219. How To Get Rich With Property & Crypto With Ravi Sharma

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs Podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift. Alongside me as Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. We're here to bring you world class crypto research strategies and insights to help you crush this crypto bull market. And if you're time poor, juggling a business, a life and a family and want to grow your crypto portfolio and your wealth, this podcast is for you. Now today we've got an absolutely epic guest on the channel. Ravi Sharma is the founder of Search Profit Properties Buyers Agency, one of Australia's fastest growing buyers agencies. By the age of 32, Ravi successfully acquired a property portfolio of 15 million, showcasing his expertise and commitment to property investment. He's also the host of Australia's number one property channel on YouTube Personal Finance with Ravi Sharma. And with over 91,000 YouTube subscribers eager to learn about real estate investing and building a foundation for retirement, Ravi also hosts the More Than Money podcast on Spotify and YouTube. You can exploring conversations with influential figures across Australian landscape. I was actually recently a guest which was absolutely awesome to catch up and that's where we completely nerded out on crypto and property and, and Also business and YouTube and everything else. And it was just a wicked conversation, man. So thank you so much for finding the time to jump on. Yeah, it's great to have you.

Thanks for having me on board guys.

Very excited, very excited. So today folks, Ravi's actually got a deep history I guess in the crypto space. Space and you know, I don't know if you'd call it cross the chasm into, into property but it's an area that Bergs is very, very excited in, where Berg's made majority of his wealth in, in property and, and it's an area that I am going to go into once, once I start to diversify away from crypto. So today we're going to talk a lot about property investment strategies, you know, where to buy, just general insights I guess for people that are looking in this, in the space. We know a lot of you listeners also have a bunch of properties. So yeah man, I wanted to maybe start with just like your journey, you know, maybe from crypto to property or how you think about, you know, those two assets and yeah, that's probably a good place to start.

Yeah, for sure. So I bought my first property at 21, almost 22 and I bought regional, regional Australia. It was like 255k. The first property technically that settled was like 190k. Again, regional new South Wales couldn't buy anything in Sydney. So I always believed that property was the way to go because I could use leverage, get into it. And you know, Australians love property. So I was like, okay, if the richest people or people got rich in Australia and built a lot of their wealth in real estate, let me just go do that. Because I don't see myself working for the rest of my life. And then I remember Christmas 2017. I'm sitting there, we had a family gathering and pretty much hate those because everyone's just asking about the same shit. And my brother was like, hey bro, you know, do you hear about this crypto thing? And I was like, no, what's that? And he goes, oh, bro, people getting like real rich real quick. Have you heard of bitcoin? And I said, no, I've got no idea what that is. And we ended up having this chat and it was a good family gathering at that point because we just went on a tangent and I've got a personality that I've now realized after doing a few of these podcasts that I've started reflecting and I realized that when someone says something, I'm pretty, pretty quick to execute. And it's probably part of my success and also part of my demise when it comes to something like crypto, I like to dive deep in. So he tells me that lunchtime on Christmas and by Boxing Day evening, I had a coin spot account.

Fortunately, I couldn't deposit that much and I didn't have much to do anyways. I was like sort of dcaing like 20, 20 bucks a day. And I had the same mentality that so many people have, which is, oh, bitcoin's expensive. It seems like it's already run. Let me go pick the altcoins because hey, who doesn't want a two dollar ripple versus a $10,000, $20,000 bitcoin? So that's how I got into crypto. But I definitely started in real estate. And still to this day I invest in both. Although it's not ripple, it's just bitcoin. But that's a different story.

I think that sort of like rabbit hole journey, I think so many people, including myself, definitely I get excited about when I think back to when I first learned about bitcoin from an asset perspective. For me, I think bitcoin and property are probably the two best assets to hold. And a lot of our platinum clients and a lot of our followers always are thinking and wanting to or a lot of people Thinking how to generate cash flow and generate income because a lot of people want to retire, but crypto doesn't natively generate cash flow. Do you have a strategy personally or how do you think about like, you know, the way property can potentially work in, in favor of like, you know, with bitcoin, maybe people growing their crypto portfolio and then using property to generate income. Like, do you think about that at all?

I think about it every day, man. My whiteboard, I've got my iPad out and I'm just planning and my partner's like, have you stopped planning? And I was like, never stop planning because things move so quickly. So to answer your question, I think the conversation, it's so weird because I've been on YouTube now for about five and a bit years and I've seen comments that come through and I've seen emails come through and the conversation was largely is it property or shares? Right. It was property versus shares. What I've started seeing a lot more of over the probably the last 18 months is is it property or bitcoin? And so for me, I've always been in the same camp, which is, I think it's property and bitcoin. I don't think you need to choose between the two in saying that as well. I think, you know, when there's. Look, I'm not the smartest dude in the room when it comes to this sort of stuff and I've just realized that there's people way smarter than me that think about bitcoin changing the world and it actually being a store of value and you know, potentially taking over gold's market cap. And if any of those scenarios play out, even 50% of it, I want to have a piece of it. And so I put an allocation there to towards it that I'm comfortable if in case I'm wrong, it doesn't work out. I've still got real estate and that's my foundation. But if that happens to be right, I think it's going to trump any of my real estate positions over the next 10, 15 years. So that's how I sort of think about it.

That's awesome. I remember at Oz Crypto Con last year, it's the big kind of crypto trade show conference. We had a meet up in an area and I got into this group of our members and, and I think it was five or six of them and they were all massive property investors and quite a few of them had gone through, I think like Nathan Burch's program or something like that. And that accumulated all this kind of property wealth. But then they all came into bitcoin and it was eye opening for me because all these property guys started coming across and understanding bitcoin and having both of those in their portfolio. Are you seeing that sort of crossover with the clients that you help?

