in. I knew where the stations were being built. And in this particular suburb, um, I knew that the the university and the hospital is located. It's just a little bit too far to walk from this suburb. So the the thinking was like surely when this tram line gets put in, property prices go up in the area, more desirable, more people will move there, hospital workers, uh university students, maybe people buy properties there to um turn into boarding houses for uni students and stuff like that. There's a bit of logic, a bit of strategy. Yeah, it's a little bit of strategy there. Um so yeah, that was basically the the thought process behind it. Um what'd you buy? Three-bedroom, four-bedroom. It was a three-bedder, two-bath brick blow set property on a I'd be around a 600 square meter block.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

I don't like this deal.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

How much? It's not bad. Paid 421. Yeah. 421. It's today, it's worth a little bit over a mil. Sure. So not a bad little little purchase.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

And you that was 2017, so that's 10 years on, and it's gone, it's more than doubled. 120, 130% growth.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah. So yeah, not too bad. There's a funny little story connected to this one. Do you still own it? Still own it. Wow. Okay, tell us. So I walked into the open home. There was only the got the Gold Coast market back then, it wasn't too, it wasn't popping off like it is today. There's a bit a little bit stale. Um, there was one other buyer in the prop in the open home, similar age to me, maybe a little bit older. He was, I was real keen on the property. I could tell he was real keen as well. Yeah. Um, walking around the property, yeah, scoping it out. Anyway, he um he was in the kitchen talking to the agent, and they would they were negotiating back and forth. Man, I could hear every every single word they were saying. Like they weren't, they weren't being discreet about it. They were they were talking pretty loud. Yeah. Um, he, yeah, so I heard all the numbers getting thrown around. I walk past and I hear him go, yeah, I think I'm gonna put down 420. So he's writing down, I can see him. I'm standing like two meters behind him. He's writing the the offer letter out on the kitchen table with the agent standing with him. He writes down 420, walks out. I come, I come up to the agent five minutes later, put down 421 and get the deal, get the deal done. That simple. Yeah, that beat him over one cow.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

1,000 bucks. Surely you see that all the time now, being doing what you do as a buyer's agent. Yeah. How crazy is it just winning a deal of a thousand bucks?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Oh, it's a good feeling. Especially when you win it over 500 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Man, when you how many times have you like the vendor's expectation is like let's say 425 and you just put in a 426, boost, get the deal. Everyone else is maybe there's 10 other offers at 425 because that's what the agent said. You put an extra 1,000 bucks, bang, you get the deal. Unreal. You'd be surprised. It happens a fair bit. Yeah. So you buy this place, minimal strategy, hopes of the tram line. Is that tram line in?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

The tram line went in six months, six months later. So gosh, yeah, the funny. Yeah, that was perfect. Um, I didn't I didn't think it would go in that quick, but yeah, I got lucky, I suppose, and it went in and the um prices in the area did what I thought. They went up. I made about 50, 60k. Um, the valuation came back 50, 60k higher. How much and how much time? It would have been about six months. Six months. So CC ran up on the reval, on the reval. And that at 19, like that, that's a lot of money for especially when you're on 12 bucks an hour. Like, how long would it take me to save that up again? Another two, three years of thousands of hours killing myself. So that is that's kind of where the light bulb moment is because I never planned to go and buy multiple properties. Man, I didn't like at the start of the journey, I didn't even know it was possible. Like, you know, so it funny thing is that that first six months period of owning my first property at 19, I actually I didn't like it, I hated it. I was I I wanted to quit. I'm like, stuff this because I got I had so much, I had so many unexpected maintenance bills popping up. And I'm like, man, so is this this is what it's like to own a property, eh? Like and then what? Like, what are we talking? Oh, we're talking block toilets, we're talking um broke like appliances mainly, um, oven, cooktop, yeah, the dishwasher went.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah, I minor maintenance issues, yeah, which comes up all the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, minor. But like, as I I overstretched a little bit on like being on$12 an hour, I didn't have much savings. So I actually had to, I had to go to the property and start fixing the items myself to get ahead. And I'm like, man, I can't do this forever. Um, I wasn't gonna sell it to be honest, and like, yeah, stuff for this. But after I got that valuation back and I can't it came back 50 to 60k higher, that that was the light bulb moment that opened my eyes up to like, wow, so this I can't be doing plumbing forever. If I can make 50 to 60k in that short amount of time on this one property, um what if I own 10 of them and they do 50 to 60k each over a six-month period, that that's some pretty crazy money. Yeah, and um that that's kind of what got me obsessed and gave me the property bug. And then yeah, I got really obsessed after that period.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

