From Portfolio to Dream Home in 3 Years 🏡➡️📈 (The Strategy That Made It Possible)

In this episode, we break down how building a strategic property portfolio first created the opportunity to upgrade into a dream home — without overextending or relying on a massive income 💡

From starting with a simple purchase, to scaling into multiple properties, to using equity to make the next move — this is the real process behind turning investing into lifestyle 🚀

We unpack:

The decision to delay the dream home and build assets first 🏡➡️📊
 How to use your first property to unlock the next 🔓
 The role of equity and growth in upgrading your position 📈
 Why most people get stuck after one purchase 🚧
 How to balance investing with real life (income, family, risk) ⚖️
 The strategy behind turning a portfolio into a home upgrade 🏡🔥

This episode is for anyone who:

Wants to buy their dream home but feels like it’s out of reach 🤔
 Is trying to decide between investing or upgrading 📊
 Or wants a clear path to build wealth through property 💰

If you’re serious about using property to create options — not just own one home — this episode shows you how 👊

👉 Book a strategy call: https://calendars.buyersedgeproperty.com.au/discovery

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yeah, it's fun to get in the colour when someone's driving it and you go, this is awesome. I want to own that. How do I get to that point where I can own a luxury?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

You've built up close to a million dollars worth of capital in a three window, slow down the whole thing, and then transition into a nice unlocked I have.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

I'm out of here, not just living a life. I need to build a legacy for my kids and for the generation of legacy.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Alright, alright, alright. Luke Todd, welcome to the studio. Thanks for coming in today, mate. Long time listener, first time caller.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

That is correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

You've been listening to me now for 36 years and first time coming into the podcast studio, so thank you. But Luke is my brother. He is the owner and director of ARC lending, a mortgage broker, or mortgage brokerage, I should say. But Luke, you've got such an interesting story about your footy career. You've traveled the world playing footy, you've come back, you've worked in the banks, now you're a mortgage broker, you've built a property portfolio, you and Erin, in the last three, four years. You guys have just bought a beautiful house here in Buroney, big block on Dominic Street, happy days. Um you got two boys, busy, busy life. What I I've I've fast forwarded what the last 15 years for you. But um I I want to pick get people on because I your investment story is one of the one of my favorites because it is the most common thing that our clients ask about. People come in and they talk to me about I want to buy a nice owner occupy house, but I don't quite have the capital to do so. Right. Uh what do you think I should do? Can I use property as a way to build up my capital and then go and do that? You've done exactly that, and you've done it in a very short amount of time. All the other things is, you know, they want to replace their income or they want to, you know, just get ahead in general. But tell us like a little bit about your story. Start at the footy days when you're when you're in high school, you just left high school.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Starting off in the footy days, always loved footy, you know that. Would watch every game on the weekend. And I think in my year six year book, I wrote in there that I wanted to play professionally for the sharks. Didn't quite make it. I made juniors with the sharks, so that was as far as my journey went playing for the sharks. But um for me, playing footy was always the dream that I had. What I wanted to do, I didn't think of anything other than that, and that's all that I focused in on. Everything I did, sleep, breathe, eat was constantly footy. You know, you'd watch those TV shows and movies where the little kids would be sleeping with their footy boots on at night. I'm pretty sure I've probably done that one or two times before a big game. Um, but no, going back to my Sharkies days, I remember when I played there, I played Josie Flegg back then, that's what it was called. Um, under 20s, worked at Subway part-time, so that was the only job that I could fit from I think it was 10 till two. Dave Nicholson gave me, let me work those hours, uh, 10 till two, and that allowed me to such random hours, I think. So random, so random. But it was the only one that allowed me to go do training in the morning, go work to a four-hour shift, and then come back and do training in the afternoon, and I didn't have to work on the weekend so I could go play my footy.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I worked at Subway too, and you either want to be on the or I remember they'd either want you on the opening shift so you could open up and get everything done, or you're on the closing shift. It was like no one comes in for the rock star shift and just gets to do none of those things. You don't have to mop up, you don't have to clean up, you don't have to do anything, you don't have to set up anything, but you got to do that.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Got to do that. Somehow was lucky enough to do it.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Tell us, tell us more about like what footy was like for you when you were playing. You played for two years for Jersey Fleck.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Played two years for Jersey Fleck. That was good fun, up and down. I think that was my first taste of what competitive footy looks like. Obviously, you're playing park footy, that's fun. You're playing with your mates, but then when you put on that representative jersey, it's another level. You're playing with people, same skill set, even better, and then you're competing against other people like that too. So I think for me, my mentality quickly was I need to be doing a little bit better than everybody else. And I knew that I wasn't going to get better than everybody else overnight, but my mindset was 1% better every day is going to make the difference against my opposition, the guy opposite me, any given day. So if I could do 10% more per week, I'm 10% better. If that's 10%, and then I looked at it from a compounding effect. So by the end of the season, over the year, during preseason, whatever the situation was, I looked and I had that mentality to sort of get me over the line.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