Yeah, definitely. It's happening a lot more. And I think it's like real estate guys basically understand scarcity. So they go supply, demand, they understand that part. So it's a natural flow to get a real estate investor to understand something like bitcoin in saying that it's what can I touch and feel? And that's probably where we sort of miss it with something like bitcoin. But I actually think it's an advantage as well because you go, well, if I move overseas, how am I supposed to take all of my real estate with me? I can't. So there's a pro and con to being able to touch and feel something versus, oh, I can actually move across and open up my wallet. And I remember I was in, I was traveling last year, Abu Dhabi and I was like looking at my wallet and I was like, I could take out this money, I could access it now, no questions asked, we're good. I could still probably do it with my bank at that time, but it wouldn't be a large amount and I definitely couldn't do that with real estate. I couldn't sell it, you know, at 12:00am or whatever. So I definitely see a lot more people understanding it. But I think the question it always comes back down to is, well, if I can get leverage and I can get a 10% deposit and I'm controlling an asset that's worth 5,600k, it only needs to grow by 10% and I've doubled my money. Whereas I have to rely on something like bitcoin that, yeah, might do 20, 30, 40% potentially, but I have no leverage there. So am I still going to get outsized returns because of leverage with real estate? And so that's why I say there's pros and cons, because if you can get debt, then, yeah, real estate is probably the way to go. But you still need a deposit, you still need to get the loan and that process takes time. So I think it's a combination of the two that still grow your wealth. And if things play out, then you might see that it's probably not 20, 30% in Bitcoin and you might get the year where it's 300 or 400% because there's more of a You know, a bit of a gold rush. But when it comes to bitcoin, that's it.

The bank's not going to lend you 10x your money to invest in bitcoin, but they will for a house.

Yeah, exactly. Not yet, not yet.

Ravi, let's. I want to maybe like split this up because I think, you know, our listeners, some resonate more with where I'm at in my investment and just like journey in life and Berg. So maybe let's split this up from like myself doesn't own any property yet, wanting to come into the market, you know, pretty soon again, I'm all in on crypto. So my strategy is to diversify into property. Bitcoin and property is, that is the two, two goals of mine are the two assets I really want to hold. And then Berg's already got existing property and maybe we can talk about, you know, some, some strategies there. But like for someone that's coming into the market brand new, like what is sort of just the, the basics, top line strategy that, you know, you, you want to know or consider coming into investing.

So I think when it comes to real estate, the number one thing will be your strategy. So just like with, you know, crypto, you're probably working with smaller time frames especially because, you know, the cycles bear markets and everything plays out in four years and rinse and repeat. Although that's probably shifting now as well. Whereas with real estate, because it's such a lagging market, like it takes so long for something to move, even if we see declines in markets, is probably going to play out over 12 to 18 months. And that's where you need a strategy. You need to understand if you're going to make X, Y and Z move. And I'll give you an example. If I decide I'm unhappy at my job and I quit today, what are the ramifications if I was to now go, oh, well, I still need a home or I still want to invest in property. Well now you might have a lag of three months because you need to show three months of pay slips to get a loan. So I think it's start with the end in mind. And the end might be, look, I want a dream house, principal, place of residence paid off and if it's in Sydney, it's probably going to be 3,4 million bucks. Cool. I also want an investment portfolio that pays me 100k a year and that's what my retirement looks like. And that would be amazing. Now you then go, okay, well is it me going out there and Buying the principal place of residence now, or is it that I can go out there, buy a bunch of properties, invest well, get some crypto and then rotate those funds around to eventually get me to buy my principal place of residence and you know, do something what, what's called is rent vesting. So I think the biggest thing is figure out the strategy long term and then know what it takes to get a loan because you can have all the assets in the world, have all the equity there, but if you can't generate an income that services alone from the bank, well then you take away one of the biggest advantages of real estate in Australia, which is leverage. And if you can't have leverage, and to be honest, if you've bought a house and you've just got it debt free, I think there's better ways to use that money to get a better return. So that's how I would start.

Yeah, awesome points. Let's go a little bit deeper. So for me and also business owners, I think in general, I think sometimes maybe business owners may be underpaying themselves. It's choppy, it's lumpy, especially if you're a sole trader. Whatever else for me, definitely rentvesting is the play wanting to get to potentially positively geared at some stage, next 10, 15 years with maybe a few properties to then basically use that income and then grow crypto. What are the other considerations that you'd have for someone maybe as a business owner or that has some equity, not equity, but has some capital ready to invest? Because the people on this podcast tend to have a little bit more money behind them or as I said, a business. What again the next step would that look like in terms of strategies? It just getting that first property just like get in the market. Is it, wait, is it be patient. Are we timing cycles? Like how do you, how do you think about that?