What do you do? Like right now, there's there's podcasts, man. You go onto YouTube, there's tons of stuff, like there's so much information out there. And we had Billy Charles on the podcast recently, and he said this a similar thing. His first property that he bought was not by he just knew I know about Tamworth, it's an area that I know, I'm gonna buy there. No real research or strategy behind it. But then afterwards he bought and then he said the same thing. I got the bug. And then I just he just like I just went into it. What are you going into? What are you how are you educating or immersing yourself in property?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, from that from that period, I man, I was I I had to travel to and from work about an hour each way, every single day. So I had two hours of free time and I would just pump podcasts. What is hours of podcasts every day, even I'd have my earphones on at work, pumping property podcasts. Um, that that was my main source of education for sure. Um, all pre-COVID. All pre-COVID, yeah. Um, there were some good YouTube videos out as well. That night I'd I'd pump the YouTube videos, but it was mainly, yeah, it was mainly the podcasts that that's what did it for me in the beginning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And so you just you buy the one, you get 60 grand reval in a couple of months' time, you're just all in on property now and you're just consuming property podcasts. What happens next? How old are you at this stage?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

When the property went up, I would have been 19 and a half, almost bordering on 20.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Wow. Okay, so you're 20 years old, yeah, and you've made a bit of equity in the property. What's next? What do you what do you do now? Like, how do you go from there to now owning over 15 investment properties?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Well, the the main thing was I'd say educating myself because I I'd be listening to these podcasts and there'd be guys on their um early 30s, late 20s, and they got multiple properties, you know, anywhere from five to 10 plus properties. I'm like, uh how it I just I just I just wanted to know how they did it. I got so obsessed with finding out the strategy behind how to get to that amount of properties, how to get to financial freedom, retire early, because I came from such a the the job I was doing, it was so labor intensive. I knew I couldn't do it forever. I didn't really like doing it. I wanted to get out of it as soon as I possibly could. And after making that, um after making that gain on the first property, that is I knew that was my vehicle to get there. So I'd say, yeah, education number one, um, that would be the most important thing. That yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I opinion was a big strategy guy now, right? Like what you've done in a short amount of time, I don't know many people under the age of 30 that have got a portfolio like you. Um, I know you work with a lot of clients around helping them achieve the same thing. What is there a particular strategy that you deploy for people to help them start building a property portfolio?

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Well, there's three, there's three things I'd say for each property, especially when you're early on in your journey, growth and equity is the most important thing. Like you need these properties to grow in order to pull equity and keep moving forward, right? So the quickest way to do that, and what I found is the best way, you're buying in these high growth areas around Australia, whether wherever that might be, interest it. Can you define that for us? High growth.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

I that I feel like on Instagram, maybe I just keep getting retargeted. High growth area. Oh, high growth, high growth. What does that mean, Mary?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

It's pro it's markets that are in the either the beginning of their property cycles or even the middle of their property cycles, can be still good. Um, basically, yeah, that's it. Markets that are starting to heat up. Every single market in Australia, they're on different property cycle timelines. So yeah, a lot of people think, especially beginner investors, that Australia is just a property market as a whole and it all goes up and down together. But each market in Australia, whether it be like a regional town or a capital city, they're like the it's micro markets. They can all be at different times in their cycles. And it's targeting the uh markets that are at the beginning of the cycles, just starting to heat up or coming into the middle. I don't really like to get into property markets that are just past the middle of their cycles or getting to the top. Doesn't really make too much sense. You want to target those markets that are just heating up.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Okay. So your strategy is you're you're getting into markets that are uh growth locations, heating up where it's there's the prices are going up in value.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah. What else? So second thing I'd say is get a little discount on the way in. It can help a lot, especially when you're first starting out. Um, let's say you get a little 20, 25k discount. That's instant equity for you from the start, right there. Um, if you couple that with the high with the high growth area, the discount of 20 to 25k. And then the third thing is value add potential. So buying a property that you can add a little bit of value to, a little bit of sweat equity, like a cause, not huge um renovation, just cosmetic renovation, say paint, carpets, floors, um window furnishing, just little things like that that are cheap, that you can add to the property and you get a really good return from the amount you spend. I say if when you add that when you combine those three things, you can really um build a portfolio quick and you can use the equity to keep bunny hopping onto the next property and onto the next property.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

