Small Talk Big Ideas - Joel Keefer and Bianca Brown - Ian Ugarte Graduates

Thanks for joining us for the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast. A podcast to enrich your soul, where we have conversations with inspiring people about all things property, business and life. And now, the host of Small Talk Big Ideas, Ian Ugarte.

Today on Small Talk Big Ideas. Our podcast is with Joel and Bianca. They are part of my talented team.

And probably the most talented in my team.

But don't tell anyone else that. They have an incredible story of going from just buying property because you can to really having a strategic direction and also helping me save my business. Enjoy Small Talk Big Ideas. You can follow us on all the social media channels and you can find me@ian ugarte.com where there's lots of information that you can download for free.

Enjoy today's podcast. So we've done a few things together in the last few years. Yeah, we have started with Joel joining my program. I actually started with you listening to a podcast about.

Yeah, it was podcast. Yep.

And then ended up being a student, then said that Bianca should work for us.

Sure, why not?

Your aunt is saying that because she's your girlfriend and you're supposed to say that she started working with us and now you're working with us too, which is awesome. We can talk about that later. Why don't we start right back at the beginning? Joel, you're from Victoria.

Victoria.

Growing up.

I grew up southeast suburbs of Melbourne, sort of far out near kind of Beaconsfield, Berwick Way. Grew up playing heaps of sport, footy basketball. Wasn't bad, wasn't a bad sportsman. Did better at sports than I did at school, that's for sure.

And yeah, I guess I was heavily involved in the footy club toward the end while I was.

So what sort of footy? Because you say footy, it could be three different things.

Yeah, it could be. Yeah. So it was afl. I mean, Victoria, you know, you'd probably read into. It's probably going to be afl. And then. Yeah, I was doing some construction work down there after I finished. After I finished school. And it's just. It wasn't for me. Hey, just 10 year 12. No, I finished good. I did your 12. Finished that. And then, yeah, I was doing. Just doing some underground drilling, which we do a bit of in the development industry. Yeah.

So when. So when you came out of school, you went into construction? That's what you were doing. Yep.

Underground drilling. Yeah.

Or they probably advanced a little bit more nowadays.

So it was back in the bed, boring and grundmat days and the direction of drills were just starting to come in yeah. And so more guys were getting drills and the guys that I. That I was working for down there, all they do now is just directionals. Yeah. Yep.

It's amazing what they do because we've had a couple of different. I did a job in Sydney actually, and there's this weird little block and it was. I think it was 67 square meters, this block of land, and it was a shed. And somehow they chopped the shed off, you know, 50 years earlier to be able to have a separate title.

Yeah. Right.

So this young guy bought it and the back laneway didn't have any water, so they couldn't get water to the place. So we had to bring it in. And they did a directional ball around the corner, 90 degrees into the laneway and then all the way up. It was like about 150 meters. Yeah. To watch it, it was really early on when. So there was still a bit.

Yeah, yeah.

Where is this going to come out?

At one point it got really close.

And sort of you could see the.

Ground moving and they went back down under.

So what did you do after the directional?

Boring.

So I. Yeah, I was in Victoria, living in Melbourne, and I just. I hated. I hated the cold. I just didn't like it. I thought there's got to be more. So I actually applied for uni up on the Sunshine Coast. I had a choice between Gold Coast, Sunshine coast and.

What did you do?

Majored in Business Tourism.

Business Tourism. So you got a degree in business tourism?

Yeah. Yep. So I just drove up. We won the flag. I was playing at Jenbrook2004. I got accepted into uni midway mid semester and then I was. I think we were good. We were looking good to win the flag. So I put it off for six months. We won the flag. And then. Yeah, that summer I just drove up. Drove up the sunny coast.

Yeah. So for anyone else who doesn't play afl, the flag means the competition, the Premiership. So then came up here and got that. Bianca, you were already up here.

Yeah. So I'm Sunshine Coast.

So just start way back, all the way from conception.

Well, when a man and a woman.

No. So I'm Sunshine coast local, born and bred. And yeah. Grew up here, went to school here and I did. I moved to Melbourne for about a year and then moved to Sydney and just sort of in my early 20s and just sort of finding my feet and where I wanted to be and moved around a lot, I guess. And then. Yeah, ended back up on the Sunshine coast and just realized it's one of the Most amazing places. And I probably needed those experiences to find it out, to figure it out.

Yeah.

Your family, your dad and mum.

And like your whole family grew up next to family. Yep. So tell us about. Because you've got a. You know, they've got a beautiful property up on the escarpment looking down at the coast.

Yeah, yeah.

Talk about that.

Yeah, sure. So my grandparents, they have this beautiful, beautiful block of land, or residential land that looks out over the sunshine Coast. And originally it was just my grandma and my granddad and they had their children there.

How many acres was it?

I think it was 10. 10. And yeah, so they brought the family up there and then as the kids grew up, they actually did a couple of subdivisions and they created two separate lots of land, one for my uncle and then one for my dad. So we've got this little. No. Through road where you would drive past grandma and grandad, wave to your uncle, and then you'd go down to our house at the bottom there. So, yeah, it was really nice.

And your granddad only passed away recently.

Yeah, yeah, about probably 18 months ago now. Yeah, yeah.

And he served in the war as well.

He did, yeah.

Yeah. Because I saw a couple of photos about that just recently with all his medals and stuff.

Yeah.

So realistically, your family's been in subdivision development for a long time.

Apparently goes way back. It's in the family.

It's in my blood.

And it's still in the fam.

Two of the three is still in the family.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

You went to school locally, you worked.

Locally, moved away, came back.

You've got a whole bunch of skill sets.

Yeah.

That have developed over. I mean, you're not that old.

Not that old.

Like you've been working, say, 10, 12 years. Right. But you've got a huge amount of skill sets. Where did all that come from?

I think just curiosity, like. My. My predominant background, I would say, is customer service sales. And I think I've done that over a lot of different industries, I guess. So I've picked up skills as I've gone along the way. I've got my own personal interests in health and wellness and personal development and human psychology. So I feel like just purely through curiosity and learning. Yeah. I've developed a skill set along the way. I don't really have a badge or, you know, I am this. Yeah.

So there's no technical qualification that you've got?

No, no.

It's interesting.

I've done. I've done a lot of certificates and diplomas and things. Like that. But I haven't, you know, didn't go to uni or anything like that.

Yeah. It's interesting. A lot of people that are very successful, very wealthy, very knowledgeable, haven't got a quality. When I was doing, we started a business.

Called CO Equity, which was about business owners that had exited their business with a successful exit that was sitting at home. Board could come back into smaller businesses and put their input and take an upside of the business. And.

We had to do research about qualifications or whatever. It was about just over 30% of people that have a degree are using it in their field. So that means that 70% of people are just not using their degree at all. A couple questions there. So firstly, what were you doing when you were working?

So firstly, I was just working in hospitality on the coast here and then started driving earthmoving machinery.

On the coast?

On the coast, yeah.

