How This Couple Built a $4.5M Property Portfolio by 30

Ryan and Lauren have built a portfolio of $4. 5 million across five properties all by the age of 30. And in this particular episode on The Property Nerds, we're going to dive into their story of working together with us over the last five years, building this portfolio, the learnings, the mistakes, the successes, and just going into their mindset as a couple who built wealth so young. So jump into this episode where we go deep into another investor story with five properties purchased by age 30 across three different states, scaling a portfolio the right way. Check it out.

Nerd alert! Property Nerds, the home for data-driven property investors, where we uncover Australia's hot and cold markets, latest headlines and trends. Ryan and Lauren, welcome all the way from Darwin to Sydney. Thanks so much for coming in. No, thanks for having us here.

We are really excited. Awesome, awesome. Well, guys, it's been a special journey together, being clients of InvestorKit for many, many years, good friends. We've even caught up in Darwin as well. I came out your way to have a good catch up as well, which was awesome.

So returning the favor for coming out to Sydney. But I wanted to talk about the journey and taking it right back. So, Ryan, can you remember the moment where you and Lauren both decided, let's get into property investing? And what triggered that interest for you two? Ryan, I'll start with you.

Yeah, I think it was probably something for me that I'd started maybe back in 2017, 2018 when I started doing my own research, looking how I could probably set myself up for my financial future. And at the time, I'd sort of had a little bit of look into stocks and had a bit of a look into property and the fact that we could sort of leverage our position within property to really create some long-term financial wealth. I think that was one of the first levers for me that really said, okay, that's what I want to do. I want to really get into property investing. Lauren, you also had a thought around property investing on your own as well, right?

But I mean, what was the trigger for you and your thinking? Yeah, this makes sense to me as well. So probably about similar time, maybe 2017, I was having a conversation with my dad and my brother and we were sort of, we had a bit of savings behind us and we're like, okay, what are we going to do with this? Probably letting it sit in the bank's not going to be the best thing for us long-term. So we were kind of looking at what our options were there.

So my brother and I actually started together before Ryan and I got together and yeah, we started from there and just thought that was a good start. Yeah. Now, both of you are in the medical industry, physios in Darwin. Firstly, did that like, did the physios both at it together happen first or did like, you know, was it like the relationship, did it have anything to do with both being in the same industry and getting together or meeting together from that? Or was it separate and that just happened to be the case?

Like it's not that common to have both be physios in a relationship, right? Yeah, it was a little bit of a backstory there. For time purposes, we went to uni together and then got together a little bit later down the track. So we were already physios first independently and then property investors independently and now we're physios together. We work at the same clinic.

How good. Property investors together. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Well, it seems like family obviously played a key role in the journey as well and conversations and discussing things with them and having the interest. Me and you got a bit of a story, mate, with our family.

That's not right, guys. That's not right. We first connected obviously online, talking, chatting, and you were in Melbourne at the time. Yeah. I came out to Melbourne and caught up with you and we had a coffee.

And then, look, I can't remember if it was like a full-on just came out of nowhere and the parents just came through or if you'd warned me about it, but your parents came through. It was like a three-on-one coffee and it was like an interview, like they were proper interviewing me. Interrogation. Interrogation. Mate, like what was the chats that you guys were having afterwards?

I'm intrigued. I think prior to us having the face-to-face, like we'd already been communicating online and I was sort of thinking to myself, oh, you know, Arjun is a pretty smart guy, pretty genuine. I think it's the guy that I want to try and help with my property investment journey. And then I'd met with a few other companies at the time and a few other people and I just wasn't entirely sure. And I, you know, I sometimes can become a little bit biased with what I want.

So I was like, oh, you know, I'll ask my parents to come along and see what they think of you at the time, you know, just to make sure there's nothing suspicious going on or he's not trying to take advantage of me or anything like that. I think if anything, I was taking advantage of you. But, you know, and they came along and they said, geez, that Arjun is a pretty genuine guy. I don't know how many times I think my mom just locked eyes and stared. You're trying to make you sweat.

But they said, yeah, they look like he was really genuine, had my best interests at heart. And I think that's been true to this day since then. Thanks, man. We really appreciate it. Oh, thank you so much.

Look, I mean, for those that don't know our little elevator chat on the way here, I was referencing the movie Get Out, which is, by the way, I do not mean that to mom at all, but just remember that little coffee spinning seed. And she's just like sitting there looking at me. I'm answering questions. He's like, are you really? Do you mean this?

Okay. I think you were taking notes, too, and explaining to us stuff on like a little notebook at that stage. I think it was like 47 or 50 plus from memory. All these thoughts that people said on forums or chats or online or on the Internet. I think if it's on this T section or that area, this might impact this.

