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Many people think that you need a 10 property portfolio to really have that passive income and it's not true. We see so many people going, I need to get to 6, 8, 10 properties. If not now, when? There's a lot of kind of media hype of, oh, look at this person, they've got so many properties. I did want to buy a home to live in and just the Sydney market is crazy at the moment.
I will be able to buy where I actually want to live, not a one bedroom apartment. It's actually very doable. My strategy is... On the Property Nerds podcast, you know we love our research, we love our finance and strategy. But once in a while, it's important to step back and talk real people, real results.
Today is that day. We're going to catch up with Dani, a valued client and investigator. Her and her husband, Ron, have purchased four properties with the team and they've been purchased across four different locations as well. Brisbane, Adelaide, regional New South Wales and Queensland. Today, we're going to go deeper into the portfolio, discuss her journey with us and how it's made an impact to her life ahead, as well as the transition point that many investors aren't sure of when to make between investing and eventually buying your own home.
So make sure you stay tuned to the end to unpack that decision making from her side. Don't forget to like and subscribe and enjoy the episode. Nerd alert! Property Nerds, the home for data-driven property investors, where we uncover Australia's hot and cold markets, latest headlines and trends. Hey, Dani, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Arjun. Lovely to be here. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Dani, for those that don't know, me and you go way back to our days at Commonwealth Bank together.
But I'd love to know about how you and Ron, when building out your portfolio, I guess that journey at the bank and how that's played a role in terms of your thoughts on building wealth outside of what you do from your everyday career at CBA. So I was reflecting back on, you know, 10 years we've known each other. And I think I've started my career at CBA in banking and it's been a very kind of, you would say, conservative career path. And so when I reflect back on my financial relationships, it started off being really conservative as well. Like I would never have thought that I would classify myself as a rent investor.
I was always on the owner-occupied route. And I think over the years, like through kind of working with your team and speaking to other people and advisors, it's kind of really changed my mindset. Still from my banking background, but I've gone probably a little bit more of the non-conservative path. Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Dani.
And that relationship, I've obviously seen that change over time working together as well with regards to, you know, just your thought on the conservative shifting more towards the, you know, I wouldn't say aggressive, but more focused on like really clear goals and then really taking that action when you feel it's right, which is actually going back to when it first started in 2020. Crazy time in the world, global uncertainty, COVID, lockdowns. And this is the time where you're not just met with any normal decision. It's more like there's a property here to buy. This is your first investing in property type moment now.
And you decide to proceed with it, right? So firstly, I'd love to go back to that mindset over then. What amongst all this uncertainty led you to go, no, look, I'm going to make this decision, commit to an investment, that too in the other side of the country. You're here in Sydney, that property was in Brisbane. I'd love to know what more was going on in your thoughts during that time.
Yeah, so I still very distinctly remember we were, we had the go, no go decision and I was on the phone to you. And at that, during that day, it was announced that there would be further lockdowns in Brisbane and, you know, more rental restrictions and all that. And I was like, Arjun, what do you think about this? What does that mean? And, you know, your guidance then was this is a sound investment.
And, you know, these things will happen and, you know, you just need to ride the wave knowing that you've done the research and the due diligence. And I think that kind of gave me the confidence to go forward. And again, if I reflect back on my financial mindset, you know, in my, I guess I had a little bit of financial regret, like why about moving sooner? You know, I had the deposit years already. I didn't do anything with it.
And, you know, when you carry that financial regret, it gives you momentum and you feel like you don't have time to waste. And so even though I had friends and family saying, you know, interest rates are going to dip 20% more by the end of the year, like why are you moving now? It's kind of like, I don't want to wait then even if it does or it doesn't. You just want to act now because you've done the due diligence and there's no reason to wait. So it's almost like there was a bit of pain carried into that decision making from prior, meaning that, hey, because you had that position strong for some time, it's like, if not now, when?
Yeah, exactly. It's like I've got lost time to make up for. And I think, and we can go into it, but, you know, we did purchases every year after that. And so I don't have, I don't want to waste time anymore. I want to act now.
And, you know, I've got the team and I've got the resources. So I just want to do it. Yeah. On that whole lockdown piece, one thing we look at often as a team internally is there's a zoom out chart of all the events that have gone on in the world, not just from then, but even after and all the years prior, whether it be wars, global uncertainty, GFC, dot com burst. And if you just zoom out and you chart all these events out and you take this long term trend of property, you can see the trend has still been so strong.
Like even if you ask someone at GFC, who at the time would have said bad time to buy because of all this thing going on, but you ask them fast forward to today, would you have bought then? And so I just feel like you didn't let yourself have that moment of, I'm not going to be one of those stats that tells myself, should I have, could I have, would I have? That was really special to see. Yeah. And you know what?