And during that time, you know, you've moved away from your family.

Do you find it difficult to make end meet or you just, you know, you always had work? Yeah.

No, and we were uni students, you know, like, we just made it work. Yeah.

Do you live with others?

So when I first moved up for the first year, we. I lived out at. It's called Uni Central, so it's on.

Campus and then they sell units to investors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No good. And then after. After a year, a bunch of us got together and we rented a house.

In Malouba Co Tenancies. So.

You then at some point in time, with the earth moving, had the experience to go out and start working in mines?

Yeah, yeah.

And then you had this excess cash. Yep. You decided that you need to get into property.

What.

What did you decide to do?

I heard.

Someone at work talk about a little suburb called Gunnedah.

And I.

Thought, that sounds pretty good. And have a look at that. And this old sleepy little town in New South Wales. And I had a look and a lot of the houses there were positively geared. The rent was paying for them. So that's.

That's you?

That's me. That's exactly what I do. So then I went and looked for a house in Guttadar.

So no education?

No.

Just heard from someone. Yeah. Oh, mate, you gotta buy in. Gaddadar.

Yeah, you gotta have a look. And then there was some newspaper articles.

Place to be. It's on the rise.

That's what it is.

Now it's moving and so you bought out there?

Yeah, I did.

Happy with that.

Actually.

Well, it hasn't. It hasn't been Bad. It hasn't cost me money, but it.

Hasn'T grown in cafe.

It hasn't grown, no. Maybe like I. That was in 2012 maybe and it might have gone up 30 grand.

Yeah, maybe it's moving now. It's moving strongly now. Then everyone that's listening this, I'm gonna.

Go buy another because I heard it on a podcast and that would be.

The biggest mistake of their life. Interesting zoning too.

Yeah.

Is it neighborhood three or something like that? Five. It's like it's B5.

Yeah, B5. That's it.

Yeah, yeah. And had restrictions trying to do stuff on there. I spoke to the council, she got to the stage where she goes, I really shouldn't be talking to you anymore.

You like me. You then that's the first property you bought?

Yeah.

Next property.

The next one was the one that Bianca and I are currently living in. So I again, I just had some surplus cash and it was back in the days when you could get a 95% lend quite easily. And so I had some saved up and I wanted to live near the beach and I was previously looking for. I was looking at apartments and stuff along sort of the beach front and I had to look at quite a few and while I was away at work, one of my mates rung me and he's like, oh, you know that little house that we used to. That we lived in? Him and Lenz, Al and Lens, they lived there and Grace lived there for a while. This house, everyone sort of lived in.

This house, you know, my friend lived there. Everyone's lived in this house.

Yeah. I'm like, yeah. He's like, yeah, it's for sale. I got no way checked it out. And the auction, it was going to auction and it was going to auction. I was only home for a seven day period. It was going to auction while I was home. Okay, I'll drop in and I'll have a look. And yeah, I liked what I saw. I didn't, I didn't bid at auction, wasn't registered to bid, but it did get. I got passed in, luckily. Luckily it got passed in, yeah. And it was like, it was fairly, it was fairly run down, overgrown. The guy that owned it, he lived overseas so there'd been no sort of maintenance or anything.

Yeah, there was a bunch of people at the auction, but it got passed in. So then I just started, yeah, chatting with the agent, I think you never know. You never know with agents, you know, there's always other people involved. Anyway. So anyway, I ended up getting it for.

600,000 flat. What year that was? 2000? 2013 or 14.

600. Property prices double every 10 years. What's it worth today sitting as it is.

As it is? 1.2.

So it's doubled in less than 10 years. And it's moving like crazy at the moment. Moment.

Yep.

Not a bad purchase for someone, you know, whether they've just bought it emotionally.

Yeah, yeah, that was a little, little fluke.

So you end up buying that place for 600,000.

Yep.

And it's one block away from the beach and you are in what I know now and on the Sunshine coast as the golden triangle.

Yeah.

Can you explain that?

So it's a. Yeah, I guess a little pocket, essentially three sides triangle. But it's sort of up on the headland and so that, that sort of triangle out overlooks. Overlooks the ocean.

So it's not like it's just one or two streets, it's like a fair bunch of streets that creates a triangle shape.

Yeah, yep.

Right here. So you buy that one again, you bought that one without any thought, theory or background behind it.

Just close to the beach.

You also then go and a buyer's agent, you then get caught in the buyer's agency. Now we've got to be careful here because we together run a buyer's agent. And the one thing that I always said was that, that I've always thought that buyer's agents have a conflict of interest because they get paid by finding you a property. So they'll find you any shit. Yeah, thankfully we don't do that. You went and saw a buyer's agent?

I did, I did. I got, I got sucked into the marketing and figured it was the, it was the right thing to do at the time. Like I had spare cash, I was working away, I wasn't educated. They were educated. So yeah, I actually bought two properties through them.

Two?

I bought two. Yeah.

So that one and.

No, no. So not the one we live in.

No, no, sorry. Yeah. I'm always forward planning because I know the property. So you bought one on the Gold Coast?

Yep. So they're both on the Gold Coast. Three bed, two bath townhouse and two bed, one bath unit.

Unit.

Unit.

The three bed townhouse was in a complex. Like it wasn't one, two or three in the complex.

More. It was more than. Yeah, yeah.

And the problem with that is obviously as soon as someone that needs to sell really quickly needs to sell at a lower price, that then establishes the price of your townhouse.

Yeah, yep.

Now it wasn't, it was Cash flow. Neutral. Ish.

Yeah, it was just a little bit.

A little bit pregnant, a little bit, as we say, a little bit negative. Geared, but not hurting you?

No, no, it wasn't hurting me. Had a few shocking tenants, cats and things ended up in there and pulled up carpet and bits and pieces. But, yeah, it was about neutral.

And the unit.

The unit was. Was pretty much the same. It was a older complex of maybe eight from memory. That wasn't far back from the beach either. But, yeah, it wasn't doing much. I ended up doing Airbnb on that unit toward the end.

Yeah.

Yeah, got a bit better return. Okay, doing that.

And sold it.

And then sold it, actually, just before I sold it. So I had made some pallet furniture and all sorts of stuff and staged it with all this pallet furniture and. And it was all second. Secondhand couches and stuff. But it looked okay. Like it wasn't bad. And then. Yeah, sold it. So it was all fully staged and everything when we. When we sold it. And.

They. They wanted my pallet furniture, so they. They took nearly all. They wanted. Nearly all. Like, pretty much all the furniture. But the sticking point was this one bar. And.

And you wanted the bar?

I wanted the bar. I still got the bar, too. It's downstairs.

He made it himself. He was, like, not willing to let it go.

They took the rest of it. Yeah.

So you took the bar?

We took the bar, yeah. And so they took. There was a big fridge and stuff.

Is that the one that you work from? No, that's 2.0.

Yeah, that's the second one Downstairs.

Downstairs.

Right.

So at the same time, you have.

