17: From Apprentice to Master - Lessons In Bold Action with Andrew Morello

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. She was once confronted by an angry woman who screamed, stay away from my husband and stay away from Jane Slacksmith.

Who are you?

Oh, my goodness. That is true. Oh, no, that is true. So when you find yourself as the only female working with 300 men underground. Yeah, let's just say we all look the same when we're covered in coal. So, you know, but having said that, having said that, I had nothing to do with anyone's husband. And I think the fact that being a girl working in an underground mine and it was just unusual that there was a female in the workforce, that this young lady had some worries. And yes, I found myself in the toilet roll area of the supermarket being pushed in there going, stay away. Stay away from my husband and stay away from me. And I was like, okay, I don't know who you or your husband are, but I'm good. And you're safe. He's safe, he's safe. You know what they say in Alaska?

What's that?

The odds are good, but boy are the goods odd. Kind of sums up being a female in the mining industry. Mind you, that was way back then, 25 years ago. I'm sure it's all different today.

Sure, sure.

They'd look less odd today, is that what you're saying?

Anyhow, a big welcome to your property Success podcast and episode 17. We appreciate you taking the time to join us today and what a great guest we have today. John.

Yes, people might know today's guest as the winner of the reality TV show called the Australian Apprentice, which itself is no mean feat, Jane. But he's got a few other strings to his bow, this guy too.

Well, doesn't he just. He is an entrepreneur, a real estate agent, an auct and experienced property investor and all at the ripe old age of 31.

What have we been doing with our time?

I know, I'm worn out just thinking about it. Look, his name is Andrew Morello and there are so many questions I'd like to ask him. Like how did he start his first business at 14? How did he start his property portfolio at 19? And look, he's got a portfolio today. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. He's an award winning auctioneer. So I want to know what it takes to be a good auctioneer, but also for U.S. buyers. What does it take to stop a good auctioneer in their tracks? Of course, we have got to go behind the scenes of that TV show, the Apprentice and find out did he have a strategic plan to win and what is it actually like on a reality TV show. I also know that winning this show has had a massive impact on his life. So I'd like to hear about that, where he is today, his advice for new investors, those just starting out, especially in the middle of the current changes in the Australian property market. So don't go anywhere, stick around, because we have another huge show for you coming up with today's wonderful guest, Andrew Morello. Andrew, a very warm welcome to your Property Success podcast.

Well, Jane, first of all, thanks for having me. It's all very exciting. It was great that our paths have crossed.

So can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what were some of your early influences?

So I grew up in place called Moonee Ponds. Our family came to Australia in 1956 on the boats from Italy, and we settled in North Melbourne, Moonee Ponds, pretty early. And it's been an amazing place. A good balance between humility and opportunity. And it's still, still that place, which is a great thing as well. And it's very exciting to always be back in Melbourne and to be here today with you, too.

And tell me, what kind of life did your parents have in Italy before they came here? What was the opportunities they saw?

Well, my parents came out as children to Australia. So post war, under probably not so positive policy that Sir Robert Menzies had, which was the white Australia policy. But under that policy, the Italians and Greeks were brought out to Australia and they did build a lot of what you see now in Melbourne and Sydney and other places around Australia and build a great base for the next generation of Italo Australians or European Australians. But very, very humble beginnings. My grandfather came here with nothing, and my father and mother were children when they first got here. My mum had probably quite a difficult life. Both her parents passed away and my father probably didn't have the best of role models, even though my grandfather tried his best and my grandmother tried their best. But they really had to be the captains of their own fate and the masters of their own destiny. And anyone who's met my dad, John Morello, on the corner of Pascavar Road and Buckley Street, Mooney Ponds, over the last 47 years will know that he's a great man who's given a lot back to the community, given a lot back to Australia and certainly calls Australia home and not Italy. And I always say to him, when are you going to go buy a place in Sicily so I can come visit? He goes, why would I do that when I live in the greatest country in the world? So we're very patriotic about being Australian.

It's amazing, isn't it, you know, looking at that kind of family generational journey, how you can actually, you can make that choice to break from the, I guess the past and you haven't had those role models that you can actually create your own destiny, which is obviously what you did. Dad did with the servo.

Yes.

And he gave you your first job.

He did, he did. It was either job or slave labor. One of the two, James, I'm pretty sure in the Morello family, that's where you have to cut your teeth in business. So, as I said, it's still there today. The corner of Pascavara Road and Buckley Street. Mooney Ponds. It was an amico for anyone old enough to remember.

Oh, my goodness.

And then it became. It's a BP now, but, yeah, I was sort of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 39 months old and $5 a day. And it was from 7, 8 in the morning till 10, 11 o' clock at night. And that was school holidays. Yeah. 6, 6, 7 days a week, which was quite an interesting childhood, I can assure you.

What were your mates doing at that same time? Were they.

Well, the funny thing was, is that they would all come visit on the way down to Queen's Park Pools on Pascal Road and on a hot Summer's Day at 34 degrees, while I was cleaning petrol pumps and my dad shout them all an icy pole. But, yeah, and then tell me to get back to work. So I was like, yeah, that's really good.

Did he make you pay for the icy pole?

He didn't, no. He used to shout the boys. And I'm sure if you came with me, Jane, he'd show you an orange juice.

You're on, you're on.

It's pretty good like that, you know.

That kind of work ethic. And we see that from a lot of people who have come from overseas and made Australia their own. And we still see that today. You know, has that been the drive that you have had? Because, I mean, you're 31 and quite frankly, I'm exhausted when I. When I talk to you every time you're doing something, I'm thinking, I thought I was busy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think dad was a Great role model. He's always been doing something, even now he's nearly 69 and he, he acts like he's going to live to 150 and probably will just despite me, actually. So I'm like, you know, you should go and sell some things and travel and have a good time. And he always used to say, I'm doing it for you kids. And then, then when us kids didn't need it, he's like, oh, now I'm doing it for the grandkids. So I'm trying to get him to retire if anyone can convince him to have a service station. But he let a look. It's a bit of a challenge because what happens is they came from. So they dedicate their whole life to providing a better future for their family and then they get stuck in their. In their ways. And they didn't have big educations and neither mum or dad finished high school. So it was. So for them, it's the simplicity of just working hard and providing for your family gave them a lot of nourishment. When the reality is, in a modern world, you probably need nourishment more than just from physical things, but also mentally, spiritually and emotionally. And so what happens is you need to watch what they do and learn and be grateful that they're great role models for work ethic and being good people. But then at the same time, if you're going to live in a modern world, in a modern relationship with a modern woman and modern children, I don't know how conducive that lifestyle would be to maintain any sort of a relationship with them.