So I think when you're a business owner and you've got multiple, you've got flexibility, right? So you know, you can pay yourself, you can pay yourself a lot or a little bit, you can be effect efficient with taxes as well. So I think the first thing is probably chatting to an accountant around structures because you may not want to purchase under your personal versus purchase under a trust and things like that. So I think it's a combination of get all the experts in your circle or on your team and get the advice before you start triggering, you know, start going out there and saying, oh, I'm going to jump onto realestate.com because reality is that jumping onto realestate.com or getting a buyer's agent, like, that stuff comes later. You know, a buyer's agent obviously could help you with the strategy, but if it's just, hey, I want to buy a property. But most people just jump online and they try and find something and they're like, cool. And then they think about it afterwards where they're like, oh, I didn't think about taxes. Oh, I didn't think, like, if I'm a business owner, should I have done it under a trust? And is the trust discretionary? Like, how is it set up? And so I think as a business owner, you have so much flexibility, it's actually a lot easier now to get a loan than ever before. As a business owner, it used to be that you'd have to jump through so many loopholes to try and get debt. Now, compared to someone who's earning a salary, in some cases, it's almost easier and more flexible. So I think it's figuring out what you're going to buy in what structure and then what your capacity looks like, and then figuring out, okay, this is the type of property I'm going to go for. But, yeah, you've got to have the strategy come before all of that.

I'm so happy to hear you say that, because so many people just jump in and then they're like, oh, shit. So they'll buy a property in their name or joint names with their partner, and then they're a company director. Those assets, you have director's liability. Those assets can be on offer. You don't necessarily have tax efficiency or asset protection like you would through, you know, trust, company structures, those kind of things. So that is a very salient point. Everyone listening out there, to think about what you want, but then go and see the professionals to structure it correctly because it'll save you a lot of headache, a lot of time and a lot of money in the long run. And it's not always the case that where you can just swap structures, it is very expensive to do. So. So think of it up front. We see this all the time in crypto where people put in their personal names, they get heaps of gains, they go to their account and they're like, oh, yeah, no, just put it in a trust. It's like, well, mate, no, it doesn't work that way. And then you have gains sending it over from one type of structure to another. Yeah, so absolutely spot on. And mate, I saw in one of your videos you had these amazing tips and which I think can really help People in Ben's position about buying their first property. And one is not having to save up this mythical 20% to avoid LMI, just capitalize it on the loan. Can you walk us through a few of those kind of nuts and bolts tips about kind of getting your first loan and buying your first property?

Yeah, for sure. It's always interesting when you see these headlines come up and they say, oh, pricing for houses are so unaffordable now. It's so hard to get into the property market. And yes, when you compare it to income multipliers versus 20 years ago, yes, it is more expensive now than it was back then. But we're also using numbers that don't really make sense. Like for instance, they will always go and say a 20% deposit to save for one. It used to take three years, now it takes eight years. But 20 years ago, we didn't have as many lenders as we have now. We didn't have as much flexibility around loan terms and structures that we could buy under. And so now you've got banks, and I'm talking like big four banks that can offer you less than a 5% deposit, where you have to put a 5% deposit to get into an investment property. Now that, yes, was, you know, it was allowed under certain, you know, certain criteria with some banking institutions and lenders. But we have so much more choice now. And the other thing is that we have the Internet. So, so it means that 20 years ago, I remember you would have to go past like an actual physical real estate store or shop front and you'd pick up their catalog to see, you know, what, what properties was for sale. I wouldn't be able to see what's on, what's in, you know, what's in the market in Perth. I wouldn't know what's selling in Aubrey. I wouldn't know what's selling in, you know, Gold coast now you can literally sit there and you can look at that stuff all online. But which means now you're not looking at a market that's just my local three or four suburbs. It's. I've got access to like 15, 20,000 suburbs. Right. And so with that, it means different price points. And it also means that if I've got all these different lenders and I've got all these different markets, it means that there's always an opportunity for you to get into the market. And it might be that, hey, right now all I can afford is a place for $450,000. If you ask anyone in Sydney, they'll go, you can't find anything. And if it's a house, you're definitely not finding that. Whereas you open yourself up to all those markets and I'm like, we can still buy a lot of property out in those areas. We buy anywhere between 20 and 25 of those every single week at an average price point of 500 to 550. So I think it comes down to if we're just sticking to the same rules that apply 20 years ago, then, yes, everything is more expensive. There's no choice. You can't buy anything. And the assets, like real estate, are only for the rich. But because we have so much flexibility, lower deposit amounts and flexible lending criteria, you know, it means that there's, you have the right conversations but you'll be able to get through and, you know, have a lot more choice as well.

That's so true. And where people might be living now, they look in their areas and it's very expensive because it's a principal place of residence and it's all fancy. Or if you're younger, you're living with your folks that have been there for 20, 30 years and now it's expensive, expensive. But you have to understand you can go everywhere in Australia to buy a property and if it's an investment property, the numbers just need to be right. It's there to make you money in the long term. And people will see on tv, oh, property's gone up this much, it's really expensive. But there's markets within markets like you were talking about. Like, not everywhere goes up. And that's where the ability of a buyer's agents really comes into it. And for the benefit of everyone, when you are buying your property, do you think you are going to be better than someone who does it every day and buys however many properties, 20, 30, 50 a week that you do, are you going to be better than them? I think this is probably a good opportunity, actually. Explain what buyers, agents do and how they can help you. Because people miss this step and they don't want to pay for it. And this is one of the things where you realize how expensive and amateur is, how cheaper professional is. Once you go with an amateur, like, it's just, we're gonna have to cut that out. I said it.

You realize how cheap professional professionals are once you paid Navja. So maybe just explain a bit about what buyer's agents actually do, the services you provide and the great results you can provide for your clients.

