09: How To Find The Ripple Effect For Under $100 with Medine Simmons

Did you know with just two investment properties and one single renovation that you could put over a million dollars in the bank? It's true. And why stop there? Welcome to your property Success podcast, the show that explores the practical steps to making your property investment dreams a reality. And now here's your host, a lady who once bought a dress in town hall station rather than confess the fact that she was lost. Jane Slacksmith.

Oh, my gosh.

I've told you too many stories over the years. I don't know where you guys are pulling these out from. It's true though. I don't like people know that I get lost when I get lost and I had to cover it up and I. You can always do with another dress.

Yes, well, now we have Google Maps, so we don't have to worry about that.

Yeah, no more dress shopping for me. Thanks to Google Maps. Yep, a big welcome to you and your Property Success podcast episode nine. And thank you for joining us today. We have a great podcast coming up and a fabulous.

Less guests.

Very, very excited here. Now imagine for a moment that you could pinpoint the next up and coming suburbs without the use of costly software, no fancy algorithms or expensive subscriptions. Instead using nothing more than a wall map and some colored dots. Interested? It's pretty good, isn't it? Well, today's very special guest has developed this technique which costs under $100 and you can do it at home yourself. And best of all, it's designed to uncover the ripple effect the next up and coming subur to grow. And it's called the dot map. The dot map technique. And today's guest, Medine Simmons, is going to be showing all of us how to make one.

Yes, the top map rocks. I love the top and Medine rocks too. But yeah, it's. But it's dead easy to do under 100 bucks, as you said. And, and you know, we often hear stories about people buying in the wrong areas and, you know, buying the wrong property. And perhaps because it's. They jump straight in or they take a tip from a friend or a taxi driver. Yeah, for the taxi driver 1.

And the thing is those people who get burnt don't try again. It's like, look, I gave it a go. And they don't realize that if you build the solid foundations before making that purchase, then you're setting yourself up for a successful purchase. And for someone looking for the right suburb to invest in, what you'll learn today will make a huge difference to how you approach this. So let me tell you about Medine Medine Simmons is a very successful property investor, mortgage broker, educator, public speaker. However, it's certainly didn't start all that way. At 27, Medine was working 10 plus hour days. She was in a corporate job, she was racking up huge credit card debts, having a lot of fun, but something forced her to change. And amazingly, from knowing nothing at all from property, she was able to build a substantial property portfolio and develop the dot map technique for tracking the ripple effect. And you know, she's a great friend of mine and a very savvy property investor who we can learn a lot from. And apart from teaching us the dot map technique, she'll also be talking to about the mistakes you should avoid when just starting out. She's promised us some insider tips on how to get a good valuation for your property so you can extract more borrowing capacity for the next property. Why it's critical to do and trust your own research. Plus she's going to share with us some practical tips on how to zero in on the right property and of course a step by step guide on creating your very own dot map for uncovering the ripple effect. So don't go anywhere. We have a huge show for you coming up with today's fantastic guest, Medine Simmons. Hello Medine and welcome.

Thank you, Jane.

Now I'd like to go over your personal journey today on your journey to property success in detail for the people who are listening because I know that I've listened to you speak about it a number of times and it always motivates me. And for those people who don't know Madine, who are you? Medine Simmons.

Okay, so in my 20s, I was a very good rat racer. I went off to work for 10 hours a day in the city and I earned some money. And like, like all good little rat races, I spent more than I earned and I racked up good credit card bills. I was really good at it and my salary went up and my expenses went and every year my dad would slip me a little check around the time of grand final when he wasn't really focused on anything else. He would slip me a little check to help me with my credit card. And that was my financial plan. That was really good.

So dad was your financial plan? Hey, I can relate to this story. Not dad being the financial plan, but spending more than I earned. That's right. That's right.

Yes. Good little rat races.

So how did it change?

Well, when I was 27 years old, unfortunately my dad had a massive aneurysm and got brain Damage. So, unfortunately, that little financial plan sadly came to an end. And I realized at that point that I needed to do something for myself. So that was when I started to look around and try and work out what other people were doing right and who could help me, help teach me how to become financially stable. Because I realized that, you know, dad got sick quite young. He was only 54, and luckily for him and for Mum, he was in a good financial position. And I saw what a big difference that made and I wanted to be. I wanted to make sure then the grand old age of 27, I decided that I needed to be in a better financial position. I couldn't rely on anyone else to pay my credit card bill every year.

And did your parents accumulate the wealth or did they get given it when they were.

They actually accumulated it through a business. So when I looked to them to learn from them, I wasn't really in a position to do that. I was working in corporate life and that wasn't, you know, I didn't own my own business or have one on the side. And so I started to look around to try and work out what other things I could do. And now my mum is a Italian migrant and like most migrants to this country in the 1950s are really interested in property. She was really interested in property. She hadn't done anything, but she was really interested in property. And I just, I looked at that group of people and just thought, you know, how hard could it be? These people come to the country, they can't even speak English. They, you know, that their education isn't recognised here, they have families and they still manage to be well known, you know, infamous property investors, making really good financial situations for themselves out of property investing. So I started to look into it because I figured, look, if they can do it, not that, you know, I think migrants are, you know, not to make it, but, you know, with me, with English and with education, I should be able to do this. It can't be that hard. So I started to look around and that's when I found some books and so on, and I started reading and I started researching.

So, I mean, you know, you and I, I mean, we met over 10 years ago and my. I guess my journey was so similar to you. And I think that's probably why we became really good friends. You know, at 28, I kind of sat down with rich dad, poor dad, and went, oh, my gosh, am I actually. Do I have a financial plan? Am I being mature about my financial future? And when we started chatting we had both kind of, I don't know if it stumbled upon, but seeing property as a way of accumulating wealth and seeing how other people had accumulated wealth. So for us it was a real meeting of minds, wasn't it?

Well, that's right. And 15 years ago there wasn't. There can be a little bit of sensationalism now in the media about property and 15 years ago it wasn't so much, it was a little bit more low key, which is actually what attracted me to property. And I think it's hard for people now when they think, oh, they're going to get into property, it's going to be glamorous and it's just so not. It's much more realistic to look at property as a steady, stable, quite boring really, investment vehicle.

It's kind of like that whole Warren Buffett, you know, if it's exciting, if your investing is exciting, you're doing it wrong. Right? It's hard work, get it right the first time and replicate. So tell me, can you characterize, you know, look over the last 10, 15 years of your investing journey and just sum up, you know, your kind of property investing philosophy, you know, if you said what your strategy was and what, how you've been able to accumulate wealth and you know, go on to teach other people how to do it, what's been your strategy?

So I actually researched for a good 18 months, reading books and so on, talking to people and I. So the very first property that I bought encapsulated my investing philosophy and what I did was I looked, I found an area, a suburb that had been over, it had very good growth pattern, it had been overlooked a little bit, the prices weren't going crazy. And the other key thing was that properties in that area were if they'd been done up, they were selling for more than properties that weren't done up. So people were, there was an opportunity to make money through a renovation.

Which is a nice, simple kind of summary of what we talk about today is pricing disparity between renovated and unrenovated, which is the done ups selling for more than the non done ups.