Interest rates rose since then and now they're falling back. And it's just kind of like riding the wave. I don't pay attention too much to that. Same with markets have fallen and since dropped again. And it's just a long term game that we're playing.
Absolutely. Dani, your Brisbane property, it started at 500,000 or a little bit over 500,000 and it's now worth over a million. Now at the start, just before you sort of mentioned that you were a conservative investor, but how did this first purchase really change your relationship with risk, giving you that first win? Yeah, it kind of just validated the mindset that if you act and obviously you do the due diligence and you've got the team to support you, it can reap rewards. And with that equity growth, I've used that to purchase and expand the portfolio.
I think Arjun, you had a good, I know I just remember that, you know, I did the sign, I signed the loan and the equity grew and that's how I funded three more purchases off that one equity. And so it's such a powerful reminder of if you act now, like these are the rewards that you can get instead of trying to time the market. Yeah, that whole like first one's the toughest, Dani. But then we, I remember the saying you're talking about now, me and you would say like, hey, to create this next asset, it was signing three pieces of paper. The equity loan, the new pre-approval and the contract of sale.
So like to know that your three pieces of paper away, obviously the first one performing to get to the next and the next, it's all about simplifying that thought because if you overthink the exact deposit, the cash savings, what do I do? How do I manage it? Where do I run things? Shall I purchase? Should I not?
And then you just start to go, hold on a minute. So to create the next asset, it's three pieces of paper. And we would talk about this often. Yeah, and it's literally, you know, it's not that I kept saving cash deposits up. It was off that one purchase.
And I still take that mentality, you know, I've got renovations going on one of the investments now. And again, it was, it's funded from the equity growth of the portfolio. And so it's not so much that you need so much cash to purchase one, two, three, four, whatever properties. It's the fact that when your portfolio works, it's quite easy to do. Yeah, awesome.
It's always like compounding and that snowball effect, right? The first one's always the hardest and then it gets easier. Yeah, and I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm more savvier than the next person. Like I would still consider myself quite kind of a basics investor. So if I can do it, like anyone can do this.
It's not hard. Dani, you've now built a diverse portfolio. So you started with Brisbane. We've now moved to Adelaide, regional New South Wales and regional Queensland. All across different locations and largely away from where you are based as well.
How has that Yeah, I think especially for the first time investors, as you kind of start out, you're really trying to tick off this whole criteria. And like you said, Danny, it's very property focused rather than portfolio level focus that you have because you haven't sort of gone through that journey of building out your portfolio. So I say it is very common. You hear all of these different things, you know, you need X, Y, Z for your perfect property portfolio to actually build it out. But as you mentioned, you know, it doesn't have to be that perfect fit every single time.
It just needs to serve that purpose in your portfolio to get you to that next stage. So Danny, while a lot of people are chasing that dream home, you guys went the other way to set up your future. How did you resist that emotional pull to get into the dream home? The FOMO is real. I mean, I'm not going to lie.
Even just a few weeks ago, I reached out to Arjun and I was like, I want to buy a home to live in. So, you know, I still think about it. It's not that I don't want a home. I think we started this journey as a little bit of a necessity. I did want to buy a home to live in and just the Sydney market is crazy at the moment.
It was crazy then and it is even more so now. So my strategy is I'm set with these properties and at the right time, I will buy a property to live in. I'm not in a rush though. I think it would be lovely to live in a place and I'm just being realistic that this is the path that makes most sense. And there's pros and cons to that.
You know, one pro is that there's flexibility to rent where I really want to live. And also when Leon, my son, grows up, there's a lot of flexibility to choose his school right now. And then the other one is I can, over time, I will be able to buy where I actually want to live, not a one bedroom apartment. So, yeah. And have you seen different outcomes in like friends of yours that have been in similar situations?
Like you went down one path, they got stuck in the dream home trap. Have you seen different outcomes between your own friend group? Yeah. And I guess it's everyone's own choice, but I don't want to be in a situation where I feel the mortgage prison, where I can't live the way I want to live because I've got a really large mortgage. I don't have that now, even though, you know, I do have investment loans.
I've got strong cash buffers, tax strategy, and also really strong rental income. And so, you know, over time, that portfolio will grow and I can just ride that wave. Yeah. That's a really important thing to go into, Dani, because there's a couple of things coming up from what you said. Firstly, people actually look at this whole buying a home thing and they realize that through stepping stone homes, you lose all that flexibility.
You do jump into mortgage prison and then all for a place where you're like, this wasn't even the ideal place I wanted to be in. Whereas I asked this question a lot to our clients and I asked it to you as well. And you're like, oh, made sense. And there was this basically, I said, would you like to have a home and then play catch up on your life through investments later on in life? Or would you like to know that you're set for your future and then only have a singular thing to play catch up on?
