Who are the Fools and who are the Suckers

Haha. I should price one of them. We did the line for the doorway into the new hall with a plumb bob. Renovating old school!

 

I was really lucky when I invested in Sydney and made a $hitload.

I was lucky when tenants didn't pay their rent, trashed the place and disappeared. I was lucky that dispite this and many more bad experiences initially, I kept buying more even when my properties didn't grow in value for years and some even fell in value.

I was lucky I didn't buy my own house to live in but instead rented run-down low end places to live in so I could save money to do renovations on my investment properties for my tenants to live in.

I was lucky I didn't listen to the advice my friends & family gave me about investing in property back then. They all said prices are going to crash very soon and interest rates are on the way up!

Now those very same friends and family members are all telling me how lucky I was. They loved to tell me their excuses why they didnt invest.

 

In general, I agree with this but it's not always true. For example, we sold the Melbourne property at the peak for that sub-market. However, I don't think the person who bought was a fool. The property was a triplex block which overlooks a park on a quiet street. One of the particular aspect that attracted us to the property in the first place was the park. The purchaser is a builder and plans to build 2 family homes, one for his family and one for his relative to live in. One of the reasons he paid so much was because he wanted his family home to overlook the park.

Sure he paid a decent amount for the property at the time he purchased and no doubt it will drop somewhat in value over the next year or so. However, once you start talking builders building their own family home, traditional numbers go out the window. My feeling is that he will do really well out of this purchase. Not really the "greater fool" in my opinion.

 

Sounds like you were really lucky!

The place I am renovating now is much nicer than where I am living. It doesn't feel "lucky" that my tenants will have a nicer home to live in than I do

 

I know what you mean, but anyway who cares? Sounds like you've made it regardless of how much luck or not was involved. Careful not to let toxic people take the shine off your success.

 

This. X 1,000,000.

 

Live in real world for once where, homelessness does not mean rental assistance, Broke does not mean (Alt Ctrl Del) under bankruptcy laws but persists for generations, unemployment does not mean newstart, sickness does not mean medicare, medicine does not mean health care, birth does not mean baby bonus....Let me know if you need more examples. Ever experienced (or even heard of) hunger, thirst, war, poverty driven infanticides or multiple suicides in family ?

I was trying not to burst your bubble, but observed in the right context, your sob story is as compelling as the channel 9 renovation shows centered around the misery of good folks with ear ache, when down the street there are war torn families with permanent psychological and physical damages, language and cultural barriers and without money, jobs, education or hope, whose existence is not even acknowledged.

Yes, you are privileged over millions if not billions just by being born in a certain place and time, and that privilege is not because of your ability but an act of randomness. Go and educate yourself about disadvantaged communities if not countries to understand what inter-generational poverty, unemployment and homelessness means, before personifying sympathy evoking victim-hood. Maybe your cheer squad will rethink rather than swallowing, your phoenix fables.....not betting on it though. The arrogance and ignorance in claiming misfortune is breath taking.

My concern with homelessness was that of specific tax rorts that is perpetuating and creating homelessness and I stand by it as it is based in statistical information collected by impartial, government institutions over decades. Whinging is from the mob worried about the silver spoons being dislodged from their orifices.
Read the response above to decide whose world view is distorted.

If you can rise above your petty narcissism (me, my, I, I am, mine...) maybe you can comprehend that for all your skills, choices, effort, research etc, millions got better results than you by doing nothing. Not asking you to substitute your efforts, just acknowledge the role of luck. Like before, for all your juvenile sarcasm about how you are creating your own luck (or is the current flavor... amazing life... with multi colored emoticons as a substitute for rational thought ) and others are whinging, it is not a binary construct, but that might be a bit nuanced for yin yang groupies

 

Do you think anyone cares about your cashflow issues ? The example in your own words was to simplify (specifically for you) and emphasize that in-spite of all your extra terrestrial attributes, luck still left you in the dust.

Attack ? You give yourself too much importance. I did not bring your anecdotes into conversation, you did. Do not blame others when you are over sharing, but not want any scrutiny.

Of all anecdotes and reasoning, the only relevant and honest one is the following, which shows the basis of all the arguments.

 

Have you?

 

@Skilled_Migrant I thought we were comparing the "lucky but arrogant" Sydney investors to the investors who chose to invest elsewhere.

In that case there was an argument about research etc having a role rather than luck.

If the comparison is between people born in Australia compared to being born in destitute conditions in the Third World - then I am sure we all agree we are lucky.

I think your comparison has changed since your initial comment that got all the reaction.

 

It's otherwise called moving the goal posts to justify an argument or tap dancing.

