Built 4 Properties by 26 on a $70K Salary 🏡💰 | Harley Giddings’ Investing Blueprint

At just 26 years old, Harley Giddings has built a portfolio of 4 investment properties — starting from a normal $70K salary, working two jobs, and living at home with one goal: get ahead early.

In this episode of Moves to Momentum, we break down the exact mindset shift that changed everything…

From reading The Barefoot Investor at 14 years old and learning compound interest, to buying his first investment property in Western Australia and making over $300K in equity on his first deal.

We unpack:

🏡 How he bought his first property in Huntingdale, WA for $450K and sold it for $750K
 📈 Why compound interest at 14 changed his entire life
 💰 How working 2 jobs helped him fast-track his portfolio
 🧠 The exact 3-step checklist he uses to assess every property deal
 🏦 Why structuring debt correctly is just as important as buying well
 🔥 The truth about trusts, borrowing capacity, and why most investors get stuck
 🇦🇺 His honest view on the Australian property market right now
 🚀 Why most people delay investing — and how to break that cycle early

This episode is for anyone who:

✔ Feels like property is too far away
 ✔ Wants to build wealth without waiting until their late 30s
 ✔ Is trying to balance lifestyle, investing, and getting ahead
 ✔ Wants a real strategy instead of BBQ advice from mates and family

The biggest mistake most people make?

Waiting too long.

As Harley says — time in the market beats almost everything.

If you're serious about building the portfolio that buys your future, this episode is for you.

🎯 Book your strategy call here:
 https://calendars.buyersedgeproperty.com.au/discovery

#PropertyInvesting #AustralianProperty #Rentvesting #PassiveIncome #FinancialFreedom #MovesToMomentum

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You invested five grand a year from the time you're like 15 and stopped at 25. You'd have more money than if you started investing five grand a year at 25 and went all the way up to 60. The difference was just like time in the market, not how much you actually put into it. That flipped the switch where I'm like, shit.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Harley Giddings, welcome to this studio for Moves to Momentum. Mate, thanks so much for coming in today to Cornella. Long time, bro. I feel like I've been talking to you for uh we both started our businesses at a similar time. And every time we chat is 30, 40, 50 minutes on the phone. So I wanted to bring you down here. Mate, thanks for coming in.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Oh, thanks for having me, mate. Cornella's beautiful, and yeah, we always bounce off each other. I love ideas. I mean, different industries, also like in the property game, I guess, but different. I mean, broke in your BA, but it's just good to bounce ideas off other ambitious people. So good to be you, mate.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Man, I followed your, I reached out to you on Instagram because I followed your page. So much of the stuff you were putting out, I feel like created a really good voice piece for young people in their 20s, right? Like they're still living at home. I know I was living at home when I bought my first property. For goodness sakes, I was married, having a kid, still living at my parents' place. I did have a short stint living away, but I was trying to get ahead, right? And that's something that you, I feel like, have become a voice piece of online. How did that all come about?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

For sure. I mean, I'm massive on trying to get ahead, making something of your 20s. I just recently turned 26, so I'm on the wrong side of 20, but I'm still in my 20s, so very much a uh hopefully a mentor for the the 20-year-olds that I kind of post for. Yeah. Um, I started posting about two years ago. So two years ago, I was building a property portfolio, working two jobs, working at home, all the all the right things to set myself up for success down the track. Um, but at the time I just realized like there was so much doom and gloom in the news that you can't get into the property market, you can't set yourself up, it's too hard. And I'm like, I've got a 70k full-time job. I work at a BP three, four days a week on top of that. And I'm able to build a I had two properties at the time. So I thought, why not start sharing my journey to hopefully motivate and encourage other people to take action too?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Good on you, man. Like it takes a lot of gaunas to do that because so many people these days, especially in Australia, I feel like there's this uh tall poppy syndrome.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

As soon as someone says, Oh, I've done all right, or I've done something, yeah, boss. You get the haters rolling on in and just trying to chop you down. Do you get a bit of that?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

