From $250K to $1.7M: The Real Property Journey (Wins, Mistakes & Lessons)

Most people think property investing is a straight line…
Buy → Hold → Get rich.

This episode proves it’s not.

We sit down with long-time friend and property valuer Josh Maddock to break down his real journey—from his first $250K investment to building a multi-million dollar portfolio and developing a duplex in Sydney.

We cover:

• The first deal that went wrong (and cost him $5K)
• Why he still backed himself and kept going
• Turning a $250K property into $500K+
• Pulling equity and scaling into multiple properties
• Making $300K+ in just a few years on a Sydney deal
• The reality of working with a partner who’s more risk-averse
• What’s actually happening in the Sydney market right now
• The pressure men feel around money, success, and lifestyle

This is a raw, honest conversation about property, mistakes, patience, and playing the long game.

No fluff. No BS. Just real experience.

 If you’re trying to build a portfolio, upgrade your home, or create freedom through property — this one hits.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I got one the other day for one seven.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

One seven. We made three hundred grand off this thing in what two, three years. Make a hundred grand a year off this thing.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Unreal. A lot of the parents are refinancing and they're giving deposits to their kids. That's what I'm seeing. But the market itself is steady.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

A mad part of your story is education. Education and being ready for the opportunity. Welcome to the Moves Momentum Podcast. Today we got in the studio Josh Madddock, a long-term friend of mine, grew up with Josh Madddock. Property rat property value offer. How long have you been in property value for?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Over 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Over 10 years experience, this guy in property. Property investor, you're doing a duplex side in Miranda at the moment, but thought I'd get you on to tell us so many things about the industry, about what you're seeing. But man, before you got into property investing, you know, you got some stuff in Queensland, you got a duplex going on locally in the settlement China. You're a young, ambitious bloke. Like, tell us before you got into property, what was your mindset about property or chasing success or chasing uh wealth creation?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Uh property has been an interesting vehicle for me. Um, I live and breathe it. Um, but I think I just always saw someone else doing something amazing in property, and then from there I've caught the bug and then gone from there and done my own developments, done my own um investments, etc. And started from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

And when you like got into the workforce, you were you were educated what you what you had a degree in property?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

So I started in property um valuation, and then from there I did property development at UTS. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Well educated in property. Well educated in property.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, trying, trying.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

And when you was there a moment where you're like, okay, I'm educated on property, I understand like how the property market moves in Sydney, all this type of stuff, where you're like, I'm going to start buying investment properties in regional areas and not what like in your backyard, what you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah. I think for me, you had to start with something and it wasn't much, right? And I lived in the Shire, I I, you know, worked around here, and I just knew it wasn't this wasn't the place to start. I wasn't gonna try and get a unit here. I was gonna go buy some house, like a house and land sort of um investment, and it wasn't gonna be in Sydney. So essentially scraped a few dollars together and started in Victoria.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Started in Victoria. When was that? What year was that? 2014. 2014, how old would you have been?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Oh, good question. What was that?

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Maybe mid to late 20s? Mid to late 20s. Yeah. But I feel like so many people, like you almost like a wake up in your mid-20s. Yeah. You know, like you hit the first you're teenager, bang, you get you go to uni, then you kind of get into the workforce in your early 20s. And then mid-20s, it's just like life just smacks you in the face, and you're like, I've actually got to start making some just proactive decisions to get somewhere or to go somewhere. Yeah. I think in our friendship group, you were probably the first person that I knew of that's that did this. Yeah. Bought an investment property interstate.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