It's so important to have that balance, isn't it?

It is now. Definitely.

Absolutely. Well, reflecting back now, how do you think your drive to achieve differs from your parents?

Yes. So I believe they come from a cult where if you just work hard, everything will be okay. I actually don't think that works anymore. You know, I do a lot of social work and volunteer work out in Western Sydney and out in Western Melbourne. So where you see these people that are starting out and if you just work hard now and you don't seek some, you know, basic good advice, or you don't do your research, or you don't get involved in your future, then you work hard your whole life and you'll be stuck. Like the generation of my parents was the Last of the Mohicans, where if you just worked hard, it all worked out in the end.

Because time was forgiving.

Correct? It was now, obviously, because the amount of money you make versus, you know, how expensive your mortgage is or how, you know, expensive your lifestyle is. And just the pressures of, you know, the current modern lifestyle, you really need to be smarter and work smarter around the commitments that you're making. So that's the big change. You need to educate yourself now. You need to surround yourself with good.

People, good knowledgeable people, allow you kind of that jump start so you don't have to make the same mistakes. So once you finished that at the service station, what was next for you?

So obviously growing up it was funny because when I was in primary school at San Monica's and Moonee Ponds, people would say, oh, we're going to Disneyland, like in America, in America, in la. And I'd be like, as a family. And I'd be like, how are you doing that? Who's gonna run your dad's business? Yeah, so like as like a 6, 7 year old, I couldn't understand the concept that people worked for other people and they got four weeks paid leave.

Right.

So when like my mates would go, yeah, we're going to Disneyland, I'm like, that's impossible. Who's gonna run your dad's business for four weeks? So my brain was, was wired a particular way, very young for entrepreneurialism and self employment. So when I was working for my dad, $5 a day, there was no inflation either, by the way. It didn't go up incrementally with CPI.

Annually or anything, just longer hours as you grow older.

Yeah, correct, correct. But so what happened was I got a job briefly at a place called Hannah's Sport in Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds. And there was a nightclub on the corner called One One Bar. And I had an idea to take the blue light discos out of the town hall that nobody used to go to because they were in the town hall and the police used to run.

Them and the lights were always on really bright.

And I found a grey area in the law, the legislation at the time, Victorian state law, that said that if you remove all the alcohol from a licensed venue, you can actually put miners in there, but all the alcohol needs to be removed.

Wait a second, how old were you at this stage?

I was 14.

And you did some research on the liquor laws of nightclubs? Cool.

I'm very good at finding grey area.

Was this before Google? Like, where do you find this information?

Yeah, yeah, I worked with a couple of guys that had tried to do something in the southeastern suburbs. And so we knew that there was something there, but we just needed the right person to look for it. And then we went to the council, said what the mistake people had made in the past is they didn't get the police or the councils involved. So I got the schools, the police, the councils, the state government, I got everyone involved. And we got a government grant from a beautiful lady named Carol Espinosa, who's the mother of some good friends of mine, the Volpe Boys. And she believed in this idea. And we turned, at 14, 15 years old, we turned one bar into a youth dance party place. And yeah, that was the beginning of self employment for me. It was called Angel Promotions. The strap line was class style prestige. And I'm going to show you, there was not much class style or prestige there, but the idea was there.

So you were going from the service station and then going and running class style prestige prestige events.

Yeah.

Talk about looking to the future. And when did you sell that?

So I was 19 when we transitioned it into overage events. And my cousin still. I ran it with my cousin Anthony and he's still quite big. He runs most of Melbourne's events now. So he continued in that industry. And then at 17, when I finished school, I moved into real estate. So 18, I was at Compton and Green in Williamstown.

And when you just started that business, did I hear that you also got a government grant to start the business as well?

Yeah. Yes. I did my first capital raise when I was 14.

Unbelievable. So this is something now that people are just looking at and I know that you've got a business opportunity now for capital raising, but you started this, you know, at 14?

Yeah, well, it was actually my, my father, I think, tried to reverse engineer me to. So he said, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to run nightclubs. And this is the, this is good parenting. So my parents never told me I can't do something good. So they went, okay, how are you going to do it? But I think my dad thought by getting me to go through the process that I'll talk myself out of it. And I did this like mini budget and needed like 10 grand. And he's like, okay, where are you going to get the money from? I thought maybe he would give me the money, considering he told me to do a budget. And then he said, no, I'm not going to give it to you. So I thought, where am I going to get it from? My mate goes, look, my mum runs the events for the council, you should go speak to her. And I remember putting on my St. Bernard's School uniform. I never worn it Properly in my life. And I tie, button up, tie done, you know, school shoes on instead. I used to wear runners with my school uniform that I used to get told off. My white, crisp, white shirt, you know, my blazer on, looking a million dollars. I went and pitched to her for like an hour. I just spoke straight in at the end. She goes, you had me after five minutes, you didn't have to keep talking. And she goes, you're doing me a favor because if you run this event, you make me look good. So, yeah, Carolyn, she gave me my first go and I'm still really close with her sons. I emceed one of her son's weddings. Her other son stay at my house. So she's got four boys and I'm close with all of them. And one of them went into this industry. He runs all the venues at Crown Casino now.

Unbelievable. So you've created a legacy for that family as well?

Yeah, well, they're like my other brothers. So I've got my brother John and then we've got another guy who's our, like, we call him our Muslim brother, grew up with us. He's 17 and my mum always cooks separate food for him.

Oh, sweet.

So for 17 years he's been coming for dinner every week. And then we've got the Volpe brothers, which are other brothers.

Oh, my gosh. Big, big extended family. Very characteristic of those European backgrounds, isn't it? So, so tell me, what did you do with that money?

So that's effectively where I originally got my first deposit for my first home. It's probably not a nice segue in. So I bought my first property in sort of 1819, which was just a little one bedroom.

What did your mate say when you said, I've got some money, I'm going to buy a property?