For sure. I mean, when I first started, like I was so nervous. I mean, I come from a small town in Victoria, like footy, like, oh, me mates and that. I'm like, I'm just gonna cop shit, I just know it. But I'm like, stuff at life's too short not to give it a crack. And I'm like, I feel like I could provide value. It definitely wasn't like I my biggest concern was I didn't want to come across like I'm bragging. Because like up until that point, only one of my mates, I've got plenty of good friends, only one of my mates knew I had property at that stage. I had two investment properties because it just doesn't come up in conversation. Like, if we're at the pub and I'm oh, I just bought my second property, like you'd sound like a wanker. So I'm like, it just doesn't come up, and people never knew about it. So when I started like posting in January 2024 for the first time, half of my mates were like, What the bloody hell are you talking about? Like, you've got properties like you were at the pub on the weekend with us, like you've got properties. I'm like, yeah. And like felt very uncomfortable with it, but I just knew, as I said, like if I could do it, I feel like I'm a very normal person. That if I could work my butt off, take action and get into the right markets and actually take action, like I feel like anyone could do it. So I thought sharing my story was just gonna be perfect for for others to do the same.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

And honestly, I I keep coming back to I feel like you've become this figurehead of the someone in their mid-20s building a property portfolio that it is not just, I know, I feel like the media hypes it up to be all these landlords, these property investors, yeah, are like, I don't know, like they're off trials or something, like just these crazy wealthy people. Yeah. But, you know, we've the clients that we both work with, that most of them are just normal Aussie battlers, you know, that maybe got some income or they've they've inherited some money or what whatever they've done, but they're still having a crack. When I say taking having a crack, it's like taking a risk. Okay, my normal nine to five job isn't probably gonna get me ahead or where I want to get to, but I've got to do something to get ahead.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

When did you have that realization that I've got to do something to have a crack?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I feel like I I reflect on this a little bit recently, but I feel like pretty early on, I was wired to know that I needed to invest to get to where I wanted to be. I still remember being everyone was young and wanted the Lamborghini and the mansion. And it's like, God, I just like imagine if I'm a millionaire and this is me when I'm like 10 to 14. I'm like, I'm gonna be a millionaire. And now it's like if you own a home in Australia, you're probably a millionaire now just to buy your first home. But I just remember like early days. One of the biggest things I learned early was about compound interest. So started investing not in property to start.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

When you say early days, can you give me like a time because you're still a young dude, 26? True, true.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Early days.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

I'm talking like you're like in your in your diabetes.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Pretty much. No. So I was about, I'd say 14 to 15. Um, mum probably made the best investment of my career, her career, because hopefully I help retire me parents one day. Um, but she bought the barefoot investor for me. I was about 14 years old, so 20, 30 bucks, bought that book. And I remember just reading this, there was one page I still remember. It was about compound interest. And if you invested five grand a year from the time you're like 15 and stopped at 25, you'd have more money than if you started investing five grand a year at 25 and went all the way up to 60. So, like the the difference was just like time in the market, not how much you actually put into it. And that like that flipped a switch where I'm like, shit, like I'm 14.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

This guy's learning about compound interest.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

I know, I must, I'm a bit naffy, obviously, but like I just remember reading that, I'm like, far out. So signed mum up to a brokerage like in Australia. Yeah. Um, you couldn't invest under 18 to buy shares. So I'm like, Mum, you're getting signed up, gonna buy in her name. So I signed her up about 15, 15, 16. And I used to obviously like I always had a work ethic. My parents are, they're not like doctors and CEOs, like a lot of the hate comments I get. I get the bank of mum and dad comments all the time. Dad's a firefighter, mum's a hairdresser. So we're very like normal people, battler Australians that are just trying to do something with your lives. So I remember like going, all right, let's set up the share portfolio and start investing with my jobs. So I worked at like a bakery, worked at all the the different jobs locally, always had that work ethic. And I'd invest my money in shares at the time and just how much are we talking? Like if I earned 10, 15 grand a year. This was me, I'd work Saturday, Sundays, and then I'd work a few days during the week while I was at school. Like I was 15, 14, 15, 16 years old. Um, and I'd invest that every single year. And that's kind of the whole pay packet, majority of my pay. Yeah, I was a very frugal, obviously fortunate. I was like still am living at home, but at that age, I was living at home, no expenses, and I just love seeing the like your money growing. And I'm like, I was just addicted to that. And like, you see, I'm a big boy with my big boy income at 15, and I'll put it all into the share market. I felt like little Warren Buffett, but that's where it kind of started, and then I guess that journey really motivated me to educate myself further, and that's when I started learning about leverage and and the power of property. So started to pivot into my early 20s into property, and that's what started this journey today.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Was there like a pivotal moment? Because you you're saying you got interested in investing in your teens, you know, mid to late teens.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