For someone listening to this, what what would it take to do something like that, right? Because I I hear value add potential, and sometimes people get a bit nervous about that, like oh shit, I'm gonna have to buddy, you know, spend money on renovations, right? And you say um buy a property with a bit of equity in it. How do you get the equity, the instant equity on the way in? How's that possible in a market that's heating up? And then can you explain to us the how do you get like I'm a bit nervous, or maybe even people out there listening might be nervous on renovation costs. So actually talk to me first about how do you get the equity on the way in?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Equity on the way in a in a market that's heating up.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

On a market that's heating up, it's all the most important thing, and you know this as well, like it's all about the relationships with the agents. You need to be first in mind when these deals pop up. Whether that be it's all about the vendor situation, there might be a divorce sale, distressed sale. They they might be liquidating because they need the money quick. And most of the time, if you give them favorable terms and the cost, uh the price of the sale isn't the major factor in them selling, you can normally negotiate down a really good discount. And when when you judge that, you judge the property off comparable sales, comparable sales in the area, right? So you want to find the top four or five properties in that pocket, same street, within the same sort of um radius of that property, like 500 meter radius, and compare them off all the property that you're buying and work out what your discount is.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Okay, so you're saying, like, let's say you're buying a place in regional Victoria at the moment, you look at everything that's recently sold in the area, and everything's selling for 500,000. Okay, like all with a 500,000 with some variants within a 500 meter or a kilometer radius. So you think, yeah, this place is worth 500. You're trying to buy it at uh 480, 475. Yeah, 475, 480. And you're just giving the terms in favor of the seller. Exactly. Okay, yeah, okay, that makes sense. How much money does someone need to start this? Like, what type of capital do they have to have to put into a deal to uh a paid deposits, stamp duty, holding costs, um, renovation costs, all that. Like, how much money do you think someone needs to get started in doing something like this? Also, can you talk about incomes? Because I don't think that's spoken about enough.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

So, to get started, all obviously it all depends on the price point that you're looking at. Properties at the moment we're sourcing, they're seem to be on average 450. Like we're picking up some pretty good deals for 450. And to get into a deal like that, you'd you'd you can get into a deal like that with 80 to 90k with a 10 10% deposit, so at a 90% L VR. Yeah. Um, if you know you want to, if if we're doing a if it's a value add property and you need to do a little bit of work to it, maybe a paint and carpets, which is pretty common, like you might need an extra 5, 10k buffer for something like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Five grand for carpets, five grand to paint, something.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah, something, something, maybe a little bit more, maybe, yeah, maybe just above 10, like 12, 10, 12k.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Okay. So you're all like yes, if you've got a hundred, you're doing a deal and you're you're sprucing a place up a little bit and adding some value. Yeah, definitely. And you're buying these growth locations. That's uh obviously what you did for your first property. But what what happens next? So you you buy the property, thanks for sharing what your strategy is. But how do you deploy that over and over again to keep buying? Because there seems to be this uh idea. I spoke to this guy the other day, he calls and he's like, Jay, so I've got two properties and I'm stuck. I'm like, Yeah, man, where did you buy? Uh I've got one in Perth and I've got one in Townsville, and uh like I'm stuck. Like, what do I do? How do I keep going? I was like, Oh man, just remind me how much money you're making again. Oh, I make 85 grand a year, and my missus on maternity leave, and we've got two kids. I was like, man, um I think you've done amazing. 100%. You've you've killed it. Like you're you're in your mid-20s, you've you've got a family, and like you've you've bought two, you've got two properties in two great locations. That's great. But he he in his mind, he was so annoyed and so frustrated. He's like, Man, I'm stuck. What do I do? How do I keep moving? How did you keep moving?

