What is ‘good advice’ in property investment?
Almost everyone has a thing or two to say about property investment—we all live on a property, after all — but investor Scott O’Neill revealed the secret to investment success is knowing whose advice to heed and whose opinions you could just ignore.
Scott’s journey began during what was considered one of the worst time in the recent history of Australian property markets, but instead of listening to doom-and-gloom headlines, he trusted his guts and bought his first property “based on the numbers”.
“Everybody was saying, ‘Don't buy, don't buy. It's going to drop 30-40 per cent on the spot.’ I was terrified because it was my first time but I just basically found a property that gave me a good enough cash flow so I wasn't relying solely on growth,” he said.
“It allowed me to get one of the best buys of my life as well because there was no one else buying at the time… There were many good deals around.”
Early on in his journey, he has learned the value of finding the right people to guide him in the business of creating wealth through property—from good finance professionals to the best mentors. According to him, it is important that property investors only take advice from the people whose success they want to emulate.
“Never take advice from those [who] are not in a position that you want to be in… Everyone may [have] spent 30 years paying a mortgage but it doesn't necessarily mean they're someone to listen to [in regards] with investing because markets change. They might be stuck in an old school patent that worked 20 years ago, which won't work for the next 20 years,” Scott explained.
“Less than 1 per cent of people own six or more properties in Australia… That means that [there are] less than 1 per cent of people have done considerably well with properties as well, so listening to the other 99 per cent is probably not wise.”
Aside from getting himself acquainted with experts and professionals in the vast field of property investment, Scott also made it a point to learn from the experiences of his fellow investors.
“I used to read books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad… I looked up to those guys because they had done what no one else did,” Scott said.
Smart Property Investment’s Phil Tarrant agrees that not all advice on property investment are created equal, and according to him as an avid investor, he is more than willing to pay for good advice as long as it gives him the advantage of being able to navigate his way through his journey more efficiently.
Phil surrounds himself with good buyer’s agents, mortgage brokers, property managers, and accountants to ensure that he is making the best decisions for the continuous growth of his property portfolio.
“There's people out there that can do a lot of things better than I can do it myself… I prefer to concentrate on other things I can do well,” Phil concluded.
Tune in to Scott O’Neill’s bonus episode on The Smart Property Investment Show to know more about his journey towards building an impressive 28-property portfolio, which secures him an income of $300,000 each year.
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