And then you pivot into property. What how does that happen? Is there a is there a moment? Is it mum and dad?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, so mum and dad had never invested. So we'd always had our like just like the own home that that they lived in, never invested in property outside of that until I kind of pushed them um in the in my 20s to kind of take action and then shout at them. They bought two investments last year. So they're they're investing well now, setting it, yeah, they're setting themselves up, which is so awesome to see. Um, but yeah, it was probably around that, I reckon, early 20s where I started like listening to property podcasts, reading all the books, and just like learning about leverage. And it's like, all right, 100 grand in shares, you get a 10% return, that's 10 grand a year, or 100 grand could get me into a 500k property, assume a roughly 7% return, that's 35k of growth. And I'm like, brain just started ticking. I'm like, this leverage thing's pretty powerful. So at 22, made the the decision to to pivot my share portfolio, pretty much sold everything up and and moved into property.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

So, like from a young age, you're just feeding yourself education.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I did.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

I it's nothing to do in regional Vic or something.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

No, there's not a lot. I mean, we've got we've got pubs, we've got the good snop blocks, which are vanilla slices. I don't know if that's a a big thing, but yeah, it was basically just sport small town. But yeah, I don't know. I've never read like books for like, I don't know, yeah, your Harry Potter's all those kind of books never really gave me anything out of it. I always just like those self-help, trying to get ahead, because I wanted that big mansion from when I was 12 years old. Wow. That Lamborghini. I mean, I still I don't want the Lamborghini anymore, but you've got to dream big on your young jacks.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Oh man, that like that revs me up, you know what I mean? Because I think I had an odd childhood. I was also asking my mum and dad to take me to business seminars. I think my dad had a mechanical workshop in Koji and he was just fixing cars. And I was like, My dad always said to me, I don't want you like using your body to make money. Like, I don't want you to freaking toilet over cars and all this type of stuff to make money. Use your brain. So I was like, I'd have I gotta be like, I don't have to own a business, I've got to like be a business owner, like an operator. And so I was always trying to figure that out, but I never quite did it to the extreme that you did, like, you know, like I've maybe doubled in shares, but you're like from a young age and you're stuck with it. And it's crazy to see that because I mean you're stuck with it and now you're mid-20s, yeah. Four properties, and you've got a booming mortgage brokerage business. That's incredible, man.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, the growth is it's crazy. And I guess that's the kind of the power of Compare and Injuries, because like people see, I guess, my journey the last couple of years that has has been in the public, but they didn't see the the six years before where I was working two jobs nearly seven days a week for for years on end, living at home. So, yes, that's very fortunate to live at home and have supportive parents, but I also had that chip on my shoulder where I'm like, I'm gonna outwork every one of you, whether you're at home or not. Like, I'm going to outwork you. And I used to love that because I didn't want to take for granted having supportive parents and and being able to live at home. Like I wasn't there at home just to work my full-time job, get pissed every weekend and blow my like my full pay. Yeah. I was at home to set myself up and hopefully look after the future family for doing so.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Bro, you got the dog in your four got the dog in your loved. Um, tell us about your first deal. Like, first property you bought. You've got four now, um, and you bought them in quite quick succession, especially for your age. Like, what's your first deal? What do you buy? And what are you thinking when you bought it?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