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yeah, funny that like I so I used that strategy for my first two. And the the um that situation you're describing then, that was me at twenty one. I was I was on that man, I was on less. I was on like seventy, I was on like seventy K a year at that point after buying my second property. I went back to I wasn't even using a broker at the time. Like I used to go to the bank, I used to go to Westpac, I'd rock up, I'd book in a I'd book in an um Looking at a meeting with the loans officer, I'd sit in there and I would just ask hundreds of questions. How do I get ahead? Blah, blah, blah. She's like, Jake, you have two properties. You have like 800K worth of debt. You're making like 70 grand a year. We're never giving you a loan again. You're making your dream and you're dreaming. I'm just begging like, come on, surely there's a way. Like, how are these other guys buying 10 plus properties? And I'm stuck on two. Like, what do you mean? And that's when we that's my income. My income couldn't service any more debt. Yeah. With a top four bank. So that's when I had to really knuckle down and figure out, all right, how do I pivot from here? Because I'm not stopping at two properties. That's it. So from there I went and bought, I realized I had two. I made pretty good money on the first two properties. Yep. They were 400 to 500k purchases each. I realized I had to drop the purchase price, but still make the same gains I was making on the higher purchase price deals, which I went out and did find a deal like that. That's 300k. Um where's that at? This one was Logan. Ew. Logan. So anyway, I needed cash flow because my income was too low. That's basically the that's been a bit of a theme. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I people were building granny flats at the time. I I bought this next property. I believe I went, I financed through a third-tier lender, which helped me a little bit. Um I was able to get the loan through through a third-tier lender. It was a 300k purchase. Did you do an equity release on property number two to buy this place? I did, yes. Okay. I had I had a I believe I had a little bit of cash saved up. So I think I had, I think I saved half the deposit up in cash and the other half I got an equity release on the second property. And this was two years later, I believe I was about 23. Wow. It took that long. Yeah, because there was a little, because I think talking to that banker, it's it's after she said to me, you know, we can't we you we can't do anything for you, it kind of I kind of slowed me down a bit. I um I thought I had to wait until either my income goes up. Yeah, so like I I look back now and I'm like, I I probably could have gone a bit harder, to be honest, if I went and actually sat down with an investment savvy mortgage broker. Um we because you know you you go to an investment investment savvy mortgage broker and they're in talks with what 80 plus lenders. They're gonna be there's gonna be someone out there with a policy with a lender with a policy that'll be able to give you money. And that's that's how many people just trust the banks blindly like that?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Like they just talk to some guy directly at the bank, but they don't realize, like you mentioned the word there, policy. That bank has that policy, and that's who they want to lend to. Every bank has got a different policy. 100%, right? Sometimes they might be similar, but there is multiple ways to get funds. Some people just speak to one person, but what I admire about you is you were hungry to keep finding a way. Maybe you took a little hiatus from that lady at Westpac, but you you didn't stop.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

So well, it's exactly it's common with you probably see it as well. It's common with first-time investors. It's similar to they a lot of people think, yeah, like going back to the markets in Australia, they think Australia is a market as a whole and it goes up and down together. And they think, well, if one bank says no to me, I'm I'm screwed. I can't get finance from anywhere else. But what they don't realize is there's, I believe, 80 plus lenders or something like that. And every single lender has a different lending policy. And if you go to a broker, a good investment savvy broker that works for you and is like is grinding to get you a loan, man, they're gonna most of the time they're gonna find someone for you that'll suit your circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

So you speak to the investment savvy broker, you take some equity out, and now you're doing deal number three in Logan, and you mentioned the granny flat.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

This was a this is the big rage around COVID time. So yeah, this was a massive rage at the time. A lot of people were doing granny flats. I was seeing them pop up everywhere. I realized, well, I need to drop the purchase price on the property for the third one, make sure, you know, I'm still buying in that high growth location. I did get it at a little bit of a discount, and I did add a little bit of value to it as well. So I've kept those three things in the strategy, but I've also added on the granny flat build to boost up the cash flow so I can continue purchasing on the same income I was on. So I was on that's I can't remember. It's like 70 to 75k, I want to say. And combining all that together on the third property is what allowed me to keep moving forward. Well, how much extra cash flow did the granny flat deal give you? I believe it would have been anywhere from 10 to 15k at the time. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

So you're giving close to 90, you clear 90 grand a year income. Granny, granny income and also um normal income.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

