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Time is a friend and killer at the same time. It's like, it's our friend in our 20s because of compounding wealth and it's so happy to see you take action that early on in life. Even in the 30s, really getting that momentum. But it's a killer that when you've got capability, income, growing skills, desires to invest, it can get in the way so easily. When it comes to the whole trust, the first hearing about InvestorKit, I'm intrigued to know, how did you first hear about us and how did it all come to life?
Yeah, that's really... Good to think about actually, because for me, I did all the research, I did all the online searches, did my Excel spreadsheets, did the numbers for my first two properties. But then it actually started in 2021, 2022, after having to restart my whole life, I made an emotional decision to buy my bachelor pad. So I bought a $1. 5 million beautiful apartment in Melbourne.
And living in it, I realized, hey, actually, $1. 5 million in one basket could be better spent spending that same amount of money across three properties across Australia. But I don't have access to data across Australia. Who do I trust? I did some research, talked to some friends.
And it really got me going after speaking to Kit, who now works at InvestorKit, in terms of saying, hey, look, I'm ready to jump on board. I trust you as a friend. And I've been talking to him years prior as well in terms of investing and things like that. But having someone I trust working for a company that would help me really kickstarted my journey with InvestorKit. So I sold that $1.
5 million house, went to the bank again and say, hey, look, what can I borrow? And bought three properties with InvestorKit in a very, very short period of time, just for that long term compounding effect, obviously. Yeah, so that connection there with Kit was... Now, shout out to Kit. If you're watching this back, I bet you he is.
He's an actual property nerd, probably even more so than me sometimes. He's built a really prolific portfolio himself. And I think one of the biggest things that I'm very grateful for at InvestorKit is that unintentionally, our recruitment strategy, one big one, has been many successful clients of ours, because Kit was a successful client of ours, bought multiple properties with us. And then he goes, hey, I'm in the banking space. I know this world.
I understand lending. I understand businesses and everything like that. I want to be a part of something like this because you guys have changed Kit and his partner Thivia's life. I want to be a part of this. And so not only is he bringing his own experience and being a part of something like this, but one thing I'm very grateful of is that we have people who walk it, not just talk it.
And so when you have that pairing, how important was not only removing the time poor aspect when you have a team on your side, but talk to me about this journey of having someone on your side where they've done it too, and you're kind of doing it together. How important is that for a wealth building journey? That's, again, a good point because trust, especially my career in my field, I need to trust the person that I recommend a patient to, for example. So if I'm going to jump on board and utilize a service, if I don't trust it, I'm going to have some amber flags up. If I do trust it, that makes it a lot more clear in my mind to say, yes, I'm happy to put a lot of money or a lot of trust for this journey.
And there are many buyers agents out there. There are a lot of property gurus or people that think they know property, people that do know property, and finding the right people to work with can take a bit of time and does take a bit of action. So having researched a number of buyers agents, I landed with InvestorKit, again, having Kit part of it, really galvanized my decision making. And after the first property, going through what for me was quite a seamless journey, having different members with different skills, part of your team, part of the buying journey, said to me, hey, look, I can work with this organization, this team again and again. And I've recommended InvestorKit to friends, to close friends who have purchased houses with your organization, and everyone's loved the journey so far.
And that really helps to continue that journey. Yeah, for sure. No, thank you so much. When you think of the now the transition point, the point where you have a team on your side, you're going from the two properties with that four year gap, and you're trying to crush the time poor part. But there's also now things that you're doing that are going to be very foreign to you.
The fact that you bought two properties in your backyard, they're Melbourne, they're areas you know well. Now enter the world of rent vesting, and also enter the world of you're sitting in Melbourne, but you're being asked to buy property in Perth. Then we also had Toowoomba, then we also had Gold Coast, and then we also had the Central Coast Maitland region too. So we've got these different four assets that we've purchased in succession. Talk to me about the mindset shift for you, and how you got over the fact of the discomforts of doing something so different, doing it yourself, doing it with a team, having two in your backyard, having four, like five hour flights away, six hour flights away, all over the country.
Talk to me about that mindset shift for you. How did you get over that? How did you get comfortable with that? Yeah, so for me, doing things in my backyard, doing things in Melbourne, I didn't have to forego a service fee, for example. And it was that change in mindset, saying, hey, look, if I can buy a property in Perth or in Toowoomba or Gold Coast, even if I have to spend $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 or whatever it is to purchase that, I will make that money back in equity much quicker than I would in Melbourne.
And getting that mindset change, that was really key to buying interstate. And sitting down with your strategy team saying, hey, look, you'll have a better outcome in these places, these suburbs, really helped just seeing it in front of me, seeing the numbers, seeing what the properties interstate can do than the ones in my backyard. Not saying Melbourne is still a good place to invest in the right pockets, in the right areas, but again, as I alluded to, a chessboard has different pieces. So you need your Perth property to be different to your Gold Coast property to your Toowoomba property. So they all have their place.