Yes, and it's certainly not true in every suburb. Sometimes the not done up sell for more because people get inspired. So, so I found a little suburb in Melbourne called Abbotsford. It's about five kilometres east of the city. And I started looking around and I found an out of area agent. That's another good little tip for people that often out of area agents don't have their finger on the pulse. As much when they're selling a house and there could be an opportunity to get a little bargain. And, and I bought this terrace in, in Abbotsford and it was 225,000, which is hilarious. Now that's a two up, two down terrace in Abbotsford. And you know, now they're, you know, if you get them for under a million dollars, you're lucky. So. But it was 225,000 and I was like, oh yay. And I'm going to do a renovation, it'll be fantastic. And it had students living in there and when I looked through I thought, oh, you know, these groovy students, they're sleeping in the middle of the room. You know, the bed was in the middle of the room, it wasn't against the wall. And when I got the builder through after I bought the property and we were talking about what needed to be done, he pointed out that the hard plaster that, you know, those old fashioned Victorian hard plaster in that bedroom was actually coming away from the walls. So the student was sleeping in fear of his life thinking that the hard plaster was going to come down on his head during the night. So it's nothing to do with being groovy at all.

Is the key there the comment medine that you had the builder in after you bought the property?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, some of these things we.

Learn along the way, we learn these things along the way and, and also probably back then I wouldn't have been so brazen. And I think, you know, one of the things I love, you know, is to get a builder through first to give me an opinion. You know, those things you learn and you get more confident as you go on. But the good thing about property is that, you know, you can make little mistakes and as long as you've done all your finances properly and you're in a position to hold the property, it's a forgiving thing. Property is a forgiving thing because time.

In the market kind of heals the wounds.

That's right, the market heals the wounds and time heals the wounds too. So instead of it being a one month quick paint and carpet, I needed to do a few repairs obviously in this house. And it, you know, it became a two month journey. But two months healed the problem and you know, and it wasn't, it worked out to be only from memory, 1800 or $1500 problem wasn't huge, but it certainly needed to be addressed and it took time and an expert and blah, blah, blah.

So if we, if we what? I'M really interested in is that, you know, and obviously we're going to get later on we're going to talk about your strategies on how you locate properties now and do the suburb. Because I think the methodology that you have developed and I've swiped and promote greatly as your content and teach it all over Australia is so compelling and exciting and such a great strategy. But when you first started with that first property in Abbotsford, you kind of said there's some capital growth and the prices weren't going ballistic. How did you actually target Abbotsford? How did you look at all the suburbs? I gathered that you were looking in Melbourne and go, hey, you know, so.

That'S those early days before I even started property investing. That's when I developed the dot maps because there is data available from researchers for 10 year growth and it's available in a list of all of the different growth of the different suburbs. And.

And you used that all the way back then.

Sorry, say again?

You used that all the way back then when your first property then would.

You believe it, those first few years I threw them out.

Oh really? What a great comparable thing that would have been.

I didn't realize what I had anyway.

Well, you know, people send me theirs now so you know, when they've finished with them. So I've got a lot of dot maps I'm going to start collecting. In actual fact, I got a card today from someone who has made cards out of the dot maps.

That's so cute.

I know they're becoming famous all over Australia. So look, I want to get into the dot maps with you and I know you're going to share this amazing and simple tool and it's nice to know that you started with that as your methodology and the research way back when you bought your first property. I think that the reason I love this as a technique is that anyone can do. Takes a bit of time and a bit of dedication and then probably a bottle of wine sometimes to read between the dots. But it gives you this great short list of suburbs that you're looking at and gives you the information that you need as well as the, as you kind of referred to this ten year past growth. Are there other tools in your toolbox that you use as well when you're assessing a suburb?

Yes, I look at the 10 year growth and on the dot map, look at the growth patterns that the dot map shows me and then that's. So that forms the basis and then I drill down into a suburb that I'm interested in and that's when I start to do the really intense work into what is the standard property in the area, what is the median price? Are properties available at median price or below? Because when you look, when you're using the dot map information, you're relying on the median growth rate. So if the property, if the suburbs gone crazy and all the properties are selling above that anyway, it's not a great suburb for me. And then as we discussed before, opportunity for immediate capital benefit in that opportunity for immediately being able to do a little renovation or a little tart up. Am I allowed to say that in an interview?

I think you are.

A spit and polish, a paint carpet and so on and increase the value of the property. So those are drilling down and also looking at the demographics of the area, the amenities in the area and so on. Would I like to live there. But that takes a lot of time and effort. Each one of those suburbs, when you look into all of those things and feel comfortable that yes, this is going to be a good growth area, this is going to be a good rental area that's going to be easy to get renters because there's nothing worse, of course, than paying a mortgage when you don't have rent coming in.

And.

And that I'm going to be able to get an immediate capital increase in this area. It's a lot of work to work all those things out. I can say them in a minute here. But actually doing that work takes a lot of time. So then I'm coming back to, I'm only wanting to do it in suburbs that I have potential, otherwise I'm wasting my time. And that's when the dot, that's how the dot map came into play. I wanted to work out where there was potential before I started really drilling down into a suburb and really getting to know a suburb.

And I think, I mean what you've just said is so important because there's so many people probably listening who've gone, yeah, you know what? I've read that in the magazines. I've heard it all before. I've got the, the, you know, I have to look at a suburb that's going up in value. Maybe something with a bit of Renault potential, maybe something that can rent, maybe something that's, you know, got some, the demographic suit and it's, and as you said, in a minute you can say all of that, but the reality is that you've actually done it and built a multimillion dollar property portfolio and you know, for, I've heard it all before kind of People, you know, the really interesting thing about your journey in property and as you started sharing with us your first property, is that you've subsequently been able to build a substantial portfolio and now what, settling tomorrow on your dream home because of what you've been able to do. So if we can go back to that first property that you did, you bought the property then did you do the spit and polish and did it work for you?

I ended up spending. I had budgeted 25,000 and I ended up selling, spending 30,000 because of this problem with the plaster. So I blew the budget and I did, you know, paint, carpet, put new blinds. It looked cute in the end. And I got the furniture in to style the property, which now is very normal, but 15 years ago was unusual and it looked lovely. And that's when I got the value in, because my strategy then was I was going to have the property revalued. I was going to be able to draw down equity in the property and then do it again, use that equity to buy another property. So which I think is your strategy that you call Trident strategy.

Yeah, sorry, the Trident strategy.

The Trident Strategy, yes. Thank you. So. So I got the valuer in and he said, oh, you know, how much did you pay for it? This is a great place. And, you know, so I told him 225,000. And I. And he said, how much did you spend on the Renault? And I said, oh, 30,000. And so he went away and he was a young guy and just, you know, devastating news for me.

I can see this coming. I can see what's coming here.

The evaluation came back, of course, for 255,000. The 230 I spent, plus the 225 I spent, plus the 30 that I'd spent on the Renault 255. And I was devastated. And, you know, I was 28 at the time, and first property, you know, I was even too shy to get a builder through beforehand. I mean, it's pretty, you know, it was devastating and somehow, I don't know where this happens. For property investors, it is a journey of finding your strength. I think I was brave enough to get a second valuer through and each valuation, remember, I was paying for in those days, the banks didn't pay for them and it was $600. So I anted up another $600 after spending 30 already and being told that my property wasn't worth any more than I'd spent on it. And I got a second valuer through and this time I quietly stood in a corner and didn't speak to him. He must have thought I was quite rude. And he had a proper look around the property, which was great. And then the next day, the second valuation came back in for 320,000.

So.

Yeah, and that's not unusual even today. You know, recently I worked with someone who we had a one valuation of 340 and one valuation, and then the same week, another valuer for 400,000 at the same property.

It is interesting, isn't it? Thank you for sharing that. Because I think a lot of people, you know, it's easy to say, you know, I have a very large portfolio and I got it all right, but the reality is, you know, most make mistakes and learn from them and then apply them. I think the magic formula that you shared with us then is that the valuer plus a renovation does not equal new equity. You have to be able to create that formula yourself. And it's through manipulation of how you do the renovation and that it's fit for the market. And then you actually communicate that correctly to the valuer.