For sure. So, as I said, like none of the like no one in our family had invested in property. So I was kind of like, I was telling my parents about this, and they're like, What, you're gonna go buy an investment property? And I used a buyer's agent for the first one. That was the first time they ever heard buyer's agent. They're like, We're gonna pay this person fifteen thousand dollars. Like, what? Like, who is it? Like, what are the like far out? And we ended up buying in in Perth WA, which is about 4,000 K's from where we were. So not only were no one had invested in property, we were buying 4,000 K's away and we're gonna pay someone 15 to do it. And they're like, oh my god, we are they trusted me, but at the time they were a bit like, I'm sure there was a few hairs pulled out, like, what is this kid doing? But we yeah, so we ended up buying it. It was a a four-bed two bath in um Southeast Perth. Obviously, the we know what the Perth market's done. Um, but we bought that for around 450. Can you give us a suburb? Yeah, it was Huntingdale.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Huntingdale, cracker suburb.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, so that that grew. Uh we sold it uh first property ever sold, sold it last year, about mid-year to start Dizzy Property Group, my mortgage brokerage. Um, so yeah, we bought that for 450, sold for 750.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So in about two years' time, we we made 300,000 in two years' time, you make over 300,000 from buying a property in Perth, like you said, 4,000 kilometres away from where you lived on some education that you've got on some podcasts and listening to some people. You you skim over that and make it seem so comfortable and normal. The biggest friction that I normally hear from people is that they want to go have a look at it, you know. Oh, how do you how do you know what it looks like? How do you know it's gonna grow? All these things. Did you have that in your mind, or you were so educated enough to be like, nah, this is the right thing?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, I feel like I I was, I guess, fairly mature looking back for it. Was I was educated and I'd read all the books, I I'd listened to all the podcasts, but that only gets you to a certain level. It gives you a good understanding, I guess, of the fundamentals of property. But to find a property, the due diligence you need to do, all of those kind of things, I knew that wasn't a strong point. And because I'd work my ass off to save these $100,000, I was sure as shit wasn't going to stuff up my first one. Because you know you've got to get the first one right if you want to be able to get into the next one. Hardest part of buying your first property is saving the deposit. So if you buy the first one well, go speak to a broker, pull some equity, and we can go again. So I definitely knew, I guess, my strengths and what my weaknesses were. And being so new to it, that's kind of why I went down that the buyer's agent path, because I wanted to make sure the decision was right. But it's not, I didn't just have like complete blind faith in the buyer's agent. I still did my own little numbers on the side, was checking comparable sales, those kind of things. Um, but ultimately, like if you do your research on your buyer's agent and you trust them, like they should buy well. But I still think everyone should do that, just that little extra.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Can you sell with that little bit on top? Because I think I know with the little bit, but can you give people maybe like three little bullet points? If you're doing your own research, your own homework on a deal. Yeah, what do you what's the first thing you're looking at?

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So I mean, at the end of the day, we're investors, so like data is everything. And I feel like the the area is gonna do 80% of the heavy lifting. So I mean, these are you in the right area. Are you in the right area for sure? Um, and then it's about the kind of deal. So I'd be looking at the deal and comparable sales. Comparable sales, probably the the biggest point next is is making sure you're actually buying at the right price and it's not a a BA that's just giving you one and one, there's cheaper ones available like on the market or anything like that. So making sure you're getting in at the right price. And then can we go?

SPEAKER_00 14:28

I want to I want to stress on that because I was hoping you want to tape in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Checking the comparable sales. Um, can you tell people how you do that?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, for sure. So it's it's a little bit hard sometimes because they don't always disclose the prices on the the kind of main sites, which would be real estate and domain. But if you go to the sold listings, go recent comparable sales, and then you go through and you're basically what you're trying to do is find relatively similar properties to what you're looking to buy and seeing what they're recently sold for.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Let's say I've got a pr a deal presented to me in Huntingdale.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