And I wish I did this earlier, but diversifying my portfolio was something that I wanted to do as well. I don't want all my eggs in the Melbourne market. So who do I trust to buy property interstate? Had to be someone like InvestorKit to help me with that. And when you look at that, that's a really key point of the surprising part because many people don't think that, right?
People think you need to know all these areas. You need to deeply be aware of all of these areas and like, hey, if it's not something that you wake up and actually search or are aware of, it won't perform. But to your point, it's like there's these areas where you wouldn't have known how to get there. And then even if you got there, if we take the example of Melbourne being in your backyard, being there for you to take, there's a four-year time difference between the acquisitions because life can genuinely get in the way. Yeah, for sure.
Now, if we take a look at the equity growth that's happened, in terms of the properties, they all look and feel very different. Some investors have a thought that age is a defining factor or look and feel, land size. You started that thought in your first two investments, location, comfort, backyard, and land size. But that filter quickly dropped when you had the right team and you made these decisions around you. These four investments don't follow the same philosophy.
What flicked, what learning came about, what thought happened for you to go, nah, the stuff I thought for the first two mattered then, but they're not going to matter to me for the next four. Yeah. So for me, I have those fundamentals instilled in terms of what I want in a property. I don't think I still have the capability of buying an apartment, but for me, I realized that every property within your portfolio has a different purpose. And you can have a 700 square meter house in Melbourne, but you can also have a 400 square meter house in New South Wales, and they'll have different growth potentials.
One might have a lot more maintenance. One might have a lot more ability to put a granny flat or put more townhouses, but they're different. So not just diversifying the locations, I think diversifying your property type, the asset, is part of my next strategies and my current strategies. So yes, I'm looking at, I am, or I have bought all of these properties as residential properties, some in personal names, some in different structures. But as I evolve in this portfolio building, I think for me, the next steps would be finding out what different property assets, whether it's commercial property, that I can dive into next and really creating a group of properties that are varying from each other, but serving a different purpose.
Absolutely. And this is where diversity comes in different shapes and sizes. It started off with a number of assets. That's two becoming six. That's diversity.
Diversity can then be locations, Victoria, WA, Queensland, New South Wales. Then the next layer of diversity can be asset type. And definitely when we're trading close to that six million assets and we're moving now from a residential, people don't recognize that when six becomes eight, becomes 10, becomes 15, becomes 20, outside of more kitchens, bathrooms, roofs, outside of more property management requests, and outside of more gray hairs just through working hard to keep that servicing pumping and then holding on to those assets, things don't change as much as people think. The big X factors happen when you switch over to assets that drive a purpose. So this is where asset movements from resi to commercial can play a game.
And when you have the equity growth, I've just counted here, just across those four purchases, 780K of equity growth. So if we just look at the 780K equity growth in the last two years, as time goes on, as soon as that matures to that 1. 1 mil mark, which already would have when you factor in the other two properties too. But that 1. 1 mil mark, I tend to say that it gets you the ability to move to commercial with the really quality commercial assets.
I'm talking two and a half to three mil plus purchase prices, 30% plus cost deposits, and then allow you to move money in a way that gets you the equivalent of five residential properties at 600,000 or more, or four at seven to 800,000. So you can now move in less volume, but overall larger strides and more productive income strides. And then you can start shaping the asset where it's not a game of how many you have, but it's about what they'll do for you. Because all it takes is that two commercial properties. It could be over the next five to 10 years.
We enjoy the patience of growth. But then as soon as you exit all those residential properties to pay those two off, we're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of passive income, inflation adjusted, which is massive. Which is wild. Right. And so this is just a note to all those listening and watching to go, this is portfolio planning brought to life.
Diversity, capital growth, research and data, shifting from backyard investing and investing that relies on your time and efforts and moving to a team around you to get these results, but also a plan to get you to retirement with greater freedom, optionality, and the choices of resi commercial with safety, because there's diversity behind it all. There's data behind it all. So when I look at all of these investments, I have a big belief in something called the wealth effect. And the wealth effect is whether it's described in the Conor McGregor strut in how someone walks, whether it's the, maybe you switch from regular milk to oat milk, the small to large, the coffee with something on the side or just the coffee, or whether it's 7-Eleven coffees up to the local Melbourne higher ground, fancy, fancy cafes. Talk to me about how wealth building through property has impacted lifestyle.
So for me, wealth building is never been about buying shinier things or buying more things. It's actually allowing me to have the greatest asset that I feel it's time. And we talked about it offline as well, that these properties, this journey allows us a bit more time, whether it's a bit more time on your holiday, a bit more time with your kids, a bit more time spending, taking days off work to have a weekend away with your partner or your family and your friends. And it certainly allowed that. I don't necessarily need to buy a fancy car that will depreciate.