Well, that's right. And there's a whole now, you know, since then, I developed a whole strategy. Well, maybe I didn't develop it, maybe you did and I saw it. I can't remember, but we'll call it ours around getting a valuation that's, you know, and not influencing the valuer, but helping the valuer to best value your property, giving them information and so on. That's support supports you.

So if you think back to, I mean, obviously fantastic result on, you know, buying 225, doing a $30,000 renovation, having it revalued at 320. So you've created the equity and you knew that your strategy back then was that you're going to use that equity to purchase subsequent properties. You know, what things did you struggle with the most? What was the kind of the trial and error things that you went through when you're beginning to build that portfolio?

The biggest trial absolutely is making that first leap of faith and believing in yourself and believing that all the education and research you've done has led you to the right property. And having the faith to say, yes, I'm buying this property, sign on the dotted line, here's this enormous big deposit, more money than I've ever spent on anything ever. And, you know, and it's not my. It's not my family home, and it's not, you know, the new car that we desperately need. It's a completely unknown area to me. And I have to trust myself that this is the right thing to do. And that is absolutely the hardest thing to do. And you know, as I was saying before, property is a forgiving thing. Time and the market heal the wounds. But that is the, the biggest wound is that you never buy and you never invest and that nothing can heal that wound.

Exactly.

How many, I say it myself, how many times have you heard someone say, oh, I wish I'd bought back then?

Absolutely. Look in the Money magazine that I was reading just this month, they had an incredible little graph that showed, you know, back in 1970, the median price for houses in Sydney was, you know, less than $20,000. And if they applied a 5%, five and a half percent return year on year, those houses now wouldn't be worth more than $250,000. We know the median house price in Sydney is worth well over $800,000. So time in the market heals the wounds. However, in some suburbs, if you've chosen the wrong market and the wrong, you know, the capital growth is less than in areas that are going up. That time could be a long time to heal the wounds. And I know, I was reading just recently, one property expert, she shared that she'd bought a, you know, off the plan property 16 years ago in Cairns that's now worth $11,000 more than it was then. So, you know, sometimes the, you know, it's easy to say, isn't it? You know, time can heal the wounds if you make a mistake in property. But it's how long, how long you want to wait, you know, by targeting those suburbs that are right and ripe for growth, then, you know, you don't have to wait that long.

Yes, that is a super wound for $11,000 increase.

I know. I was surprised that such a prominent expert was willing to share that. So a good honor. Now I did want to pick up on, I guess the thing that you said there that you got the valuation back and it wasn't the 255. What was it that gave you the. Hang on a moment. You know, this is not right. This should work better than this. Was it. Were you seeing other properties that, you know, were, had had the kind of tarred up that were selling for more? Like where was it that you went, hey, this isn't right?

Exactly. So that was it. So it was trusting my own research, I mean, which is pretty brave considering the valuers are supposed to be the experts in the market. And here I was, little 28 year old first property investment, thinking that my research was better than his but, you know, I'd really, you know, I'd use the dot map. I drilled down, you know, from, you know, at that time, Abbotsford was surrounded by areas that were increasing in value quickly. Clifton Hill, Richmond. And it was in a little pocket there that. Hadn't had those big jumps. And then I had drilled down into the suburb and found out that had a good capital growth pattern, nothing fantastic, and that they did have this renovation potential in that people were paying less for an unrenovated property and more for a renovated property, even, you know, and they weren't, in those days, glamorous renovations that you might see in some suburbs. They were just normal renovations and people were paying more. So I'd done all that work for 18 months before I decided to take the leap of faith. And that's where my belief that I, in my research came from. So that's really important, to educate yourself and do your own research and use all these tools that are available to you, because people are going to challenge us. He didn't come into, you know, my property investing with the thought of challenging me, but, you know, the result challenged me. And you'll come across, you know, banks that challenge you and real estate agents that challenge you and tenants that challenge you and all sorts of people. And you have to have a really solid base and knowledge to get through those trials.

And, I mean, it's a really good point because you and I both know that there's. There's not many people who go on to buy a second investment property. And whatever reason it is, for the millions that have investment properties, there's only, what, 14,000 that have more than six. So we know that potentially that initial disappointment that people go through of the valuer said no, or the bank said no, or I didn't get the money I wanted, or I can't rent it out, or this didn't work for me, or, gosh, I didn't realise I overpaid. Or when the builder came in afterwards, he said that he got a lemon. All of those things, I think, stop people and the belief that you had in the numbers. The numbers don't lie. And, you know, you weren't just depending on, you know, the capital growth of the past through the dot maps you had then targeted all those other things that you talked about. You know, the, you know, what the renters wanted, the demographic, you know, what the growth was in the suburbs around it, the median capital growth and the selling price. You know, there's that research when you have all of those things come together in your kind of toolbox of knowledge and research and it gives you the confidence to say, hey, this is not right. And maybe I have to go to a different bank or a different valuer or whatever, but I know this should add up.

That's exactly right.

So you then did it again, I gather. So tell us, I gather this a system now that starts really developing. You validated your research. So it happened again.

Yes, so then it happened again and then. So that was where my idea of one property a year happened. Because, you know, this takes it. When you're working full time and you know, you've got social commitments and family commitments and so on, it takes a lot of time to do this and you know, another good reason why to, you know, to zero down into specific suburbs before spending all the time to research them, because the time is short. And that's where my concept of one property a year came from. That, you know, this takes up a lot of time and this takes a lot of effort, but I'm sure I can manage one of these per year. So that's what I did for the next eight years. And I peaked at nine properties then and just continually doing it one every year for nearly 10 years.

So, you know, the one property a year which you now teach people how to do as well, but that, you know, you discovered the system, you've kind of perfected it. Can you tell me now what's it evolved into? So how do you use it today? So how are you teaching people? You know, this is the process that, you know, if I was going to say, what are the three things that you would say, okay, this is where we start and this is what you have to do.

This makes me sound so boring, but I just teach people exactly everything we've just been discussing. I have not changed my thoughts on what is reliable, safe, successful, proven property investing in 15 years. And that's so boring. You know, I'm not, you know, hip, happening, doing, you know, all these crazy strategy, property investing strategies at all. I just teach people exactly what we've been talking about. Find a good suburb, you know, use your dot maps, get a vision of it, drill down into the suburb, do all the research, build your confidence, you know, but. And then do the Trident strategy.

Well, it's funny, you know, I had a. Someone approach me yesterday who's been very, very successful in developing and shared some of his development stories with me and he said, hey, I've got this amazing development. Do you want in on this? There's money to be made in a Short period of time, I went back to him and said, you know what? It's not my strategy, and I'd have to do a whole lot of research before I started. And he came back and went, that's what I like about you, Jane. When you get it right, you stick to it. And I was like, you know, it can be boring, but it's around perfecting that technique and making it boring. Maybe that's our goal, making investing for the. The people who are first starting and having that kind of trepidation and worry and fear is getting to the point of the confidence of the numbers and the research that the ultimate goal is your investing is boring because you get it right and you get it right, and you get it right.

That's right. And also sticking to boring helps you avoid some. You know, the glamour of property investing often leads to people into, or can sometimes lead people into making purchases like, you know, this off the plan in Cairns that, you know, had $11,000 growth in 10 years or whatever it was, you know, and that's when we drill down into what that is. You know, she's been getting money from the tenants, but that's not enough to cover the mortgage. So she's been putting in every month for 10 years to hold this property and have $11,000 growth. Nobody wants that. And so sticking to the very boring, you know, I wouldn't be able to invest in that property because it's not my strategy. And it. But weirdly, you've got to teach people to be boring because everyone wants, you know, with the hype in the media at the moment and around property, it seems like it might be really glamorous, but it's just not.

