Category: Investors

Alberto De Grazia |  Rigger | NSW | mid 40s

Read the story of how a hardworking couple stepped out of the comforts of their regular jobs and into the complex world of property investment.

WHAT STARTED IT ALL

My wife and I sat down a few years ago and discussed our future. We have both worked really hard in our lives and agreed that we didn’t want to have to work into our 60s. We set a goal that we would retire comfortably in our mid 50s.

This plan meant that we needed to find a way to make this happen as we were well aware that our regular jobs were not going to give us the financial gains to achieve this goal no matter how hard we saved.

MAKING A WRONG MOVE

I had some experience in property investing from some time ago when my brother and I bought an apartment in Sydney. We went into the purchase without knowledge of current property market conditions, prices or any other information  that may have helped us make a better decision, so in the end we bought a property for which we paid too much and didn’t make the capital gains we had hoped for.

THE TURNING POINT

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Dene Wood | Art Director for a marketing company | VIC

My wife and I embarked on a wealth creation journey to ensure that our retirement was financially secure and relaxing. As we didn’t run a business of our own and superannuation is a new thing, we knew that what we had was not going to provide for us and we certainly didn’t want to leave our quality of life later on to chance.

We did some research and a whole lot of learning and started buying a mix of property and shares, the properties we bought in Victoria where we live have done really well. The market there was flattening off in the Eastern states and Perth was on a boom, so we did some more research and decided to go ahead and buy an investment property over there.

There was just the small problem with this plan, and that was that we live on the other side of the country, 4 hours flight away from Perth. There was no way we would be able to make a great purchase living in Victoria, and we didn’t want to take time off work and spend money traveling back and forth to make the purchase. Even if you take the time and fly or drive there, you don’t always know the specifics of one area over another area and even through internet research, unless you are really familiar with all the areas, you are still not able to see the little nuances that an expert’s insight can give.

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Dominique & Jakes Raubenheimer

Having moved from South Africa, we realized that we would need to build our superannuation to ensure we weren’t reliant on a government pension after retirement. We saw property investment as a forced way of saving.

We had first lived in Queensland (Mount Isa) and bought our own home there. Being a mining city, we were not sure about the long term growth and we sold that property when we moved to Perth – still making a 50% profit! We also bought our first investment property in Queensland, which we still own. As soon as we arrived in Perth, we set about looking for another investment property.

As we were new to the area and not familiar with the suburbs and growth potentials, we needed some support. We found Property Wizards and immediately felt comfortable with them as they were very efficient, professional and easy to talk to.

We told them what we were looking for and they set about and did everything, all we had to do was sign up and wait. It was fantastic as they know the Perth market inside and out, so we knew our investments and future were in good hands.

It wasn’t long before Property Wizards came back to us with a great property. From here everything happened at the speed of light. It was close to a new railway station which was due to open in a couple of years and it was also close to the beach, shopping centre and all other facilities which attract tenants.  All the odds were stacked in favour of great capital growth.

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Doreen Fenn | 56 | Registered Nurse | Duncraig, WA

I am originally from South Africa and after spending time in London and Saudi Arabia I arrived in Perth in 2000, bought a home and settled into my new life in Australia.

I knew that if I wanted to live comfortably after I ceased working, I would have to do something about creating a retirement fund. I needed to create some wealth relatively quickly in order to feel secure in the years to come and not be reliant on a pension. Furthermore I didn’t have any superannuation as a back up.

I knew that I would have to implement a plan quickly as I was already in my 50’s and didn’t want to have to keep working for another 10 years or more. I was advised by many people around me that property investment would be a safe way to work towards my goal and invest in my future.

I set about investing in my goal, as I didn’t know anything about real estate I thought I would be safe with a large well known company. WestPoint made everything sound so easy; I was pleased to become the owner of a 3 bedroom apartment in the CBD, with so much going for it. All I had to do was sit back and wait for 6 months whilst renovations were being completed. After this they would contact me with the go-ahead to sign tenants up and my first investment property was done, so, so easy.

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Fiona and Ian Kealley | Teacher and Forester | Regional manager | Kalgoorlie, WA

When we first decided to buy a property in Perth we were faced with a lot of questions:

“How do we do this from Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 7 hours drive away?”

“How would we be able to negotiate and liaise with the different agencies and businesses who are involved with purchasing a house plus manage our home, our jobs, our weekends and more importantly, maintain our sanity!”

Of course the answer was Liz and Trevor from Property Wizards.

We had no idea that such a thing as buyers’ agents existed and found them through the REIWA website. It’s so logical – people readily pay Seller Agent fees, so why not engage a professional to buy for you?