And like at the time, like because I then I started going into the third-tier lending space, and I because I dropped the property purchases down to they were around the 300k mark, it was it was a lot easier to get finance, especially after building that granny flat. So it opened up a lot more borrowing capacity for me to for me to be able to keep going. And then after that, I got a a little bit of an income increase as well, which helped. And yeah, after that, I was it was open doors. I could I could fly basically.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Tell me quickly, right? What do you wish you had told yourself? What advice do you have to Jake McGregor back when he first started? Property number one, property number two. What's the advice that you wish that he had back then that you know now?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Number one, I'd want to say 100%. I think I could have gone a lot harder if I if if I did go to an investment savvy mortgage broker. Wow. Um, yeah, it would have just opened up a lot more avenues for me. And I think they would have been able to educate me earlier on, earlier on in how to build out the portfolio. Yep. Rather than when you go to just like a bank office manager, they are they're kind of closed-minded to building out a portfolio, you know. Well, or the person I was speaking to anyway. Yeah. They were like, all right, we're gonna buy you one property and that's it. Like they don't they don't think about the financing on this first property and what it's gonna do to you, like in your next property.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

And is this like going to allow me to take equity out on deal number three, number number four? Yeah, 100%. And with your property portfolio now, right? It seems to be growing every single time I talk to you. What's the plan? Majority of the time when I talk to clients, they've got one of two goals, right? I want to buy a nice owner-occupied house in the Shire or something like that, but I don't quite have the capital to afford it. I want to buy like a$2.5 million nice house, backyard, double story, whiz bang, all the stuff. But they're making decent money, but they're like, I don't quite have the capital yet to buy that. Yeah. The other one is, right, we're making decent money, but we hate what we do, and we want to replace our income so we can buy the R V van and go travel around a trailer or something. Those are the two most common goals. For you, what's your, I don't want to say your goal, but like what's what's your plan with your portfolio? What are you doing it all for?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Well, the original plan, I wanted it was all to quote unquote retire as quick as I could. Financial freedom. I wanted my passive income paying for my my lifestyle expenses, right? My living costs. I didn't want to be tied to a job. Yeah. And I hit that at 27. Ew. On a, I believe I quote, I don't like the word retired, but quote unquote, retired with 70 to 80k passive income by 27 with the portfolio. So once I hit that, the goals kind of changed a bit. Um, I'd say today, I'm still I have such a passion for building out portfolios, the strategy, buying properties. I'll never stop buying properties. I love building the portfolio. I just want to I do it for fun now. I love it, right? Yeah, but I'd say my goals now is doing what I have done for myself at such a young age for my clients. That is my biggest passion and and goals at the moment is yeah, seeing how many people I can do what I've done for myself for four, basically.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yeah. Just deploying the strategy you were talking about, you know? You're buying in high growth like high growth locations, getting some getting a discount on the way in, and then forcing some value with a little bit of a spruce up or a move of a tart up.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, 100%. And strategies, the strategy always changes, right? Like it's never, it's never this is gonna work forever, but right now it's working really, really well. So it's yeah, being able to pivot as well, like always keeping your eyes open for what the next thing, next big thing is.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

I man, the what we've known each other for four or five years now, and uh we have you constantly are pivoting in a market and then even outside of that into other markets constantly, right? Yeah, looking at what's happening to the market you're in, what's happening to the next market that you're looking to get into soon. Do I enter now? Do I enter in a little bit later? Like what's all that type of stuff? What's your read on the I'm just gonna say like the property investment landscape right now, right? I don't want to talk about the whole property market as Australia, but what you're so dialed into, growth locations. What's your view on that? Some people are calling that interest rates have just gone up recently. Oh, you know, the markets are gonna feel it. What's your view on the property market and what's hot or what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Well, there's a lot of markets, as you know, around Australia, they've had crazy growth over the last couple of years. A lot of markets have doubled over the last couple of years. Um, even maybe some have even tripled. Like, I think regional Victoria, I love regional Victoria. I think it's extremely undervalued at the moment. Like we're purchasing purchasing a lot of properties in regional Victoria where you can't even buy a block of land and build the house on it for the price that we're paying. And I love that. I think that is so undervalued. I think I think there's a lot, a lot of investment and a lot of buyers still pumping like regional Queensland and going into those markets heavily. But as you know, I think, as you know, like with they they've had significant growth over the last few years. Like how I just think how much how much more growth do those markets really have in the tank? And where are all those buyers gonna go when it does get to a certain point that it doesn't really make sense to buy there anymore because the price is so expensive? Yeah, where do you think they're gonna go? Uh regional regional Victoria.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