We're going to have. We're going to have to come up with a whole new word, not saying boring. Otherwise people are just going to fall asleep listening to this. We're just going to say a sustained property investing strategy.

Okay, well, when you look at the figures, though, it's not boring.

You know, your net worth goes up every year. If you get it right. This is good. This is exciting.

This property that was worth 14 years ago and it was. Bought it for 225,000 and now you wouldn't get much change out of a million dollars. I mean, that's pretty exciting.

Exactly. Exactly. We're going to be excited. Well, when you're teaching people this stuff and they're achieving results using this approach, I guess the thing is, tell us about some of the results that you're seeing people doing, getting the system Right. And following the methodology of meat and potato investing. What are you saying? Because it's worked for you.

I'm very, very proud of one of my students who, you know, and our little one Property year club worked really well. They joined one month and then they bought their. Within three months they had bought their little first investment property. So that was exciting. And then last month they were on the COVID of Australian Property Investor. So they're my star students. And so they bought exactly that. They bought a little boring house in Coburg, I think the house is. And they did a little renovation, which is really a paint and carpet, a spit and polish, and they made $68,000 in 16 days. So from the time that they bought it, they did the renovation, they got it revalued, and they made $68,000.

So the success by just getting following the methodology, they got it right. So for those people who are thinking about doing this, you know, doing. And we're going to get into how to do the dot map in a lot of detail soon, but for those thinking about doing this, you know, what are the kind of problems that they may want to avoid or what are some of the things that they could be hearing out there that are, that are harmful to finding out how to invest in the right location?

Oh, gosh, Where do you start? I think it's ignoring the marketing is the big thing. There's a lot of marketing at the moment going on around larger developments, in particular suburbs, both in Melbourne and Sydney and actually Brisbane as well. I think it's starting now to build hype around those suburbs. And, you know, to my mind, those properties are unproven and those suburbs may or may not be good suburbs with solid historical growth and good research around those suburbs. But you really need to do the research rather than just listening to the marketing hype around those big development suburbs.

How much does that depend on having a strategy established first of all, and knowing what you're trying to achieve?

If you have a strategy in place, then you wouldn't be able to buy in one of those. You wouldn't be able to buy one of those properties in one of those suburbs. Your strategy wouldn't allow you to do it. You wouldn't be able to tick off your list of this is what I need before I buy.

So your strategy obviously was, you know, find a little unloved property, you know, add some value through renovating in a good growth area, perfect Trident strategy, and access the equity to do it and do it again. So having that strategy really clear in Your mind. And you know, you're not looking at a brand new off the plan. You're not looking at an area that has, or maybe where there's house and land packages, where there is no past growth information that you can use to try to estimate future growth.

That's right. And I think it's really important, too. You said having the strategy in your mind. I don't think that's enough. You need to write down your strategy. You need to have a checklist and for the property. So it has to have the growth history, it has to have the renovation potential, it has to have a public transport close by. Whatever it is, whatever is on your list of things it needs to have, you need to tick those off. And it needs to be in an actual checklist. So you can't fudge it and say, oh, you know, this property's always been popular for rental. I'll just buy here because it's easy and there's a big marketing campaign.

Exactly.

And it might tick one of your boxes. But having an actual checklist, you can see that it hasn't ticked the other 12 things that you want.

And I think that I know in the Ultimate Guide to Renovation, we teach the students about having a buying criteria, which is that checklist. And so it's so clear once you have a buying criteria, you can do 90% of the research online for a property and not having to be out like I was in the beginning, seeing 10 properties every Saturday going, oh, wait a second, that doesn't really tick this box. So it kind of stops all that extra work as well.

That's right. And, you know, drop maps were developed originally to help with that, because we were spending the whole weekend out, Saturday and Sunday out, looking at properties to try and fit them all in in different areas to try and get a feel for them. But you're right, with the Internet, you get a feel for the suburb. It's not the same as being on the ground, but you can certainly get a much better feel for the suburb. And what sort of properties are available to help you drill down from, you know, a dot map to what actually is in reality?

Well, I guess that, I mean, we keep talking about the dot map as a technique and we're going to get to it. But, you know, it is an amazing visual methodology of looking for the next suburb hotspots. But I'm interested in your thoughts on what are the top things to avoid in suburbs. So if you're actually drilling down into a suburb, what are the kind of things that you would steer clear of.

Look, those suburbs that I mentioned before that have people who are so eager and inspired to buy, they'll pay more for the unrenovated dump than they will for the nicely renovated property.

So that pricing disparity is missing in the suburb. The pricing disparity is missing in the suburbs.

Yeah, the pricing disparity is missing. I would avoid properties that are surrounded by a lot of open space because there's no scarcity then. I like properties that are. I like suburbs where, you know that they've built all the houses already and there's some scarcity and that creates upward price pressure.

So we're not talking. We're not talking about parklands. We're actually. Or golf courses. We're talking about there's an area that a developer could develop down the track.

Yeah, that's right. Paddocks, basically. So I wouldn't buy around Melbourne's fringe for capital growth, but there's some in, you know, there's some closer in as well that are like that, that have had big, you know, light industrial areas and so on that are being developed. Those areas aren't going to grow really quickly anytime soon. And I would. I avoid areas where I can't get statistics. I really rely on the statistics. But there are some areas where Docklands would be one of them, where the statistics still. We don't have statistics long enough to even see a growth pattern. I mean, I know once the statistics come, it's not going to be great, but we want to see some statistics for the growth pattern.

So, yeah, it's interesting. I spoke to someone the other day overseas and she was saying, you know, she has a family member who had bought in the Docklands in Melbourne numerous years ago and the property has gone back in value, so it's dropped in value since she bought it. And, you know, one of many units in a huge block of units that had no difference to any other unit in the block of units and was now older than all the new blocks of units that were going up and hence not the demand for the renters to be there. And. And I said, gosh, you know, are they going to get rid of it? And they said, well, no, they're going to try to wait it out in case it does go back in value. But they're really rich so they can afford to keep it. And so it's costing them money every single year. It's not going up in value and hasn't for over five years. They're hedging a bet that it may go up in value in the future at some stage and it's costing them in a lot, it's costing them in borrowing capacity. So it restricts what they can actually buy next time. It has so many big implications of holding a property that isn't going anywhere. Having something like this technique that allows you to avoid that straight up is magic because you're not then covering up in years and going, well, I'm just gonna have to sit through this until I can possibly make some money again.

Yes. Yeah, it's crazy. It's, you know that they could be using that, the money that they're putting into holding this property into another property three suburbs away that is going up in value every year and easily rented. It's just crazy.

Anyway, well, it's a detective journey so we know there's work to be done. So let's talk about the. You mentioned that you were looking for statistics you spent 18 months before you actually purchased. And pulling this together, you developed the dot map back then, but in actual fact all you did was you purchased the list of suburbs in the past 10 year growth. What was the thing that went, hey, I'm going to stick these suburbs up on a map. Can you take me through what's the step by step process that you go? How do I get a suburb onto a map? Like how does that work?

Sure. So I buy my maps, here's a little plug from Melways, I buy my a wall map from Melways and they do all the east coast plus they do I think Adelaide as well. I don't know about Western Australia. And so I get onto there to melwaze.com and buy a wall map from them and I buy a bunch of little dots and the dots represent different growth, different 10 year growth patterns. Then it's a matter of finding the information for the growth patterns. I looked at 10 years because that's the longest actually that's available. Everyone does a 10 year growth pattern and interestingly once you start looking, the different providers of information have quite startlingly different results in their 10 year growth. So they say they all have the same source data but they can't possibly because they get very different results. So what I do is I go to the Valuer General's report@land.vic.gov au and get the Valuer Generals report. That information is directly from the State Revenue Office or the Office of State Revenue depending on which state you're in. And so that information is solid, reliable information that's actually based on stamp duties and transfer Prices. So it's really dependable information and that was important to me because I was looking for something to add to base my confidence on, to invest in an area.