It's a really good point actually, because I remember early days, YouTube. So we're talking 2020. I had to make videos around what is a buyer's agent and what do they do? And people, like, still call us up and go, oh, so what exactly does a buyer's agent do? You just find the property or what else is involved. Now the conversation is, cool. I'm definitely going with the buyer's agent. I just need to figure out if it's you or someone else. And so people have now become, you know, accustomed to it. And usually the learning curve is, I don't need someone else to teach me how to buy property. I can do it myself. So people go into the market, and when you're in a market that moves, you know, fairly normal, and it's. It's slow up, slow pace. You can afford to take that time, and you know someone's going to outbid you. You're like, yeah, whatever, I'll find the next one. Now in 2025 and moving forward, there are so many buyer's agents, it means that when you're going out there to talk to an agent, you're now not just competing with search property. You're not just competing with ABC buyer's agent. You're competing with, like, eight or nine of these guys. And so if. And I said this in a video, and it made a lot of sense, which is, you know, I watch UFC and it's like saying, I'm gonna go in there to try and win the championship belt, but I have no coaches. I don't pay for anyone because I can figure it out myself. And I've been training for a while. Do I have a better chance to beat someone on the other side who's got a coach for their defense, for their grappling, for their striking? Like, they've got the whole works? I don't stand a chance. And yes, that's going to cost me money. But you've got to ask yourself, where do you want to end up at the end of this? Because if you still get to the goal that you have by hiring all these people, then you win. And if it costs you a little bit more to get there, I would rather pay a little bit more to get peace of mind to say, I'm actually going to get there, versus I think I'll get there similar to you get in the car and you're traveling somewhere. And if I decided to come to Ben and go, okay, I'm going to go drive to Melbourne, I have no idea how to get there, so I'm probably going to jump in and you know, put the, put the Google Maps on and it's going to guide me. Same thing is, do you not want someone there guiding you through that entire process? And it's not just, hey, I've got the best location, let me go there. It's like, you can get the best location, but I'm going to have a better relationship with the agent that I've bought six properties over the last 10 weeks with. Then Ben will, because he hasn't had a chat with. He doesn't even know that guy exists. Know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly right.

Very similar to what we do in crypto and people, it usually takes someone to go out and do it themselves and it up and go, oh, I need, I need. You know, I mean, that's, that's what everyone does.

That's exactly right. Then they ask for help. Here we go. I felt like George Bush before, where he was trying to explain, he's like, fool me once you, you can't get fooled. Again with the quote here. Okay, here's the quote. If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. There we go, folks. Now don't try to live podcast ever.

Now, Ben, you've got some questions here around negative gearing, mate. Get into that.

Yeah, so, Robbie, I think that, like, from what I, you know, hear and you know, I listen to a fair bit of property stuff, they're just like, there's infinite strategies, right? Different ways you can do it negatively, positively geared, low deposit, high deposit. You know, you're looking at yield, you're looking at rental return, you're looking at property growth. Like there's just like, it seems just as difficult as crypto, and I understand crypto pretty well, but, you know, the property space is its own beast. So my ultimate goal, you know, first, first cab off the rank for me is to buy my parents a property that they'll, they'll live in and then try and build my property portfolio to generate positive cash flow, you know, to basically be able to, to retire on. I won't because I love what I do, but use that cash flow as income and then continue to hold a bunch of crypto, but I'll use my crypto for the property to get started. How do you think about, you know, you know, or if you could even just, you know, walk through the different potential case studies or use cases that someone would use negatively geared properties versus positively geared. And then also different things like, you know, I see different influences online, you know, who's who have built this 40, 30, $40 million property portfolio, but they've also in $25 million of debt. Like is that, that seems crazy for someone that you know, doesn't have any debt right now. But then also like, you know, you hear a lot of these strategies where it's just like just I can load as much debt up as you go. Let' I'd just love to hear your thoughts about, you know, the different strategies.

Yeah, for sure. So if someone had said to me that I would carry as much debt now 10 years ago, I would have like shit myself. We would not be comfortable with that. So I think it's like building blocks. So you know, you might not be comfortable with taking on $5 million worth of debt right now because you have no debt next to your name. But once you see the system work and you can see, okay, debt gives me this and then I control an asset and if I have the worst case scenario play out, I could still sell it for 10% under market value and it'll sell tomorrow. I regain my costs and I'm good once you but that comes over time, right. So you know, I would not have taken on as much now if I knew like if I didn't know as much back then. Now getting started, right. If you think about debt or the strategy, if it's negatively, positively geared, most properties now given they where interest rates are at and I know they're starting to cut anyway, but most of them should, at least with the stuff we buy within the next three years will turn positive, right? So they'll break even positive. But it's not life changing money. So the way I like to think of it is capital growth gets you out of the game, whereas income keeps you in the game, right? So cash flow keeps you in the game, capital growth gets you out. So if you think about real estate, cash flow is great, but is it going to move the needle the most? Well no, because if I make somehow make 100k a year and I've got positive cash flow, sounds great. One, I'm going to get taxed on it. And secondly, the amount that I generate for the 100k, I'm going to make so much more in capital growth over the 10, 15, 20 years because it compounds. But the cash flow is so important. So the way some people look at it is Ravi, I would never buy the type of properties you buy because they're cheaper. That means they don't grow in value and you just want cash flow. And I'm like, well it's completely unfair to say that because I focus on regional markets. The price point's lower, but they're still regional centers. And if you think about a regional center, it'd be like Wollongong. No one wanted to touch Wollongong, but now you got apartments selling for 700k. So they're just smaller capital cities. So that's the first thing to think about. I don't need to buy in Sydney because it's blue chip, because in Sydney you're going to be negative cash flow on one property by 40, 50, $60,000. Now how long could you sustain that for? Also from the bank's perspectives, how many of those could you buy? So the problem is that people get stuck with I've got the one property, I've got the second investment property or whatever, but I don't really have much choice in that. If I need to get rid of this asset or I don't have the capacity to get out equity. If I want that money, I have to sell and that's the one asset. Or there's two assets that I hold. I want a balanced market. So I'll go, I'm okay with capital growth of 7%, but I want some cash flow and that rental yield to be about five, five and a half percent. I'm not finding that in Sydney or most capital cities. But if I can get that growth and with that magic sort of formula getting the cash flow there, the banks like me, which means I can just keep layering one over the other. And the amount that I'm negative cash flow for the first three years is like 150 bucks per property. And if you say have three properties, it's like 500 bucks. But now I control an asset base worth 1.5 mil at 7% or 10%, it's growing by 120 to $130,000 a year tax free. You can see how you can accumulate so much more wealth that way and then the cash flow kicks in. So to answer your question around tactics, some people, depending on their risk appetite will go balls deep and they'll say, I just want as much debt as possible. I to a certain extent have gone through those periods where I've gone, I can take on more debt. And then there's other times where it doesn't make as much sense. So it's definitely not about like timing markets and looking at cycles and saying, oh, it's going to, it's going to fall and this and that. Real estate moves really slowly. So by the time you've Actually realized this magic 10% drop. It's probably the best time to be in the market already because you want to have assets that are going up, take that equity and then get into those markets. So.