What was the deal? Where did you buy it? What was it? Three better brick house, how much?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Uh, so it was in Cario, so in Geelong.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Um, the funny thing is it was a subdivision play. So I used a buyer's agent at the time, yeah. Uh paid him about$5,000, uh, which back then was huge. Like, you know, you're paying someone to find a property for you. Yeah. Um back in 2014.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Back in 2014. You're a pioneer of the buyer's agent. I'm a valuer.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So that's the funny part. Like, I you think everyone was like, you can go do it yourself, right? Just go do a bit of research or fly down there or do the legwork yourself. But I just thought, you know, these aren't my my markets. My market was Sydney. Uh I know Sydney well, and I was I couldn't get into Sydney, right? So I thought, let's go somewhere else and let's get someone else to find it for me. Nice. Um, and that was the play, and yeah, picked something up in Cario for 250 grand. 250 grand. Which in hindsight is just ridiculous. Ridiculous. The yields weren't that good or the rents back in the day. I'm just I don't even know where we started, but it would have been maybe early 300s for rent. Yeah. But it was a bigger block, and the play was how big we're talking? 700? Yeah, it's about seven, seven sixty to seven eighty, something like that off the top of my head. New build or like no, no, established. Like it was old school, maybe 50s, run down.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Not derelict, but it was livable.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Um I like to call those investment grade.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Okay, investment grade. Investment grade. All right, that's what it was. And the play was to cut up the block, sell the land at the rear, make a hundred grand, and then move on. That was the play. Okay. Um, little at the time, the buyer's agent that bought me the property was also helping me with the subdivision. So essentially it was a bit of a hold your hand moment. We'll get you into the property, and then we'll um subdivide it with you. You just pay us along the way, and then you get your profit and you can do it again or use your money somewhere else. And I paid him about another five grand for that.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

To do the subdivision, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

So, like planning and and the next stages. So I just get this email from this guy, um, you know, oh, and this is the next step, pay us five grand and never heard from him again.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Well, it never happened.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Never happened. Five grand. Yep. So initially I paid five thousand for the um buyer's agent to find the property. Yep. And um, and they did that, which was fine. Mind you, it was on market, so it wasn't even anything like amazing, like it was literally on realestate.com. So every single person could have purchased the same property, but this one ticked the box with the subdivision and yeah, ran away with the five thousand dollars. And look, over time, that washed away to nothing. Yeah, but you know, it's big, you don't want to lose five thousand dollars to anybody. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

If you called me tomorrow and said, Jace, come over, I've got five grand for you. Yeah, I'll call Jamie Lee and say, Hey, I've gone to Josh's, he's got he's got some cash for me.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, like that's a that's decent. Yeah. So that's where we were. And uh, but look, look, it was uh an interesting one. It took a lot of time. Um what do you mean it took a lot of time? So to get equity. So I wanted to recycle equity and I wanted to keep going and I wanted to get as many as I could. Did you tell him that? The bias agent? No, because it changed, right? Okay, that everything changes when someone takes$5,000 off you, right? So you want to go down this path and pull out your hundred thousand and move along, but the money was gone, and so I just said, all right, it's an investment property now. And I just left it in um rented, um, changed tenants a few times. Obviously, the rent went up over time. Um, but I was always looking at the property to try and pull equity to try and go again. And how long did it take? It didn't, it it wasn't a quick process. Um, I ended up pulling out uh money in 2018 to go again. Four years, four years, and in hindsight, you know, you just don't know what you don't know, do you? Yeah, and um, yeah, would I do it again? Probably, because it did well over the period of my own property, but um, yeah, it was just funny. It was just funny experience and you learn from every experience.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

And I I don't I don't want to bash the the buyer's agent on the process, but I'm I'm trying to put some colour to a narrative that probably heaps of people out there would have or might be going through right now.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Why did you go with that buyer's agent? Like, was there a what were you did you shop around? Did you speak to them? Did you learn from on a podcast? Like, how did you find out about them?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

So I went to so on looking on realestate.com, there was these banner ads and the banner ads for for property investment. And I used to go to all the different seminars with friends and all the free ones or whatever, and this one um caught my eye. Uh it's funny because I can say their name now because they're not here anymore. They're trading. They're not at all. Oh it was called um 21st century subdivision, and so it was essentially they did multiple different income streams, whether it be through property, uh online, all these different stuff. And uh yeah, anyways, that took my eye, and that's what I went down, and I paid them the money to do the to do the purchasing and the but you were in the market, like in and around the fringes of buyers agent market for a while.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Like you were going to seminars, you were doing the things, like you you you weren't like this Nufky who just rocked up, oh yep, click, bang, bought what I did my research and I, you know, I I looked around.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

I knew I was paying market for it. I didn't think I was getting a deal by any means, but I property. Yeah, I knew I wasn't getting ripped off as well. So that was uh the first step into it. But uh yeah, it's just an interesting journey, that's all. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