So you went to the source data that they all say they're using.

That's right, that's right. I went to the source.

And you've done dot maps for other states. Where did you get that from? For the other areas?

Yeah. So that's that. So that information I've bought in Melbourne and you can buy it also in Sydney, but it's a lot more expensive. So then I looked for an alternative to Sydney to the expensive information and I looked at, I bought the Residex reports for those, for those states, for Sydney and Brisbane and I've done Adelaide and Perth as well because again, they're really into their research and going back to their search data, their source data. I can't explain why it's different to.

What everyone else is saying.

Yeah. To other sources and they don't, you know, so, you know, you just, you have to put a stake in the ground and say, okay, this is what I'm going to rely on. We're very lucky in Victoria that we have the value of General's report for free. In the other states you have to pay. You can't even get it in Brisbane, but you can get it in New South Wales. But it's expensive. Last time I looked.

I think the thing is, as long as you're doing consistently with the same information, that differential is really what you're concentrating on. So why 10 year growth? You said you're trying to get as long as possible. What are you looking at? Why not one year? We've had some great growth across Australia in the last one year. Why don't I use one year?

Yeah, I wanted to look at growth patterns, so history of growth and how that proceeded. So rather than looking at, oh yeah, there's been a spike in one year growth to look at over 10 years, how has this suburb, median properties in this suburb grown? And it's been really, in the last 10 years. The most recent May is a really good illustration of that because in those 10 years, so from 2003 through to 2013, we've had, you know, the lead up to the global financial crisis that was all growth, growth, growth, Nothing could go wrong. Prices were going crazy. And then the global financial crisis happened and absolutely nothing happened for four years. So we've had good growth and then nothing. So it's a good example of why you want to include a nice big chunk of time in your research. Because if you just looked the last four years or five years, you'd think that nothing grew. Whereas if you capture those years before, overall things have grown over those 10 years.

And I think the growth patterns that you're talking about, you know, we know that you can't predict the future based on the past, but goodness, you're going to have to, as you say, put a stake in the ground somewhere and say, okay, I've got what I've got and there's some really clever economists out there who have paid the big bucks to spend all day doing this stuff and they even get it wrong. But if I can have variable sources and pull that information together, at least by the conviction of your own methodology, you have confidence in what you're creating.

Yeah, that's right.

So if I just summarise that you buy a big map, here's a hint from all of our ultimate guide renovators who are doing this, hundreds of them are doing this at the moment. They buy a plasticized map so that you can take the dots off and put them back on. Get some actual translucent dots so that you can read beneath them. So a lot of these maps, you can't read the suburbs once you put dot over the top. Now, now you then get the.

That's an interesting one.

You then get. Some people are using even post it stickers that they're cutting up. Interesting. I've seen so many dot maps, Madine. There's some great ones out there now getting the valuer general or the statistical information from the last 10 years for the area that you're looking at. And importantly not just going, oh, I'm pretty sure it should be the western suburbs of Adelaide. I'm just going to dot map this. We're talking about. We draw 5, 10, 20K circles around the CBD and we do all of it, don't we? So we are not taking in our previous misconceived ideas about where to buy. We're actually doing clean slate and saying, let's look at the whole lot.

That's right. And it can be surprising once you get going on the, you know, the sticking the dots on it doesn't, you know, you get into a rhythm and you actually, I think, learn as you go along. You're sticking, oh, really? I never thought of that suburb, you know, and so on. And you don't want to miss those just because you've decided that you're going to only do the, you know, the inner west or whatever.

So. And these dots Just to clarify, you're going to say, you know, green is 5 to 6% per animal, maybe 2 to 3% per annum, and yellow is.

You can make up whatever you want in terms of your.

Ranges for each map.

Just remember to write them down and stick to them. And sometimes that can be a little hard because you want more variation in a particular area. But then you can't look at the whole thing. It breaks down the usability of the whole map. So you really want to, you know, stick to those ranges and be absolutely, you know, Even if it's 0.1% out of a particular range, you go up to the next color.

It's interesting, you say that we had people doing Sydney and they were coming back going, you know, we're using 1% ranges, that it's not working. We'll go to half a percent. And they came back and went, wow, now the map is talking to me. So how does the map talk to you? What do you see? What are you seeing when you step back and you've got green, yellow, red, blue, orange and. And you know, the oranges or the reds are saying that the growth's over 10% and the Greens are saying the growth's less than 2%. You're looking at the map. Tell me what you see. Medine.

So what I'm looking for is areas to drill down because remember, this is my first step of looking at where to buy. So I'm looking for possible areas that are going to be that I'm going to drill down and get some good results in. So what I'm looking for in the map and particularly this last map, is particularly useful for this and particularly a map that should be definitely be kept and not be thrown out. I'm looking for solid past growth over and you can check back over a few years, even without doing dot maps a few years back. We can just check the growth for the years before over two or three maps to see that growth has been solid in that area. And during the global financial crisis, we didn't see a dip, didn't stall, because holding a property is hard enough once you have tenants and the cost of holding and so on and repairs and all that sort of stuff that goes with property investing. You want to see some. For me, growth year on year pretty steadily. So that's what I'm looking for. Good, solid, dependable growth over 10 years and then preferably back two or three maps to see that that area is dependent. I can depend on that growth. I'm not going to be holding it and thinking oh no, I've just put in a new hot water system and I've had no growth this year. What is the point of this?

So for people who are doing their first map and don't have previous maps, if they're looking at a map colored in colored dots, how can they know what tells them about the consistency or the proven growth there?

Well it is a 10 year map, so there is that. But if they haven't done previous maps they would need to then I think buy some more research to look back and that's pretty easy to do. You get onto one of the websites and buy a suburb report and I think, I'm pretty sure domain are giving them away for free at the moment. Okay, you one of the sites like Residex and buy a report and they give you the growth pattern over the 10 years and you can look back that way.

So we would then also look then at the ripple effect. So how do you see that on the map?

Yeah, so I'm looking for an area where there is good growth, good solid growth and then I might look. So say there's a nice at the moment, a nice area of yellow on the map or good medium growth on the map. I might look at that and I might look at.

I can tell you're looking at your map at the moment of Melbourne, aren't you? Okay, so what does median yellow, what does that represent in number wise on your map?

On my map that's between 7 and 9%.

Okay, good.

So it's a middle of growth in a yellow area you'll double the value will double in 10 years. The value of your property will double in 10 years. So I would look at a yellow, a cluster of yellow and then maybe look at the greens surrounding it and particularly if there are greens, a couple of greens and then more yellows.

So tell me greens are lower, greens are lower.

So it's like I do mine like a traffic light. So green, yellow, orange, red and so greens are lower growth. So there might be opportunities or those areas might be a little bit cheaper or might have more opportunities or might be a little bit overlooked compared to a yellow area that have had more solid growth. But if they're right next door, the ripple effect is that people looking in the yellow area who can't find a property will start to look in a green area because the prices haven't moved as much yet.