Yeah, fascinating.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

And when, when we talk about property, we talk about the kind of good side of it and things that have. It's things that it's done for us. Right. Let's balance this out. What are the challenging sides of owning property? Apart from having crushing debt over your head, which eventually you'll get comfortable with? What are the others like? Because a few of my buddies have owned investment properties, have had really shitty tenants, have had troubles with bad property managers, those kind of things. Just to balance out this conversation, what are some of the challenges that you've had with your large property portfolio?

Yeah, really good question. I think the number one concern that most people have is tenants. And that's where I think there's the appeal to something like Bitcoin, which is passive. I don't have to deal with tenants, I don't have land tax, that they can change the rules at any point because those things exist now. We're in a society or a government where there's a lot more support for tenants. And I'm a tenant myself, I rent first, so it makes sense. I benefit on that front. But just like any other relationship, if it's business, personal relationships, you've just got to be very transparent from the beginning when managing things with property manager as well, that I, I want to know about these things. I don't want to know about things. These things. I want to have a good vetting process around who's going to tenant my property. Those are things that you can help or you can try and alleviate some of those issues that pop up, but they could still pop up. The other thing with real estate as well is should they decide to change policy and land tax and things like that, that will affect you and usually.

Usually depends on the government and the style that they have or the ideologies they have. And that's going to dictate what the next couple of years would look like. But if I'm being completely honest, not all property goes up. And I've had plenty of chats with people who come to us and say, oh, look, I've got property. I've been in the property market for like six years. And then you look and it's, it's an apartment, it's dog shit because it's gone backwards in price. And they're like, well, I thought property always goes up. And Sydney says it's gone up by 7%. Why hasn't my property gone up? And so there's markets within markets, as you had mentioned. And so the bad side to this is that because you use leverage, just like in crypto, it can go really poorly and it goes the other way. You're screwed financially. You're basically going backwards for 5, 10 years. So although I love property and I love real estate, I would definitely not be touching most real estate that's out there right now, especially at the price points they're at. And that's where it's just about being selective. And yeah, some people will go and clip it or they'll comment down in my videos. Oh, it just sounds like an ad for your service. And I'm like, well I feel like ethical about what I do and I feel obligated to tell you that I offer a service that helps you avoid these mistakes. But if you want to go make the mistakes, that's completely up to you. But I'm just giving you an option.

Yeah, a lot of my buddies have made this mistake where they're in quite high paying jobs and because property's moving so quickly, they're like, oh, I have to get in, I have to do this. And they've over capitalized on not only their primary place of residence but their investment property as well and dug this huge hole for them themselves and they have to service that debt and it is absolutely crushing even on the super high incomes that they're on. And I saw, yeah, I saw in your videos as well where you're mentioning like 500k properties. Everyone's like, bro, these don't exist. What are you talking about? You're like, mate, I buy so many every week in regional Australia. They do exist.

You know what's crazy is when I started on YouTube at the time properties were sort of like 250, 300 and I was sharing like some of the deals we were doing at the time. And I still have the same comments back then, like, no, you can't buy these properties that don't exist. And then I used to say, I'm like, look, the time for like properties under 300k is going to be 400k and it'll be 500k and it's just going to be the same story, just rinse and repeat. And so those 300k properties are now 500, that's the reality. But will those 500k properties become the 800k properties? Yes. And that's the part that people are like, no, we can't. And I'm like, yeah, but if I go to the same person that, you know, I'm buying a property off this week for $550,000, they were buying that property for $80,000 like 25 years ago. Imagine going to that dude and saying, hey, by the way, it's going to be worth half a million dollars one day. He would have gone, no, it sounds too good to be true. It sounds weird. I just can't mentally, I can't calculate. Like, it doesn't compute. It's the same way as if you bought Bitcoin at $10,000 and you go, one day this will be worth 160,000 AUD and be like, f off. No, it's not. So it's just our perspective on time and money and value as well.