And then so you're playing locally at Crenella, you play there for two years. And I remember um you did something that was was inspiring for me at the time. And I even still look back and think of it. I remember you got a bunch of your clips from your games, just like, and you created your own highlight reel. You had no agent, you had no scout or nothing. You basically just created a highlight trail, and I remember you just emailed it off to a bunch of people.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah. So basically what I did was exactly what you said. I went and I sourced out the back then when DVDs were a thing. So I sourced out all the DVDs, found out the company who recorded all of our games, got the DVDs from all the games that were recorded, and I paid for editing software, what I thought was editing software, who knows. Um, and I put together a highlight reel, a five-minute highlight reel, put some music together to it, and then I pretty much did my own research. I had a look on the web, every every club that I could find in the NRL overseas in the Super League and in the super, super rugby, and I found out the coaches, names, emails, mailing address, whatever it was, and I packaged that DVD up and I sent it out. Probably sent out over 50 DVDs.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Unreal.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Prospector. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

That's a modern day prospecting.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Um, always knocking, always knocking on the next door, see what opens up. And I found out that a few of the coaches got back to me for the NRL. Some said no, some said maybe come and do a trolling squad, whatever it may be. Then I had a few from Super Rugby that reached out and said, actually, yes, we're interested. So one of those, two of those clubs actually was the Lions and the Stormers of Super Rugby back then, talking back in 2008. And those coaches' names were Eugene Eloff, he was the coach of the Lions at the time, and Russia Erasmus was the incoming coach of the Stormers. And so we have, as you know, we have got a lot of family in Cape Town. So choosing the Stormers made it an easier transition from me, for me, from Sydney as a 19-year-old to moving to South Africa, living by myself.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah. What what type of experience was that? Like you you love footy, you're you've been slogging it out at the Kanala Sharts, Shirley Flag team, and you're you're looking for the next opportunity, the next thing for you to develop your craft and keep playing. Now you're all of a sudden packed up and you're headed across the world to the motherland, to Cape Town, to go play a game that you hadn't played much of, but um, in a country you you've you've been two or three times.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yep. It was a very eye-opening experience. I think I always say that's where I learnt to be a man. It was there was no mummy, no daddy, no brother, there was no one else I could fall back on. Yeah, we had family over there, but that's extended family. And we've seen them two, three times. That's it. So going over there and basically learning my family all over again and learning to become a man, um, that was very, very pivotal. I remember there was one key situation scenario. It wasn't scenario, it's one key experience rather that really, really changed who I was and that really really taught me to back myself. Tell us. I always did back myself previously. I thought I think it's evident to say that I backed myself in order to get to where I was, but then you know, at every point there comes a another situation where there's more of you called upon. And I think that was that moment was when I was put into the boardroom. I had an injury. So my second trial game, I told my MCL. And obviously, as you would know, that's a nice little lengthy recovery. And you're not as when you're coming out of the injury, you're not as quick and as mobile as you once were because you're still easing yourself back into it. There's still in the back of your head that little bit of, oh, what if it goes again? Oh, what if? So you sort of ease your way into, hey, I've got to take this a little bit easy. I can't go 100%. And you know, you've got those mental roadblocks that you're trying to overcome as well. Um, but I remember I sat in the boardroom and it was president, the coaching staff, and a few of the other directors, and they basically told me that I wasn't the player that I said I was, and I wasn't the player that was given to them on that DVD that they watched. And it was at that point that they said they wanted to terminate my contract. They said they won't see it out. Um, I'm free to go if I want, and they'll pay me out. Um, but it was one of those moments where I was like, you know, what the heck?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

This is this is a 19-year-old in the boardroom with a bunch of these guys who are running the stormers.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

That's it. And I'm figuring out to myself real quick, there's nobody else here with me. There is nobody I'm looking, there's nobody else in my corner. It's just me. It's just like I just went, you know, a couple rounds and I'm going back to my corner to get a break. No one's there giving me water, no one's throwing, pushing me up, nothing. Nothing. I'm just soaking up all the punches as I can. And I remember I walked out, it was very, very deflated. It was that was a very, very tough experience to go through. Something that really, really changed me. And so I think that sort of spurred me on to that sort of spurred me on to give me the confidence and the courage to go, you know what? Screw these guys. I know exactly who I am. I know what it took to get here. That's just a bunch of people sitting in a suit telling me what I can't do. There's nobody here telling me what I can do. The only person that's going to tell me what I can do is me. And so that was a pivotal moment for me in my story.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

So what do you choose to do then?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I choose to keep going forward. I choose to, you know, whatever obstacles come my way, whatever is thrown at me, there's always a way around. Yeah, there's always a way through, and there's always a way over. Yeah. Also under. You know?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

I remember you came back, you came back from that whole schimmuzzle. And then what quite quickly afterwards, you you worked for a little while. Um, and then quite quickly you got another contract with a team in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So where Jamie Varon's from, Cherbro.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So after that, yeah, you're right. I um I came back and a little bit of a gap in there. I I played a year in with Ramwick rugby. Up the weeks. Um, and I broke my cheekbone. Broke my cheekbone. Yeah. And that sort of wrapped up that season and that year very, very quickly for me. Um after that, I took a little bit of time off again and ended up going over to New Zealand. I played for club in Midlands.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Just quickly, I'm just thinking about this now, right? You know, like this body preservation and conditioning that like athletes do now. I feel like you were the last like little wave of athletes, of like uh let's call them cohorts that were just like, let's just be tough and let's just go hard out. If we get injured, we just play through it and just like just grip, bite the mouth gun and keep going. Yeah. Now it's everything is so much about just like you know, conditioning, maintenance, like just preservation of the body. But back then it was it wasn't like that at all. Footy wasn't like that back then.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