Well, first of all, when you start making money at that age, there's a lot of tall poppy syndrome. So the mistake I made as a young boy was showing my friends how much money I make because you want to show off to them. So if there's anyone young watching this, don't tell your friends how much money you make. And it was funny because, look, we grew up in Moonee Ponds, which was quite a colorful place back then, and the only people that were making money were guys doing not so colorful things, not so noble things. Yeah. So they, you know, at the end of the day, that's what they, you know, they're like, oh, you know, you're like, you know, you should live that sort of a lifestyle. I'm like, well, no, guys, that's the mistake everybody makes. So when you say you're gonna buy a property, I think they look, we all come from Europe, a lot of us came from European families. So it was quite normal. So I just thought owning 10 properties was normal. Like, you know, my dad did that. So I thought we'd grew up Saturday morning going to, you know, clean out one of the rental properties. So we thought that was what you just did, you know, going to auctions every week and, and I watched my brother in his real estate career. So for me it was normalized. So it's, you know, it's, it's funny when I get a chance to sit with people in their 30s or 40s that are buying their first property and, you know, they're quite anxious about it, which I understand. I empathize and I understand. But I was very lucky that it was just normalized for me. And I went, okay, well, just, just buy the first one and keep going.

Because it is quite a, I guess, a common characteristic that you find of people who come to Australia with nothing. That property really becomes their 1 goal. I've got to get the family home. Your dad took that a step further with buying investment properties as well. And what do you think motivated him to do that?

Well, that's a great question, Jane, actually, because I put a lot of thought into this. So when I was a child, my father would always drive home a very odd way. And he drove a 70, still owns it, by the way. A 77 Statesman Caprice with a vinyl roof. He still owns it, doesn't get out much. Beautiful, sits in the garage. It's always registered and it's always road worthy. But he only drives it like twice a year. But when we were young, he drove it all the time. And on the way home my father would drive. Let's say we're at a family functioning. Like back in the day, there was a thing called La Mirage, which was a very ethnic European style reception centre out in Camberfield on the Hume Highway. And we'd drive home and my dad would drive all the way up to Kensington, through the back streets of Kensington, up through Flemington, down Ascodevale, up to Essendon, cut back across Buckley street into the service station, past the junction where his other service station was, and then into the back streets of Moonee Ponds, then back to, back to home. And when you're like, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10, you just want to go home, it's midnight. But what was happening was two things. One, it was checking out his properties, like the old school European, making sure everything was all safe and good. And look, we did used to get broken into a lots of service stations. It was quite common that they would get ram raided in the middle of the night with stolen. It's still quite common now. So I knew my dad had that in his background. But what I realized he was doing was he was validating his hard work. And if you look at the sort of the subconscious mentality behind a property investor, behind that European mentality, what he was doing was obviously he didn't have the sort of parents that said, I love you and I'm proud of you. He didn't have a high school degree or a master's or a bachelor or a doctorate up on the wall like most people do these days. They can look at what they've accomplished that's up on the wall in a form of a certificate to validate what, you know, their hard work. So what my father did was we'd be in the rear view mirror, the three children, my brother, my sister and I would be asleep. He'd be looking in the rearview mirror, driving his 77 Statesman Caprice past these properties that he bought. And it was his validation. And no one there was there to tell him, but to say, you know what, you worked really, really hard and you know, you've accomplished a lot and you're creating a better future for your children. And that's, in my opinion, you know, what he was doing. And I've spoken to him later on about that, and he was. It was his validation. So it's, you know, like the properties for him were an opportunity for someone to say, you know what, I'm proud of you and you've done really, really well. And they're obviously his legacy because that's.

Really why we all get into properties. And it's that legacy and that security and that kind of, I'm okay and the family's okay and we're good.

Yeah. And if something happened to me tomorrow, that'd be okay. So, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Well.

Well, there you go. He was a lot more sentimental than he puts on my father. You're not going to get too many I love yous or I'm proud of you. But he'll. He'll show you in different ways. He might say it to you, actually. He sends it to people.

Oh, that's it. I'm going to the bp. So let's go back now to that very first property. You had the money. You decide to bank it because it was just part of what you knew that was creating wealth. You bought a one bedroom unit.

Yes.

Tell me about that. And how did you find it?

Yeah, just while I'd just gone into real estate and I'd been around Moonee Ponds for a long time. So at 19. 19, yeah.

Yeah.

So I've been. So we grew up in Moonee Ponds and I'd ride my bike around as a kid and go watch my brother call auctions in the area. So him another guy, Lou Rendina, if anyone's ever seen him, call an auctioneer. Very good auctioneer.

And Lou's been there forever. I know. Living in Kensington, 1997. Lou was there.

Well, my brother started his career with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and then this is John. John, yeah. And then John at 21 left Lou to start his own business. Yeah, originally he was going to buy into Lou's business and then that didn't work out. So, you know, it's in our blood to be self employed.

Yep.

So I grew. I was lucky that I'd done sort of the research beforehand and was able to make some pretty easy decisions. That property was the way to go.

So what was the characteristic about that property that was. Right.

I'm a big fan of sort of 1950s style, old school, solid brick apartment blocks with eight apartments, no lifts, you know, double story. So it was, you know, eight apartments and they're just, it's, it's easy. Like they're still good buys now they, they val up always with the banks because they're existing stock, they're very low maintenance, low strata fees. Yeah. And I'm a big advocate for them, like for getting into property, you know, as long as the strata's in order and you can have a look at, it's probably worth investing in a building report just to check if there's any sort of concrete cancer. Look through the past strata notes and so forth, or your solicitor or conveyancer camp. But they're just great little buys, you know, like I tell people, you can still buy something in Moonee Pond's little one bedroom that's solid brick in a Palmer block with either 8 or 12. Now they don't look, they're not, they're not that.

They're not pretty, are they?

They're not pretty but they never potatoes, they do good, they never lose value. So like they're the only ones that when the, you know, and we've started to see it now that they, the valuations aren't stacking up with the apartment stock in Melbourne and that's the off the plan. Off the plan. Correct. So. And as much as that continues to happen, you know, through the cyclical periods, the existing 1950s post war stock just seems to work. I'm a big fan of the art deco stuff too. The one I bought in Bondi on the beachfronts. Art deco. And I bought that 725, six years ago and it just got valued at mid one. So like, you know, you can't go now. People go, it's because it's the beachfront, but it's also because it's solid brick. It's not going anywhere. It's nearly 100 years old. And it'll be there for another 100.

Years with the next subway past there. No, I'm not gonna go there. Okay, so to that first unit. $300,000.

Yep.

Back in.

So was that I'd be 19. So you work out the math on 31 now. So is that 12 years ago?

Okay. And how much would it be worth now? You still have it, I gather.

I do.

You're not a seller.

Yeah, so I'm not a seller for. It's probably 465 now, but it just, it yields really well.

Just.

Or they always rent.

No pain, just rent it out. Everyone's really good. So I guess the next question that I want to know is when did you then decide to go into the next property and start building that portfolio? Were you kind of building your career at that time as well and investing in that, or did you do it simultaneously?