So. And I assume it sounds very similar to kind of what we do in crypto, right? Where what we do is, you know, we're looking at fundamental analysis, we're looking at, you know, tokenomics, we're looking at sentiment narratives, trying to try and find not only the good assets but, you know, all the shit you need to avoid. You know, someone starting out in property or wanting to use, you know, someone like yourself, Ravi, like, is it for you guys, like, you know, your own 11 secret herbs and spices on, like, how you analyze the markets to come up with where to invest. There's certain things you look at. Is there certain, you know, information that you get access to? Like what's kind of the thing that, you know, people would utilize and honestly, probably going to be myself very soon, utilize you guys to like, do that work on, on my behalf to look for those properties.

It's now we're in a point where there's so many like, you know, research companies out there that offer, you know, subscription based models. So I'm going to tell you, like, 80% of the stuff a buyer's agent gets access to in terms of research is all the same shit, right? But it's the same way as I probably have the same amount of intel or research or access to information that you guys would. But there's a reason why you guys can interpret it differently to. I can because I don't do it day in, day out in terms of crypto, but I do in property. Now that's very surface level, that's 80%. But if that's most people and they can get 80%, why isn't 80% of the population on six plus properties? Because you need to interpret that data, then be able to execute. And so for us, we've always held strong that location means jack shit. It's more like location plus the strategy plus the guidance to actually get there and then have ongoing chats to say, what does your portfolio look like three months, six months into it, where are we as part of the cycle? Because people have obviously their full time jobs and then they have to go and research. And if you're expecting someone to go and spend hours and hours researching one area because that's most likely what they'll be able to do, imagine the market moves in the time that they're trying to save up for a deposit and buy and now that market is no longer good, you've got to spend another three months learning about somewhere else. Whereas when you go to a research company you're like, oh, so first property we're going to buy is in this area and then in six months time we're going to buy in this area because we can see the forward indicators and just like you mentioned, tokenomics for us it's building approvals, infrastructure spending and the part that we go further. And obviously you can do it at scale when you've got a team of over 50 full time staff is we can have chats with people in the council, the property managers, the sales agents, we can have a yarn and you start figuring out that hey, now there's a bit more uptake in this. Or hey, there's actually this around the corner and it just gives you insights that most people wouldn't get. And that's how you're going to get the outsized returns because you've got someone in it day in, day out.

This is, this is classic. So I love this where people will look online, say oh, this property is a good investment. It's like, okay, how do you know? And it's like, what were the drivers for this property to go up in value? And those things are going to be like, you know, can you renovate it? Can you subdivide it? Is it going to be rezoned? Is the council going to build something amazing around the corner? Is it going to be gentrified? And you won't know all that unless you're having those conversations at ground level with, with those counselors and everyone else. So that's, that's a huge benefit of having a BA that does it all the time.

Yeah, exactly. And I think it, you can take it a step up as well where if you're doing that and you find this magic suburb and you're like, oh, my God, this is the best place. This is where I'm going to invest. You just don't know what you don't know. So it means you might go, this is the best I'm going to get. But in fact, if you look across the border, the. There's an actual area that's going to have all of that, plus it's going to grow more because the supply and demand ratios are completely off and they're about to announce, you know, a new pipeline of projects that you didn't know about. And suddenly you're like, oh, shit, I should have bought that. And you'll only know that after the fact. So you're like, I'm not going to the grocery store to buy eggs. And you go, oh, you get home and there's one that's cracked. And you're like, ah, shit, I wasted money. You're like, man, you're taking out 500k worth of debt. You better be right about this. Because you screw this up, you're screwed for the next three years financially, and you probably never enter in property again. So I've seen those stories play out, and I think you guys have seen it with crypto, and it's. Until people get burnt. And it's why I'm so big and advocate for just put out as much free content as possible. And I know, like, if 91,000 people are subscribed to the channel, I don't have 91,000 clients.

Right.

Which means a lot of people are going in there just getting the daily dose of Ravi, and they say, cool, I'm not going to use this service. I. I want to go use someone else, or I'm going to do it myself, but there's an option there.

Yeah, that's. That's exactly our strategy as well, where we put out so much free content because we don't want people to get burnt. But our best customers are the ones that have already been burnt because they understand what has happened. They see the value in our service, they now understand what we. We can provide, and they're actually mentally now willing to listen to someone else and implement those ideas as. And then as soon as we get that going, their portfolios just go up. Like they're. I'm sure you see the same thing.

Yeah, we've seen it in the situation where sometimes they've bought a property themselves, so they've already got one, and then they come to us and they say, okay, cool, I want to buy another one. And then they see the One that we bought just completely trump the one that they've had. And they're like, should I sell that one and then buy more of these ones? Or the other one is, I bought one with a buyer's agent, came across your channel. Let me use you guys. And then it's outperforming what they've got. So they're like, now I need to restructure the portfolio because this makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Once they start seeing the gains. And it's also simpler, it's easier to sleep at night. They're like, okay, this is the way. And one thing I really want to get into. I'll ask you to explain what debt recycling is. So this is a very useful tool to build your wealth. We get leverage from property. We can then debt recycle. Would you be able to walk us through what that is and how people can implement it and what it can do for them?

Okay, cool. So when it comes to bad debt and good debt, so we start with the basics and we go. A house, unfortunately, the one that we live in is not an asset according to the bank and Robert Kiyosaki. So that basically means the debt that I've got attached to this is unproductive debt. It's got no deductions. And the reason it's called unproductive is because it generates no income. Now, I've put caveat over that is, well, it still provides me shelter and I can live in the home. So I totally get that. Now, this debt here, you want to be able to get rid of all unproductive debt or bad debt you want to get rid of. So what some people would do, they'll go ahead and they'll buy an investment property. Right now, they buy, the investment property generates an income. So this debt here is tax deductible. This is not. So what people will do over time is they will try and pay down this debt and keep more of this debt, because this is good debt. Right. And so one of the ways that people can do this is through something called debt recycling. So what will happen is they can take out equity in this property, so they're taking out this debt. But the way it works, and I may look like an accountant, but I'm definitely not one. Is that the way you work with equity and debt? It's not where it comes from, it's what it's intended to be used for. So if I go, I'm going to purchase my own place.