No, I I can honestly say I had a blatant disregard for my body. I played every game like it was going to be the last game um that I would possibly play. I remember I um I broke my ribs in one game and I wanted to play desperately so much so this was when I was still at the sharks. I actually took painkillers before my before my um what do they call them?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

On a test or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

I took I took what was that, prescription painkillers basically. I got them from the doc um because they were broken. Um and I took them before my my fitness test. There you go, my fitness test, and in order to pass it, and the following week was probably the worst game I've ever played in my life. Just trying to play through broken ribs, it was the most painful thing I've ever done. I could not tackle, I could not, every time I got up to play the ball, it was I remember that game like it was yesterday. I watched that clock go down. I've never done that before in a game, yeah, but I watched that clock go down because I could not handle the pain.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

And so, yeah, I I don't know what made me think about that, but like it was that. So now you're you're in Midlands, you play there for a little while, and then I remember an opportunity while you're there, it would have been maybe in the first season you're there, an opportunity comes up to play in uh America.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

In the States, yeah. So I was there for six months. That was back in 2011 when New Zealand had the Rugby World Cup. So the seasons were condensed, so there wasn't that much of an opportunity. But I was down there, um, made a few training squads, etc., like that for the stags, Southland stacks, but it was nothing major, it was just everything was pretty informal. Um, but it was still something that I was able to do and gain a lot of experience from um saying that there were two opportunities on the table to go play club rugby in the US or go play club rugby in Scotland. And I chose the US because I thought that would be a fun experience. I'd never been there before. I was there for what three months, did a three-month stint there, played some club rugby, travelled all up and down the eastern seaboard. I thought, mate, this is great. Harlequins, mate, Pittsburgh Harlequins, that's all right. Pittsburgh Harlequins. Uh, met a lot of good friends, a lot of good mentors that were there to uh still to this day. Um, but one of the main things that came out of that trip was I got a full-time or I got a full ride scholarship to a university um thanks to the likes of Eric Jerpe.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Eric Jerp, what a guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Eric Jerpy was one of the coaches at Pittsburgh Harlequins, and he started up the rugby program at Wheeling University.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

And he brought me along, and I was fortunate enough to get a full ride there where I went on to continue my studies. Nice. What'd you what's what'd you study? So while we were there, we I was there for just over four and a half years. I'd done a little bit of studies here in Oz before I went over, but when I was there, I did an undergrad in psychology, philosophy, and I completed a master's in business as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Nice. So went over there, thanks to Eric Jerp, full ride, notched up heaps of stuff heaps of studies. Yep. And you're playing for the college in the college game, in the college system.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah, I got to play one season in the college system. Um I had roughly about, I think it was two years eligibility to play in the college system. Yeah I think in my first summer there, I snapped my Achilles tendon. Gone.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

You probably know what that one's like, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Just done that one. Yep. Crazy. Crazy. Just added a bit this week.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

So snapped my Achilles tendon. And that was another mental hurdle to get over.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Isn't that crazy? Like I you had so many injuries, you know. The the knee, the cheekbone, the Achilles. Like you just taught my groin when I was in New Zealand. Yeah. Just unnecessary stuff. But I think I think that I'm I'm laboring a little bit on that, and we'll we'll move on to like what life looks like after rugby because you've you've still got more rugby stories to tell. But um people are here for a property podcast. Yeah, the podcast called Moves to Momentum. But I want I I want to at least let the listeners understand a little bit about what you'd been through, right? And what your background was. But you you come, you wrap up all that, you do all the stuff in um in Pittsburgh, you have a great time, do your masters, all that type of stuff. You come back, and now you jump into finance at the banks.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And what what was that like? You you you're competing, tackling guys, and now all of a sudden you're you're in the office wearing a suit every day.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah, so it was something very, very different. I might even take it one step further back and just say, when I came back, I had a very, very hard time getting a job. I could not get a job. I every interview I went for, I was told you're overqualified for this position. Now I'm coming back in with a master's and I'm trying to, you know, get entry-level jobs in. I um worked at Tynan Motors doing asset finance there. Uh Sam Tynan gave me a little bit of a help there to get a gave me, gave me a hand there to get a job doing asset finance. So I was able to learn the front end of dealing with clients and dealing with personal finances. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

I think that's probably getting people but getting people loans for cars.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

That's it. And I think I start the the conversation there because that's where I think the enjoyment actually started. Yeah. There was a there was a little bit of satisfaction being able to help someone get something that they actually wanted. Yeah. And so I start there because then it sort of snowballed and it grew over a period of time as to what I actually wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

What did you learn there? Because like car finance is very, very different to what you're doing now. Like the majority of your clients are buying homes or building property portfolios. Um what were some of the main key takeaways that you learnt about finance, or maybe even just about people?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Learning about the finance industry, I think that was a very, very good segue into it. You got to be exposed to company financials, you got to be exposed to self-employed, you got to see the average mum and dad coming in getting loans for cars that they probably necessarily didn't really need, but that's what they wanted. Right. And I think that's where I probably got the taste of people seeing how much people earn and going, why can't I earn that?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

What do you what do you mean by that? Like you've seen people making good money?