I think so too. I it's um if I look back of what my experience has been in property investing, like back when you were talking about the Goldie, I think that Southeast Queensland pocket was like red hot, you know, like Logan, Ipswich, even all the way out to like Morton Bay, like just that Brizzy pocket to the Gold Coast was like red hot. That was like 2018 to 2020, 2021. It was red hot. Then around that time, it all kind of shifted to Perth because that all got so expensive. People couldn't afford any more. Yeah, and they're like, oh, sweet, let's go to Perth. And then bang, Perth became that thing for like 2020, 21, 22, 23, it started to cool off. Yeah, then it started to be like the Rockhamptons, the Townsville's, and that just pumped and everyone loved those type of markets. And then like then it started to move into the regional Vicks, and then like that we're kind of in the Victorian stage now. Exactly. Right? And it always like I I look at I got two properties in Townsville myself, and I look back at the data at Townsville, it's done 120 or 130% growth in certain suburbs in the last five years. I look back in the stuff that I bought in Perth, like one of the places I bought in Rockhampton in Warnboro, 129% growth in the last five years. Crazy mental. I still think there's legs in that market, but like the majority of the big whack of growth has happened, right? The cash on cash return on that deal, stupid insane, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

I look back then, we're buying properties in Perth, 300k, 350, and they're on the beach.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

But how undervalued is that? How under the radar was the market back then? And it's it's what I find is back then people would say, Oh, you're stupid for buying a WA. What are you buying there for? It's it's the same thing. Yeah, we've been through so many market cycles now. We hear the same thing every time, and it's what I'm hearing in in regional Victoria right now.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Um, I appreciate your property insight, but you would have bought hundreds of properties, man, in in in your career as a buyer's agent. So it's interesting to hear your take. And you also would have worked with people at all ends of the spectrum, people who were just getting started, young Jake McGregor Thundercats in their early 20s to guys in their 50s who have got you know millions and heaps of properties. But um what the last thing I want to talk to you about is something close to my heart. I I find that uh in this day and age, the uh expectations and pressures for young lads, mainly most of my mates are you know in their late 30s, early 40s, and the pressure to have property, to have paid off property or to to be in a particular position financially is so heavy, right? Um, you should be earning more, you should be um you should have a mad house, you should have two nice cars, you your missus shouldn't be working. Like, do you come across that type of conversation, or do you even feel it yourself? You're a young single lad in the Goldie.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

100% I do. And I think like I struggled with that for years, and sometimes I still do. Yeah. I think the best advice I can give is just stop looking at what everyone else is doing, keep the blinkers on, do what makes you happy, set your own set goals in align with like your own values and what you want to achieve. Don't worry about what old mates doing next to you. And I think I think that takes a lot of the pressure off. Just the can just stop comparing yourself to other people, you know, especially people that are um further ahead of you in the in the journey.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

It's it's crazy to hear like bro, you're in regards to property portfolio, you're ahead of the journey for me. But I started building my property portfolio at 30, right? I'm 36 now, I've been building this thing for the last six years. But what you started when you're what, 16, 17 or something, you're a baby, right? And so you've had more experience in that stage, right? One day when you have a couple of kids, maybe I'll be more experienced in you than having a family. But that's how life goes. It all comes out in the wash at some stage. I understand. But again, I'm saying this. Uh what I admired about your story and your story is that you seeked out information from people who have done it. How do I do that? People are doing it out there. How do I do that? Um, is there anything else that you want to talk about that you feel like I've missed? I feel like we've you've given us some great strategy around how people can buy properties. You've given us some insights and some markets that there's still some red hop purchases out there for about 450-ish K to be buying. You've told us about regional VIC that you're liking regional VIC at the moment. And for someone who's looking to get into it, about anywhere from 80 to 100K is what you should need to start property investing. Is there anything else you want to cover or throw in there before we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_01 36:32