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Dale Gatherum-Goss  | Retired by 43 | VIC

My wife and I knew from our twenties that we wanted to retire early and would only be able to achieve this goal if we were to take charge of the process ourselves and find a way to create the wealth required to achieve our goal.

It wasn’t until our late 20s that we really started to do anything about it and it wasn’t till our early 30s that we actually started getting quite serious with the array of wealth creation concepts around. It was at this stage that we set an incentive and goal of retiring by the time we turned 45.

In order to achieve this goal we had to make a few sacrifices for the next few years, we chose to live moderately, minimizing the purchase of unnecessary items, expensive dinners and those coffees that seem to add up to a lot of money. We were financially conscious about where our money went rather than frittering it away and we bought what was needed and minimized the waste.

We threw ourselves into this mission and read a lot about different wealth creation strategies as well as attending some weekend seminar, through this process we found that property was predominantly the strategy used by people who had successfully created a lot of wealth, enough too be able to do as they choose and this is the freedom that we desired; to do as we choose, retire early and live a luxurious life.

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Karen Muddell | Fitness Professional | Sydney, NSW

My work keeps me busy but I understand how important it is to have access to opportunity when required and my story is about just that.

I have a few investments and one property was in Perth. I had been watching the market for some time, reviewing what was happening and looking for an area where I would buy. I decided that I would invest in the West Coast. The market hadn’t peaked like it had in Sydney so I knew I would be able to get a good property at a reasonable price and obtain good growth in the next few years.

Working in the corporate world in Sydney means there is one thing that I definitely can’t buy which is my time. I knew that I would have to work with someone if I was to buy a property in Perth. I didn’t have the time nor the funds to be flying back and forth and staying in hotels in order to make a successful purchase especially in a hot market. I contacted Property Wizards.

My budget was limited so Property Wizards and I decided on a unit. I bought a modernised one-bedroom unit in North Perth on Russell Street. The unit was super close to everything and walking distance to the city, plus it was a brilliant suburb for capital growth because of its location and lifestyle appeal. There were already tenants in the property so I didn’t have to worry about losing income while trying to locate new ones. I secured the unit  at a great price.

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Robert Jenkins | 44 | English Lecturer | Fremantle, WA

About 6 years ago I started my wealth creation journey. I was in my late 30s and realised that I didn’t really have much to show for all the years I had been working. I had no savings, no property, no real assets and I didn’t see how continuing to just rely on my job would get me much further in life. I was looking for ways to turn this all around.

I wanted to be filthy rich, I wanted to establish charitable organisations that will get kids off the street and into half-way homes, fund indigenous schools, I also wanted a few things for myself like a nice car, nice house and 2 overseas trips a year. In order to achieve all this I knew that I would have to push myself out of my comfort zone.

I did some research into wealth creation and completed quite a few home study courses and seminars with various experts in this field to help me develop a good skill set and knowledge base to move forward in achieving my dream. When I felt ready I jumped into the property market.

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Simon De Marchi and Suzie Pismiris | Flight attendants | Aged 45 & 43 | Clovelly, NSW

Suzie and I both work in the airline industry as flight attendants and are always out of the country.

When I was left with only $60,000 after my first marriage, I knew I had to do something. Suzie and I, both in our early 40s, undertook to invest in the property market. Our primary goal was to pay our existing mortgage down to a comfortable level. We knew property was for us as it was a more stable long term investment. Because we both were very time poor and out of the country all the time, it was very difficult to understand and research the current market. What made me get the motivation, were the stories in API magazine.

I was using an online property investing forum to gather information on buyer’s agents in WA. As I was gathering information on the forum about buyer’s agents I noticed that Property Wizards kept coming up in the online discussion and all the comments were positive. This is what gave us the confidence to approach Property Wizards.

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“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”- Henry Ford

Wilbur Tong | 30 | Corporate Finance Manager | Perth, WA

From the moment I started work I knew that I couldn’t rely on my salary alone to sufficiently create a comfortable position for myself in life. I felt most comfortable with using property as my vehicle for creating wealth and started on the journey shortly after starting work. In the beginning whilst I embarked on my journey, I had to make really large sacrifices in order to get a kick-start at such a young age.

I worked as a business analyst by day and waited tables by night to get enough money together to help me with my first purchase and then later assist with the mortgage. Working these long hours also impacted on my social life, but I took a long term approach and I felt it was the right choice for me.

When I saw the growth in property value I could see the rewards of my hard labour and sacrifices and saw how much it had paid off. I felt inspired to do more, it is a great feeling to see what you have achieved. Within a few years of starting work full time, I had bought two properties.