And we backtested all the myths. And this is giving you now the deep insights of how we came to these properties that still look so different but are still good wins. And the main thing is once you get rid of everything that did not slow down sale campaigns, slow down and create heavy amounts of discounting, then you realize that everything else is just an opinion. Because, sure, the main road proved to us that if you're on a main road, it means that it's going to take longer to sell and have a higher chance of discounting. But if you're on all those other things that we checked and it's like that doesn't matter, it's like why should we care then?

It's not emotion, right? When it comes to buying outside of your home location, like you're living in Melbourne, look, Brisbane's a major city, but it's still ages away. Feel, touch, look, all that sort of stuff. How does that feel and how did you get out of that kind of comfort zone to be okay with that? I think originally it was something that was really hard for me because, funnily enough, even to this day I still haven't seen my house face to face.

I've seen lots of photos of it when my property manager sends me the inspection reports. But I think having the confidence behind the data and following through and saying, okay, this property meets a lot of the criteria. It looks like there's a lot of pressure for some capital growth. It's looking like it's got a pretty good rental yield that I probably made the decision based off the numbers as opposed to what the house was or the location. I think that when I first started looking at those houses or looking at property briefs, I was probably a little bit picky with what I wanted and said no to a few at the start originally.

I've even gone back and looked at some of the ones that you showed me at the time and they'd still done exceptionally well too. But my own biases back then was like, oh, no, I don't like the way that that kitchen sort of looks or I can't imagine myself sleeping in that size bedroom. I think regardless of what one that I chose at the time and the one that we did has done exceptionally well, I think that choosing to follow through on our plans and I guess back in the decisions that you were making back at the time was the right move. You know, what you said is really interesting. It makes me think of like how many people bring personal emotion into it.

I can transparently sit here and say that I would not live in two-thirds of my own properties. Like it's okay to like not love the feel, the look and everything. And what you'll notice about what you said then, which is very special, I didn't know that by the way, so thank you for sharing like how many other properties you looked at that we presented just to see if these guys are legit or do they get lucky? You know, do they get lucky on this one or do the other ones going to be okay? I checked.

I checked. But, you know, in checking that and recognizing that the bedrooms were a bit small or that's the thing, the main thing is when it meets our 20 points of due diligence criteria from a property specific part, because we're putting market aside, there's market research first, but when you get to property, we actually reviewed all of these due diligence. I think it was like run more smoothly for us and that's one less thing we have to stress about, I guess. Yeah, that's awesome. Interrupting this message for a quick note.

It's Arjun here, co-host of the Property Nerds podcast, and I've got some very exciting news. If you've been loving the podcast here, if you've been tuning into the content, maybe some of our blogs and white papers, well, we just took it to a whole new level. Driving the data is now out. It's my first book available for order on Amazon. If you'd like to grab a copy, jump on the link in the notes in Spotify or in the notes in YouTube and grab a copy now.

Let's go from Brisbane to the next purchase. We went to Bundaberg next, and this one was purchased for $390,000 in 2022, now worth around $620,000 from our estimate, which is a $230,000 gain, 59% growth in three years. Another special outcome there in terms of the portfolio, but this time it's a regional market. What made you feel confident to go, you know, we're going to go the opposite of what's out there in the internet, everyone saying stick in the capitals, and by the way, at $390,000, you could have bought a unit in Melbourne potentially too, right? Like in Melbourne, you know the area, but you're like, no, let's trust this guy again.

Let's go to the other side of the country again, and let's get a bottle of rum while at it and go to Bundaberg. What's happening here that makes you go, we're confident to go regional? I think probably the growth that we had out of our first property, you know, that from the time that we bought it in 2020 to 2021, 2022, we'd had a bit of capital growth in that time period. So it was sort of saying to me, okay, what we've done has worked already. Why wouldn't I do that again?

And, you know, the do it again for me wasn't, okay, let's invest in Brisbane again. It was, let's follow the data. Let's trust in the InvestorKit team again. It helped us the first time. I'm betting it's going to help us again, which, you know, when you read the numbers out, it's definitely shows that it's been pretty successful for us.

So I think that for me, the confidence around the second decision, I think, I can't remember exactly for that one, but I think it might've even been the first property that we talked about. I was like, yep, if you reckon, cool, let's get it done. Let's make it happen. It was definitely the fastest one, that's for sure. The bad news for you though, on this one is you have no other options to check on to see if they did well.

Cause you're just like, oh, I'll just go for it. I'm happy. Yeah. Yeah. Now that was the outcome for your second.

I don't mean to bring up battle scars now, but Lauren, I'm going to come back to you for this one. One of your properties that you'd bought on your own was in Ballarat first and it wasn't purchased through us, right? It hasn't moved as much since you'd purchased it. You know, you'd purchased it for sort of 560-ish around there. It's worth between that and 600-ish around there.