A PPR deal in Nambour. You want to talk about that?

Yeah, sure.

So that, I mean, you grew up in Amble.

Yeah. And it's Rosemary.

Always been.

Always been known.

Oh, sorry. Rosemount. Oh, sorry. Up at Nambour Heights.

So you.

Nambour's at the time wasn't known for the best suburb in. On the Sunshine Coast.

No, no. So Joel and I were looking for. So it was a PPR deal, but we were looking for something that we could renovate and sell. So, yeah, we did our due diligence and we were looking for our budget where we could go that wasn't. We still wanted to live on the Sunshine Coast. We didn't want to move too far away. And, yeah, it was sort of fitted a few of our criteria, so we ended up buying there. So we lived in that one for 12 months while we renovated.

I think it was longer. I think it, like.

Just longer I think. Yeah, I think we got it in May and we moved out in, like, the following July. So it wasn't.

Yeah, wasn't too much. Okay, so let's take a step back because the. You had to meet at some point in time. So let's talk about that. You, Joel, were doing FIFO work.

I had just come home.

Permanently from doing. So I was actually. I was traveling around Australia in my camper van and I was flying myself to and from work, from wherever I was in my van. So I was working three weeks on and then one week off I'd fly myself to my van and I'd keep.

So you would have to go to a major city of some sort, though.

Yeah, so like Darwin, anywhere. There's a few spots over in wa. Yeah. And then I was actually working in wa, so I ended up getting the van. Because you were working months or so.

You were working at that point you'd gone to WA to do the FIFO working.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep. So I was there. I was working over in the Pilbara. And anyway, I made my way across the top and then down into wa, and it was coming into Christmas and I'd had a week off work. I had my van at work at the time, and I'd driven out to Exmouth for the week. And then on the way back, the van started coughing and spluttering and here we go. And it took about what should have been about a three and a half hour trip back to work. Took over nine hours. We got back like after midnight.

Yeah.

And the next day I knew a mechanic in town, took it in and he had a quick look at it and he's like, I think you've done the head. And it was coming really close to Christmas. He said, we're going. We're going over to France for Christmas. For a month. The van wasn't running. I was like, what am I gonna do? So I just left the van there. We were shutting down, our project was finishing and I thought, I'll just fly home until I get the van sorted and then come back. And so while I was home.

So why you got home? Because your mum, your. None of your family knew you? No, no.

So no one knew I was coming home except dad. Dad knew. Dad came, picked me up from the airport.

I was.

Did he get in trouble from your mum?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I'm sitting there, it was early in the morning. I caught the red eye across at night. And then I was. Dad came picking me up from the airport. I was Hiding in the kitchen. And Mum walked into the kitchen. She'd been out walking the dogs or something. She'd come into the kitchen. I said, oh, Mum, can I make you a coffee? And then she said something like, mum, what the fuck are you doing here?

And then she's just freaked out. Then she just started bawling. That's Mum. She starts bawling.

Yeah, she bawls over some incredibly incredible.

Things, like high ropes and stuff.

Yeah, she does, she does. Mum and dad are super active. They've done the Camino over in.

Right.

Yeah. But they've climbed.

Yep.

That one that we're gonna run.

That one that we're gonna run. Yep, they've done that. They've done a lot. So, yeah, super active.

So, yeah, you're back. And. And you move back into.

Yeah, so I'd always. I'd always had a. So it's. That house is sort of upstairs, downstairs, and I'd always kept a room for me downstairs. And so for. When I came home for a week while I wasn't working. And so, yeah, I was home.

And the guys upstairs were having a party. So I'm having one of the boys having his 25th. You want to. Do you want to come along? Yeah, sure, I'll come along. And lo and behold, Bianca was one of the friends.

So. Because I've never really heard the detailed story, like, did when Bianca walked in, like, was this shadow of light around her and she glided into the lounge room, like. When did you first notice each other?

We would have been out on the deck, I think. Was that. You'll probably have to correct me here. I think it was out on the deck.

Yeah, you'll have to correct me.

You answer first. No, no, I was on the deck and I just remember chatting to you out on the back deck.

And was there a concerted effort?

Did you go, there's a girl I want to go and talk to and. Because she could be my future wife.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there was definitely. There was an attraction there from the straight away, 100%.

And so for those of you who are not watching this and listening to it, we haven't got the two most unattractive people on Earth.

We.

God forbid, if you have an ugly baby.

What happened there?

So.

We'Ll get to the next part of that. But your nickname's Tarzan. Where did that start?

It started doing fifo and. Yeah, just on a site. A couple of boys, just 8,000.

But any reason or just your looks?

Yeah, just the looks and then the hair, definitely. Then me in the gym of an evening, shirt off. It's not out at work, though.

Why not?

Okay.

I do remember in that first meeting, they were at home and Bianca telling me like, Jesus, you should be putting a pool in the backyard here.

The landlord, we need to talk.

Right.

And the pool for just for fun.

Well, because the ocean's a block away.

That's right. Well, my friend lived there and I was always around there and I'd never met the landlord, so we were there quite often in the backyard in the little blow up pool. So I was like, finally, my opportunity.

An ulterior motive.

Yeah.

So I'll talk to him, pretend I.

Like him, he puts a pool in.

It wasn't that, but I just thought it was a. It was a nice suggestion. Yeah, that. Hey, this could be really good for you.

Be awesome if you went down to Big W and bought your blow up 300 mil deep so you can have a pool in the backyard.

Yeah.

We already had one.

Is that what you were doing?

We were doing.

That's why I was like, oh, perfect, it's time for an upgrade.

Yeah. Right. So you talked that night. Did you get on straight away?

Yeah, definitely.

We talked.

We talked for hours. Yeah.

Then we got pizza, I think after the party.

I think that's when he decided he really liked me because I was like, we should order pizza.

And I paid for it. So he was like, oh.

Job done.

So at the time. So you're now.

Did you make a decision to stay back permanently then or you still did FIFA?

Yeah, no, I stayed back permanently. So I'd always had in my mind to just start my own little earth moving business. And I'm not sure. Had I bought any equipment when I met you? I'm not sure.

It was like. It was like sliding doors of. You were just starting up the business.

All right, so you go and at.

What point in time? It was before the Nambour purchase that you started getting some education.

Just before. Just before. Yep.

And so did you purchase Nambour on purpose because of the education?

Yeah. So we wanted to wear. We definitely wanted to do a little. Little chunk deal. And so that was what that was.

So, you know, a little upslide of money, you know, get more back than what you put into it. Yep. The good thing for you is that, you know, as a FIFO worker at the time, you would have been listening to multiple podcasts because you're sitting in a machine for 12 hours a day.

Yeah.

What are some of the podcasts that you listen to?

Joe Rogan.

Yep.

Yep.

Jocko yeah, Jocko's good. Yep.

And.

I love real estate.

Yep.

There's a guy there that did some of the early podcasts and I love real estate. That guy's amazing.