So I got into real estate at 18 with Compton and Green in Williamstown. Okay. So it took me about three and a half, four years to get the second property. Partly my lifestyle kicked in, I'm not gonna lie. So if someone said to me, what are some of the things you've Learned?

What's a 21 year old boy do?

Go buy expensive cars. Go on some expensive trips. Short, expensive trips. Especially because when you, when you start making money, you decide to.

You decide I deserve something.

You do. And the problem is with property, like what I said before, it's like being self employed. Even when I worked for a tribute, Butera in Compton and Green, you're self employed if you're not around. It's out of sight, out of mind. So they'll list with other people and you go on these one and a half week trips and you would just give it a solid nudge because you knew that you couldn't go on those six week or two month backpacking around Europe like your mates. Were doing. So. Yeah, because they're all at uni.

Exactly, yeah.

So they could do that and you.

Were working but you had the money and they didn't.

Right, correct.

So when you started, what did you see when you looked around the property industry and what did you decide to do differently?

So I was very lucky. My first mentor and boss was a guy named Adrian Butera in Williamstown, who. So I'll tell you actually a little secret. I don't know if I've said this in an interview before, but I actually never wanted to be a real estate agent.

Oh, you got to tell us more about that.

I wanted to be an auctioneer. So. Yeah. So in Sydney and Queensland you can be an auctioneer. So like there's an auctioneer, it's separate business and separate entity. Generally they go and bring in external auctioneers to auction the properties. And my brother explained to me as a kid, he's like, if you want to be an auctioneer, then you better learn how to list. Because most guys that list their own properties auction their own properties as a form of prospecting.

Right.

So excuse me. So my brother goes, you better learn how to listen. I was 16 and I remember he sent me to my first professional development seminar which was with a guy named Nick lynch who brought Harcourts to Australia, used to own MPRE down in Mornington Peninsula. And I went to 16 years old and I went to it at Moonee Valley Racecourse in my school uniform and negotiated with my parents that I would go till midday, then I would go to school for the last part of the day. But I never got to school, I just stayed.

What did they think of a 16 year old in school uniform turning up?

He loved it. Nick loved it. Because see, I sat front row and then as a speaker because now I'm also a corporate speaker. You always find someone you can have a bit of fun with in the crowd and you know, to break the. Break the ice sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. And Nick, he loved the fact there was a schoolboy in the front row and he gave me extra bit of extra attention and stayed in touch and everything after that.

And what did you take from that?

Well, I already was. I wanted to be an auctioneer and I was already exposed to people like Lou Rendina who was a top performer at the time and. And Brad Thiel who has been around a long time, and my brother. So I was exposed to all these sort of top performers in our sort of town anyway, so I already had a good base and I used to go door knocking and letterbox dropping for my brother. So Nick lynch probably cemented that I was going in the right path. And then I just wanted to be an auctioneer. So at 18, I became an auctioneer. I competed in the Novice Auctioneers Comp at the Real Estate Institute of Victoria. I came number one for the Northwest region. I came number two for Victoria. I lost to a girl, Sophie Houston, who now is at Jealous Craig. So we're all on the same team now.

Go Sophie.

Yeah, go Sophie. But she doesn't call auctions anymore. I was like, but you do. I do.

I see you on Facebook live calling auctions. Well, tell me the drama around auctions, you know, for people who. From the other side, you know, as vendors, you know, they definitely want to have that fierce competition. How do you create that as an auctioneer?

I think a great auctioneer makes the big difference in the price that you pay.

It's true.

So I'm sorry, for anyone who's buying.

Right now, we might get some tips for buyers as well.

Yeah, yeah, don't buy an auction from me. There's a tip from mine or from my brother or from probably Lou and Dina also. But what it is, it's a balance between empathy and respect for the buyers whilst doing your job and working for the vendor who's paying you. And you get a lot of frustration from buyers, especially in the hot market, which we've been a part of recently in Melbourne and in Sydney, you get a lot of upset. Buyers that have spent money on building inspections, especially when it's the family home they're looking to buy and they've gone very emotionally 200,000 over what they wanted to do. But what I explained to them is, I explained that as the auctioneer and the agent, we're employed by the vendor and one day, when you want to sell, we'll do the exact same thing for you, sir or madam, you know, so, you know, I try and say that with as much love and empathy as possible and I've missed out. You know, I've been. I've been at an auction and I bid at an auction. I bought the house on the left of my mum and dad and bought that off Nelson Alexander at auction. And I can tell you they would have loved it. They knew we owned the properties on the side, so they stretched that out as long as they could. They knew I was the buyer, even though I used somebody else first. And then I decided to kick in at one stage. So to my mate, stop bidding. I'm going to bid now. And I Cracked it and started bidding. And so look, I've been, I've been on the side of the frustration as well. It's just, it's a reality of the beast. And the great thing about him is it's the most honest and transparent way to buy real estate because at least, you know, it's, you know, what you're paying is what you're paying. You don't get into a Dutch auction afterwards. And I think Australia and the Real Estate Institute of Victoria and governing bodies have done a really good job legitimising auctions. There's big fines for anyone who does anything untoward these days. So I think that's a good thing and continue to relegate and regulate the industry because it creates a really good transparent way for people to do things.

Is it, you know, before the actual auction, the auctioneer's given a kind of indication of what the reserve is and I imagine the sales team has been around and contacted everyone making sure they're going to turn up. Do you walk up to the front of that building knowing that there's people in the crowd going to buy or is there always. There's something that just happens?

Look, I've called a thousand auctions, you still get those butterflies just before you start because you're wondering, well, look, I enjoy the process. Now my auction mentor, Adrian Butera, who was a well accomplished auctioneer as well he, an award winning auctioneer, he taught me that you do auctions for full parties and you know, I'm like, what do you mean? Don't we just do it for the person? Selling is like, no, that's number one to the vendor. Number two is the purchaser, so obviously to be respectful. And number three is yourself and the agency, so who you're representing. And number four is prospective buyers. So what prospective sellers. So I learned pretty early that whether there's going to be a buyer or not, it was my, my, I suppose, obligation to do the right thing by the vendor and give it 110% whether there's buyers or not. And in Victoria we don't register buyers. So in New South Wales, you know, if there's any registered buyers. But in New South Wales, a lot of the auctioneers, if there's no registered buyers, don't call the auction. And I actually think it's a bit of a copper, especially if they're being paid for it. Yeah, hopefully none of them hear this but if they're being paid for and there's no registered bidders, they just rock up and they walk up and they say, ladies and gentlemen, we've got no registered bidders. And I'm like, well, because people can register and buy anyway anywhere up until you pass the property in. And I think, well, you've been employed to do a job, go out there and do it. Because you don't know. You might convince somebody during your spiel or during your education on the property or during the auction process, you might bring that person to say, you know what, why don't I have a go? But in Victoria there's no registered bidder. So often even in a good economy, in a good market like we've had you get out, there's a big crowd and it's always a slow start as well. Like you would have seen some of them on Facebook live. Like you got to put in a vendor bid still but the thing sells for 100 grand over reserve and you're like no one wanted to put their hand up.