And it's now what, three to five years later. Yeah. Yeah. Five years later. Could you, you know, recollecting that, reflecting that decision, what do you feel was missing?

Cause you've seen a whole bunch of other decisions that have done really well and I don't want to, you know, I don't want to make you feel bad on that decision. But I'm just trying to reflect on that one in particular. I think it's having, not having kind of that sort of holistic approach. I guess when we were talking to people about purchasing initially, they were people that were more on that home and land package and that's what they did. And they didn't kind of give us the whole picture.

So, and like I said, we just didn't know where to start. So we were like, oh yeah, that sounds good. Ballarat's growing. Yep. Perfect.

Yeah. So it's more just, I guess for me, just didn't know where to start. And in hindsight, probably should have done a bit more research. But yeah, at the time I just didn't know. But in hindsight, I don't think it's necessarily been the worst purchase in my mind because I did initially buy that with my brother and then I bought him out a few years later.

So then he bought his current house that he's living in that he loves. And I guess that kind of facilitated that for him. And then now that's kind of come across just to our portfolio. So yeah, it hasn't performed as well, but it's still kind of been a stepping stone to get us to where we are. And then ideally get us more time down the track and be able to retire earlier and spend more time with kids and grandkids maybe down the track.

It's true too. I think for us as well, I've probably said already that I like to do a lot of research. I think still even in investment space that I'm probably the one that does a lot of that sort of stuff. But any decision that we make or any of the research that I sort of bring up or look into, I'll always run it by Loz and say, hey Loz, what do you think about this? Because she's got ideas, comes from a different perspective that I wouldn't have had.

And some of the decisions that we've made, we've made good ones because we made them together as a couple. I think if I'd made the decision just by myself, it might not have been as good, maybe not as, might not have done as well. Same reason we have a team around us to support us for some of the property related decisions because you get a few more perspectives and you get a bit better of an outcome because of that. I think Ryan, because Ryan likes doing so much research, he's like, oh, what about this idea? What about this idea?

I think I kind of... Arjun, what do you think about this? I've seen a few of those messages, yeah. I think I'm kind of like, what if, I think I kind of slow him down a little bit at times and then we kind of prioritize that together. He throws out lots of ideas and we kind of work out what our plan is together and where to move forward, I guess.

Yeah. Now, before becoming successful investors, after seeing all the growth and the impact and the diversity, you have to also become successful at managing money, planning, savings. So what do you two do as a couple when it comes to rules and formulas or anything around home for finance and money management? I think for us, it's just very shared goals. So we both do want to set ourselves up for the future.

We know we both want to have kids. So just trying to, for us, it's what can we do to make that as easy as possible and then ideally get us more time down the track and be able to retire earlier and spend more time with kids and grandkids maybe down the track. It's true too. I think for us as well, I probably said already that I like to do a lot of research. I think still even in investment space that I'm probably the one that does a lot of that sort of stuff.

But any decision that we make or any of the research that I sort of bring up or look into, I'll always run it by Loz and say, hey Loz, what do you think about this? Because she's got ideas, comes from a different perspective that I wouldn't have had. And some of the decisions that we've made, we've made good ones because we made them together as a couple. I think if I'd made the decision just by myself, it might not have been as good, maybe not as, might not have done as well. Same reason we have a team around us to support us for some of the property related decisions because you get a few more perspectives and you get a bit better of an outcome because of that.

I think Ryan, because Ryan likes doing so much research, he's like, oh, what about this idea? What about this idea? I think I kind of... Arjun, what do you think about this? I've seen a few of those messages, yeah.

I think I'm kind of like, what if, I think I kind of slow him down a little bit at times and then we kind of prioritize that together. He throws out lots of ideas and we kind of work out what our plan is together and where to move forward, I guess. Yeah. Now, before becoming successful investors, after seeing all the growth and the impact and the diversity, you have to also become successful at managing money, planning, savings. So what do you two do as a couple when it comes to rules and formulas or anything around home for finance and money management?

I think for us, it both started with our parents. They were all very good at teaching us good savings habits from a young age. The importance of, I guess, I started working younger. Ryan was more involved in sport and didn't have time. Yeah, you started working at 14 months?

Yeah. In Subway. Yeah, I was a sandwich artist first. I wouldn't be able to do that. My sandwiches would have been not as good.

So yeah, just I think family really instilling some good saving habits in us early. And then more recently, I guess, do you want to elaborate on that, I guess, Ryan? Yeah, I think probably just then now how we manage our money and how we use our offset account on our principal place of residence and how our wages get paid into our offset account and then the money from our rental incomes get paid there.