I remember him saying, if you do a renovation and you don't put a. If you do a renovation, you don't put a glass sliding door into an area, you got something wrong with you.

There's something wrong with you.

So what are we doing, Amber?

Did you put bifolds in?

Didn't do bifolds, but we did like this, like big. It was huge. It was really, really tall. We had to like cut open a bigger doorway because it was too high and it flowed out to the deck. So difference? Absolutely 100%.

I mean, you look at my place down there, we've got 19 and a half meters of stackers.

We're not talking a three meter stacker.

I go big, small as new big.

So you then go in and you join and start getting some educated education. And.

Sold Nambour. You sold Nambour after you joined high res?

Yep.

Yeah.

You didn't take the opportunity to buy that. The first time that I got high res out there, that was Neil. You joined straight up.

Yeah, I might not have even been. Yeah, I don't think I was maybe involved in the whole thing.

When.

When you first started.

I'm not sure. So it's probably the second, third, second round.

Yeah.

But he, as soon as he started hearing about high res and, you know, positive cash flow and, you know, making sure you put yourself in the best position for the next one, I just remember him being like, I, we need, we need to do this, we need to do this.

And interestingly, you know the Facebook page, the members only Facebook page, there's when someone joins, you know, I was talking to you about this the other day. So as a teacher, if I went into a TAFE class, I could tell, give me two hours and I could tell without having met anyone in the class, I could tell the bottom third, the middle third and the top third of that class within two hours. And.

And I also was talking Joe about this, that I had two. I'd moved college. So when you move college, you get all the shit classes until you earn your stripes. And I had two first year classes, so brand new. Never been to TAFE before. Most of them just out of school because the careers advisor says, well, you can't read and write, so you should go. And you can't, you can't add up numbers. You a tradie, which is the thing you need the most.

And so one class I treated like super harshly, you know, homework turning up late, it just gave them a hard time. The other cast, I just mucked around like crazy. And I chose the second class on purpose because they were the least talented as far as me being able to choose the classes. The first six months, when the first set of exams came around, the results came out. The second class that I treated like, like just mucked around with the whole time outperformed the first class like streaks ahead. And so they're knowing clearly this is working. So I then did it for the first class. They didn't know what had hit them in the, in the second half of the year because all of a sudden it was a different guy. What happened here, I know really quickly when someone joins high res, the questions that they're asking and the way that they're asking them, although they don't have the information is all, is a clear indicator for me that that person's going to make it. I know it. I can see it. There's other people that have to try really hard to get that knack about themselves. And so the one thing I noticed really early on for you, Joel, was that the questions you were asking was, yeah, this guy's going to make it. And you just happened to end up being his girlfriend.

Lucky me.

Better half.

Better half.

So with all of that said done.

And you working with us, you sold Nambour at a profit? Sold the unit.

Sold the unit, Yep.

Couldn't sell a townhouse.

Couldn't sell it? No.

I paid.

265 for it. And then, yeah, I was trying to sell it.

I think it was three years later, three or four years later. Started at 320. Couldn't get 310. And I think it was even. I think the lowest we might have gone was offering it for 310 and we still couldn't get rid of it.

And they would lowball offers.

Yeah, yeah. Under. Under 300 with offers coming through. Yeah. So, yeah, I didn't really want to take that. So I ended up doing a little more, bit more research on that property and what.

What it could actually do for us.

And it turned out that something could be done.

So tested the market.

Yep. So we tested the market.

You didn't think it was an area where singles and couples would live?

No, no. And, and honestly, you know, it wasn't that close to, to shops and public transport and those sorts of things that we look for. So I wasn't really. I didn't think it would that work that well. But I did a test ad and the response was huge, Huge. So, yeah, started feeling my way through. All right, well, can it be done in a townhouse? What was sort of. Yeah, what needs to happen? Everything all around that. And then by that stage, Bianca had.

Started to work with us. Yeah.

Yep, she had.

So working your way into the inner circle. I always find that that's a good.

Thing.

Because that's what it was like. We've got a Slack channel on social quotes that I just think of at 2 o' clock in the morning. And there's one I put in today that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but sometimes it can roll down the hill. And that's about getting yourself away from, you know, where you've dropped from to get in around people that know much more than you do. And, you know, when you're in the inner circle of where you want to go to, that makes a big difference. So I don't deny that. I don't deny that people might say, oh, yeah, but Bianca Jolla had it easy because they're in the inner circle now. They had to work to get to the inner circle. And from that, you know, stuff comes too.

Before, before. So to finish that story, I was getting hammered on Facebook about what I was doing and people give me a hard time about slum houses and you can't do this in any council and you can't get approval quickly and you can't do the conversions that quick. So we formulated a 48 hour challenge.

Yeah. We're like, let's do it. Not only can we do it in a short space of time, let's do it in 48 hours.

Yeah. Why wait a week when we can do it in 48 hours?

Yeah. That was good. It was hard.

It was. And it was really great. I mean, we had a thousand people on the webinar. So we started Tuesday clock, Tuesday, Tuesday o', clock, Tuesday at 6 o' clock and finished at Thursday, 6 o'. Clock. You know, basically a video every hour.

In the lead up.

Hour and half for me, I think, was maybe sleep in that 48 hours.

Yeah.

So I was wrecked, but we got it done.

And so just for everyone, we made three. We took a three bed, two bath townhouse and turned it into three bed, three bath, three little kitchenettes.

Yeah. In the space of 48 hours, which was very interesting. Like Ian said, there wasn't much sleep there.

And it didn't just involve the. The addition. So there was an additional bathroom. We've Added two kitchenettes, we moved the laundry, added walls and doors and bits and pieces. But not only did we get the. The renovation itself finished, we also staged it. So at the same time. At the same time. So when we went live at the end of the 48 hours, we got to showcase what it would actually look like, fully furnished and ready to go for tenants. And, yeah, I think it's an amazing outcome.

Yeah.

Went from 360 a week to 8:30.

Yeah. 8:30. I think it's up at maybe 8:50 something now maybe. Yeah, it's around 8:50. Yeah. I think what's interesting about that too is, you know, big thing that we spoke about in the lead up to that was the. In your presentation that you do, the fastest growing demographic of homelessness. Homelessness in Australia at the moment is 50, 55 female.

Yep.

The first two residents we got in that was. Yep, yep.

Women over the age of 50 and absolutely loving the ability to be able to save some rent.

Yeah.

And get utilities included and have their own space.

Yep.

Which they didn't. They don't have that choice at that price point.

No.

The third room took a little bit longer to fill, did.

It didn't.

Honestly didn't take that long. It was lead up to Christmas, I think. 2. 2 filled straight away and the third one was just in early January.

But, yeah, they're unsure about filling it with someone other than, you know, a female.

Yes. Yeah. So because we had two older females in there, the property manager was a bit unsure about essentially putting a male in that third room. It ended up. We ended up having a young guy, I think in his 20s going. He was super quiet. It was a good mix.