It's funny when you look at that is a fairly decent strategy, right? In the sense of you're just forcing the equity because you're just subdividing it off. Yeah. Uh, one of the strategies I talk to so many people about is you're buying a property in a higher growth location with infrastructure spent, but public and private money being spent. You've got massive population growth because people are moving there to work those projects. You want those projects to be lasting for the next five to ten years. Off the back of that, you should have strong average incomes going up in the area because you've got skilled workers moving there. Coupled with low building approvals, you've got this beautiful recipe for purchasing. If you pay market, if you pay under market, if you pay five, ten grand over market, yeah. That market is heating up so much, it comes out in the wash very quickly. Yeah. But so you do that and you wait four years and you're you're you're looking at this thing all the time. How can I take equity out?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Then what happens next? You're 28, you're far forward 2018. Now what are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Uh yeah, I always had the bug. I would have gone every year if I could have, but you know, the banks wouldn't give me the valuations that I need, ironically, even though I'm a valuer. And um, yeah, so in 2018 I got uh one bad valuation and then I pressed him on it, and then I got the numbers I needed to get another deposit to go again, and I ended up buying in what did you take?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

How much did you take out?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Oh, it was like 20%. I I don't know what exact figure was, but it was 20% of the value of the property at the time.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Okay. Yeah. Um, what do you what do you reckon over 100-ish?

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah, give or take.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Give or take, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

So you take it about 100 out.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Bang, go buy another property off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Where? Where and by yourself or how?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Uh this time I did it with my wife. So I bought the property originally alone in my name, and she was around, but we weren't together together. She was around, she was in the background. And this is my wife. Yeah, so then she, I think we got married in 2015. And then, you know, it's funny because you try and sell the dream and we're going again, and and she's like, Whoa, whoa, what are we doing? What are we buying? But look, it was uh it was uh it was a fun journey with her, and um yeah, so we got the second one in Queensland.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Um you say, well, I bro, I I love Rach. I've known I've been in your guy's wedding. You've been in my wedding. Yep. What I know of Rach is she is a nurse.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

And uh conservative nurse at that. Cautious. Cautious. Very cautious, cautious.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Very cautious, yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Um can we pick on that a bit? Not pick on it, but can you explain the process of majority of the guys that I talk to are married, kids, and and they are the drivers of the property portfolio. I think I'm the same in our in our household. Jamie Lee says she signs the documents. Yeah. Um and she is learning and getting the strategies as the property portfolio is building. She knows that she manns the um Titus property at Gmail account, and there's lots of emailers going in there, and she has to answer the questions.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

But um what was that like, you know, from someone who's deeply invested, lives and breathes property every day, yeah, to Rach is uh dealing with people's lives every day as a nurse. Yeah, or she was a midwife, like so. She's like, you know, um that's that's where she very different skill sets, very different approaches. Yeah. How do you navigate that?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Um daily. Daily.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Um you don't just win the battle. Ah, you don't. It's not a battle now.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

And it's funny because similar to you and JL, Rach is the admin. So she she does all the uh accounting behind the scenes. I tried Zelovision and she does all the legwork behind the insurances, all that sort of stuff. I actually got a funny story. Um so the property we bought in Queensland after Geelong, um, I just got over it one day. I just like just got all these emails. There was always, you know, a change of tenants or a broken tree or a broken fence. And I was just like, I don't want to do this. Like, I just I'm not good at it, I don't enjoy it. Rach, can you take this? I want you to do it. This is yours now. And she's like, Cool, no worries. And I gave it to her. And I don't know how long it was, maybe a week or two. And I came back and she'd filled the dining table. I'm like, what are you what are you doing? And she's like, Oh, I just audited our um our accounts. I go, what accounts? He goes, for the investment property. And she went through all these documents and she had found that we had paid uh uh air conditioning um uh installer twice, and she saved us$1,200 just like that. Come on. Like, I'm like, I'm not this is you.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

She is a property order auditing savant. Yeah, like she did well.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

She did well, and I was like, and I go, and I said to her, and I said, That's your money, do what you want with it, it's not mine. You found it, I would have never found that ever. I'm like, it's yours. And so she was happy with that.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Just divide and conquer. Yeah, yeah, that's unreal.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yep, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

So and so you're you're gearing up for property number two. You sell the vision to Rachel, let's go. We're going again, we're going in Queensland. Yep. You just researched that? How do you how do you buyer's agent? Buyer's agent again.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Buyer's agent again. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

This guy's a pioneer. 2018.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I just didn't want to get on a plane and go and drive around and meet agents and do the legwork. I was just like, if I can pay someone to do this for me, you know, I've got enough going on. Why wouldn't I do that? So that's what I did. And yeah, how many times I've used a buyer's agent over my life three times, and I've never regretted it, not once. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

And so you you buy a place, tell me the deal. You know, I like the deal numbers. Bed, bath, brick. Is it what price was it? What was the rents?

