Goal-setting for young investors

He said: “There's just the undeniable focus on what it is they are passionate about. They just do most of what they can to achieve whatever that goal is.”

From then on, it has been the same principle that fueled his property investment journey.

“Everyone who's driven, not just wealthy people but sportsmen or businessmen, they all have that relatability—there's always a reason why they're doing it,” the investor highlighted.

Starting young

Mr Harris-Bushell’s own ‘why’ is simply a desire to be able to have more options down the line.

Like many others that came before him, he did not want to be stuck working until his 70s.

According to him: “I need to pick something to give me that lifestyle. Ever since I started working, I was saving money but I didn't know what for at the time. Then, I slowly figured out that property was for me.”

“I always knew in the back of my mind that you could do pretty well from property. There was actually a pathway and it was possible to create the life that I was hoping to achieve,” he added.

A lot of people usually start thinking about building a nest egg of investments in their 30s or 40s. By starting young, Mr Harris-Bushell gave himself a head start of one or more market cycles.

Being in the market longer essentially gave him the advantage of finding more opportunities and maximising the wealth-creation potential of his assets.

While it definitely came with a price, the young investor never felt like he was missing out on life.

He said: “I have made sacrifices, like not going on huge overseas trips every year or splashing out and buying nice cars. I still cycle my bike around quite a lot. These are small sacrifices to me.

“I'd rather save the money and put that towards my next deposit or whatever it is I'm trying to aim for, like renovation, for example,” according to Mr Harris-Bushell.

By the end of his investment journey, he envisions having a stream of passive income that will enable him to sustain the lifestyle he’s most comfortable with.

Changing goals

The investor’s goal sounds as simple as it could be, and that’s exactly how he wants his investment journey to go—as simple as it could be.

According to him, it’s easy to overcomplicate things in the real estate industry, especially considering all the fundamentals you have to factor in, the processes you have to go through and the different strategies you have to study before implementing.

However, at the end of the day, it’s really all about what you’re trying to achieve, he said.

For him, property investment comprises only of two simple questions:

What do I want to achieve?
What do I need to do to get there?

Mr Harris-Bushell explained: “It's just a simple case of mapping it out and thinking, ‘Okay, if I just chunk things down right down to the days, what do I need to do today to get me closer to that goal?’ That's as simple as it could be. That's what I ask myself.”

However, he encouraged his fellow investors to be flexible with their goals.

Property investment is an ever-changing landscape, and while it’s good to have set your goals before you even jumped into the venture, it’s best to be as adaptable as possible because every market across Australia goes through cycles—they can go up or down, sideways and even flat.

There are also different factors that can affect the movements of the markets, including interest rates, lending regulations, government legislation and amendments to existing property laws.

Moreover, your life decisions, like moving to another state or getting married and having kids, can also alter your investment journey significantly.

According to the investor: “I do know how big my portfolio needs to be to achieve my goal, but with how things have changed in the lending landscape, that actually has made me move the goalposts.”

“That's a reality that I'm trying to adjust to now. It's good to set goals but goals can change and it's okay as long as you have a process to be able to review and analyse and work out what the next goal is or what the next iteration of that goal is.

“Change is a great thing as long as you're flexible. If you get stuck in your ways, that's when you start to go backwards,” he concluded.

Tune in to Morgan Harris-Bushell’s episode on The Smart Property Investment Show to find out more about the importance of mapping out goals and creating a path towards the life you want to live through property investment.

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