The property manager let us know that they'd formed their own little community and they, like, would catch up often. So even though they had their own areas like they were, they'd become a little community within the household. So, yeah, it's, you know, everything that you talk about.

So that's now operating, doing its thing.

You go off and you start reeling, realizing because of the education that the.

I'll just add something to that. So we couldn't sell it for 320. We couldn't sell it for 310. And then after. After we did that conversion, which we did, we did that for 20 grand. I think, you know the numbers about 20 grand. And we got a valuer in a couple of days after we finished the conversion, they valued at 330. So they came in and valued at higher than. More than we could sell it for.

So Anyway, there's a good outcome.

Good outcome, great outcome.

So that because of education turned that property around even though it was dud sold to you by advise agent. Now it just happens to be going up it. So is the rest of Australia other than Sydney and Melbourne Central.

You realize because of the education that that emotional purchase of being near the beach because that's where you wanted to be. It's not a bad block of land.

Yeah. Yep. There's a few little things about that block that's positive and did some research on that and it turns out it's in medium density and subdivide it. We can do a bunch of things there.

Which we're very. We've got all the approvals now. I mean we're just waiting for some builders quotes to come in and we'll be ready to go with that one. Probably talk about it a bit more.

Yeah, let's talk about it.

So let's talk about what someone who wasn't educated was going to do at some. Like if you didn't know what you could do on that property, what would you have done? Knock down the house and build a house that was big.

Yeah, big house. Then also, you know, you go through different stages of the education, I suppose. And then. So then I looked at subdividing and keeping the house and selling the backbox of land off. Then I looked at. And so that was. That was going to be the thing that I was going to do. I was going to keep the house and sell the back block and then.

You know, you get learn more and more along the way and then I was going to.

Did I say to you at some.

Point in time ago you won't be selling anything? Did I say that to you? I don't remember if I said something like that to you, but I do remember having a discussion about why would you sell it?

Yeah, yeah, I do need to sell it. Yeah. And then we were going to keep the existing house, slide it to the rear because it couldn't stay where it was. It was. We couldn't get a driveway down past it could go to the rear, renovate that and then build on the front one. But then we did the numbers on that. It wasn't great. So. Okay. They're okay. But you know, we could. The cost of the renovation, you know, we could probably have just built something almost brand new.

Yeah. And you would still would have had a secondhand product, which is a problem I've got with, you know, houses that get moved from site to site.

So then the final thing that we looked at, which came from the education was now we're subdividing into two. We're building a duplex on the rear lot, three stories. One of them has a rooftop and we'll get ocean views. And then we're building our house on the front lot and that'll have three stories as well.

Your PPR will be getting approval for.

Yep. Yep.

So you're using the strategy of co living in your own home, where some people would say that's absolutely crazy.

Yep.

Just give us some numbers on this, on your projections because we haven't started subdivision or anything yet. By the end of this deal, you'll end up with a duplex down the bottom, plus your principal place of residence.

Yep.

You'll be living on site, top floor.

Yep.

How many square meters on top floor?

About 100.

100 square meters top floor. Rooftop garden.

Yep.

Views of the beach.

Yep.

Tell us what the uplift in value. So how much equity gain will you have?

Definitely near a mil.

A million dollars of equity uplift on a principal place of residence deal.

Now, I know the answer to this one, but I'm going to presume I don't. But surely, Joel and Bianca, with you living there, it's going to still going to cost you money to live there. Like, what's the cash flow going to be?

Yeah. Last time we did the numbers, it was a bit over 50 grand. It'll be now with everything that's happening, it'll be closer to Oregon. 70 grand.

So just one second here. You're going to do a deal that's going to set you up with a million dollars of equity and a wage of $70,000 while you still live there.

For the rest of your life.

That.

That would do 80% of people in Australia.

Yeah.

One deal.

100%.

Is it a unicorn?

Possibly.

You know, it's. It's doable in other sites and, you know, but you just happen to stumble upon it in a good way. And you bought it at 600,000.

Yeah, yeah, definitely bought well. And, you know, I honestly, I got lucky. 100%.

Yeah, but it's. But the lucky is, you know, the.

Lucky is acquiring it. I think the work that went into. Well, what else can I actually do with this, the exploration, to actually figure out what you can do to maximize its potential. That's where the uplift has come from.

Yeah, it's a good point. You know, doing what we were originally thinking of doing would have been. Yeah, yeah, you're right. You did. Right.

So Lark Learning under the correct knowledge. That's. That's what the acronym for luck is.

Yeah.

You know, and. Because I don't believe in anything such as luck or coincidence, but, you know, again, things don't happen just for a reason. They happen because they were motivated to be a reason.

All right, so that's great little deal.

You buy a block of land in the infamous namble.

And you decide to put a duplex on it.

Yeah.

Good little deal.

It was. It was actually one of those ones when you talk about there's no such thing as coincidence. We actually had a contract on another block of land to do a duplex build. And long story, but basically, at the very last minute, the seller pulled the contract from us, which is unheard of.

Not in a great market at the time either.

Not in a great market at the time. The guy had probably pushed something through and hadn't actually finished the DA as he was supposed to, which he knew we knew. So he got the opportunity to pull.

The contract because there was a condition in the contract to say that you could. Well, either party could remove because it wasn't a tight proper title yet, because the conditions of consent hadn't. Even though they had been given the conditions that they hadn't completed all the conditions, he decided to use that to pull out.

Yeah.

Do you think that was because he.

Was pissed off with you or because.

We know. We asked for an extension because of finance, we had conditional approval and it was kind of down to the wire and we're sort of waiting on feedback from the solicitor, which didn't come through. And when we hadn't satisfied that clause, the next day we'd asked for, well, do we have the extension? And we had unconditional finance approval the next day. He didn't extend.

Always happens.

So it was. It's happened a few times. So, yeah, it was just by, I would say, a good agent.

Someone said, well, what about this one? Cause I rang up another block and I was like, oh, no, that's not really what we're looking for. But we looked at it and the set of plans that we had for the original block fitted on it perfectly. Same sewer easement, same everything, same thing. So we ended up with the same deal, just in a different location, and this one came off, so.

So purchase a land under 200, which you wouldn't get at the moment because the market's moving so quickly, and build cost, show all in for about 700.

Yeah.

Costs and bits and pieces.

Yeah. Council contributions and everything's just over 700.

So just over $700,000.

Refinance has just been valued and it's just going through now. What's the refi on it?

So it was 880.

880 in value. So you're getting all your money back.

Just about. Very close. Yeah.

And cash flow, because they've rented. So these are places that would Normally rent for 450, 500. And you're getting.

We're getting. Oh, I haven't done.

We're getting 900 aside.

Yeah.

So instead of getting 9. Instead of getting 900, you're getting 1800. Yep, yep. What's the cash flow on it? 38. 38.

That's a good outcome.

It's a good outcome.

Deal for free.

Yeah.

It doesn't cost you any money. What's the return on that one? Well, it's infinite because you can't calculate for something you haven't got money in.