No, I mean, I think that's about it. I think looking back on my journey and where I first started, I I just didn't know what I was capable of in property. And I find a lot of people call me and we're always having this conversation around how many can I, how many can I buy? Or they come, they pro people come to me with they want a certain amount of properties by this certain certain time frame. I'm like, okay, why that amount of properties? Why that time frame? And they don't know, they're like, oh, this seems like a good number by that time. I think it like ties back into the pressure.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Yeah, they've said to you, I want 100k passive. How many people said that? Oh, every second person, newly. Everyone says, Oh, 100, oh, why that? Uh um sounds like a good uh round number. It's the trending number. They love 100k. They just want six figures passive, but they don't understand why, right? Again, going back to the conversation we had with Billy Charles recently in the podcast, he was saying the same thing, you know? People don't people don't know. They just come to him and just say, Oh, can you get me some loans? Um, I want to buy 10 properties in 10 years. Oh, why's that? You know? Um just just to sum it up, like what do you think is a good starting point for people if they don't know, right? Like you're saying, take take the blinkers off. But young Jake McGregor, when you left school, you didn't know. How do you find what you want? Because the easiest way to find what you want in this society is to look at everyone else. Oh, he's got a bloody nice BMW sports car. I want one of those too. Or I just saw you have one, so that's why I want one. But how do you find what you want?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Well, it depends what you have to you have to figure out what your goal is, why you want it, set that goal and work your way back from that goal, like and figure out how to get it. So, for example, let's say you you want a passive income, you want to retire early, you want quote unquote financial freedom, but you don't know what the number is. Work out work out your cost of living right now, map it all out, every single number to the to the dollar. Let's say it comes back. I found a lot of people say 100k, but they don't need 100k. It works out being like 50, 60k. Yeah. So let's say the number comes back at 60k. If you if you get a passive income of 60k in property, you are free basically to do whatever you want. You don't have to work because that's covering all your um cost of living expenses. So then now we've got the goal and we work out how to get there.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

I mean, I remember when you quote unquote retired and you went traveling. Yeah, you went to Vietnam or solo, you know? I remember you just going and just doing nothingness for ages, right? And that was from your passive income from your property portfolio, and you could just explore and just be. And I'm sure you had some light bulb moments while you're there. But I was glad that you took her there because for me and Jamie Lee, that was probably the most powerful thing that we sat down and did as a couple. We literally wrote down, all right, where do we want to live? We want to live in these areas. What's that gonna cost us? To rent it or to buy it is gonna cost us this number per year. Great. We want to go on a holiday per year. What's that gonna cost us? 10 to 20 grand, all right? 15 grand per year on a holiday, bang. And you just have bang, that's how much it's gonna cost us to live the life that we want. It's a very simple exercise.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

But for some reason, no, not, I shouldn't say no one's doing it, not many people do it. They just like, uh, they they fight for a uh five grand increase at work or a 10 grand increase at work. It's like, what's that gonna do? By the time you put that in your pocket, you've only added in an extra 50 bucks a week.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

What's that gonna do to the life that you want? It has to be towards a goal. When we work with a client, we have a clear goal, right? Once you spend time and define what the goal is, it's very easy to build a strategy with the right sequence of stages to then buy properties for them to achieve the goal. But we try and spend the majority of time on what is the goal and why do you want it? It's a great retention piece for the business, but more than anything, it's a win-win-win. They finally define what their goal is. We've got a good strategy to buy the properties, boom, you know, sell down, buy some commercial assets, you got the passive income, happy days. But Jakey, man, I'm so excited to see what's next for you with the the buyer's agency that you got, even for your own property portfolio. Man, you every time I speak to you, you buy more properties, you're building the team, you're doing the deals I hear you're doing are unreal. So thanks so much for joining us here in the studio. And man, I can't wait to for you to come back. Will you come back and break down this property portfolio that you've built? Deal by deal, the money you've paid, what it's worth now. Would you come do back and do it?

SPEAKER_01 40:57

100%, man. Next step. Next step, we're breaking the portfolio down. Beauty, man. I can't wait to have you back.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on, mate. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening to the Moves to Momentum podcast. If you got any value out of this episode, please give us a like or subscribe. Or if you think this is relevant to anyone of your friends or family, please flick it to them so they can have a listen.