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Marcus & Roslyn Jinks | Accountant | UK

Marcus and I have made plans to move to Australia in five years time, we have our VISAs approved and just needed to stay in the UK for a little while longer. Even though we weren’t moving immediately, we wanted to get into the property market as quickly as possible as we knew that prices would just keep going up and weren’t sure what the salary transition would be.

We decided to start looking for a property which would be our new home or if on the off chance we didn’t move over, it would become an investment property.

We looked on the internet to see who was able to help us and came across the concept of buyer’s agencies, people who would run the purchase for us. This was a perfect solution considering we were living in the UK, we also didn’t have time to come over and do it ourselves. Of all the agencies, Property Wizards website had the most information and funnily enough it was the pictures that sold me, they showed exactly what we were looking for, which instilled faith that they could buy our home for us while we remained in the UK.

Not long after we signed up with Property Wizards, I was made redundant and Chris and I also just found out that we were going to have a child. We panicked and wanted to pull out of buying a property in Australia.

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John & Jenna Bauer | early 30s, | Electrician & Human Resources | QLD

My wealth creation journey stemmed from a decision to go back to university to complete year 12 and commence a Bachelors Degree in Information Systems.

I got about halfway through my program when I realised that I was going to be in the same position financially, if not worse, after graduating from University, than I would be if I was to continue my trade as an electrician, plus I would have a debt for all the course fees which are very expensive.

I made a decision to leave university. I was dead flat broke and knew there had to be a better way than this. That is how I started attending wealth creation seminars. I started reading everything I could about creating wealth for myself, attending many, many seminars and it wasn’t too long before I permanently put my foot on the path by buying my first property in 2002.

After a few years and having bought a few more properties I decided to use some of the equity we had built up. After talking with Trevor Dunkley I was confident that Property Wizards’ methods would find me a wealth-creating property. (more…)

Neil Provins | Geologist | West Perth, WA

My partner and I have moved often and suffered both the benefits and shortfalls of changing property markets. Living in our own downtown apartment, we debated whether to pursue a beach house as an investment or a home in the Perth suburbs.

Logic prevailed and we began investigating opportunities in local suburbs through the newspaper – our long term intent was to provide capital growth returns that could later be used to fulfil the dream of an ideal retirement home. The Perth market at the time was beginning to get hot and it appeared to be the perfect time to get into the market.

Like many, we commenced the process by doing our own research, going through the newspapers and visiting home opens. Frustration came quickly, with properties not being as promised or those of interest being already under offer by the time we arrived.  It was clear that we lacked the knowledge, versatility and mobility to act quickly as we were both employed and often too preoccupied to be in the right place at the right time.

Having immigrated to Australia some years before and experiencing the use of professional services to find the ‘right place’ to rent in Brisbane, I was aware that professional help was available and worth consideration. Investigation into finding this sort of help led me to Property Wizards and we contacted them immediately.

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BUY AND HOLD FOR REZONING

Kellie Hubbard | Terrigal, NSW

My husband and I chose property investment as a way of saving which we see as more secure than shares and a more reliable way of saving, rather than relying on us being disciplined enough to put money into a bank account and not touching it.

Having bought our first home, we already had first hand experience of how it can create wealth. We had built considerable equity in our home in Terrigal NSW since its purchase. Once we had owned this for a few years we decided to branch out and buy an investment property to create more wealth and provide us some stability and freedom upon retirement.

We did some research and saw that the Perth market was taking off and we decided to look at investing there. I was very comfortable with this as I was born and raised in WA. We had heard a lot about Property Wizards and what they were able to do for investors and we definitely wanted to be a part of that, we spent a lot of time on the phone with them going through our requirements and goals. 

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Andrew Martin | Business Development Manager | 23 | London

I started my journey at a really young age. I remember finishing high school and on the following Monday, when all my friends were out partying and celebrating (probably for months to come), I donned a suit and went to a print company to get my first job in sales.

I guess even back then I was doing things quite differently to everyone else.

Once I started this job, I saved and saved and saved until I had a bit of money behind me, which I then invested in a property course. All my friends couldn’t believe what I was doing, they were saying ‘you have no money, why are you bothering doing that course? …You’re stupid’.

Regardless of what they said, I went ahead and did the course anyway and I also read up a lot about property investment and started watching the markets. I had narrowed down the kind of investment I wanted – I would go for maximum capital growth I could get on my small budget and because I was on a good income, I could handle the negative cash flow to generate my capital growth. I selected three buyer’s agents to call.

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