SPEAKER_01 20:36

So I saw people making really, really, really good money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Because you're working out of a Mercedes dealership at Miranda.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

That is correct. Yeah. And so, you know, you see you've got more of the affluent clients coming in, looking at the coming coming in to look at the the Mercedes Benz, yeah. Um so I learned really quickly that, hey, if these people are able to buy these cars, how are they able to buy these cars? You come into work every day and you see beautiful, nice C63 AMG, you see the G-Wagon, you know, you see these beautiful mercs and you're like, I would love to own one of them. You know? Because I yeah, it's fun to get in the car and someone's driving it and you're going, oh wow, this is awesome. But like, I want to own one. How do I get to that point where I can own a per a luxury performance vehicle? And so I think that sort of kick-started my journey as to how do I make money?

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, it it is such an interesting piece. I think that was very, very much similar for me when I started in the real estate space. Um, I was surrounded with um some great mentors and some people who had already built a property portfolio. But the use I was exposed to clients and all. Also the people that I work with, wow, people in this country can make a lot of money doing like um, you know, you the run-of-the-mill person who's making the 100-150 grand a year is but there's like there's a lot of business owners in this country making a lot of, or I should say, great money, right? And it's not when you start to realize, oh, there's not much difference between me and them. The only difference is that person's taking the risk.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

And I realize once you take the risk, you have to double down on that risk almost every quarter. It's like, oh shit, I gotta take this risk again. Oh, and then like you just the risk just becomes normal. But so you get a job in finance, you you work at the banks a little bit. Start telling us about your property portfolio, right? I I think we got a good sense of who you are. It seems like you're competitive, you're a grinder, you fight, you keep going, you you're a make it happen type of guy. But then when do you realize, oh shit, I got to build a property portfolio? Because I remember you guys, you and Erin, the love of your life, your wife.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Um beautiful wife. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Buy an apartment in Crenella. Everyone wants to buy an apartment in Crenella. When do you guys be like, you know what, we need to build a property portfolio?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

So good question. I think we'll take it a step back, would be probably the added advantage that I had when looking at those things and coming from it from a different perspective was the fact that, like you said, worked in the bank. So I used to work in credit at the bank, right? I think that's probably a key part to my story. So the amount of times I would run servicing calculators to see, well, I will put my name in the system to go, well, okay, cool. If I earn X amount, how much can I borrow? All right, now if I'm earning X amount, what if I earn this? How much can I borrow then? And so that gave me a nice foundation to go, well, okay, well, if we go out and we buy, because between the two of us, we were both on good incomes.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Can I pause you quickly? Yeah. For the person that doesn't know banking land, working in credit is when a broker or someone puts up an application and they need to be checked. Can this person afford this loan? That goes to someone in the credit team at the bank. That's who that's what you were at the bank.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yep. I was a credit assessor.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

You and Aaron, two good incomes.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Aaron and I, on two good incomes, I looked at it from this perspective. Okay, cool. We can borrow X amount. So that means, yeah, we can go out and we can buy a house now. But if we buy a house now, we're strapped. We've got nothing left. If something goes uh wry, something goes wrong, we're struggling. Right? And I didn't want it to, I didn't want to put us in that position as a newly married couple. Loved up. Loved up, also thinking of starting a family. Yeah. Right? Because then I'm thinking, well, if we start a family, we're gonna be down to one income. It's taken two salaries to get this mortgage and to maintain this mortgage. If we remove a salary, we're gonna struggle to make this. So I said, let's take a step back. Let's have a look at getting an apartment.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

If we get an apartment for pretty much half the cost of a house, so you guys were looking to buy a place.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

I'm just putting the numbers clear for people. You guys were looking to spend half, right? So you were looking to spend something in the mid millions, comfortable in the mid-millions. Yeah, yeah. And you thought, nah, that's not for us. No, I can see where this path is going, it's not for us.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

No, that's right. And so by going two-bedroom apartment in Crenella, down by Ganemata Bay, two-minute walk down to Ganemata Bay, you know, five-minute walk to Crenella, happy days, beautiful walks in the afternoon, fantastic, loved it. Great location. But what that meant was if we go down to one mortgage, I mean one income, if we go down to one income, we can still afford the mortgage because we're not solely dependent on two income servicing the mortgage. Yeah. Which goes, hang on a second, that means we still got how much more borrowing capacity. Right? Okay. Now, the thing is, like most people, is you're limited to your deposit. Right? So what we did was we decided that we would use a family pledge, family guarantee. We got we commonly known as guarantor. Guarantor, right? So we got mum and dad to guarantor our loan. So we could borrow 100, 105%, including stamps. Reason being was I wanted to save our deposit. I didn't want to have our money tied up into the asset that we may or may not be able to get back out. Yeah. If we were down to one income. Yeah. Right. So trying to be conservative, think ahead. But in there lies our first deposit to get the first investment property, which you helped with. Yep. Right. Which was a great purchase.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

So tell us, right? So you you've you've gone back, you've you've now assessed, great, I I need, we've preserved the borrowing capacity.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

We've preserved the capital for the deposit.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

At this stage, you're already locked and loaded for to buy in your mind to buy an investment property. Yes. Why is that? Like, that's not common. People aren't just like, oh yeah, I'm gonna buy an apartment and when I buy an investment property. Most people in this area load up on as much debt as they can possibly get their hands on and buy the thing that they want to show everyone. Yep. Why what gives you this idea? Why do you want to do that for?