And do you find, I mean what I've seen sometimes is like for instance Toorak might be a green area but its virtue is the fact that the price point's well over a million dollars. So, you know, it's important then to start really drilling down and finding out why the green areas are green, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the. You find too, that suburbs tend to cluster together. So once you find not always true, but mostly if you find a 500,000 or a 600,000 suburbs, it'll be surrounded by a 700 and a $400,000 suburb. So they don't, you know, they tend to step up, not jump up in terms of value. So that's also useful. That phenomena is also useful when you're looking at the dot map and working out which areas you're going to drill down into, because the drilling down is what takes the time.

And so how would you, looking at your map that you're staring at the moment of Melbourne, how would you start eliminating suburbs? Would you say, you know, red's already taken off, so I'm not looking at red.

Or.

Or is it. It's the yellows with the greens next to it. So the greens is where I'm going to look and half of this green suburb is the median price is over what I want, or it's surrounded by light industrial, or tell me, how are you eliminating suburbs from the dot map? So you're going from 100 suburbs down to maybe the five that you're really going to drill down into.

Yeah, when you first start, there's no great way to do that. It's just to start to do the research. So if you find a cluster of 10 suburbs, my next step personally would be to look at, okay, what is the median price in that area? So what is affordable for me? And then that would be great. And then I'd start drilling down based on that. And if you can get, say, three suburbs, you know, it's different for me now because I've been doing it for so long. I would only drill down into one suburb because it's all I have to do. But, you know, back then, you know, realistically, can I afford here drilling down into three suburbs, and that's going to take, you know, three weekends, work a month's work, and then get it hitting the ground and actually working out whether there is opportunities available there for you for the next month. You know, it's a long process.

And this, I mean, obviously it's not going to take you a month to work out what the median prices are. What are the other things that you're looking at? I think we mentioned before some of the information about days on the market and demographics, how are you drilling down? Tell me the things that you're looking at when you're starting to do that research.

So then the next thing I would look at would be the, the median property and what sort of property is in that median price. I'd be looking on the Internet to work out, okay, so if the median price in this area is 500,000, what do I get for 500,000 in this property? And typically there'll be a cluster of type of property, say a three bedroom, one bathroom brick veneer. A property that will be selling for around the 500,000 mark. And that's then I start drilling down into, okay, where are those properties? And that's when I start, is there a renovation opportunity with that type of property? Are those properties close to public transport? And I get out my checklist and I start to work down that way.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. And I think the really important thing there is, I mean, you know, your buying criteria and your strategy to start with with which means that you want to create equity through renovation. And if you, you know, you tick the box and you go, wow, these are the suburbs that the ripple effect tells me that, you know, I should be looking at tick. And then you go, well it's, you know my, I've been to my, my mortgage broker and, and Medine tells me that I can afford a $500,000 property and this is the median price is $500,000 tick. And then you get in and you, you type in, you know, $500,000 house in, you know, wherever it might be, you know, Toowoomba, I don't know, wherever it is you type, you type in, or Red Hill, you know, you type that in and all of a sudden pops up, you know, these, as you say, the three bedroom, one bathroom brick veneer property. And you're looking at that and you're going, okay, this is, this is great. But these are built in, you know, 1990. The typical house in this suburb is built in 1990. There's no, not that much scope for me to put my renovation potential in there. Then you would say, okay, let's move on to the next suburb. Or you might say, you know, there is enough in this suburb for me to consider keeping it on the list just because there is two or three on the domain or realestate.com that have the potential to become the typical property with a bit of a smart up. So they might be a bit older or whatever.

And look, and there's some areas that Stock available just goes up and down. A classic area for this at the moment in Melbourne is the inner west where it's exactly what you just described. There's not much on the market that's not the median property in those areas is the three bedroom, one bathroom workers cottage or is it two bedroom, one bathroom? Can't remember any. A little workers cottage. And there's not a lot of stock available. People just aren't selling them. But there are, there's a lot of development going on and people are knocking over the falling down workers cottages and putting two townhouses on. And so there's quite a few of those available. I don't think they're necessarily have become the standard in the area and certainly in terms of charm and appeal, I think that the workers cottage definitely have the advantage. So I would wait for a workers cottage but they're just, they're few and far between and you just have to have your alert on and just wait and see what happens.

That's the alert on the website decides.

To sell next, you know, next autumn or whatever, you know.

Okay, well yeah, you've given us a lot of information here. I guess one of the questions that people often ask me is is it time to buy now? Should we wait? Would this technique work now? Does the dot map work now? Obviously we've been through, there was some great growth in the beginning of the, I think people call them the noughties. Wasn't it been in the beginning of the noughties and the 2000s and then we had to slow down and we're back into growth. Can we still use the dot map map? How is this technique still relevant?

It's more relevant than ever given the fact that people have just come through the post global financial crisis years where there was very little growth and to keep us focused on a 10 year growth pattern and what is steady growth despite all of, despite all the, everything that could happen, a global financial crisis. Using a map like this guides you through the difficulties of dealing with that as a property investor.

Especially if your strategy is the buy and hold strategy. Right? Buy and hold strategy means that you want to be in the market possibly for 10 years. So looking back at the last 10 years and you know, having that mindset of we're going to be here for the next 10 years is. It kind of solidifies it, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That's a very good way of looking at it.

And I think the thing is that, I mean you and I are interviewed regularly about, you know, the gosh what can I say, you know, granny flats and NRAs and buying in America and what else have you seen recently? Dual kids, the glamour stuff, you know, get rich quick kind of marketing. And you've already shared some really great tips with us which is ignore the marketing. And I'd go a step further and say ignore the media often as well. But have you seen anyone do the get rich quick strategies? We've talked about the dot map and doing some research and the work involved. Can you circumvent that and create a whole portfolio, not just get it right? Maybe once.

Look, I have seen.

That's it.

I have seen people do some of those strategies maybe once and. But you know, time tells all and at the end of 10 years and there were quite a few investors, including one of those investors who's got, you know, hundreds of properties or whatever and you know, what they've achieved over the last 10 years and you know, the boring buy and renovate and hold in investor had a, you know, 10, started with nothing, had a 10 million dollar portfolio and you know, was worth 5 million and the, you know, buying 200 properties. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Glamour, glamour, glamour person did have, you know, 120 properties or something. The net worth was 1.5 million.

So it's all that, all that work.

And effort and the results are just never good. So.

And I think that when people compare.

Them to the buy and hold, it wins every time.

Exactly. And it's interesting having, you know, I remember speaking, going to a Peter Spann seminar or something once and, and he said someone actually confronted him in one of the seminars when he was talking about all these renovation flips and said what would have happened if you'd kept them? And he went back and did the numbers and never sold again. You know, and I was speaking to someone, one of the course participants the other day and she said that she was at one of those hypey run to the back of the room seminars and the guy on stage said, you know, put your hand up if you got one investment property. And the older lady next to them put her hand up and you know, put your hand up, you've got two. And he went up and there was one guy left who had something like a hundred. And they said, yeah, come up here and tell us about your story. And the guy was maxed out in the LVR and was costing him hundreds of thousands a year. And you know, he was holding on by the skin of his teeth but he was celebrated by the number of properties. And they got to chat to the lady next door and her husband had passed away and left her a commercial property in the city that was returning a quarter of a million dollars a year net profit that was worth like millions of dollars. And I think people concentrate on the number of properties rather than what the passive income it generates for you and the growth opportunities to allow you to get to where you want to go with your goals.

Exactly.