WA, four bed, two baths. You're going onto realestate.com, sold section, Huntingdale search, four bed, two baths. And then you just go through the list.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yeah. And basically what I would do is you you compare and you want to find similar properties, and you might say, oh, this one's a little bit superior, it's got a better backyard, it's nicer inside, and go, well, that's probably worth a little bit more than what mine is. But you also got to take into consideration that when we're seeing it as a sold, that means it's settled, which means it was probably an offer accepted a month or two before that. So like that settled price is probably not the price you'd be able to buy that property for now in a hot market. So you've got to factor in that, especially like Hunting at Dale at the time, was probably growing at 2% a month. So like that could have been 4% of growth since they're like just from when it settled to when the offer was originally placed.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Bro, that is absolute gold. I reckon that's absolute gold. So the right, someone understands that they've got to check the area. Great. I've checked the area. Now I've got to check comparables. What's the last thing you checked?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Last thing I'd check is I like to look at, I mean, the asset that you're buying. So for me, big fan of established properties with some development potential down the track. So whether I can track a granny flat on it. So for me, just something I'd be looking at, which again a good buyers agent would do as well is check your zoning, see if you've got enough like side access check like precedence in the area. So if you're you're working out whether you can kind of build on top of a like at the back of a property, if some of the neighboring properties have granny flats or they have units at the back, there's a fair chance if they're similar block sizes and shapes and stuff like that, that you'll be able to do it yourself. So the the third one I'd probably look at is like the type of asset. And a big thing for me would be like, is there an X factor where I can add value? So is it development potential? Is it a a two-better that's got a really big study that could definitely be a three-better? Like, is there some sort of value add I can add to this property to get that extra equity growth?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Where do you learn this shit, man? This is this is absolute gold for people looking for their own properties, right? That's gold. And then for people who are like, how do I distill because I I speak to some people, we'd present someone a deal and they'd be like, man, I need I need a week. What do you why do you need a week? Too slow. It's too slow for life. But it's like I just I just need time to figure out because they don't even have like a check list of like okay, area, comparables, value add potential. Bing, bing, bing. Yes, yes, yes, great, you proceed. That was your first deal hunting down. That's what the advice you're giving people when they're doing their first deal.

unknown 17:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

What's your plan for your portfolio now, Bart?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Portfolio now looks a bit different. Obviously, we've scaled, bought three more properties since then in probably 18 months' time. So again, it wasn't on a big income to be able to do this. But the the key part was buying well in good areas and also structuring the debt well. So I guess from the broking side of things, making sure we put them in the right structures to to ensure we can continue buying and those kind of things is just as important. Um, but it goes without saying you need to be buying in the right areas because without that growth, yeah, it's it's very hard to get into your next property and continue building out the portfolio. But these days it looks a bit different now. I'm self-employed. Hopefully, the income's gonna continue increasing compared to when I was P A Y G. So, yeah, if anything, I'm just looking to, it's probably just gonna fast forward the accumulation phase for me, which will just be like going 10 times harder. So hoping in the next 12 months to buy another three properties.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

I mean, you mentioned something of you mentioned two things I thought was interesting there. You've gotten four properties at a young age, but I think that's extremely well. And then you mentioned there the increase your income. If you stayed on your old income, which was strong, do you think you could have grown your portfolio any further than the four that you've had right now?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

I definitely could because I've structured the debt correctly and I and I bought well. So I could have like the reason I did that was like that was my backup plan. If this business and my income couldn't keep increasing on you, that if I bought well high-yielding property and I was in the right structures, that it I should be able to continue buying, yes, it's probably gonna be a little bit slower. At the end of the day, there's no magic potion. If you want to build a big portfolio, you're probably gonna have to increase your income. But making sure that I had it in the right structures, had a good broker by my side to ensure that I'm structuring the debt correctly, just as important if you want to build that portfolio.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

You said I'm I'm trying to pick apart so some people get some absolute gold here from you. Um you said the right structures and structuring the debt correctly. I think some people, when they hear structured, they they don't separate those two things. Right. And they probably just hear he bought it in a trust. Or whatever they think. Yep. Can you break it down a little bit further? Like I don't want to I want people to understand how I think the majority of this is a finance game. I can send people great assets in great markets and they can buy them, but they will get stuck very quickly if they're not doing those two things correctly. I'm not licensed to talk about this stuff, but you, my friend, you are.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah, absolutely. So everyone does, it's no secret. Trust lendings, it's definitely been in there, probably the media's either the last six months or so. And some lenders are kind of pulling back in the space, a lot of the majors, but still are options in the in the third-tier lender space. But that's exactly right, is if you continue buying in your personal name, there there is a cap. There's only so much that you can buy in your personal name, where there are other entities, so company structures, trust structures, so like corporate trustee structures. Again, Google all these if you if you're not really sure. I'm not an accountant, so like I mean, in terms of like advising what's right for you, there's pros and cons of these structures. There's CGT implications, there's land tax implications, there's many different things. You also got to weigh up the costs of setting up the structure, the costs ongoing of having that structure set up, negative gearing implications. Like, there's so there's so much to, we wouldn't be able to dive through all of it in in this kind of podcast, but I feel like that comes back to having the right people around you. So I'm big on having a property savvy accountant and an investment savvy mortgage broker. I feel like if you have those two working together on the same page, that's how you're gonna structure your debt correctly. It's not something so when I hear people talking about trusts as if it's unlimited lending. It's not. It's bro, I make 70 grand a year and I've got two properties.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Can I buy this next one in a trust and buy 800k more?