That's right.

Which is pretty good now.

Learned a lot on that one, too. Learned a lot, yeah.

You had a. You went to go to the do the strata title because it's a. Because you can build a duplex without needing to go to council. You go through a private certification process, but the council has to sign off on the strata. They. In the middle of. You got approval, but they changed the rules. So you wouldn't be able to do the same thing.

No, not now.

And they pushed back and made you put in the full DA anyway.

Yep, yep.

Which was a bit of fun.

Yeah. So, yeah, there's been definitely learnings throughout that DA and through the accepted development process and everything, but then also through getting the titles at the back end and the refinance and there's definitely been a lot of learning.

Good learning. Good learning for what you're about to do on the ppr.

Yeah. So process wise, you know, the PPR one was actually first and I really wanted to do a small little deal, dip our toe and, you know, try and iron out and, you know, any issues that you're going to come across. There's always going to be new issues on every deal. But if we could just get. Get the process down and sort of know what comes next, that's what. That's what we really wanted to do. So that's why we went and did that little cheaper one, which turned out to be a really good little one.

Anyway, so everyone's thinking and listening to you and going, they've had an easy run. Yeah. They're probably did a little bit of work and some restless nights. Maybe One or two of them or whatever, and surely nothing, you know, surely everything's just worked out perfectly. You go and secure a corner block deal funded in a particular way as part of the contract, you.

Say, you ask whether you can put plans in the council beforehand. Now this is a block that's on a corner, has a house, existing house on it. Everyone's thinking, I'll just put. Knock down the house and put two.

Blocks of land in.

Yep, yep. Or you might get one extra one off to one side of it.

The numbers didn't work doing it that way.

No. So everyone I had to look at was in the right zoning and I was looking at it and I got out there and I stepped out my steps, you know, from where I think a boundary would be to the other boundary. Yeah, my meter steps.

Yeah.

And I thought, I reckon you get three out of this. And I rung our planner and she's like, I've had a few calls about this one. So, yeah, look, I want to do a one into three, keep the house one into three. And she's like, I've had a few calls that are only for one into two or townhouses. I reckon I'll get a one in three. She's like, oh, yep, everything looks good from my perspective. So, yeah, we negotiated on it. We ended up getting a 60 day due diligence period. So it had already fallen over once on finance.

We ended up securing it for they wanted 420, I think we got it for 390, 60 day due diligence, 60 day finance period. Throughout that time I had the block surveyed.

Had a whole plan of development drawn up and also all the upworks, lodged it all with council.

And then we were.

Doing this one in a jv and it was only.

Might have been a couple of weeks before our 60 days was up and he. And he sort of said, I'm having some issues with finance. I said, oh, what's going on? He said, oh, because we've got a cause, we've got a DA lodged on it. The bank that he had the pre approval with didn't like that and said they wouldn't fund it. So his broker was scrambling around trying to find someone else. I got him onto our broker and they said we must have been like maybe a week out at this stage. And they said, look, it's going to take at least two weeks, just letting you know. So we had all these plans in there, lodged with counsel and.

The D day came, we asked for an extension, he gave us a week extension.

The Week was up and we still didn't have finance approval. We asked for another extension and he didn't. He never got back to us. And then it was a Thursday. He.

Cancelled the contract, terminated the contract and then we got finance approval on Friday.

And so I think they know that. I reckon they. They judge how far we push this in the bank and go, oh, all right, we're pretty happy with them, but it's Thursday. We know that the contract goes unconditional today. Let's just offer it tomorrow just so we can lower our risk.

Yeah. Anyway, I was gutted. I'd been negotiate. I negotiated on that for maybe four, at least four months, worked out what we could do with it and then worked on it for another couple of months with the plan and development, the upworks and everything.

So you went back to them and said, we've now got approval. Can we reinstate the contract?

Yeah, reinstate it. Agent said, it's already under contract for asking price.

So there was a backup contract sitting there for 420.

4:20. Yeah.

So now here you've got a set of plans sitting in council, which you pulled out.

We didn't. So we hadn't paid for the application at the time. But they were sitting there.

They were sitting there. But everyone can get access to them, can see them.

Yeah.

So here you are with everyone can see what can be done now. They're all throwing numbers around and going, holy shit, this is a good deal. Bought it for 420. All the contact details are surveyor, planner, everyone's there.

And so it was a. It was a shitty little couple of weeks for me, I guess.

Just. Yeah. Coming to terms with what had happened.

I have to say that.

I didn't notice it that much.

Yeah, B. Probably noticed it at home. It was mainly the first few days. Hey.

Yeah. I think it's like anything when you've put a lot of time and energy and you, you know, got this fantastic idea and then to lose it at the, you know, at the last minute and for it to be something that potentially was avoidable as well. You know, there was still learnings in it for both of us through that process. Like, we walked away, well, what could we have done to avoid that situation? But I think, yeah, it's just in.

Hindsight, probably the only thing that could happen was that if he knew that there was a funding problem happening, not to tell you two weeks beforehand, it should have been three or four weeks.

Yeah, yeah. And we should have been more on it to be checking up with him. Hey, how's it all going? So there was learnings for both parties. 100%.

So there's an update to this story because lo and behold, the property comes back on the market, starts to go crazy.

Six. It's about six months.

Yes. I just. We'd put it to bed, you know, done and dusted, moved on to the next one. And then. Yeah, I have certain alerts on realestate.com and what do you know.

There'S an alert comes up and yeah, it's back on the market.

Now. Offers over 535. I went in and had a look.

There's my plan and development sitting in the realestate.com ad.

Yeah, yeah.

As subject to council approval.

Yeah, yeah.

So something that we had for 390.

Yeah.

Six months later. 535.

535 offers over. Of course, now the plan is getting multiple calls because here's a plan and it's probably. The surveyor probably got a thousand calls as well.

We talk about going in and do it. Still worth it. Like the market's moved. You're paying an extra 30 or $40,000 for each parcel of land.

But it goes under contract within days.

Yeah, straight away. Went under contract. 550. Cash.

Cash offer.

Cash, yeah. It's like it all come back again, you know. Oh, then this whirlwind stuff.

So they've made 130k in six months. I think it's stupid idea to have sold it. I still think there's movement in there and there's upside in the development. Like they're obviously just not experienced maybe.

So there's definitely. Our plan of development showed the one into three. So it was one into three subdivisions, retaining the existing house and flicking it.

But there was no, there was no mention of what we wanted to do with those blocks of land.

Right. So they've got no idea of the duplex part of it. No, because you would have put a duplex on each journey.

All right, so learn tapes.

It was like.

You know, I feel like we paid for education on that one too.

You know, it's a hex fee.

That's right. It is 100% uni degree.

Yeah. A uni degree in one year experience.

Not bad.

So then you start thinking, okay, we've lost that one. We've got to gonna have to move out of the PPR to build it. PPR's in your name. Bianca could do a PPR deal while you're not living in the golden triangle. So you go looking for this property deal.