So Medine, I guess the real strategies that we've been through have told us you've come up with some amazing information. We've got little tips like look for the out of area selling agent who doesn't really know the value of the property and do a tart up or a spit and polish and, and the value plus the renovation doesn't always equal equity. You've got to work for it. What else have I got here? The ripple effect is important. You've shared that amazing dot map technique and then how you really narrow down. As I said, I've got hundreds of students at the moment doing the dot map technique and I have people come into my office with their dot maps during a VIP day and we look at not just where they're identifying for future purchases, but we're applying the dot map to their current portfolio and seeing which properties they should get rid of. So it has so many applications and I guess your personal story of the young girl depending on the dad for her financial plan to creating the research and the methodology and believing in yourself and getting that first property out of the way which is often the hardest and going on and building a portfolio that's allowed you to get to your dream home which you're settling on tomorrow. So I'm going to have to let you go and do that. But you know, you've shared so much and I know that you're teaching yourself now you've got a mortgage broking service and you've got the education one property a year. How do people get in contact you if they want to learn more or maybe even buy your dot maps? Are you still selling your dot maps?

Yes, I'm still selling the dot maps and you can get them on my website if you Google Madine Simmons or go to madinesimmons.com or mfsimmons.com lead you all to the same place and you'll be able to find me.

The important thing is you get more value doing it yourself. So I suggest people don't always shortcut it, but desperate times lead to desperate methods.

That's right.

Medine Simmons, thank you so much for your Time today, you have shared some real gems with us and I'm so glad that we can talk through the dot map technique, the strategy that's worked for you and created a huge portfolio for you and I really appreciate you sharing that with all of our listeners. No worries, honey. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. God, it's amazing how many people start in the rat race.

Yeah.

And some people don't even know they're in it.

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

It's like, it's just like, well, it's what dad did or it's what Mum did and it's what my friends do. I, you know, go to school, maybe go to tafe, maybe go to university, get a job and work, work, work until they retire. Yeah.

And I reckon most people have been there at some point, haven't they, racking up those credit card bills and that kind of thing? I mean, some people are still there, but it takes a while to smarten up and actually pay those bills off and try and reduce those debts.

My very first job, when I got my very first paycheck, they actually also gave me a company credit card and they said, you can use it for personal use as well, you just have to pay for it. And I was like, oh, that sounds good. Amazing. Oryton handbag. And I was like, this is amazing. I didn't have to give them cash. I was having those moments. And then about a year later I went, ah. And I was supposed to pay for that and that. So, yeah, I have credit cards under control.

But the thing with that debt too, is it's not. We talk about good debt and bad debt and leverageable debt and non leverageable debt. And credit card debt is non leverageable.

We hate credit card debt. And as a mortgage broker, I particularly hate credit card debt because for every 5,000 limit that people have, they can borrow 20,000 less. So I've had people, I'm reading their fact find and I'm like, why have you got a $50,000 credit card you've paid down each month? They're like, oh, they just keep upping the limit. I'm like, do you realize what this means to your borrowing capacity? But I always made my credit card a debit card, so I needed to have the cash there.

Yeah, I do that these days too. And just, I guess for someone starting out with this kind of stuff, the idea of good debt and bad debt, can you just explain that? Like a house versus a car kind of.

It's interesting. I was Having a conversation with someone today about this. And you know, the thing is, good debt is actually creating you an asset base. So, you know, you're buying a property that's going to go up in value, be it your home or investment property or maybe it's buying art or. I mean, I grew up on a horse racing start and I think a lot of people try to justify the fact that horse racing, horses are a good investment. Not necessarily so, but, you know, bad debt, like credit card debt and the doodads that people buy, the jet Ski, the, you know, the next set of shoes, you know, all of those things, they're not adding asset value to you. And the new car, you know, you drive it out of the showroom, you lose, you know, 10% of the value. So those, those are considered to be bad debt. They're not adding to your net worth. Yeah, I guess the thing about Madane, though, is that she had that kind of transformational moment when she went, hang on a second, this is not right. I don't want to be working these hours. I'm not getting to where I want to be. And, and her dad's illness obviously gave her a real awakening to the fact that she needed to create something for herself so she could protect herself too. You know, Medine saw her dad get ill, but she also saw that he had the financial resources behind him that gave, that made such a difference to not having to worry about money as well whilst she was concentrating on trying to get better. So, you know, and it gives you kind of that fragility of life.

Yeah, it gives it context, doesn't it? It's not just a kind of big goal of being filthy rich. It actually, when it comes down to it, you need some money behind you too. I mean, in my case at the moment, I'm helping out with my parents who are elderly, and I've seen exactly the same thing as Medine talked about. They've got private cover and the difference in care just when we've ended up at a public hospital occasionally is quite stark. So you certainly think about yourself ageing and what kind of situation you'd want yourself to be in. And probably a good thing to have a few resources behind you.

Yep, I agree. So I think that turning point for Medine was something that really resonated with me in her story. But, you know, and she did, she had a huge turnaround.

Yeah, I mean, amazing story from going from knowing nothing about property to, you know, and she developed that dot map before she even started where that even come From, I don't think we quite got to the bottom of whether you just woke up thinking about it or what. I think probably part of it was choosing the 10 year growth. Cause it's, it's almost counterintuitive in a way. Everyone always wants to go for the, you know, the last year or the last three years kind of thing to try and work out what the suburbs doing, but she was, she resisted that and went for the 10 year growth, which is annual growth averaged over 10 years. And that irons out those bumps and everything.

Variability due to economic changes.

Yeah, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And we talked to John Edwards. Yeah, John Edwards from Residex, I remember about that very thing. And he was saying, yeah, and if you had the choice, you'd use the 20 year growth. So she's right on track from the very start, wasn't she?

Oh, absolutely. She, she took action and she's saying she probably didn't do all the research that we would, you know, tell people that they have to do. Didn't even have a pest and building inspection or a building inspection.

Yeah, but first time around she did pretty good.

But the fact of the matter is she took action. You know, she, she located a good suburb, she located a good property with obviously opportunity for improvement through renovation in that suburb. And she took action. And a lot of people, even if she made a few mistakes and you know, went over budget just a little bit, you know, by $5,000 for her renovation, you know, and I talk to a lot of people and go, oh, I'd rather not make a mistake. I don't want to go backwards where in actual fact, if you do nothing, you often are going backwards.

The biggest mistake of all. Yeah.

So the fact she took action, she did something, she then renovated, you know, she painted, she carpeted, she made those improvements and then she had it revalued, you know, she had that opportunity then to create exchange equity for herself and move on. So.

And then she finished the, the property and gets the first valuer in, which was a bit of a debacle.

And you don't know what you don't know, right?

Yeah, that's right. But isn't that like, I've seen that before too? And I always think that's such lazy, lazy practice from a valuer to do just get the, the purchase cost and add the renovation costs.

Voila.

Yeah. Because who's to say the renovation cost has added value at all in the first place?

Or the fact that they actually bought under market.

Yeah, that's Right. So there's no relation between those things and what the market will pay for the property.

And, you know, we've got the three prong strategy and the Trident strategy. Two of those prongs is renovate to add value and buy under the market. So there's two opportunities. Then when we renovate, we try to make at least $2 for every dollar we spend. So straight away, you know, she's negotiated well because she's got the out of agent, out of area agent. So she's buying under market, she's renovating well and adding value. And the agents, the valuer's not seeing that. So, you know, she's lost, in theory, lost 2 of the value adds that she could have had in the Trident strategy.

Yeah.

But having said that, go medine back to herself, back to self, forked out another 600 bucks or so for a new valuation and step back when the new valuer came in and said, tell me what it's worth. You know, just coming back to the dot map technique itself, you know, low cost to getting to. In actual fact, I know people who have printed out maps themselves on their own, their own computer.

But yeah, well, you could sticky tape a bunch of A4s together if you wanted to.

It's easy.

Easy cost you nothing.