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Reason why I wanted to do it was because, like most people, you're limited to your deposit. All right. So I didn't, if I wanted to buy a$2 million property, I don't have a 20% plus DAMPS deposit line around. Yeah. Working, you know, a decent income in Sydney, still trying to enjoy your lifestyle. You're not gonna save your way to that deposit. You need to start thinking outside the square, going, okay, what is a way that I can start generating income without having to slave away?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah. So you're thinking, okay, great. I'm gonna put this capital, the deposit you had, to work to generate more capital.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yep, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

I talk about that as capital, capital replication. I don't even know if that's a thing or not. But I think that is very important when building property portfolio. Yep. How quickly can I replicate my capital to then move it on to another property purchase? That's right. So that's what you guys do. Yep. What year is this? Probably 23. Well after COVID, 20, 22, 23.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah. 22, 23. Yeah, probably 22, late 22, early 23. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Late 22, early 23. Okay. So you just bought your unit in Crenala. How much you buy that for?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

800.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

You buy the unit for 800, and you've got a nice chunk of change left over that is deposits. Yep. What do you do now? Contact you. So tell us, what's your first deal?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Uh, three by one in Warnboro. That was in 2022.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

2022. Three bed, one bath house in Warnboro. Yep. Uh from memory, that's a double brick house on a 500, 500, 600 square meter block. Next to a massive park. Next to a massive park at the end of a cold decyclone. Beautiful. I remember it was freshly renovated. Um, new kitchen, new bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

You know what made the deal even sweeter? The current the the owners before they left, they said they wanted to leave it better than what they found it. So they freshly painted everything and redid the driveway.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Yeah. No, that was a clean, clean property. I remember I'm pretty sure we did it off market with one of my great agents, Dye Padfield, in in Rockingham.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Um, and it was like half done. Like I remember she sent me the walkthrough videos, Jay, said great property, blah, blah, blah. And I looked, I was like, but like the video she sent us, like, that were the kitchen was half done.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

And it was like, oh nah, all good. That'll be done by settlement. Don't worry about it. Like, oh, yeah, look, this one. So but um didn't question it.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

I just said, all right, if you reckon this is a done deal, let's go for it.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Like, what a time to be buying in in Perth. People are people talking about buying in Perth now. I know. Warnbro, last last year, 2025, did 18% growth.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Um, so that's 2022. You ripped that deal in Warnbro, then what?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Mid that was mid-22. Yeah. And then end of 2022.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Uh, you got us another one, uh, three by one in litre.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Three by one in liter. You ripped that um same same type of thing, I'm pretty sure. That was like a similar double brick on slab, similar block size. Well, I from memory, these both of these were like five and a half percent rental yields.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Like they were a little bit negative, but like not massive.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

The beautiful thing was after we secured those, I believe there was like a rate drop or so.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

And I was able to put, and because of the tenants, I was able to put the rental up. So it was only negative for a little bit of time. Did you fix it?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Did you fix the rates?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

No, no, didn't fix the rates. Didn't fix them.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Okay. Um, so you got you done that, two deals, and then then here from here, then there was some other news after that, after you ripped those two deals.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Then we had our first son.

unknown 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

So you're on the sidelines now, Erin's not working. I do want to, before we go on and talk about King Lee, you I remember there was you had some dramas. Everyone always asked me these property investing things, and your numbers are uh are great numbers to talk about, and we'll glorify them in a minute. But I remember you had an absolute wrap bag of a tenant in the first Warnbro property.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

And can you just talk about what that was like, what happened, and the stress that put on you and Erin?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah, so we did have a tenant in there and he just didn't pay rent. Dogs. He didn't pay rent. And so it was like, you know, they said, oh yep, he's one of our tenants. He's had our who he was he's one of our tenants from previous rentals. Yeah, he's good one. They vouched for him, etc. etc. Had him in there, and you know, first couple months was all good, then all of a sudden, games, games. Then it was actually funny. Um they did, I don't know if I should share share this, but they went through and they did the inspections, you know, their monthly, quarterly inspections, whatever. And they took photos, and in the background on the desk was court judgments. Court judgments for this person, yeah. Guy was going in and out of courts, and obviously, obviously, you know, he's probably diverting his funds to go elsewhere, but um no, we were finally able to get him removed.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

And that's the first property you guys bought, and that you copped that pretty early on. Was there ever any doubts in your guys' mind? Shit, this was the wrong decision. We shouldn't have done this.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Uh no, I don't think so. Because I I looked at the bigger picture. What is a few months where I'm having to chip in to cover the mortgage? Um, but once I get someone else in there, then they're going to be covering the mortgage for me. So these are all things that I had in the back of my mind. So rather than allowing it to deter me, I just built myself a nice little buffer anyway.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Super important. I recommend to every single person per property that they have in their portfolio, five grand buffer. Yeah. You got five properties, 25 grand buffer for your portfolio, not for your life, for your portfolio, just in case.