You know, it's funny you say you never know when someone's going to turn up. We had one of our students that came to our workshops, he was a 19 year old apprentice driving through Yarraville and he wondered what all the people were crowding around about. So he pulled over and he thought, well this looks kind of good. And he put his hand up and at the end of the day bought the property, rang mum and said mum, I think I need you to come down with your credit card. Turned out to be an absolute wonderful investment for him.

Well, you can't go wrong in.

Yarrable said, beautiful area, but you never know. And I guess that drama of the auction, you know, for people who are going to auction as a purchaser.

Yes.

What are some tips that you can give them? Because I know there's a lot of wait to the last moment and wait to the vendor bids and do the big knockout bid. What are you looking for?

Well look, I get paid to bid on behalf of people and auctioneers hate when I get engaged to do that because there's a thing called cooking the auction which I hate when somebody does to me. It actually happened to me calling an auction only a month ago in Airport west on behalf of one of the jealous Craig agents. And I called the auction and this Chinese investor knew exactly what he was doing. We had quoted, we quoted 5 to 5:50 and he just opening bid 560 and the owner wanted like 56570 on the day. Like we told him it was a mid fives so he wanted the top end of mid fives which was 560, 570. And obviously when the owner sees one bid, he thinks it's not everything.

Yeah.

So obviously we passed it in, we negotiated, we ended up getting in 565, I think it was. But this Chinese investor knew it. Like there was all these young first home buyers that probably would have gone to the high fives, even probably a six.

So he scared them.

He did. He cooked the auction. So that was now.

So cooking the auction is actually putting in that upfront bid that you know.

Is going to get it, especially against first home buyers. It scares the hell out of them. So in that, in that sub 1 million mark in Melbourne now and in Sydney too, it definitely works. But you look, the standard stuff I tell people to do is go in with a budget, you know, so obviously if it's a family home, you can get caught up in the emotion of the auction, especially with a good auctioneer. Number two is do your own due diligence, so, you know, get educated. Number three is don't rock up to your auction just for your auctions. So make sure you start going to lots of different auctions just to get a bit of a feel for the temperature of how it all works and.

Watching how that auctioneer performs as well. Like following that auctioneer.

Yeah, that would be great. That would be great. If you get the opportunity to do that, that's often a big key. The other thing is have a bit of a relationship with the agent. You know, a lot of people think, oh, I gotta hold my cards close to my chest. I explained to people. And that's like when people say, I'll wait to be right at the end, I go to, well, you know, why would you be right at the end when if you know where you've got to go getting there, be bold, be proud and be strong, because that sort of sets the temperature and it sets the pace of the auction. And go and introduce yourself to the auctioneer, like have a bit of a. So just relax a little bit with it, but. But have a budget in mind because I've seen some people go pretty crazy and obviously, you know, I was. I partook in that when I bought, you know, the one on the left of my mum and dad because I had to buy it. We own the ones either side, so obviously I paid whatever I had to, but it could have been very dangerous.

There's a bigger plan.

There was.

Well, let's take you back to your property portfolio. You bought that first unit. Yes, three and a half years later. Got the deposit then, bit of income up to buy the next one. How did you then select the properties? Because you've got nine properties now, including your home in Bondi. So how did you go about creating, I guess how you would buy the next one after that because you would have had a bit more experience by then.

Yeah, look, I'm very lucky that I come across opportunities. So I often don't buy at auction. So first, first point. Of course as an auctioneer, I know not to buy at auction.

There's a tip for you.

I only bought one at auction because we had the ones either side of it and they knew that I was going to be the buyer. So I wanted to make sure I didn't buy into the drama that I normally create. So look, I'm not gonna lie. There was no secret formula chain to the honest truth. I know your solicitors probably want to hear that. It's just that I educated myself when I was in the industry. But as buyers, you should just start educating yourself. And then I registered on realestate.com and.

I'm not and domain all of them, so.

But I registered for the areas I was interested in and obviously back then it was, you know, the Moonee Valley region. So obviously we've done quite well there since 1956. I continue the family tradition of buying around there.

So when you say register, what you did is you actually said, I'm after a property alerts. A property alert. One bedroom unit or three bedroom house in this area, fairly generic.

So I kept it fairly generic just to the, to the postcode and, and a budget.

And you bought units, continue to buy units or do you also go into.

Units and then houses? Yeah, yeah. So I was, you know, I've very lucky that what, what's happened is often the properties I've bought are the ones next door, the ones already own. So like, I don't know if anyone knows, but a good European diversification portfolio is to buy the house next door and the one behind. It's all very diverse. So, you know, I say to you're.

A product of your roots is what you're talking.

I am, I am effectively. So my father had the same sort of formula and it's, it's worked out. Yeah. But look, what I tell people is, is work out. You know, start forging relationships with your accountant, with your financial planner, with your mortgage broker, with your, or your lender, your bank or whatever it is. Continue to be ready for those opportunities to come up, register for those alerts and then register for things that you may during your, you know, during your investigations that you might be interested in. So, like, a prime example was, you know, I saw some people do very well out of the mining boom over in Wa. Now, it wasn't something I did, but I saw some people do extremely well there, you know, because they, you know, they immersed themselves into what was. What was going on there, and they were smart about it and realized it is cyclical. So am I an advocate for chasing after infrastructure booms? No, I'm not. Do I think there's opportunities? Yes, I do. You need to know what you're doing. So my recommendation to people is always to be smart about it and make sure you do your research. But, yeah, I. I had friends that did extremely well out of the. Out of the, you know, the mining boom.

Yep.

And over in.

And they got out before. They got out before.

Yeah.

They saw the cycle moving, dropped off. Yeah, yeah. And so tell me, the. The properties that you have bought.

Yep.

Are they all in Moonee Valley, other than that one in Bondi, or did you diversify a little bit?

7 in Moonee Valley, one in Bondi, and now we've just done one in. In Queensland.

Oh, great. Diversification.

Diversification.

It kind of helps with that land tax building.