And that's just a place, a home. And when we mapped it out, you're like, wait, so I don't need to play catch up on my financial future anymore. I've got my four investments. You're looking into your own supers. You're looking into other strategies of investments through diverse assets.
And you're like looking at your savings per month and you're going, hey, hold on a minute. We're going to be fine with these four properties. Like this gets us there, which leads to another point. We see so many people going, I need to get to six, eight, 10 properties because I need to get to this. And you're realizing actually a really sound, diverse strategy of multiple asset classes, super property.
You get there with three to four. And that was special to see because when you realize that you committed together with Ron on that journey, now you can draw a hard line and you have not just years or decades. And I don't want it to take decades for you guys, but you have the years or decades or anything just to think and decide exactly the place that you want and feel really content about it. And no, financially, it wasn't just, as you said, getting yourself into this prison without any analytical thought or decisions. I think just something like that I want to call out because it's a very mature decision and people don't make that financial mature decisions as mature they may be in life.
Financial maturity is a whole new thing. So that was a really sound decision. I just wanted to say hats off to you. Yeah. And I think many people think that you need a 10 property portfolio or something crazy like that to really have that passive income.
And it's not true. I think there's a lot of kind of media hype of, oh, look at this person. They've got so many properties. But again, I just think I'm a really basic investor and it's actually very doable. So, Denny, now as parents, life gets busier and scarier for some people.
What kept you moving forward and blocking out all the noise? Yeah. So we did a very aggressive portfolio kind of acquisition before Ron and I got married and before Leon came. So, you know, I'm glad that's out of the way. But even if it wasn't, you know, the team make it so easy slotting in after you finish work, kind of doing all the groundwork.
Now, I think the challenge is a little bit different. We're not I'm not thinking about acquiring another investment property. It's more around maintaining my existing portfolio and maximizing the value. So, for example, I've got renovations going on in one property right now. And those renovations came from an initial kind of maintenance costs.
And then I think Arjun gave some really good advice of, you know, maintenance is a cost, but you can actually renovate to increase the value quite significantly. So it's kind of those issues or kind of challenges we're looking into now. But we just make it work. You know, I mentioned the pros of flexibility now being able to rent and choosing where Leon wants to go to school in a few years. And so, yeah, I think there's pros and cons.
Now, Danny, you've trusted the team at InvestorKit to guide you through this journey. When you two were discussing the growth trajectory and what you wanted to achieve ahead, what made you two to go, well, we don't want to do this alone. We want to have a team on our side. What was the points that really made this come alive for you? Yeah, I think I started this whole journey off years ago wanting to buy a home to live in.
And I don't know if this is anyone else, but I was just scrolling on domain and real estate. I'm like, is this it? Surely there are other people that know this better than I do. I don't have the head space, nor am I particularly passionate about researching properties and finding the right investment. And so that's where I really kind of went to InvestorKit.
I wouldn't even think of doing it another way. I don't know why people kind of purchase like one of the biggest financial decisions you will make in your life. I don't understand why you wouldn't kind of reach out for help. And I think that the equity growth that has come about the portfolio has what, like 50 times the fees or whatever. It's just crazy.
Not five, not 10, 50 guys. I just don't. It makes it's a no brainer for me, I guess is what I'm saying. I'm just imagining how many people actually do what you said, which is the biggest decision they'll make in their lives is just a lunchtime scroll for them. Isn't that crazy?
It's just wild. Yeah. And it's again, like the equity growth has. I don't even think of the fees when I think of the equity growth. And as you know, I constantly annoy you for further support and guidance pro bono.
So I mean, yeah, you just give so much support. I yeah, I really struggle to see why people wouldn't tap into the resources if they're available to you. Yeah. Danny, you've gone through, you know, a whole bunch of events. And as of right now, it's arguable to say that even right now, a lot of people are sitting on the fence and they're undecided about whether they should continue on and start investing or whether they should just sit on the fence and just see how things pan out.
What do you think you would say to those people? I would just say bite the bullet and do it. I think it's important to have urgency as opposed to trying to do your own research, which could take months and a lot of anxiety and stress. And I, as I mentioned, I had financial regret. I had time to catch up on.
And I would encourage people to just reach out for a conversation. It doesn't mean you have to go through with it. It's just to learn more. And and why wouldn't you? You're already going to spend 30 minutes scrolling.
You may as well spend 30 minutes talking to someone that knows what they're doing. And Danny, just on that point, people think it takes a lifetime. You've been able to condense this into four years to set up your lifetime. And I feel like that's just further to your point of like biting the bullet, going to Jack's earlier point of like friends and people going, should we buy this home?