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Um, okay, moving on. You have Kingsley first child, Erin's on maternity leave. Yep. What's the plan with a property portfolio now? You've got three properties: Cornella apartment. Yep. Warm bro, three by one, leader, three by one.

unknown 34:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

And so basically it was just hold on to the properties, sit tight for a little while. And you know, I probably was a little bit excited and I just kept watching the properties and kept looking at them. How often? How often are you looking? I'm probably looking at it, you know, once a month.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Once a month?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Once a month. What are you looking at? I'm just seeing if the prices have gone up and I'm taking screenshots and sending it to you. You're like, mate, how good is this? And you're like, I know. I know.

unknown 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I was a Wombro specialist back then.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

You were. Yeah. Mate, I still get calls from Dye and from a few of the other agents out that way that said, mate, Jason, he's lovely to work with. And you know what? Some of those people still send me deals. Crazy. They still say, hey, Luke, can you look after this client for me?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Man, it is ridiculous what reputation is in this buyer's agent game. I literally got two phone calls from massive, massive agents in Darwin recently. And it's like, the start of this year, I know the other agencies that they deal with are way bigger players than us. And I called one of them. He's like, Jay, I got three deals for you. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. I've just sent you an email. You know, these are decent prices. What do you think? I was like, man, I can definitely do two of them. This one is a bit out of the box. I don't know if I can do this one. And he's like, man, you're the only one with them. But he said that to me twice in the one phone call. Man, you're the only one with them.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Like, all the big buyers agents are buying in Darwin right now. I'm like a small fish in this pond. I said, why are you? This is buyer's agent heaven. You give me three properties at great prices, exclusive to me for the next two days. Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

A couple of people in my office deal with you. You've got a good reputation. You know, the other two guys in your team have got great reputations. I've spoken to multiple conveyancers who have dealt with you guys. Great reputation.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Is there anything else? Um, like you guys negotiate, but like you guys are pretty fair and reasonable with with your terms and your with your with your price. Um and you're not dickheads. I'm asking you one more time. Is there anything else? Because I'm trying to bottle this so I can teach the staff, my staff. I'm trying to grow in the team. Like, what is it? No, no, man. That's pretty much it. Yeah. Okay. So these these two agents, I've asked them both the same question. It's like, we want to work with you because you got good reputation. Yeah. Because we're not dickheads and we're just like treating them like normal people, and we're helping them and helping our client. Win-win.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

It's ridiculous what that is. But yeah, that I I have a lot of time for a lot of those people in Rockingham.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

No, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

So you've you're on the sidelines now, you you've you've you're letting the property portfolio cook. Yep. You've just settled what? Or you've been in that place in Baroney now for a year, maybe a bit less. Six months. Six months. Six months. So explain that to us. What happened? You've obviously had the baby, boom, for goodness sakes. Now we've got two babies. You've got Sterling and Kingsley.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

And you've now bought an awesome owner-occupier house in the Sutherland Shire, which is one of the most um like coveted suburbs, Barony, everyone wants to live in Barony around here. What's the decision process to be like, we've got our apartment, we've got our family, I've got my one true love, I've got two investment property portfolios. Life's looking good for you.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

What what what's a conversation that now leads you to all right, we're gonna make some changes?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

You would probably know better than anyone else, Kingsley is a little pocket rocket. He's a handful. So when we fell pregnant with Sterling, it was we cannot have two of these boys running around in a two-bedroom apartment. We need to do something, ASAP, to get a backyard so they can run around. Yeah. No, I think it was just the natural progression, the evolution of where we were. You know, you can't afford to stay in a two-bedroom apartment, you outgrow it eventually. And so it was we bought the investment properties, and I said, okay, looking at the market where we are now, time to sell. Yeah. Time to sell. Let's get into the owner rock.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Can I do some numbers for people playing along at home?

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

You you buy the fur you buy the unit for 800. You buy the two, you buy the two um investment properties for 300 each. So you've got a property portfolio worth what? 1.4 mil, right? Then you sell the unit for a mil and a bit, a million some change. Yep. Now, and then you've got you sell both investment properties. You sell the um, let's just use round numbers, 600, you sell both of them for about 600?

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yep, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

So now all of a sudden you've got a mil, 600, you've got we can 2.2 million dollars worth of capital.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yep, close to uh not that much, but yeah, but like for those playing at home, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Yeah, you've got debt associated with all of that, right? But you've got we've got yeah, you had you started with a$1.4 million property portfolio, now you've got a$2.2 million property portfolio, yeah, which is a gap of$800K. In how long of holding those three properties, you you built$800K worth of equity. How long did that take?

SPEAKER_01 40:14

It took us what three years? Three years. Three years, yeah. Yeah, 2025. We we bought the the first investment in 2022. Um and yeah, 2025 is when we sold up and we moved into the new house.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

How amazing is that, man? You you've built up close to a million dollars worth of capital in a three-year window, sell down the whole thing, and then transition into a nice owner-occupied house. Along the way, I think it's important you started the business as well during that time frame. Yeah, that's right. I think it's important to note before I ask you the final questions that in building a property portfolio, it is needed to increase your income along the way. Erin's still at home with the with the boys, which is great. So at some stage, there needs to be a decision of we're gonna increase our debt and property portfolio. Was there ever a clear decision of like, nah, I need to increase my income too as well to keep this machine moving?