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, can I go buy seven million property? No, mate, you can't. You you've got to keep working on that income. But there are like there are benefits to it, but it is so individual to what you're trying to build and where you are in in like your investment journey. Like I have a few, as I said, uh a lot of my clients are younger to like early 20s, probably first or second investment property. And they're talking about like going straight into a trust first up. And I'm like, like, you haven't even invested in property yet. You haven't even got your your feet wet, you're you're so early in your career. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your income's 70, mate. Like you're probably gonna be on 100 in in a few years' time. So, like, why are you worried about being maxed out now on your first one? So I feel like there's probably been a bit of shit advice out there in the social media space and online, but it just goes back to getting the right people in your corner. So get a broker who has done what you want to do. So if they've got a property portfolio and you're trying to build one, that's who you want to be chatting to. An accountant, the exact same. If they've got a property portfolio, that's who you want to be chatting to because they get those structures and why we implement them and when they should be implemented in your investment journey.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

I appreciate that, man, because I you're skimming over some stuff that has got a lot of depth to it. And I think you're right. Like it's hard to unpack all of it for people, for listeners. But like debt recycling is a map. We could go on a whole podcast and you can give us multiple examples on just debt recycling. Yeah. Even structures. I got my accountant coming in here today to talk about structuring and structuring correctly. Yeah. But that is probably the most common thing that people come to me and say off the bat. They're just J up beating their chest. They want to invest in property. Let's buy an attractive. It's like, man, that's an advanced move.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

And it is the right thing for you at some stage. Even like some people are like, bro, I want to get straight into commercial. Yeah. That's a that's a great asset class. Yeah. But for you right now, it's not the right thing just yet.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Warf before you run. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Get a deal under your belt, see what that looks like. See what how you go when you're the air conscience itself. And you've got to you've got to be a very good thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

And then you start warming up to this thing, and then later on. But I like what you're saying because it is so true. I sometimes, I don't know if I oversimplify it, but I like to have a clear strategy for someone of like where we're trying to get to. And then we just talk about, let's talk about step one and step two. Yeah. We've got 50 steps in this thing. Let's just talk about step one, step two. The market's going to be different then. Everything's going to be different then. For goodness sakes, I pray that all of my clients will have different incomes now to when we're at step 10 or step 20.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Exactly. And that's great. And that's the thing, I guess, from broking as well. And it's it's half our job is some brokers are just quite transactional and it's like, how do we get this deal? You need to be thinking about the next deal while you're doing this deal, because that's how people get stuck. There's you can look at the numbers, why it's like 97% of investors stop at like three properties. It's majority of it just get stuck. And it's a game of um lending. As we said, property is a game of finance. Like the more lending you get, the more properties you can buy. So I totally agree. Like one of the first things I'd get on a call with a client is like, what is the overarching goal? What are we trying to build here? And and also not just like what it is. So they might say, oh, it's a 150k passive income. I'm like, so you're on 80 now. Like, run me through why you need 150. Like, run me through it. And some of them were like, oh, I just thought it was a good number. And I love, don't get me wrong, I love throwing numbers out there. But I'm like, you may only need 80. You may only need 100. Like it's great to shoot for the moon and stuff like that. But I like getting back to what it is, why you're trying to get into property in the first place. Because we know it's not all sunshine and rainbows. There's maintenance shit going on, tenants left, someone trashed something. There's always something going on. There's a lot of risk involved. But like long term, hopefully it pays off. So in terms of like structuring and stuff like that, we have that first when I'd have that first meeting, obviously trying to get into that first deal, but we're already laying down plans for that second one. And then once you've bought that one, we already know where we're going for this second one. And then when we're looking at that second, we're already looking at the third, if that's what they're wanting to build. Because I mean, everyone's got different goals. Someone might want 20 properties, someone might want two really good investments, different goals.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yeah. And I think that's what's your goal? Great. Have a clear strategy around how they can meet it. Then you start to look at okay, how do we start to play this out and start acquiring properties? I mean, it it's I love this game of property investing, and I think it did it for me. And I I see it doing to people. It makes you ask questions of yourself. Like you're like, why are the 150? Yeah, true. What would I do with 150? One of the main things that forced me and Jamie Lee to get into property investing and not buy our own or occupy a house is we did like the this is what we want our life to look like. What type of what type of house do we want? A house in Gami Bay, what's it like to buy or rent that thing? Okay. And then you put a number and this is how much I got to earn per year.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Work backwards.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