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Uh it was similar to the first purchase, so it was around the 250 mark. Suburb. Uh oh, I can't write. I can I honestly can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

I I think I know it's in Eagleby.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Eagleby, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah. You know better than I know.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

It was Eagleby. Uh, just a three, a one, and a two. Three, one, two brick. Uh no, fibro. Yeah. Um, bigger block again, not as big as the other one, like 650.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Um, but again, sort of not the best spot, low socio. Um, ironically, me and my dad went out and did a reno there um before we sold it. And I met the neighbor, and I just walked over to him and I said, uh, hey mate, we're just doing a couple rentos on the property. You might have like a shovel or something I could use or something. And he looked at me and he goes, he goes, nah. And he just straight up says no. And then he goes, What did he say? He goes, Oh, yeah, I've been robbed like six times.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

It's just like you can't keep anything around here.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

And it was just like, oh, this is where I bought. And I and I owned it for a couple years at the time, and it was just this funny story of like, oh, okay, this is like kind of bottom of the barrel type of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

When they say low socioeconomic, this is what they mean.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah. And like I remember even going to the shops to Bunnings to buy stuff and zipping around in the car and whatnot, and just like kids are in trolleys getting pushed and like rats' tails down to the behind the bit rough. It was funny though. I was just like, oh, okay, there we go. But again, the property did what it needed to do and did the heavy lifting for me, and the rent covered that that was actually a really good cash.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

You bought it for 250 in Eagleby. It's a three-bed, one bath, two-car.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

On decent 600 some square meters.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah, it was over 600, yeah, yeah. And you bought it for 250. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

How long? When did you that was in 2018 and you sold it?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

2018.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

2021. You sold it 2021, you held it for three years. Three years. How much? Doubled. Doubled. So you sold 500? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was the sort of, I think Why you sell? I sold to buy Miranda. Okay. That was why. So we we sort of cashed out and then we had a healthy deposit to buy our principal place in Miranda where we live in the Shire. So nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Man, the majority of the time when I work with clients that they always have one of two goals. It's like we say to people, great, you want to build proper your portfolio? What for? What what what are you doing with this? First one is we want to buy a nice owner-occupy house in the Shire or wherever we live. Yep. And that's like two and a half to three mil. That's kind of what we'd like. Yeah, settle for something for two, but we'd like two and a half to three. Okay, cool. Or I want to replace our income. Yep. 100, 150 grand passive within a you know, five to seven year time frame. Can you do it? Yeah. Yeah, sweet. You know, like if you guys can stick to the plan, we can do that. Yeah. You'd have a what's your goal? Yeah, this is the strategy. This is the you know, the properties that we need to acquire at each stage of the strategy, but then we just manage the portfolio and keep building.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

What was your goal in all this? Like, because man, you you ripped 250 grand out of this property in in three years. By now, what's the Geelong one worth?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

The which one?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Geelong.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Geelong doubled as well.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Geelong, you buy that for 250 and now that's where 500 as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

So you've got a property portfolio worth over a mil. Yeah. Or you know, and you've held you cited back in what, six, seven years ago. Yeah. It's not bad, bro.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

No, it's not bad, but you just I've seen the property market move quick in different areas and suburbs, and it could have been done better, quicker, etc. But it's all hindsight. And now I sort of know that and I can see that. And uh yeah, we'll see what happens in the future.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

But and you got the duplex in Marina now.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Building the duplex in Marina.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Building the duplex in Marina.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Trying to, yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