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Yeah, I think it was kind of twofold for me. There was obviously increase my income to keep this machine moving, but then there was also the family aspect to it. I said, you know, prior to starting up ARC lending, I was working at an accounting firm in the city. And for those of for those of you playing at home, um, I used to catch the 505 train from Woolware every morning. 505 train. I hated it, absolutely hated it. Longest year of my life doing that job. Yeah. Um, but I think that was the final piece of the puzzle in order for me to learn and do what I'm doing now. Yeah. But catch the 505 train, and that was the decision I made because catching the 505 train let me get in at quarter to seven. Get in at quarter to seven in the morning, thereabouts, 20 to 7, walk through the city, get to the office. Um, and then leaving the city at 4:30, getting home at quarter to six, six o'clock. Because when I was doing the normal nine to five, I wasn't seeing Kingsley at all. Yeah. And there weren't, you know, two, three, four weeks where I didn't see him at all. Didn't see him in the mornings, didn't see him in the evenings. And I was like, what am I doing? No worth it. Am I just here slaving away, making money for this big corporate firm? And all I get to do is see my family on the weekends. And I used to fall asleep on the couch every night because I was so tired. Get home, eight o'clock, I'm ready, sleep on the couch, snoring. Alarm goes off, I'm up, I'm out the door, 5.05 train. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

No, it's um that was the catalyst.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

So I guess the catalyst for me was it was twofold. There was the whole, I don't want to be slaving away, doing what I'm doing, not getting to spend time with my family. I'm there, but I'm not there. You know, Saturdays I'd pretty much sleep all day. And then the other part was I live in Sydney. I love Sydney. I live in Crenalla. I want to stay living in Crenella. What do I need to do to increase my income so that I can afford to live here and enjoy my lifestyle and maintain a lifestyle here?

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

So that was the catalyst for me going out on my own and starting up my own brokerage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

I find that so common, you know, like um people create a great skill set in their career, and at some stage you you're faced with this ultimatum of like, do I stay working for the man? You know, good company, blah, blah, blah, blah. All this stuff that we're told is the right thing. But I feel like, and you'd see it so much now with the brokerage, right? The average wage or the average family, it's I don't know. Well, they can't get ahead, you know? With the way that the game is set up, housing prices is I wouldn't say racing away, but it's constantly getting further and further away from people. And how do they make more income? Their incomes aren't going up, but their lifestyle is going up.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

You know, if you've got a young family, um, man, more than likely you're just gonna keep spending more on groceries, spending more on things. Yeah, that's it. Um what do you ever speak to people about that? Like, what do you think about the current state of what's going on for people and how they can get ahead?

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yeah, it's funny you say that because I'd say as a broker, probably 98% of my clientele are investors. So I find that these are the conversations that I have with clients on a daily basis is you know, you're not just thinking about today, you're thinking about tomorrow and then the years to come, and then what are you going to be doing after that as well? So it's not only what do we need to do now to get you into a property today. Yeah. Not we don't want to get you in a, you know, obviously circumstances pending, but if we can get you into a property today, let's not put that off for next year. Because as we have seen and history dictates for us, mate, the property price is gonna move. It's gonna move, it's gonna move. So by the time you're ready to go next year, you're already priced out again. Yeah, you're gonna go, well, we'll just wait another year. Yeah. And then the ball just gets kicked further down the line.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

The earlier you can start, it's the the better. The way the earlier you can start, the better. Um, and what do you think? Like, I I've been harping on on this podcast a fair bit about um just the expectations from for guys, really. Um, I think, you know, you're got a very traditional setup similar to Jamie Lee and I. Uh, two kids, Aaron's at home with the kids, you know, you're got a business that's that's doing really well. Um, do you find that there's pressures out there in society um to be a particular way, have a particular thing, drive a particular thing, all that type of stuff? Because I find that male suicide is the number one killer for guys under the age of 40. I feel like divorce is freaking rampant, you know. There's there's people that have that I went to school with, I mean my mid-30s that are already on their second marriage. Not that that's bad. Like I'm happy for them that things have changed, but I think that so many people have gone down this path. You've got to go down this path, they go down it, and then by the time they hit 30, their early 30s, they're like, oh, do I even want to be here? And then things have changed, you know. Yep. For goodness sake, some sometimes the things are they're questioning so much that they've gone to extremes.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

I think you've asked a very, very good question. And probably I probably feel the same way. I think it's not spoken about enough. Because I don't think you're told, you know, and I think this this is just from a young age, you're told you go to school, go to uni, get a career, get a job, or pick a career, find a job in that in that space, um, you know, get married, have kids. But within that, there is no talk about building a foundation so that you can build upon that. And so that's strong and that's steady.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

What do you think the foundation is?

SPEAKER_01 47:49

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

I think it's just that I think it's foresight. I think you have to have a plan to get to where you want to get to. If you want to create a life, what's it gonna cost you to have that life? No one wants to talk about what it costs, but it's going to cost getting on the 505 train. That's what it costs to build the skill set. Then what does it cost? It takes a cost to take a risk on two properties that people said, why are you doing that? That's a glorified mining town. Your parents, your father-in-laws all said, don't do it. That's not safe. And you did it, and now you have a$2.5 million house in Buroney because you created the foundation. That is a foundation.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

That is a foundation, yeah. I think uh you hit the nail on that. The foundation is, you know, if I backtrack all the way back to the beginning, is sitting in the boardroom, going, there is nobody else here but me. Yeah. And so when I wake up in the morning, you know, it sounds cliche, you look in the mirror, I don't say this, but you know, you look in the mirror and you go, Well, it's only you staring back at you. You know, but what gets me up and going in the morning is my wife, my two boys.