I know. Don't even get me started, but Bondi was the one I rented. So when I won the Apprentice, they put me in this apartment, and I'm Italian, so I don't like to.

So you settled in is what you said.

I did, and I don't like to pay rent, so I kept on trying to buy it off the Dutch Jewish owner, and I would give him an Australian Italian price, and then we met at an Australian price in the middle, so good job.

Okay, so let's go forward to the Apprentice. This is 2009.

Yes.

How did you find out about it?

Yes. Okay, well, here we go. Another real estate guy, Spiro Vesseliadis.

Yep.

From the southeastern suburbs. He does property on that side of town.

Another good Australian name.

Yeah. Another good Aussie name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Too many Greeks in Melbourne. I'm gonna show you that. Yeah. So Spiro, he sent me the sort of the nomination, saying, oh, you should try out for this thing. They had, you know, thousands of people trying out. And I sort of wrote back at that stage, martin, have time for this rubbish. And then, you know, because I was.

He probably still has that email. Right.

I reckon he would somewhere. That was from my old Thompson real estate one. But I reckon he would because he always, at his wedding, he reminded everyone there that I. I'm the reason why he won the Apprentice.

Good.

I won the Apprentice. Yeah.

Because nothing to do with all that hard work in the weeks.

Nothing had to do with Spiro saying, you should be on the Apprentice. I mean, I don't have time.

Call out to Spiro. Thank you, Spiro, for that.

Thank you, Spiro. If you're looking at listing on that side in the southeastern suburbs, feel free to look up Spiro Vessel Yardis. He's a good man. So he sent me that. We were doing some deals at the time together, put the application in and then he. Yeah, they had thousands of people trying out. So I remember the day even when they had the auditions and that it's like a six stage process. So, like, I nearly didn't even go.

Because I'm like, you know, the time out of work.

Time out of work.

What's the chance?

What's the chance? Because everybody who had won at a reality TV show in Australia up to that point was blonde hair and blue eyes. So I didn't know how lucky I was going to be with looking. Looking as dark featured as I was. I thought, nah, they're gonna want some, you know, hot, tall, blond hair, blue eyed guy straight out of Bondi to do it. That's why I moved to Bondi.

Yeah. Obviously.

Just trying to fit into that profile. But yeah. So got on the show, made like the top 100 in Victoria, top 100 in Australia, then got on the show to the top 12, had to go to Sydney for 10 weeks in South Kutchee and film it in John Singleton's old mansion. Yeah. On the waterfront there, which was great. I was more impressed by the house than the whole process of being on television. And then, yeah, won the show, which was unexpected.

And what was your impressions of your rivals first up?

Look, I've had a lot of mentorship around sort of my spirituality and my mindset. So, like, I believe when you elevate other people, it gives you a better experience. Number one or two. People feel obligated to sort of work and help you, you be better as well.

Yes.

So I just, you know, I gave them any chance I had to elevate them as my competitors. I didn't see them as my competitors. I saw them as other fellow human beings that I could. Look, I didn't actually expect to win, Jane, to be honest with you. Like, there were some quite impressive people on the show, like people with MBAs and PhDs and people that had illustrious business careers but had gone through a bit of a pivot and a Change some people that had done well in the corporate sector. So I didn't expect to win. So I just thought, I'll go into it for the opportunity. And I actually secretly wanted to just leverage my real estate career. I'll be on tv, you know. That's why I called myself the auctioneer.

Yeah.

I didn't call myself a real estate agent because I thought I'll pivot maybe into like full time auctioneering off the back of being on the show. And you saw I pulled out an auction a few times during the show too.

So you got, you got to demonstrate. Yeah.

I thought I'd just come like, situation sixth, fifth, fourth. So when I won, it actually, it spun everything out. I didn't expect to win.

So you're sitting there in the boardroom.

Yeah.

Mr. Boris.

Yes.

He's looking at you and your competitor.

Who was Heather, who came second. Yeah.

And what was going through your mind?

Well, I'll tell you what happened. Not many people know this either. They. It's the only thing that's fake. In a reality TV show, they film two endings.

The only thing that's fake.

Everything is done live. So they do film at lives. It's not like they, they, they don't script anything. But the one thing they did script was at the end. So Mark came in and sat with us. Mr. Burris, at the time, we were in separate rooms. And he's like, so we have to film two endings because. I know. I was wondering how they do this because I'm like, I've got to go back to Melbourne for 10 weeks while I'm on television and doing real estate and not tell anyone that I'm on one.

And imagine you're like chatting to people.

Right.

It's not like you're not going to.

Let the cat out of the biometry. Someone looks me and goes, did you win? Oh, Bill. I have this big smile on my face. I don't know. And then I'm pretty sure when I look on your face, we know you won. So I genuinely didn't know to the day before it was on television.

And so when you were told that you won, what went through your mind?

Shit. I got 40 listings right now in real estate. What I'm gonna do with my 40 listings.

Because you got a job, didn't you? $200,000 job with.

But I'd spent 10 weeks on television listing real estate, so I was having the time of my life.

Oh, I can imagine.

It was. It was a good run.

Living in a beautiful beachside mansion no, no, I was.

I was. Back in Moonee Ponds. Yeah, yeah, yes, back in Moonee Pond. So you film for 10 weeks, then you go back to normal life for 10 weeks. So there's actually a syndrome people lose their mind from because you're nobody, then you're famous, then you're nobody again and you spend 10 weeks with people running after you. Like, you'd have a thing called a runner. So, like, you'd want to drink and you'd be like, put your hand up and someone comes and gets you drink, you want food and you go home.

And Mum says, get your own.

Nah, Mum was pretty good species. It was kind of like I had Mum while I was filming. When I got to Bondi was a shock.

And so you. Did you have to pick up your life straight away and move?

I did. Mark expected that straight away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that was like.

He gave me, like a few weeks to wrap everything up, but my brother wasn't happy because it put him in the middle of everything.

So he was now auctioneering all those other property and I was actually flying.

Back, still on weekends, helping out for a good couple of months as well, just to wrap it up.

And Mr. Burrus, as we knew him from the Apprentice, we can call him Mark.

I imagine now he prefers to be called Mark.

Was he. Is it tough as he seemed on the show? Like, he just seemed to be completely straight down the line. There's no gray.

He's definitely firm but fair. And he's a great role model as well. He's quite an inspirational man and he. Probably the great thing via his leadership is he endorses entrepreneurialism with our Yellow Brick Road branches, but also with individuals that work for the company. We've actually had nine head office staff at Yellow Brick Road go and open their own Yellow Brick Road.