So when did you do this? Because I remember talking to you for years looking for a duplex site in the Shire. You know, we've had Josh Corely on the podcast, he's done a few dupies, he's done a couple of option contracts and stuff like that around here doing duplexes. It was, man, from like 2017-2018, yeah, to like just after COVID, it went nuts. It was like everyone is just jupe here, jupey there, jupe jupe, jupe, everything. Um, you were looking for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah, yeah. We were cashed up and and searching, and mate, I was door knocking, I was letterbox dropping, whatever I needed to do to get it done. And ironically, I bought it at auction. Can you tell the story? It's a funny little yeah, it's a funny one.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Just tell us the numbers quickly. You bought in Miranda, what, 2022?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

2022, yeah. Kind of it was it was actually at a funny stage because it was March of 2022. Can't can't forget it because rates were at all-time low, like as low as you could have got them. And we bought, and we're like, these repayments are gonna be easy, everything's gonna be smooth, this is gonna be a fun little ride, and then little do we know rates just went bananas. That was when the RBA said that they weren't moving rates until the following year, so 2023. And literally the next month it was just like 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, and it just went bananas. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

I'm pressing for the numbers. You know, I love the numbers, I love the deals. Yeah, Miranda, the block size, the frontage, the price.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yep. Um, so I bought for just like a touch over 1.4.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

1.4 mil yeah in 2022. I bought a house in Miranda on how big of a block?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Uh, it was just over 600 squares. Frontage is just on just over 14, so 14.1, 14.2, I think. So yeah, it uh it was a it was a play, it was funny because on the sign out the front it said everything was about the property, and then it just had this little thing saying development potential. And I looked at it and I was like, oh, I don't know about this. And I started talking to different agents in the area, and I said, what's it worth? What's it worth? What am I gonna pay? I'm going to auction, like I've got pre-approval, I'm ready to go. And everyone's like, mate, if you buy this thing for one six, you're gonna get a deal or one five fifty to one six, you're you're you're good, you're in the money. And I got there, 9 a.m. Saturday morning, rainy, miserable day. Market was still hot though. Like the market was strong, like rates hadn't increased yet. So I was sitting there going, Oh, this is gonna be Nazis. This is gonna, this is gonna run, this is gonna run. And I think the agent was guiding he was guiding one four, but he called me the week before and he said, mate, I'm just telling you right now, you need to be at the auction and you need to be ready on Saturday. And I'm sure he did that to everyone, but I kind of just had this thing, I'm like, all right, I need to be there on Saturday, nine o'clock. Um, my wife dropped me off and had to do something with the kids and went away, and so it was just me by myself, and there was probably like 15 people there. And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be hot. This is gonna be like this is it's just gonna go crazy, right? And I get there and I walk up to the auctioneer and the agent, and I just said, Where do I sign? And they go, Yep, sign here. And I sign, no one else, no one signed. You're the only guy that registered. I was the only guy that registered, and I was thinking, like, what's going on here? Like, why is there not everyone else here? And they're all doing their little walkthroughs and stuff. I'm sitting there nervously, like, I've never bitted at an auction ever. And I'm sitting there going, Oh, here we go, this is gonna be interesting. And this guy had to go down the south coast for a wedding, this auctioneer. So he's like, I want to, I want this done. Nine, nine o'clock comes, yeah, and he is like, he started to call it, he started talking, and all these people gathered in, and I'm like, I'm sitting there going, no one else has registered, no one's put their name down. It's literally me. I'm like, so no one's bidding. And essentially, I think it was done in like two minutes.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Give us a play by play, Mary. Two minutes. Does he do you put a bid in?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

I did, and and uh funny you say that because I feel like I went too high, but they did a a vendor bid because no one actually bidded.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

So you're there, they're calling the auction, no bids. You're the only person.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

I'm just sitting back, like, oh, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 22:02

And he throws in the vendor bit, how much? 1.4. 1.4. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And so I'm like, there, I'm like, and you're nervous. There's lots of people there. And I'm like, oh, 1410? And that was it. No one else bid it that was done. I should have bought it for 1401, but anyways, that's another story. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

So what you just paid an extra 10 grand, boom done.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