We recommend you go to mapworks in Essendon and Victoria or Map Centre in Parramatta only because they know our students, they know what you want. But get a Hemma map, H E M M A map. And start dotting now for your dots you can use if you want a highlighter, but I'd recommend that you get your map plasticized first because you can use laminated. Yeah, laminated. So you can, you can actually write on it as well if you want to. And buy the quarter inch translucent dots. So just get a multicolored dot, just see through them. Yeah, and just start dotting.

So, yeah, and Jane, I'm going to stick a video up underneath the podcast page so YourPropertySuccess.com EP9 and there'll be a video there of Jane going through the map exercise, just in case you.

Missed it from the podcast and couldn't visualize it. There's a video as well.

There's a video there too.

So, you know, I was looking recently at your investment property magazine and I was looking at the top 2017 predicted suburbs. So they had seven experts come together and they've put all their, you know, intellectual property and knowledge together across Australia and came up with the top hundred suburbs. And I looked at the list that they came up with with the top 100. And I compared it to the list that we came up to come out. Came up with in the suburb hotspotting workshops. And I think we did two in Sydney, two in Brisbane and three in Melbourne in 2016. And we did these dot maps with, with our students on that day. And I looked at all of the, the dot maps and that, you know, the suburbs that came up with a 2% increment of growth, so, you know, between 6% and 4%. So we're looking at the suburbs that have had 6% growth and the neighboring suburbs with 4% growth. So the 2% increment. And all of our suburbs appeared on the list.

Nice.

A year before they.

Beautiful.

Obviously, the 2017 list for your investment property, top 100 suburbs. But we then filtered them even further and further down to percentage of renters.

And yield and vacancies, which is what Medine does. She starts with her dot map because she doesn't want to drill down and do all of that stuff before she's got a short list. And the dot map gives her her short list. So it's, it's not, and I guess it's a, probably a good time to say it's not the be all and end all. You don't just do the dot map and buy the property, but it's the, it's the starting point. And then you start the process of elimination further.

Absolutely. And you're getting from maybe those 10 suburbs on the DOT map down to the three through the analysis that really, you know, you do the DEMOC geographic studies and look at the amenities and, you know, the proximity to public transport and infrastructure and, you know, low vacancies and high tenants, you know, requirements, et cetera. So percentage of renters and what the typical properties. I mean, there's all those filters you're putting for her.

It's just ticking her way through the.

Checklist and you come up with a few suburbs. And I know that our community particularly loves the dot map. We've been teaching Madine's technique for many years now.

We swiped it about five years ago.

And Madine knows that. With Madine's permission, we actually had Leslie turn up to our September Sydney hotspotting workshop and she turned up with five dot maps. So she'd done Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Blue Mountains and Newcastle. And poor Leslie when she arrived, we're like, no, no, we told you we'll do the dot map with you within the first 40 minutes because there'll be a groups of us doing this. She said no, but I really wanted to show you how much I love it and I wanted to do it. So.

Didn't you make the other guys feel bad?

I know.

And, and they were all taking photos of Newcastle and Blue Mountain, so she added a lot of value and wow. I think she's probably our premium star dot mapper. We love the dot map technique. I love it. So you can contact Medine or hear more about what she's up to@www.madeensimmons.com. and yeah, like another amazing, amazing episode today, John. I just, I mean I've known Medine for years but it's so lovely to hear the entire story and everything that she has done and you know, came down for it from a simple, I guess a change of life kind of experience that, that took her to developing a technique that has now become the foundation of her property portfolio and of many of our students. So, you know, it's a fabulous, a fabulous takeaway. So I hope that everyone's enjoyed today and with some trepidation, I worry about what's coming next.

It's now time for Suburbs against the Clock.

Yes, it's that time again where you get the chance to test your suburb knowledge while the entire nation holds its breath. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to play Suburbs against the Clock. The rules are simple to play. All you have to do is answer a question about 10 suburbs in the city of your choice. Within 20 seconds, the lucky winner of the Suburbs against the Clock will win one year's free access to your Property Success Club. Your Property Success Club is an in depth monthly masterclass which gives you the practical tools needed to grow your portfolio yourself without having to spend a fortune on expensive seminars or even leaving your own home. So who do we have standing by to play Suburbs against the Clock?

Hello, Lisa.

Hey, Lisa.

Hi, how are you? How are you? Good, good, good. I'm at an unfair advantage here.

Tell us.

I've got my 12 week old baby with me. She's listening in very intently.

Oh my gosh. You know what, we are all for educating early, but I think this is probably one of our youngest students ever.

Hey, that's awesome.

What's her name? Lisa.

Aria.

Oh, wow. Aria. Beautiful.

So where are you calling from, Lisa?

Melbourne.

Oh, Melbourne too. There you go.

Fabulous.

What stage are you at at the moment, Lisa, in your property Investing?

We're starting out.

We're looking to buy our first investment property.

We own our home and we absolutely.

Need to take the plunge and start.

This and have you been thinking about doing this for a while?

Yes. So we probably started about a year.

And a half ago researching and learning.

And educating ourselves as best we could. The last six months has been interesting.

With the birth of a little one.

But getting there, getting there.

And we're just trying to get our.

Heads back into the game, I guess.

Good on you for getting back into it so soon.

One of the big ones.

Thanks.

Okay, so you're clear on the rules, Lisa. So you've got 10 suburbs to come up with in 20 seconds.

Okay.

And my question for you is name 10 Melbourne suburbs that are outside 20 kilometres from the CBD.

Craigieburn, Roxbury Park, Greenvale, Atwood, West Meadows, Broadmeadows, Mernda, Mill Park.

I've lost count.

South Meringue, Greensborough in 10 seconds.

Oh my gosh. That was so fast. That was fabulous. I got to 10.

Definitely the count is still going.

Oh my.

Awesome. Thank you.

That is amazing.

You deserve to. But you could have got another 10.

Yeah, we could have given you another question. 10 suburbs. 10 seconds rather than 10 suburbs.

Maybe we should ask two questions from now on.

In actual fact, I reckon we're going to have to put you as our grand champion of suburbs against the clock. Everyone has to beat your 10 second time frame. Well, Lisa, we're going to get you access to a 12 month subscription to your property success club. So in the next 12 months, you'll be getting one course a month to really give you all that information that you need to get you to that first property. So we could get you to a whole lot sooner.

Plus the community. Yeah.

So. Oh, that's just great. Well, there you go. Aria really helped out. You're gonna have to bring her along next time as well. Yes, she's my lucky charm.

Yeah.

Fabulous.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thanks, Lisa.

Fantastic. Thanks so much.

And if you would like to test your knowledge in the best suburb quiz in Australia, simply email supportourpropertysuccess.com and use the subject line suburbs against the clock. And you can also give us some suggestions.

And we're getting some emails, people with suggestions, so keep them coming. Well, John, that is it for today. A huge thank you to today's fabulous guest, Madine Simmons. Now, if you'd like instant access to the transcript script, plus get access to some free training, that video of me doing the dot map, we have that for our community and all of the show notes and links to everything mentioned in today's show. So Simply go to www.yourpropertysuccess.com ep9 that's YourPropertySuccess.com the letter E for Echo, P for Papa, and the number nine. So that's all for today. Stay safe and as always, here's to your property success.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's important for you to understand that you need to take care in applying what you've heard on this podcast to your own personal circumstances. Everyone's situation is different, and while we go to great length to ensure that everything we share is accurate, the information in today's podcast was based on personal experiences and opinions and is not intended to be specific to your circumstances. We are not real estate agents, financial planners, lawyers or accountants and are not liable for any loss, damage or misunderstanding caused by reliance on any information provided or inferred. We highly recommend you seek out the services of a professional or mentor to help chart your own path to property success.

Sam.