I find that I can spend a bit more time overseas or time with my loved ones. And I think that's the biggest thing for me with this journey. It buys me time. Absolutely. And do you think it buys you time because that you feel that you know your future is going to be okay, so you're stressing less about it, you're making less reactive decisions about it?
Because we all know property doesn't buy time immediately because it's a passive income, doesn't come until later. Is that what creates the time for you, the feeling of comfort knowing you're going to be okay in the future? Yeah, absolutely. So all these properties, they're long-term play. They're things that will allow me to have income down the track.
At the moment, my portfolio, you'd say it's an equity growth portfolio. When it gets to an income portfolio, that's still years away. But I know that I've made my sacrifices working overtime, doing my night shifts, doing extra work to get those properties. And still hard, still having to service it. But you're right, you mentioned that it still brings me comfort because I have this strategy.
I have invested correctly with the right mindset, with the right team. And that, for me, says my future looks okay. We can't predict the future. We can't predict what political parties are going to do, what new legislation is going to come in. You can say that again.
But what we can do is we can do what is right at the time. And if that allows us to be a bit more financially free later down the track, that brings me comfort now. So it is a long-term play. That's a really good point to the question that I wanted to think of next, which was you made a sixth purchase recently in this post-budget world and environment. And a lot of people, as per finance number take-up as the data point, we've seen in the post-budget environment anywhere, depending on the state you select, 15% up to a whopping 45% reduction in certain finance take-up of certain categories, like investor categories or things like that, which in simple terms means a whole bunch of people are waiting, seeing, watching, uncertain, but you've taken action.
And so when you are speaking to people out there, what is it that made you look at this time differently and say, I still want to take action versus the many that are sitting at home during this time and not? Yeah. I think with the changes that have happened this year particularly, people are waiting for something good to happen. But for me, I feel like with every change that occurs, whether it's personal in the last five years or whether it's a financial change, there are opportunities. There may not be the same opportunities as there were in the last few years or at the start of the year, but with every change, there is some opportunity that you can take.
And sometimes you might have to take it quicker. Sometimes you have to take it with the right mindset and with the right tools. But you still have to take action. And some of these changes have actually made me take action quicker. But having a bit of the journey already made, I'm happy to make some of those decisions quicker.
And you do have to when there are deadlines and timelines in place before negative gearing and CSU changes happen, which already has. But again, trust is a big part of it as well. Instead of sitting on a decision for months, I can sit on a decision for hours or weeks or days now, just in a quicker way. Well, you know, what's interesting is if you take that same approach, not just to investing, to business, to career and everything, it is really like decision speed is a big part of where so many successful businesses have been built during certain times. It's because they had a moment of pivot or they had a moment of a decision, the person to hire, the opportunity to go after, the marketing to do, the campaign to say.
And so I feel like the most successful entrepreneurs, and if we treat property like business, are making decisions fast. They're making decisions after getting a little bit of a taste, a little bit of experience like you did with properties three and four. As that momentum kicked up, your speed around five and six was so different to properties three and four, just because you're in that direction mode. You're in that experience now, decision. If you're looking to other investors out there who are either getting started or like you have a home in the areas they live in, or maybe have some knowledge of the areas they live in, they've got to spread their wings.
They've got to look at all these different things. What advice do you have for them or what tips do you have for them as they go on the portfolio building journey? There are a lot of things that we can certainly do when we're starting off, when we start off in these journeys, in their beginnings. Trust the process, especially with the team around you. Surround yourself with good people in the same mindset, those that want to grow, that want something for themselves down the track, but surround yourself with good people and trust the process with the professionals, which took me a little bit of time to get through, but also diversify.
I think there's, you know, if I was born in Sydney or Perth or Brisbane, I'll be in a different financial position just because my backyard looks very different over the last 10 years. It would have been different over the last 10 years. So with that in mind, again, most of the population lives between Sydney and Melbourne, but you need to look elsewhere for opportunities. Not saying that there are opportunities in your backyard, but look for opportunities elsewhere as well. That would be my first, I guess, tip for people starting out and also to take action.
Again, it would have been great to have made these decisions 10 years earlier or 15 years earlier if you have the capacity, but when they say the best time to buy is yesterday, the next best time is now. So instead of waiting for all your ducks to line up perfectly, do something to help that process, but also make that decision quicker. All right. Very, very solid advice there. My last question for you then is if you think about this journey in the last few years and the scale part that's been quite aggressive over these last two years, you've been met with policy changes, interest rates going down, then rising, then going down and rising again, like a whole lot.
Wars, all these things overseas. So there's obviously external challenges, but then there's internal challenges people have too, whether it's jobs, income, banks, all these sorts of things. What are some of the challenges that you went through over the scaling journey and ultimately how did you overcome them? So in terms of challenges for myself, there have been plenty and some of them are just my own discomforts. Some of them are objective, such as borrowing capacity.