I.

Are you going to live there? Okay. The debt you've taken out is with the intention to buy your own place, not deductible. But if I go to my home loan specialist and I say, oh, my broker, and I say, this is my house, I live here, I want to take out $400,000 because it's equity, I want to use that and I want to go buy property and I want to invest. Okay, so the intention is to invest. That means that portion is now tax deductible. So what will happen over time is people say, oh, I just want to get interest plus principal, pay down all my investment properties and I'm going to be happy. Well, yes, we want to be debt free and whatnot. At some point, instead of doing that, what you could do is you go interest only on all of your investment properties. You generate the income and you start paying down the principal place mortgage, right? That principal, place of residence. That mortgage is taxed, not tax deductible. You reduce the debt, then you rack up all the debt again because now you can take it out as deductible debt and you use that to invest and you use it to purchase more real estate. So hopefully that made sense. I don't have a whiteboard with me otherwise.

Well, that's exactly it. So you're taking money out of your property, generally using it for a deposit on another property. That investment property has a tax shield, so it's tax deductible. So if the interest is 6%, it'll be 6% minus your rate of tax. So it's cheaper than your principal place of residence. And what you're doing is you're taking a high debt, making it a low one, paying it off faster, which is just amazing. And this sounds all complicated, but I set this up. It was half an hour with my accountant and then 10 minute phone call with my mortgage broker. And I've been debt recycling into crypto because that's what I did for investing. I've been buying bitcoin and it's been amazing. It is definitely one of those, like, you know, hidden cheat codes that just accelerates paying down your crippling debt.

Like, people don't want to get into more debt to get rid of debt, but you almost have to. Like, the only way to now generate wealth and outsized returns, especially in real estate, is you have to get into debt to then get out of debt long term. And so it's such a weird concept because if you think about it, if I hold no debt, I've got no debt, Ravi. Yeah, but you've got the Debt of working for the next four years and then relying on the pension, that to me is a bigger debt. You taking out debt that's productive to go into hard assets and investments, ultimately to get full financial freedom and choice, which means I'm completely debt free.

This is one thing that people generally don't understand. Where you have to invest, you have to beat inflation. And if you've got time and you've got resources, don't rely on the pension. That is not the goal. Like, I saw one of your videos as well. Like how, you know, people just want to get to that. Get retirement, get the pension site. No, have your own pension. You know, put. Buy these assets, have them creating money for you, and you will have an income stream that's essentially your own individual pension to live your life. And really what this is, is money is just spending tokens and it's just me owning a piece of my future where someone's not telling me to go to work and do a certain thing. I own that time and I can do what I want with that time. So this is a key thing. So you, you said, I think it was when, how old were you when you got your first Property? Was it 21? Yep. Yeah, that's when I started investing in shares, so started investing in shares in 21 and I think 26. I bought my first property. And that has just put me so far ahead that I, I can't. Big note this enough that you must invest in your life and your life will become so much easier. There's no secret. It's like, just make a few good decisions and constantly over time, just even, just be average, but be consistent and you will outperform the majority of people and you'll live such an easier life as you get older.

Oh, yeah, put very well.

Wish you could take leverage by crypto.

You can, but you won't like the interest rate, mate. So here you go. So you know how Ravi was saying you got to take out debt to pay down debt. Go get a property, get that paid off a bit, mate, take the equity out of that and use it to buy crypto.

Now, one thing I'd like to talk about, because we're talking about investing, making all this money, what do, what do exits look like for property? Because generally in crypto, if we have, you know, a lot of crypto, and again, we'll sell it and we'll go into property or we'll make something else or trade it for something else. What do exits look like in property? Do you accrue it forever and you live off the rent. Do you get, you know, lines of credit? Do you start selling it down? What are some of the strategies you see out there?

Yeah, so there's a couple of things that you can do. So let's say for instance, you work and end in mind principal, place of residence, debt free, and then you want a couple of properties that give you the 100, 150k cash flow and that would be retirement. If we go down that path, there's a couple of ways to do it. So you'd go, if I only need three properties to retire, well, right on my own terms, I could go out there, purchase three and then all I do for the next 20 years is just pay extra towards it and pay down the home loans. Alternatively you go, instead of I want three, that's where I want to end up. But maybe I'll have to go for 5 because the rate at which the property will grow my savings and my money will be a lot faster than if I just save it or pay down my debt. So I could go out there and say purchase five with the intention that in 15 years I'll sell two and I'll pay down the debt on the others. That's another way to do it. But most likely what most people are doing is they're using real estate and leverage to get the capital growth long term. And then what they do is they will, you know, sell a portion of their real estate portfolio. So they might sell one or two properties, pay the rest of their debt down, or they're comfortable with, you know, a 20, 30% LVR on debt, they'll use the surplus money and then they'll go into things like I'll just put it in offset account or go into, you know, first mortgages and then they'll get a return, something high yielding. Because at that point you don't really care about the growth, you just care about cash flow that's coming in. So I think it's a combination of one, you have no idea where you'll be in 20 years time or 30 years time. But just know that if I can go out there and purchase five properties now, the reality of that happening in 10 years is probably a lot harder, it'd be safe to say. So if I've got the choice to be able to do that now, let me go and acquire everything I can. And then I have the choice of do I get rid of two, do I get rid of five, do I keep all five versus you? Don't do that. And the Worst one is where people pay down one debt, then they take on another house. By the time they pay off the first house, the second house they want to buy is like twice the price. So I just want choice, right? And I think most people, most Australians are in that camp where they're like, I want to be self retired on my own terms. I just want choice. And if that means I want to work till 65, great. But you have no idea if you're going to get two knee replacements and you can't walk. And you know, you know, you may like your job now, but your manager might change and you may hate your job next year. Just have choice. So be proactive.