SPEAKER_03 49:04

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

That's what makes me get up in the morning to go, I want to succeed for them. And I think my job as a dad is to instill that into my boys so they become better men than me, and then they then in return do that for their kids.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

So I'm I'm I'm out here, not just living a life to go, I'm just gonna get through, seed to my retirement, and one day I'm I'm done. I'm here to build a legacy. No, I'm here to build a legacy for my kids and for the generations that I don't get to see.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

I think one of the things I admire most about your story, you said it a few times about thinking outside the box, right? Thinking outside the square, you said. And from when you cut up your own highlight reels and thought outside the box to around how you can get your next opportunity in footy. You also thought outside the box when you bought your apartment. I'm not going to take the deposit that we saved. I'm going to use the guarantor loan to preserve that capital, to invest, to replicate my capital somewhere else. Even though there would have been naysayers for you to buy a property in Perth, you still bought, not one, but you bought two properties in Perth against the naysayers, against people who would have said, Oh, I don't know if that's a good idea. Why don't you do this? No, it's not me. You're the only one in the boardroom with those suits in the at the stormers. Yeah. No, this is what I'm going to do. You've done it, and now you've got a place, a beautiful, you know,$2.7 million house in Baroneer. You've got a wife, two kids, a successful business based on you took a risk, you doubled down, you took a risk, you doubled down, and you keep doing that, right? Yeah. You get on this 505 train. How many times do you tell us? 505 train for for ages. You know, you didn't see Kingley for weeks, right? Because that's what it took for you to develop a skill set to build your income to then support a wife, two kids, all this type of stuff. But I I'll I think that there's a lot of things that I talk to property investors about often, right? And that's a very common thing. They want the nice owner-occupied house, but they I don't think they realize that you have to prolong. Surely it would have been nice to buy the owner-occupy house for$1.5 million back then. And you could just get it done and bang, you know, you've you got a house in the backyard. Happy days. Done. But you're stressed, you're newly married, you're loved up, and now you just add this massive layer of stress. For goodness sakes, maybe you don't even have a baby at that stage because you're so stressed that it's it's hard to conceive. Yep. Or you don't do that and you do it a different way, you think outside the square and you you buy some investor in properties, right? It's um it's I'm trying to highlight this because I think that's important for people to see, right? That you you take a different path, you look outside the square to get what you want to get to. Then the same thing with the income. You you grind, you grind, you get the 505 train, you don't see your sign, but that's not forever. That's for a period of time for you to develop your skill set. I think people think about sometimes, oh, it's easy for you to say you work in real estate. You you I do work in real estate, but for years, I also used to drive a Vespa scooter to work. I used to have a buddy apartment in Crenella, two by one apartment in Crenella with an old original bathroom and kitchen with two kids in that apartment. I used to drive a Vespa from there from Crenella to the city. Then I would be a BDM for a uh a company, and then I would drive that Vespa from buddy the city to Campbelltown to sign contracts to do deals with with people all over the all over Sydney. That was pretty shit. But it was developing my skill set of creating relationships out of thin air that now I can create a relationship with some guy in Darwin, and now he sends me off-market properties exclusive to us for 48 hours. Yeah. It's a skill set that you develop, and then how do I repurpose this skill set to then get more money? How do I like apply it to a higher value price, higher value task, higher value audience, right? And I think that's that's exactly what you did. You worked with some real high income, high-income earners when you're at the accounting firm. Yep. And you saw financials and how wealthy people structured trusts and this and that around how they can, how how how wealthy people structured their finances to keep buying more assets and building their wealth. I remember you telling me about big guys who had car collections and multiple properties and you know, um big farms and all this other stuff. It's like, it's incredible, right? But they structure it a particular way, and you were there working with them, structuring things, blah, blah. And now that's what you do for your clients today.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

100%.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

But tell us before we wrap, what's your plan for your property portfolio now? And is there anything else you want the listeners to know um or you know, some insights around what you're doing for um at Ark Lending at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 54:10

Good question. Property portfolio um is gonna continue to grow. Yeah, it's gonna continue to grow, just making a little few adjustments and tweaks along the way so that we're in a really good position to run. Right. That's that's what I'm doing right now. So obviously, in order to do that, I need to make sure that the business is is good and everything's running smoothly there so that I can inject what I need to inject into these um upcoming property purchases.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

And what's the other classic type of client that you're helping at arc lending at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 54:47

So at arc lending, like I said um previously, 98% is investors. Investors, investors. So we look at arc lending to restructure deals and we make it so that you can keep going. Yeah. We look at it and we help, we look at it from a holistic point of view and go, well, okay, cool, this is where we are now, but you want to keep growing your portfolio. How can we assist in making sure that you're not capped at where you're capped at? Yeah. Now we've had clients where, you know, they were set at private with the banks in the private banking sector, um, with the big four and with