Hi , I'm See Change

Hi

I'm from Sydney .

I started my investing journey the day after my 40 th birthday .

Sitting down , contemplating the phrase , life begins at fourth , a back of the envelope calculation showed that mid 70's was more likely ..

A couple of days later I heard Richard Kiyosaki being interviewed on ABC radio about his book " rich dad , poor dad " and my journey began . Not long after I discovered somersoft and the rest as they say is history .

15 years later we've bought and sold over 30 properties and , if we wanted , could put our feet up and relax . I enjoy doing things so that's not the end game for me .

Cliff

It's better to be guided by your dreams than your fears

 

Great, we have something in common - a big decision made after turning 40 to take property investing seriously

If I could replicate only 50% of what you achieved in 15 years I would be VERY happy.

 

Wow - 30 properties! That's a significant turnover. You must have lots of war stories. What has been the best and the worst transaction? ( in whatever way - location, agent, vendor, etc )

I'm only 4 months into my journey.

 

Inspiring, Cliff! How did you get started after listening to Kiyosaki?

 

First thing was a change of mind set .

A couple of years before , we'd thought about buying an investment property and had been told to talk to a financial adviser .

Advisor had told us that the best investment we could make was paying off the mortgage on our PPOR . As he was an expert i accepted his advice .....

Once I read RDPD i kept on reading and quickly realised that the concept of good debt and bad debt was the most relevant issue .

Our first step was to consider selling our house at the time , buy somewhere debt free and start investing . One of the agents suggested we could subdivide our block . I'd already considered doing this and talked to council but had been told that it didn't comply with the guidelines and it didn't . The agent said that the council could be reasonable and bend the guidelines if what we proposed was reasonable . She gave us the name of someone who could advise us . We talked to them but decided to go it alone l which we did and ended up subdividing , selling off one block and building a new house on the remaining block which we kept for a year before selling , buying another house on 3000m2 which also didn't comply with guidelines which we were also able to subdivide and repeat the process .

I discovered somersoft ( ? In 2000 ) while doing the first subdivision and became hooked.

While we did well with both subdivisions , if we hadn't done them , I wonder whether we might have done even better with considerably less disruption and stress .

On both occasions while we were busy markets we were watching moved significantly . Initially we watched Sydney's boom around us and during the second one we did our dd on Geraldton ( at the same time as Karina was busy buying ) but didn't go ahead due as we were being financial stretched by the second subdivision . We also sold some of our rocky properties to help pay for this knowing the market up there still had a way to go .

The first PPOR we bought in concord west in 1988 was at the top of the market and went sideways for the next 7 years .

For me the easiest money we've made has been with simple buy and holds when the market has been moving , hence my current emphasis on getting the timing right .


Cliff

 

I am like a few others that have had that light bulb moment at the big "40" to start investing.

The question I ask myself is why didn't I start earlier,why did I waste my 20s & 30s?.

The answer I think although may seem a little ignorant is -you only know what you know.

Thanks See_Change for your story as it is a great inspiration for us that have started investing a little later on in life

Coota

 

great story! and thanks for sharing so much on ss and now here as part of the next chapter.

i wonder how many investors have started off with poor advice?? plus like coota said waiting to make that start! i know for me it was buying at a peak and being somewhat disheartened plus poor financial advice (even though i understood the basics - buy, take on debt, rent pays down debt)
plus a big thing is that light bulb moment of mindest!

 

I think its also the investments that Cliff didn't make which have proven to be the smartest too , unlike some of us others here (if that's the same Financial Adviser which Cliff mentions).
Good thread Cliff.
David

 

Top stuff Cliff!

Sold and bought 30+ properties ....gosh that's a lot of work for your tax accountant

 

David , I wasn't referring to Steve . This was my dad's FA and that would have been around 1995-1996 which would have been a good a time to buy in Sydney .....

But as you raise steve , there have been several investments which we've looked at which we've chosen not to be involved in .

For me to invest in something I need faith in the motivation and expertise the person running the scheme and the scheme needs to be simple to understand with no obvious flaws ( KISS ) .Ii won't go into my reasons for not getting involved with steve as I think it's been done to death before and I think everyone wants to move on now .

Cliff

 

Good to see you over here Cliff,

I have enjoyed reading your posts over the last 10 years over on somersoft.

Don't forget to get that "hyping Brisbane" thread going

 

Good stuff @See Change. Do you reckon starting after 40, gave you more access to saved monies and thus making your journey relatively easier ?
Being in your profession you may have escaped LMI every single time but to come up with the required 5 - 10%, before your 40s, would you still have to cut corners and live frugally ?

 

Inspirational read Cliff - well done on your achievements & success.

Like you, I had one of those life reflection moments at the turn of a life span decade.. mine was at 30.

It must be something about birthdays & life reviews.

Once again well done.

 

If i knew back then what I know now , I'd be much further ahead

No question about it .

Time is an important factor and many of the enthusiastic 30 something's on the forum will be much further ahead than we were at 40 on considerably less income

Cliff