How a 'fishing trip went wrong' started this tradie's property investment journey
Mitchell Burge bought his principal place of residence when he was 20 but only got into building his property portfolio when he turned 29, after he decided against spending his $30,000 on a new boat.
Like many prospective investors, Mitchell ended up procrastinating for almost a decade because of how overwhelming property investment seemed.
"I bought my house that we live in when I was 20," he shared, "but I always wanted to invest, but I didn't know where to go. There's a lot of things you can read about. Everybody seems to be an expert in it."
"I actually went for a fishing trip with Alex and we got talking about it, and then [Smart Property Investment] released an article, a long time ago, [called] ‘10 properties in 10 years’ and something clicked," the successful tradie added. His friend Alex Whitlock talked Mitchell into starting his own property investment journey the same way Mitchell opened Alex's eyes to the more fascinating aspects of fishing.
According to Alex: "[Mitchell] showed me some things that I had never seen before... We'd fished for, I don't know, four or five hours. We were actually going back in... [and he was] talking about spending $30,000 on another boat... and I said, ‘Have you thought about buying a property?’ That was what sparked it. It was actually on the way in. We'd fished for hours without even talking about anything other than fishing."
Mitchell then went into reading about stories of regular people doing extraordinary things and building impressive property portfolios, all while getting himself back on track with learning about the fundamentals of property investment. Four years and 12 properties later, the successful property investor still feels grateful for the moment that he was talked out of buying another expensive boat.
"Within a month [since the fishing trip], I didn't buy that boat—thank you for that—and we put it into a property. Within a month or six weeks from that fishing trip, the first investment was bought... That was in Minto. We managed to close it for $265,000 near housing commission, on a main street. Rental income at the time was $365, [it] put money in our pocket every day, so it was positive yield," he concluded.
Tune in to Mitchell Burge's episode in The Smart Property Investment Show to know more about his journey as a property investor and how he plans to acquire 10 properties in 10 years—or even more.
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