10 grand done. Wow. Yeah. And so when I finished.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Did you was that on the auction floor you called that?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah, yeah. In the in the kitchen. Literally in the kitchen. Man. Yeah. So I did that there. And as soon as I bought it, I called my friend who's a real estate agent in the area. And she just goes, You got a bargain. And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, Yeah, you got a really good deal. And then the even the agent goes to me, I'm going to get calls on Monday for this. And I go, What do you mean? He goes, I told these people it was good buying, and no one listened except for you. And I'm telling you, my phone's going to go off the hook once that goes on real estate.com. I sold. Yeah. And it did. And all these people said, I would have bought that. I would have bought that. I would have bought that. And no one was there. And I capitalized on it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Just for the background story, from what I remember, that was uh like a deceased estate. They had to sell it. Yeah, it was an estate, yes, yes. So it was like it couldn't, a deal couldn't be done other than on the auction floor because that's how it had to play out for the estate. Yeah. And sometimes people think, and there's there's conversations with real estate agents that you can take with a grain of salt, but if you understand that you were in the market for so long, yeah, and you were just there, you were there, you were there, bang, opportunity come up. Yeah, and there would have been other auctions you would have gone to and registered for, and then you wouldn't have bid at all, maybe. Yeah. And then bang, this one's there, boom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I literally was uh I did an auction a couple weeks prior in Sutherland. So not as good a spot. And it was uh like it was kind of like a covert auction, and there was no one going in. It was on online and it went for like over one six in Sutherland and it had a huge rock formation at the back, so you couldn't really do much with it. Yeah, and I'm thinking like in hindsight, like like being there was good to watch it, but I just knew I wasn't gonna get a bid because it was just ridiculous the money. So yeah, that was it.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

You're going through the the build process now. Well, it's taking you two years just to like move this thing through. A little bit more than that, but yeah. A bit longer than two years. Yeah, yeah. Um, maybe we won't talk about that because you'll be upset.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

But one thing you come back to me in a year and we'll we'll talk then.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

One thing you won't be upset about is the bank valve. What's the bank valve saying now on this thing?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I got one the other day for uh 1.7.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

17. Yeah, bought it for one four. You made 300 grand off this thing in what two, three years. Make a hundred grand a year off this thing. Yep. Unreal. Yep. So what's your plan? What's your you you've built a property portfolio? You sold those two.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

You sold both of those. Now you're in the dupe in Miranda. Uh that'll be finished built in the next what nine, twelve months? Yep. And then what's the plan after that? Like you're you, for goodness sakes, you've got to put Rage back to work in some way with this property portfolio because she loves it.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Yeah, yeah. I I told her, I said, once we're done with the um place in Miranda, I said, are you ready to manage? And she's like, What do you mean? I go, manage the portfolio. And she's like, What do you say? I'm like, it's on you. I I don't want to do it. Um if we buy a couple more, depending on the numbers, I go, it's yours. Like, so maybe that means when there's enough revenue, she can not work. Yeah. Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Is is that the goal? Like, what do you want to do? Like, you you're gonna build this duplex, bang, you're gonna live in one, sell one. Yep. You're gonna have some cash.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah. Without equity. Equity.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

So you rip the equity out of the second one.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

And then what?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

And start the portfolio again.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

To you've got the owner occupy house, you've got a nice house, brand new house.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Kind of reverse-engineered it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

And then are you going cash flow now?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Uh yeah, I'd like to eventually. I'd like to definitely go down the cash flow um side of things. Yeah. But yeah, capital growth as well. Yeah. I'll take I'll take what I can get. I know like it's I I had one property that was cash flow positive four grand a year, and that felt really good. Uh, if I can get anything like that again, I'll be very happy. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

But rebuild, but you've got a nice equity base, you guys have got mad income. So um man, tell me two more questions. Um, what do you see right now going on in the Sydney property market, right? Like I I normally ask this question to people who are in the investment space, but I think your property value for what over 15 years you have valued predominantly in the eastern suburbs. What's happening? We've had recently an interest rate hike. What do you think is gonna happen?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