Wow, that makes sense, isn't it?

Yeah, that he's a big believer in entrepreneurialism and supports it and lets them phase into it as well, which is very rare to see of someone of.

His color, but absolutely. So tell me, you know, what did the show itself teach you?

I would say probably the number one thing would have been when there's a camera always on you. So accountability. So when there's a camera on you for 10 weeks straight, from 5 in the morning to 11 o' clock at night, you. You learn pretty quickly to. If you say you're going to do something, you have to do it because there's a camera that filmed it and you're not sure if they're Going to use it or not. So accountability was probably the number one thing and number two is that collaboration, like you really can't succeed. And I'm a big believer and know even more now. So I'd come from being a top performer in real estate, so there wasn't probably a level of not arrogance, but, you know, hubris on my end and a bit of overconfidence that I could do everything. And when you get thrown into things that aren't sales, you learn pretty quickly that, well, you need other people. So, you know, when I eventually became an executive at Yellow Brick Road, they, you know, Mark also, through his mentorship, taught me it's better to collaborate and bring on great people and work closely with them, which I've just done. Now with the new gentleman who did my job at Aussie Home Loans, bringing Aussie Home Loan franchisees on, I just got him to come to Yellow Brick Road.

Well, that's a coup.

Yeah. And I just got the general manager over and I just got the state manager over in New South Wales. So, yes, if anyone from Aussie is listening to this, I'm sorry, that's why.

They made you business development manager for Yellow Brick Road. Right.

But the good thing is the three guys I've brought over are better than me and I always, I pride myself on surrounding myself with people that are better than me and I'm confident in my own abilities. And that's the challenge you see in people in business. They want to try and make sure they always justify themselves and what they do by doing that, they actually self sabotage their growth, number one, but number two, they self sabotage the business too.

Well, actually, you were sharing with me earlier your ideas. You know, by the time you're 30, you had three characteristics of success. Do you want to share that with us?

Yes. So everybody had a dollar value of what they wanted to be worth by 30 and I instead didn't want to have to answer my phone because my phone rings 100 times a day and so I don't have to answer my phone anymore, which is good. There's always someone else in the business for them to speak to. Number two was that I didn't have to touch a computer. So I'll look at an email if need be on my phone, but there's a team that take care of that. And number three was that I wouldn't need a key to any of my offices. So I have an office in William street for Yellow Brick Road in Melbourne. I have an office in Chifley Square in Sydney. I have an office in Racecourse Road for Jealous Craig and I don't actually hold the key to any of them.

What I love about that is you say there's always someone better to do this job. So you create something and then you put the person who's better at doing it into place. Which I mean, I think just going back to Mark and what he created with wizard and then when he moved onto Yellow Brick Road, you know, Yellow Brick Road is really Mums and dads, everyday Australians getting financial security. What's the philosophy behind Yellow Brick Road and why are you so passionate about it?

Well, it's very in line with my personal vision, mission, values. So obviously I grew up in humble beginnings in Bernie Ponds and I saw my parents probably worked hard, not smart. And I think there's the challenge you've got with everyday Australians is there's no one really there advocating for them. So the mantra for Yellow Brick Road and the vision and mission is that we want for everyday Australians to be able to do the two great Australian dreams, which is to own their own home and retire comfortably. And off the back of that, we reverse engineer all of our products, we reverse engineer all of our, all of, all of our strategies. But there's, you know, the mums and dads of Australia aren't being taken care of. If you're worth 10 million plus, they'll give you a private banker. If you're worth, you know, if you're starting out, nobody really, unless private practice like yourself, like they won't give people the time of day, none of the larger organizations. So we've tried to find that middle ground and provide, you know, services through a network of 168 yellow brick roads around the country that are owner operated. And that's where you know, when you get somebody that's prepared to go above and beyond. So if you look at the yellow brick roads, often they're with people at auctions on weekends or you know, helping them, you know, go through open for inspections and things of that nature. So that was the culture we were trying to create and I think we've done it.

I think so too. It's been a phenomenal growth period too, hasn't it? And what's the plan? It's 160. Now.

The long term goal would be what we call the road to 300, which we've put in our prospectus a number of times. So probably over the next 12 to 24 months to really fill out some of the regional areas. So regional yellow brick roads do extremely well the Number one MFAA broker and the number more on FBAA broker are both yellow brick roads and also to grow out our financial planning arm now. So we've had some great corporate financial planners come over and be entrepreneurial and set up what we're calling these financial planning hubs to service out a lot of the brokers within yellow brick road and then service out the clients. So it's all the goal is always for it to be the services to be provided by owner operators because they'll always work that little bit harder and they'll always build a better relationship with the clients.

Absolutely. So you know, let's just go to the investment space now and property investment space. There has been a significant amount of changes in the last, especially in the last 18 months. You know how even the last eight weeks, it's almost daily now, isn't it, that we open up a paper or we get an email that says things have changed. You know, this shakeup. What's some advice that you have for investors now looking forward or should just for our listeners who might be just thinking about starting an investment portfolio.

Yep. Don't be afraid of the changes. The changes. They've done this before. I'm old enough to remember two crashes. So I was there during the 91, 92 crash, the poor Keating recession we needed to have. I was quite young but my father was very good with us where he would involve us in family discussions and take us to auctions and see what's going on inside. Saw my father go through that. I saw the 01.com crash which my brother was at money in that and I saw what happened there. And then I was old enough to remember, you know, and I worked through the 0809 GFC. So what APRA is doing and what the governing bodies are doing is trying to simmer down a two speed economy that's happening in the property sector and it needs to be done now. When you're a property investor with a bunch of properties already, it really hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts a lot. And your serviceability calculators are pretty much out the window now. They've gone extreme. They've always done this. They go extreme and then what they do is they wind back slowly as the market starts to simmer out a little bit. So don't be too afraid. I'm sure that's probably what's going to happen. I can't guarantee that but it's what's happened over the years. Same with foreign investment. They've just made it difficult again. But whenever the economy slows down, they use those two tabs, property investors and foreign investment to sort of drum up the economy again. So they will do that. And the reason why they did it and I saw this is there was a lot of mums and dads out in western Sydney that were buying their fifth property and a half a percent or a percent interest rate rise for those everyday Australians that have three kids at a Catholic school or so. It might not be private school fees but it might, might be five grand a year plus, you know, some unexpected expenses with one of the properties, plus this, plus that, plus that very, very quickly. It's what they call the, you know, the canary in the coal mine situation where you won't see it happen and then it'll happen all overnight. And you know, they can't increase interest rates because if they do it will.