And then you just work backwards. And then once you have that, it's it your life becomes so clear and your decisions become so clear.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah. And it feels like it feels doable because it's bite-sized chunks, not saying I'm gonna go buy a $10 million owner off. It's this is what I need to do. These are the action steps. All I have to do is do the yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

I do this, and then in five to ten years, I get to be somewhere like man. I sold one of my investment properties in Rockhampton to fund this business. And it's like, if I never made that decision two years ago, I would never have had uh the team I've got, the business I've got, the relationships I've got. Because I made a decision two and a half years ago and I cashed in on it, and now I get to do something. But back then, people were like, Why are you buying that shit in Rockhampton? At the time, I knew it was a it was gonna give me an option later on in my life. What was that option? I didn't know yet, because I I wasn't here, I wasn't there. Yeah, but um now I could talk to you about property markets, I could talk to you for a long time, right? But give me could you give me just two more things? One, what is your view on the property market at the moment? There's there's right now there's talks of war, there is a lot of stuff. We've got interest rate rises happening. What's your view of the market?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I think the the market in Australia, the property market, obviously, uh property Australians are property craze. So that's no secret there. I mean, a lot of the politicians and policy and stuff like that, fair chunk of them have properties themselves. So I don't see a heap of policy changes like people talking about scrapping, scrapping like the CGT um exemption, those kind of things. But I mean, we can't worry about the day-to-day, the rate rises. Like that's just part of being a property investor. You shouldn't be, if you're worried about, oh, if rates go up another two times, property investment probably isn't the game for you. Like you've got to have that longer-term thought process and and and outlook on the property market. But I guess my thought process on the property market, there have been some markets the last few years, uh last five years, basically since COVID, that have gone gangbuses. So Perth, Adelaide, like anywhere in Queensland's gone nuts. Darwin's now leading the charge by a mile in Australia, like Sydney's obviously seen growth. Melbourne's about the only one that hasn't. And there's, I see a lot of opportunity in the Melbourne in the Vic market. Um, but overall, I feel like as long as we're not building enough houses, which it's no secret, Australia's not building enough houses. I think they there was a um, again, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm I'm trying to pick this data point out, but there was something like we're trying to build, oh, how much was it? Like two million new houses by 2027 or 2029. Again, not I'm butchering this quote, but it's gonna be about 400,000 short of of the the goal to build.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Oh, I know what you're talking about, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

And as long as we're not building enough houses, there is gonna be a supply issue here in Australia. And it's like until we address that and they incentivize building, um, I just struggle to see how a lot of these markets are gonna slow down.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Building builders are going under left, right, and center in this country.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

And the building costs are going up and up and up. And yeah, I I can't see it of just pure basic economics, supply and demand. You're just like, I don't see how this is happening. No. I think the opportunity costs here, people that want to be um clever, how do you the classic thing around here in the Shire? Just buy a two by one apartment in Credoma, you know, one day, one day if we get kicked out of our rental, we can go live there. One day we can retire there. It's like that's true. You could go live there, you could retire there one day. But if you're putting an investor's mindset on, how can I maximize the growth out of this asset or out of this money that I'm putting into it? All right.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