Yeah.

Find one.

Find one.

Medium density. Yep.

Yep. The unicorns that no one's. You can't get the unicorns, but they're out there.

Yeah.

Interesting because I've spoken to three people that it would looked at that and said they couldn't make it work.

Yeah. Right.

So those unicorns just were horses. And you put the horn on it.

Tell us what your original thoughts with that property was.

So original thoughts were to maintain the existing house. It was pretty run down.

We were going to do it as a PPR for you though.

Yeah, yeah. Like it.

It wasn't a quick Renault on it.

Yeah, quick renault. But when we got the building in pest.

Well, the building inspest inspection.

Because Joel and I turned up for the building.

In pest and as soon as I turned up and I heard these guys talking. Oh, and are these. Yeah, these guys are knobs. But like it's.

It was incredible because I knew there was a slump in the floor. Yes.

And I'm talking to Joel and Bianca going pretty easy to fix the slump in the fall.

We just get some bottle jacks, we'll just jack it up.

It will put some bricks or something in there in the short term and then, you know, we can do a quick Renault. You'll be able to live in there, be comfortable enough. There's a bit of asbestos, but you know, house is going to go eventually anyway.

So anyway, I. The, you know, fair slope in the floor, like there's humps all over the place.

And I went and looked under the house when the building inspectors were there and I went, holy crap.

Like that's something I've never seen before. So these are timber stumps, you know.

Big round hardwood posts of like trees that were cut down, put in and holding up the house.

But the termites had eaten through the bottom of it.

And every time the termites had eaten the bottom of it, it would sink.

Into the ground and then they'd eat more and it'd sink in the ground. So these things, some of them have fallen over, but some of them don't even exist. They were sitting in the dirt. Right. So I go.

I can see why that would have been a bit of an issue for the floor.

It's still fixable thing like it, you.

Know, we would have been done by lunchtime.

Yeah, sure. Just putting some new piers in. Like we could just concrete some piers.

In, get some adjustable heads, get them up into where it needed to be and that would have been easy to fix. But that didn't quite work out.

No. So I can't remember what happened now. So many things.

I think it was something with funding.

It was to do with finance.

Yeah, it was funding. Yeah. We just didn't have the capacity to do it.

Yeah. Finishing off.

Because you had to do that one.

You were going to do that one on your own.

Yeah. And we weren't quite finished with the other duplex by the time we refinanced. Just timings weren't lining up. So we had it under contract and we were, you know, if everything, if everything went perfectly, which sometimes it never does in property, sleepless nights. It never does. There is just as long as it takes. There is no perfect. You know, in a perfect world, it would have stacked up timing wise, but we realized, you know, we're sort of approaching and we're like, look, we're not. We're not going to have enough time to finish this one and move into that one. So, yeah, we spoke to our JV partner again from the. From the one into three and said, look, you know, there's a deal here. Are you interested? So we did the numbers on that. So, yeah, it'll. It'll be another subdivision, one lot into two.

So right before you get there, so these building and pessimist guy there, and I'm talking to the agent and, you know, the market just started to go crazy.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what'd you pay for that? 5.75 and you'd probably sell it for seven.

I reckon we go close. Yeah.

So I Then, you know, things are happening. There's two. There's a. There's two building inspectors that work together. And I go out the front, standing at the front, and one of them comes out and he looks at me, goes, you know what? I reckon it's not a bad block. Like, if you could fix the house up, you put a granny flat in the backyard. And so then Joel walked around the corner and I said, joel, this guy reckons that we could probably get a granny flat in the backyard. And Joel goes, yeah, seriously?

Really?

Oh, that would be awesome. Right. So he wanders off.

So what you're about to hear is.

What they're gonna do on the deal, right? And so I reckon that he'll be. He'll be sitting in the pub in.

The RSL or the bowling club across.

The road, drinking with his mates one day and going, see that young couple? I told him to do that, which is not a house and granny flat. What are you looking at doing on it?

So the real plan is to do a subdivision and now that there's Two parties involved. The existing house will go. So we'll end up with two parcels of land, medium density. So we'll do a duplex on each. But basically at the point of subdivision, we'll get a parcel of land each and then JV partner will get theirs. They can build what they like will happen that point.

Titles will go both ways.

That's right. And then we'll build another duplex there. So.

You could ppr. That one could.

At that point in time, we'll probably.

Have another one out side of a trust which would. Asset protection wise. Not great.

Yeah. So the plan is to do it not as ppr, just do it as.

Will that one be finished before.

Your ppr?

Probably before the front one. Yeah. The duplex. Yeah, Our duplex that we're about to start it we finished.

But you're gonna.

Yeah.

Okay. Let's not talk about it on there. Yeah.

Okay. So you're doing okay?

We do.

Yeah.

On top of the complete pivot we've done in our business and you two being the key two personnel that have made a change for me.

It's good.

What's the plans?

What's the big picture? I mean, we. We did the Matcha Picture marathon together. I keep on pushing you to the Kilimanjaro. I don't expect you to. There's a whole bunch of people. I mean, you're. You're in. You're in sales. That's how you've learned, Bianca, what you do. Previously you worked. This is the thing that does my head in. Previously you worked for a car.

Retailer, and you were working in there, and you couldn't. That was just before our job. So you went from there to here. Your thing, like my thing, is that there's a whole bunch of people that will sell anything to anyone to get the commission.

You told me about a young couple that came in and.

Yeah. When I was working for Skyla dealership, we're seeing people come in and finance themselves up to their ears, but I think. And that just didn't sit right with me. But there was this one particular couple that they bought this luxury car. It was about 120,000. It was. It should have been 180,000, but it was a demonstrator and they needed to move it. And it came down to about $120,000. So there's luxury car tax. You know, the female was the sort of breadwinner in the family, so she had a certain amount to dedicate it to a car. But, yeah, their repayments. And I Just couldn't fathom how they were going to fund it, their repayments. I can't remember what they were off the top of my head, but it was like, I think you said three.

And a half grand a month or something.

Yeah, it was something astronomical. A week, like it? Yeah, it was astronomical. And I just thought, you know, how are they ever going to get ahead doing something like this? Like. And, you know, they went ahead with it, but I just, I knew pretty early on that it wasn't really an industry for me. Just seeing people, you know, they get caught up their material things and they have to have it when they really shouldn't. You know, there's probably more beneficial things that they could buy to put themselves in a stronger position because the moment they drive that car out, it's gone. It's lost its value. It's lost its value. So, yeah, I wasn't there very long, so. So, yeah, I guess so then you.

Came here and so the point behind that is that, you know, you've got a whole bunch of like, we run a business based on ethics and not signing people up when they can't afford it.

That's right.

You know, how many people have turned away and two, you know, there's quite a few of them that have gone away, saved what they've needed to save to get to where they need to get to, to come back and be able to join.

That's right.

It's why I don't offer. I offer a payment plan, but it's not worth taking the payment plan. I do it on purpose so people don't do that. And, you know, and I don't want people putting stuff on credit card if they can't afford it.