Yeah, I love that. And I think back to your point though, it's like you can also shoot yourself in the foot by going too hard, not having a strategy, buying a ship property, and now you're in slave labor for that first property for five years and going backwards. So you don't want to fuck it up either.

Yeah, correct, Correct.

I wanted to ask too, Ravi, like, in terms of how you break down your own portfolio, whether it be property crypto, crypto, everything together, like, you know, just percentages or whatever you want to use, how do you think about your portfolio breakdown?

So I've always believed in real estate is like my main vehicle. So because I know it and I'm in a day in, day out, I feel most comfortable there. I have zero in shares, I have zero in precious metals like gold. I have a larger portion in savings now, more so because the business is a lot bigger. There's a large headcount, so you'll always have that in the back of your mind. But a big portion of my wealth is now, or at least cash flow that's surplus, discretionary, that I'm going to invest. It's like, how do I DCA into property? So I'll continue buying property every month and then I also continue buying bitcoin as well. I'm at that point now where it doesn't really make sense to go out for, you know, the 5x10x altcoin play for me, I do still have altcoins. If I had to break down my crypto portfolio, you're probably like maybe 75% bitcoin, 25% alts, whereas when I started it was like 99% alts and 1% bitcoin. And so I made that decision early on this year as well, where I decided I'm never going to sell my bitcoin. So the decision is as soon as the alts do their thing in the next six months, which if everything goes to plan, should work out, is I will take all of that cash and then just go more into bitcoin and keep stacking that because I've already got a machine. And when I mean by machine and this is going to be awesome for you Ben, is when you look at exit strategies for anyone in sort of crypto and they decide I want to get into real estate, I can get the real estate. Let's say I'm buying a house for 500k in a year, it's worth 550 and I've saved money along the way. It means that in 18 months I probably have another deposit just off the back of that one house. And it means the property will keep generating more property, which means all the cash I make, I don't need to actively put more towards real estate. I can go and use that for my lifestyle and I can go into things like bitcoin and the machine, which is property just continues building itself and it compounds. So that's how I think of it and it gives me peace of mind. But interested to know where you guys are at. I know Ben, you're at 100% all in crypto. I don't know how you sleep, but.

I'm probably similar to you. So I'm a high cash position. I have property as well.

And crypto and then business equity too. And yeah, it'll probably be something like 20% cash, 25% property. Because I do with my super fund, it's you know, like, you know, one of those industry funds. I will be going self managed super fund. So I do have property and everything in there. I do full bitcoin self managed super fund. So 20% cash probably about. Yeah, 25 property crypto about 15 to 20 and then business equity and personal effects as well.

Nice. I think it's, it's interesting because as business owners and people that are listening, if they're business owners, they'll know like why would I buy real estate, why would I buy bitcoin? Because if I put that money into my business, I'm making 10x to 20x and it's in my control.

Yeah.

And when I realized that is when I started scaling up the business. Yes, it makes sense, but I think it's more like, yes, but the business may have more volatility than any of those other things. And so it's just about going as business owners. A lot of people get caught up in just grow, grow, grow, grow. But you Want to, you want to realize some of those gains over time and parking that money into high growth assets long term, it just makes so much sense. So you get a combination of everything.

That's exactly Ben, where he's like, grow the business, grow the business. But then he's realized like, I could have nothing if this doesn't work out.

I better, better have some little things along the way and some different investment. So I actually have something. If this all goes pear shaped, the.

Paper value is nice, but. And I can't touch it yet. I need to. It might be coming your way, mate. That's probably a good place to finish. Ravi, how can people, you know, work with you guys? How does it work? How can people watch your content?

I think go onto YouTube, type in Ravi Sharma, you see a bunch of videos. So it's personal finance with Ravi. And watch the videos. If you like the vibe, you like the strategy, then you can book in a free call. There's all the link in the description boxes. I've also got a book out that came out this year which has been really exciting. I will never write another book again. It's so difficult to do. And so, yeah, people can check that out. It's retire filthy rich with real estate. And it's weird because I talk about other things apart from real estate like bitcoin and stuff, but yeah, people might enjoy that.

I'll grab a copy. That sounds awesome.

I'll send you one. Don't worry about it.

Oh, cheers, man.

And if you liked this conversation, we kind of did an inverse of this on Ravi's podcast, the More Than Money podcast. We where I jumped on and we spoke crypto and property there. So yeah, really love that conversation. Robbie, that's been awesome, man. I've learned a lot. Hopefully the listeners learn a lot. And yeah, we'll drop all the links in the description below. But thanks so much for coming on, man.

Thanks for having me, boys.

Thank you. And yeah, as always, guys, if you enjoyed the podcast, we'd love for you to share it with a friend. Especially those guys that are stuffing up their property investments. Shoot this podcast to them. It's how we grow the podcast and we'll see you on the next episode.

Thanks, Ravi. And thanks champions.