For sure. And that's probably barbecue talk. That's uh the advice of the parents buy near get something in the market near where you live. And it's like, how often is where you live like an investment grade area when you compare it to the 15,000 suburbs around Australia? Not often is where you live going to be the place to buy. No chance.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Like Corolla, three million dollars. Yeah, no, average house price, rental you're talking about like two and a half percent. Shit.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Um, supply and demand is pretty ste pretty steady, which is show to me, shows a very mature market. It's a mature market. Like you can't incentivize people to come here. People want to live here for lifestyle. I think that's good. But like these other areas, for goodness sakes, you mentioned Darwin. But in Darwin, I think there's like $35 billion being spent in the next five to 10 years. Like that's pushing people up there with jobs and all these type of stuff to work on these projects and be a part of this economy that's they're trying to create. That's great. But does that mean that it's mature? No, it's not mature, but it's maturing. And even so, when they spend that money, there's gonna be things that happen after that 10 years that we still want to watch and check out. And you speak to a lot of clients, you're talking to people every day. Like, what does the uh average Aussie battler look like? What's their what are their incomes? What are they making? And I always like to end with this question of like, what expectations do you feel maybe for yourself, or do you hear from clients about getting ahead, um, you know, making something themselves, getting to Lambert, getting the mansion? Can you talk to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah, for sure. I mean, as I said, like a lot of my clients, I'd say majority of them are anywhere from from 20 to 35, with most of them being 25 to 32, somewhere in that range, which is awesome because like the average first home buyer here in Australia is about 37. So and they're coming. I know that. Yeah, it's it's late, but like, I mean, that's why like people come through to me and they're like, oh God, I just want to get into the market. And I never wanted my content to come across like to create FOMO to be like, shit, I need to get in yesterday. My thing is more so just to provoke the thought about have you thought about maybe getting into the market instead of buying that new Hylux or or worse, financing that new Hylux, maybe we put some money aside towards a deposit. So like it's awesome now with my content. So it's been two years since I started posting, and I've now got clients coming through that are like, oh, I started watching your like videos a year and a half ago, downloaded your budget, and like they're coming to the call with like my budget tool from like a year and a half ago, and they're like, this is how much I've got now. And like they're they're taking all the right steps to set themselves up, and they're like early 20s, mid-20s, late 20s. I'm like, you're 10, 15 years earlier than the average first home buyer in Australia. Like, that's just changed the trajectory of not only their life, their future family's life, their grandkids' life, just because they started taking these little steps in their early 20s.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

That gives me chills, bro. Like, you is it Scott Page, the guy, the barefoot investor?

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Yeah, uh yeah, Scott Page, yeah. Bro, you got the what are that Scott Page?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

What's what are you the regional Vic?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Um Yeah, Bergen.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

That's it. Is that gonna be your book?

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Uh maybe, I don't know. I I'd love to have on Monday, but yeah, I mean, man. Yeah, I feel like sometimes even you, like with your posting and stuff like that, you probably like we probably discredit like and don't think about how big of an impact some of these videos. Like I post like the odd cringy video as my mates always tell me. But I'm like, it gets eyes and it and it gets it out there. And like, I mean, at the end of the day, I'm a mortgage broker. It's a pretty boring topic. No one wants to care compare what PI versus interest-only loans mean. Oh, the rates went up to this. Boring shit. Like, no, no, I like it. I I nerd out on it, but like boring shit to most of the population. I know, but I'm like, I'm also hopefully like I like to think I'm one of the boys. So I'm like, try and like make digest, make that information digestible. And I feel like that's probably the biggest gap with people getting started in the market, is they just don't know. So it's like, if I can post some content and educate people just from a broader standpoint on how to get into it, what kind of deposit you would need. This is the steps I took to do it. It's like it hopefully it's starting to make a difference. And I'm definitely seeing it with my clients that come through. Like I'm very fortunate the clients that come through, they've got budget in place, they've got goals in mind, which I'm I preach all through my content. So it's bloody awesome to see.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Man, I'm so proud of seeing your journey. Like, I'm I'm proud to call you a mate and see what the impact you're having and the impact you're gonna have. Like, you you've got big things coming, you've got the mortgage brokerage, you've got more exciting stuff happening this year. But man, thank you so much for coming in, telling us a bit about your story and giving us some real nuggets of when we're getting a deal, what to look for, you know, how do we fact check and all that type of stuff. So, Holly, thanks so much for coming in.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Love it, Jace. Thanks, brother.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

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 any one of your friends or family, please flick it to them so they can have a listen.