Okay.

You've done really well for yourself. You've got stuff happening. There's things going on in all areas of your life. You have bought yourself a motorhome to live in while you're building the ppr, which is just everyone's dream.

Yeah.

Don't know if it'll stay a dream for two too long, but we'll see what happens.

He keeps saying 12 months. I'm like nine.

Nine, like you'll be looking forward to.

Take care of people's houses.

Well, people have said, oh, can we borrow it? I'm like 100%. Let's book people in once a month for a week and then we can do three weeks on the road, look after someone's house. Let's swap. I'm like, perfect.

Yeah, it's a great outcome. You for a Couple of your age and I know there's a, there's an age difference between you, but I look back at the same age time and I wish I would have had more fun. And you two look like you're having fun.

I could ask you what would you say to anyone that's listening right now and all that, But I think it's pretty obvious. Just be really good looking for me.

I guess I can probably get a couple of points out.

Don't overextend yourself. Don't go and buy a flash car. You're paying it off. It's just bad debt. It's going to stop you in your tracks from moving forward. Like, I'm still driving a 2000 model Holden Rodeo Ute. It's full of rust.

I don't, I don't need anything else.

People, people can, people can judge your shitty car.

Go for it.

Have a look at my cash flow, dudes.

Yeah, go for it. You know, I don't mind. We've got the motorhome now. Like we're going to be selling all the cars. Keep Bianca's little, little buzz box and buzz around. If people want to judge, go for it. I'm not trying to keep up with the Joneses. We're extremely happy doing, doing it the way we're doing it. So that's 1.2. If you want to, if you want to, I guess dive into, to the property, to the property world, get some education, you know, like, you know, we've talked about our success and it's come from us working hard, but it's also come from, you know, people that we've surrounded ourselves with such as Ian, Christine and the whole small is new big community.

And once you start doing that, I think, you know, things will just, you know, evolve to you. Like the amount of, you know, we came on board, Bianca came on board as a.

Someone in the office to help out part time. Help part time.

And I was going to teach yoga, help out part time and teach yoga and then.

A week later full time.

Welcome to the vortex.

Absolutely. And I loved it.

I love the vortex.

I loved it. I loved it.

Sucked into the vortex.

But, you know, it's.

You took us in. You took us in, you took us into Mastermind. You know, we've not only become work colleagues, we're good friends and, you know, there's just so much gratitude from us to both yourself, Christine and, you know, everyone else in the office that we've got here. It's just huge. Thank you. And we, we wouldn't be where we are today. We definitely wouldn't be sitting here, we wouldn't be talking about all the things that we're doing if we hadn't have made that jump, you know, got the education, and then it's led us to be here with you now.

It's often a question I ask myself. It's often a question I ask myself. I say, out of the success stories that, you know, turn up, and there's lots of them, would they have achieved it without me? You know, and I can't take any ounce of credit for your success as much as I can't take any credit for your failures. All I can do is provide something in front of you for you to be able to do something with, and you've done something with it, you know, and what is.

You know, I love International Teachers Day. That's where they, you know, they always release a video of some sort where they bring the old students back and the impact they made on that person. And I, you know, without getting too sentimental about it, I know that there's people that get impacted in a positive way just from anyone, and that's what ticks my box. That's why I do what I do. I suppose you're very good at it.

So, no, I think, like, in terms of. For our age, like, we often get people just sort of like, how. How are you doing what you're doing? And I actually asked Joel, I said, oh, do you ever get people asking you how? And he's just like, not really. And I'm like, oh, I often get people sort of be like, so what do you guys do? Like, how. How did you. How do you know how to do that? Like, you know, and they're starting to ask questions and. And it just comes back to the simple thing. And I'm super grateful for Joel because I certainly. I was. When I met Joel, I was wanting to buy a property. My mom and dad were talking to me about, like, look, you're earning good money. You should be looking at investing in property, which I wanted to do. But I had this mindset of that it was going to lock me in and I wouldn't be able to travel and do what I wanted to do because I'd have to stay in a job to pay for this thing. So I hadn't actually committed to anything. And I'm really grateful for when I met Joel, like, he was into property, and we started talking about it and we got educated, it opened the door of possibility, and we stumbled across high res, which is all about A property that pays for itself and pays you. I'm like, x sign me up. So, you know, that really sort of ticked my box. But I think for anybody of any age, you have to do different to what everybody else is doing because if you, if you're wanting an outcome and you're not getting it because you, you're investing or not investing, but purchasing flash cars or, you know, your first house is a brand new house that you know is in a. That's been marketed to you and it looks nice and you're trying to get to the end goal straight away like you're going to put yourself behind before you've started. So I think that's. And don't be afraid to. Yeah. Start small and, and just. And cruel.

It's also interesting when you go and see a lot of the friends around you and you know, I know one particular story where you went and saw someone and said, mate, you should be designing a house with this bit in here because you've got multiple outcomes and adaptable. It's not that type of house. It's not that type of house. They just don't want to listen to that shit, do they? And I early on was trying to force myself upon people who'd say, you know, you should be doing this and I'd be really upset when they wouldn't do it. I learned pretty quickly that they'll do it when they're ready.

Yeah.

And that's what's happening.

Absolutely, absolutely. They're not, you know, they may not be ready for that information yet. And they'll come around, I'm sure. I was probably hard to deal with at the start. I still wanted to keep going out for Smash Davo all the time.

There's a lot of pushback at the start for sure.

You still get your smashed out.

I didn't want to give up my nice little comfy lifestyle that I had, but I realized if I kept doing that I wasn't going to have, you know, and I think that that's. Once you change your mindset and yeah, I was obvious I was spending a lot of money on things I didn't need to spend money on. But I'd sort of just started that way and I kept going down that path. So I think there's a mindset shift that needs to happen.

But yeah, and it's not forever.

It's not forever.

Now the test that when you get to that point where you say, have I reached it yet? Because that's the awakening I had not realizing that I was already there at a point where I didn't have to keep on doing it. And you've seen Karina do it. A year ago, she was so gung ho about, you know, she'd achieved what she needed to do to be able to do what she wanted to do, but she kept on going. There was no and she had to go into a depression to be able to realize that.

So, Joan, Bianca, thank you for being part of Small Talk Big Ideas.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us.

It's been good always.

So there you go, Joel and Bianca out there kicking ass everywhere, doing an amazing, amazing things in all the things that they're doing, not only in our business, but out there in the property world, ending up with ridiculous positive cash flow coming from the properties they do and equity outcomes as well. What you don't know is that straight after the podcast, Joel did not propose to Bianca. As always, you can follow all my podcasts and in all the social media channels. You've got the website in ugate.com and we'll catch you on the other side for the next podcast.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for tuning in to the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast. We hope we've succeeded in our goal to inspire and challenge you. And we look forward to catching you on the next episode of Small Talk Big Ideas with Ian Ugate.