 

You are hilarious. Without any knowledge of my experiences, you continually pass judgement on my situation. Instead of assuming, why not ask a simple question to clarify? To address your accusations one by one:
- I would have been thrilled to be eligible for rent assistance. My definition of homelessness is not renting like yours is. When I was homeless it meant on some days I wasn't sure where I was going to sleep that night. I spent time couch surfing, living in a borrowed caravan, living in a house that was for sale and house sitting. Rent assistance was a dream for me at that point. You are the one who needs to get real.
- For me, broke means having no money in the bank. I never went bankrupt, I simply spent all my money on accommodation and food until I had not money left in the bank. Do you even know what poverty is? I was living in poverty for nearly 2 years.
- Unemployment means having no job and no source of income, zero. At the start, I didn't even qualify for newstart. And who says unemployment doesn't mean newstart. That is one of the most ridiculous things you have written

"Ever experienced (or even heard of) hunger"

umm... yeah. When I was studying, had no stable accommodation and could only afford one meal a day. I was hungry. I lost 20 kg in 3 months. It wasn't good.

There is always a bigger sob story than mine. It doesn't make what I experienced any less real.

You can make the unfair comparison to any person in the world. Next time you whinge about homelessness in Australia because of NG and CGT, I will remind you how privileged those people are.

Again you know nothing about me yet have the arrogance to presume that you do. My first year out of high school I worked for 12 months in a remote Aboriginal community. And I didn't post some truth about my life to evoke sympathy. I posted because you claimed I would blame others for my failure. I simply posted an example of where that isn't true. But instead of conceding, you attack, deny, make absurd comparisons and claimed I posted to evoke sympathy. I did not such thing. I don't feel sorry for what I went through. I don't expect you to either, or anyone else for that matter.

And this is where the real issue is. Despite your claims to the contrary, I was genuinely homeless, unemployed and had no money, no savings and no assets and I used the systems of tax in this country to help work my way out of poverty. You claim I have a silver spoon in my orifice. I was born to working class parents who raised 5 kids on a single low income. Your deceptive interpretation of how privileged my upbringing does nothing to change that. The system you claim that is perpetuating and creating homelessness and poverty is the system I used to get out of homelessness and poverty. And now you know why I defend it. I don't need it anymore but what about the next person who wants to use the system to break free of poverty. What are you going to tell them about why you took away their opportunity?

You make personal attacks on me and when I respond by giving truthful information about my life it's petty narcissism? That's amusing.

I am lucky I was born in Australia because there are opportunities to succeed through hard work.

And? Are you suggesting I would have got better results by doing nothing? What is your actual point?

Umm... yeah actually, you do. I'm an immoral tax cheat if I negatively gear. When I'm running a cash-flow positive property, nobody cares. So, you only care if I am doing the "wrong" thing according to you but you don't care if I do the "right" thing. That's an interesting perspective and reveals a lot about your character.

That's funny too. What you don't understand is that it is nothing to do with luck and never was. I bought the property cheap. It then raised significantly in value (almost double). The paper equity loss I refer to is the hypothetical value from the top of the market to now. Luck didn't leave me in the dust. It was a deliberate strategy to hold the property in a falling market because there is a purpose to do so. A property investor would understand that. A property investor hater would not understand that.

And so we come to the crux of it. You hate property investors and property investment and choose to invest your time attacking property investors on a property investment forum. And I am the one with problems. I will take my "problems" over your "problems" any day.

Thanks for playing.

 

Seriously... well done @Perthguy. Lots of people who may have gone through nowhere near as bad as what you described don't try. And then they play the victim card, which gets you nowhere long term. You rose though it. Kudos

 

yes. I too was lucky when I bought in Brisbane at the bottom ( pretty much absolute bottom) a bit more than a few years ago.
By pure chance, bought at the bottom, by pure chance bought in this area ( which I knew nothing about prior), by pure chance bought the asset type I did....
all firsts for me. the only DD I did was to ask a cabbie ( driving me around the area), and a used car salesman if this is a good area. No kidding. They were right.
That is dumb f--- luck. Nothing more nothing less. Havnt looked back since

 

@JDP1 awesome!

 

Something I was well aware of throughout the whole experience was there were people in a lot worse situations than me. Compared to them, I was lucky to find a bed somewhere every night and managed at least 1 meal every day. I know many were not that lucky. But the question was never whether I experienced genuine hardship, the question was whether I blamed other people for my situation. The important part for me was to accept responsibility for the decisions I made, which is what I did. I don't blame anyone for my decisions, good or bad.

 

Good stuff.
It is really refreshing to see someone actually take responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming anything and anyone else. Anything you do, you accept responsibility. You made the decision (regardless of factors that helped you make the decision) you deal with the consequences.

I absolutely hate the mindset of people nowadays... diverting the blame, the expectation of entitlement, it frustrate the bejeezus out of me... and worst of all I am part of the generation!

 

But it must have been a suburb you were familiar with and wanted to live in?
Surely.

 

No. Not at all.no idea of the suburb prior. I actually was looking in another suburb to buy..i popped into a used car showroom and asked the dealer what thr area us like there...he said id be better off going to my current hood..thats what pushed me here...made one vusit to this area...got in a cab to drive me around and asked him how its like..he said good...a couple of weeks later a giant mortgage lol...and a lot of hoping it will be alright..thats when the DD started ...fortunately good so far...if i ever meet the cabbie and car saleaman again, ill buy them a steak dinner

 

That's funny, good on ya.
I might try that some time. Surprised the used car salesman didn't sell you a car as well