It's funny because I ask agents this like weekly in different patches because different agents, different patches, there's different things going on. Um, the blue chip stuff's doing really well, sort of that north of three million is doing really well. North of three million people these people don't get bank loans, they literally pay in cash. Well, whether they're downsizing, I don't know. Everyone's different, but it's it's a strong market. There's always going to be a desire to be in that area or close to the city.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Can you throw some suburbs at us in context to what where the where you know like that people are comfortable? Three mil markets comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Oh, look, your Paddington, your Willara, your Kuj, your Bronte, your Bondi, your Bondi Beach. Like these areas, they're just so blue chip, and I don't know. And the other thing I've noticed over the years is a lot of the parents are refinancing and they're giving deposits to their kids. Whether it be usually they're buying a unit, but that's what I'm seeing. But the market itself is steady. It's not it's steady. I don't think I don't it's not it's not booming and we're not busting, we're steady. We're we're just humming along. I think everyone's sitting back waiting to see what's going on. Obviously, we had a rate increase recently, so I think people are just like, well, what's next? Are we getting another one? Are we are we on hold? What are we doing? I think that's what people are doing. They're sitting back a bit.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Sitting back, seeing no one's uh overly zealous, no one's like super defensive and just playing the stream.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Okay, yeah. Um last thing I I always ask most of the guests this, and it's it's around um, I think just the pressures of a the the male or the the yeah, mainly the male in in in a family, but most all our mates are you know early 40s, late th late 30s, and there is this pressure to be in a house, to have a house. Yep. Um, and then there's also this other that there's pressures for that. There's pressures to have a certain type of car, there's pressures to have you know two European holidays a year, like there's these types of pressures.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

You're talking about the eastern suburbs here, mate.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Well, they're literally like uh well, we both born and raised around here, and for the uh guy in their you know, 30s, 40s, how do you feel about those pressures? Um they say that male suicide is the number one killer for guys under 40 years old. Suicide is the number one killer. Yeah, um I see that it's like males were sold this thing, get a trade, bust your ass, go hard, and then they they now people say to me, Man, I've got a mortgage. I I can't afford to come out and get sushi, yeah. Like just some avocado toast, otherwise, yeah, like it's it's oh I've got a mortgage, I can't do that, right? Yeah, yeah. And they're slaving away because they got the car, maybe they've got the range R, maybe like whatever. And it's like they're just getting slammed. Yeah, getting slammed. Yeah. Um I think they're linked. Well, what do you think about that? Is is do you see those pressures? You man, you see these, you're going through people's places valuing them. You probably hear stories from these people.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah, you do here and there, people do overshare, but look, to be honest, I just think you've got to run your own race and and not look at other people because you're always gonna have someone that's doing better, and you're always gonna have someone that's doing worse. Every every time you look at you know, social media and everything like that. I just think you've got to find your lane, be comfortable in your lane, and just do you the best you can and do your best for your family and whatever that means, you know. Investing, whatever, whatever. Like there's so many different paths you can go forward in. But yeah, that's kind of my thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

What I've admired about you and your story is that you've educated yourself and you've always pushed, right? You're saying, but when you first got into that first investment property, you were the first one in our group to do that back in 2014. Yeah, but I didn't catch on to this thing until 2020. Yeah, so I was sitting back watching you for six years, like, what's he doing? Why'd you buy? Um, and I seen you do two pro and do well out of them, and you're sitting there saying, I wish I did more. I wish I pushed harder every time. But I saw you, you educated yourself, you went to the seminars, you read the books, you did all these things, and you you still took action and you've progressed, yeah, right, which is great. And then you've you got to a stage where you could do something you wanted to do is buy a house for you and your family, and then you've researched, you pushed, you went to auctions, you you you toiled and were in a market for ages. What it feels like 12, 18 months, you were looking for a site. That was that's ages. Some so many people just three months, they get pissed off, bang, they just buy whatever they overpay, yeah, and they get wiped out later on.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

I didn't want to overpay, that was a big one, and you didn't, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:20

And you've made 300 grand in just equity by just buying that place, you know, just by buying it well. But that's what I've always admired about you. You you're an early adopter to this thing, you've educated yourself, and you're saying here about saying your own lane, but like I think a mad part of your story is education, education and being ready for the opportunity. Yeah, but man, thank you so much for coming into the podcast today. It's been so nice having you. I'd love to have you again on the podcast and talk about once it's done, okay. Place is built, yeah, yeah, the whole saga behind it. Because I think in the Shire, people love still journey, they love the duplex story. Yeah, that they everyone's oh, you can put a duplex on that. But you've you've gone through the thing, you bought a good site at a mad price. We can go through it. Maybe we should bring Rachel on because she's the numbers person.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Good luck.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

She can give us the audit. But man, it's been so nice having you. Thank you so much for being the potty. Thanks, Chase. Cheers. 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.