Affect the rest of the economy.

The rest of the economy will come to a screeching halt. So they're using, you know, APRA and changes in, in investor lending to just simmer out that market. And I think there'll be off the back of it some opportunities with first home buyers which will be great, will be exciting. So if anyone's listening that hasn't bought their first home and there will be some opportunities for you as of July 1st I believe it is. So, you know, there's always an opportunity for somebody and don't be greedy. You know, like I think at the end of the day like people, all the property developers and you know, property investors that I know, they keep having a win with the change. And I say, well we've had a good run for the last six years. So I think we need to understand that, you know, times do change and you need to understand that if you're in property investment that you're in business, you're a business owner being in property investment. A lot of property investors don't see themselves as business owners. So they might work at, you know, in a corporate job getting paid 150 a year and they own half a dozen properties and they still see themselves as a property investor. But I still work payg. Well, I don't think so. I think you're a property investor, self employed and your PAYG just helps with you.

That's just the cash flow really.

It's just another business in my mind.

So 2017, beyond some, I guess subduing of the market as investors kind of leave. But then it's cyclic, we come back to, it's going to come back again.

So you know, you should probably look to. The three things I tell people to do right now is probably look to pay down some debt over the next few years. Years. Look to, you know, restructure and keep an eye on the opportunities when it gets difficult, you know, cash is king. So if you're in an opportunity right now to refinance and put some money to the side to take advantage of those opportunities over the next 6, 12, 18, 24 month period. But the other thing is as well, don't be afraid of collaboration too.

There's some really good opportunities.

Yeah. So what I've started doing now is looking at opportunities to collaborate with people that have serviceability and I've got money and get to.

And the knowledge.

Yeah, and the knowledge. So that's the big.

So what was that email address again?

I'll be bombarded.

Now, some tips for investors starting out today. What some.

Your top three tips if you're starting out. Number one, you know, do whatever you need to do to sort of get to a position to get into your first problem. The first one's always the hardest from mental point of view and from a financial point of view and from a lending point of view too. They sort of want to see that you've done it once before, they let you do it a second or a third or a fourth time. The next part is don't be afraid of once again, collaboration. So like, obviously it's become harder and harder. So if you're, you know, if you're sort of starting out, even if you're not young and starting out, sometimes mum and dad's not a bad option or going in with a sibling or someone of that nature. And then number three would be more is lost with indecision and wrong decision. Which I'm known for constantly drilling into people because, you know, like I, I was talking to a girl yesterday in Bondi actually before I flew out and she's like, she saved 50 grand and she's had 50 grand sitting in a bank account for the last two years because she was afraid that she was going to have some change in her life. And so, but I said to her, if you should put that 50 grand into a property the last two years, that 50 grand would be 150 now. So, you know, she comes from an Irish, English, Anglo background where they're very risk adverse and her parents only ever owned one property and they don't like debt. And I was like, you should have just dented yourself up to the heels. You would have made a fortune by now.

You can Minimize risk, there's tax.

She lives with her mum now. Anyway, so I said to her, you know, like you, you probably should have done it.

Well, I mean your first property you bought, you still lived at home. My first property, you know, I bought properties for 10 years. We were the first of the rentvestors I think, which is now the trendy characteristic. So your first property doesn't necessarily have to be your first home either.

Not at all. Just get in there.

Opportunity, yeah, get into the market. Good advice. So Andrew. Busy, busy man. I'm exhausted. Yeah, just hearing about you. Oh my gosh, I think we might have to have you back now. The amazing thing, you know, when we had a chat last year, you shared with me so many of these other projects you're doing and you are such a big person about giving back and you told me about the work that you'd been doing in Cambodia, even running mini apprentices over there. Can you tell us a bit about the different projects you're working on now and what's going on for you this year?

So Yellow Brick Road's a big focus still, so the road to sort of 300, but just looking to bring good people on to develop out the business. I invested into Yellow Brick Road head office before we public listed the company. So I'm, you know, heavily invested financially, mentally and I think emotionally too. You know, it's Mark's business and Mark his circle, certainly the face of it. But I'm sure there's a lot of people that see the brand and associate my personal brand to that too. So it's something I'm very proud of.

So people who were interested in potentially being one of those owner occupiers of Yellow Brick Road franchise, what kind of characteristics would they have to have and background?

Look, we're pretty open, so obviously the more experience in either mortgage broking or financial planning, the better. But look, I had somebody start an office 12 months ago and they'll probably do half a million dollars in revenue this year and saying it's a good being a good economy. They started out in the industry as I said 16, 17 months ago. They're gonna have a massive year this year. So they'll win our rookie of the year. I won't say who it is because then they'll win at our next conference the rookie trophy of the year. But you know, so look, we have view the industry people too and they can just go on the ybr.com au website and make an inquiry there and they, they'll get an opportunity to Sit with me at some stage. But, you know, we're always looking for motivated people. Like one of the best guys that's come on board in Melbourne is a guy that's out in Rosanna who was a ex car salesman. His family were in Nissan for 50 years and his dad decided to retire finally and he started a yellow brick road and he's killing it. So he went from cars into mortgage property broken. And he's done it. An amazing pivot. So. Yeah.

And your other ventures? Ventures, yeah.

Yes. You'll still see me on a Saturday calling auctions with Jealous Craig.

Perfect.

And other companies too. So I do it as a subcontractor and then sort of the philanthropic stuff would be I'm on the board for a group called a social enterprise called Project Gen Z where we do go to Cambodia. And we worked with Geraldine Cox from Sunrise Village. And I shaved off my Let the orphans shave off my beard, my Bondi Beard for 70,000 Australian dollars. And I cut off my top knot for 10,000 as well.

So that's why facial hair has so much value.

Yes, we did that. We had like 20,000 people log on and watch, which was interesting.

And you're taking orphans from this orphanage and you're teaching them business skills and they're starting businesses.

They are. They're starting businesses. And we're also funding them through education if they want to do further education in Cambodia too.

And the Dare to Dream that's just started in Australia, that's the same kind.

Of same concept where we're trying to work with private schools so then we can fund working with public schools. So what we do is we're working towards a program where every time a private school engages our program, we actually use part of the funds to provide the service to a public school, which.

Is a teenager going through.

Teenagers going through entrepreneurialism and then we're taking it to the indigenous community. Now I sit on the board for another charity called Seed foundation for Indigenous Education up North. And I'm doing Kokoda on September 19th for that.

We're going to have to track that.

Yeah.

You've obviously been in a lot of preparation for that.

Yes, I've been training very hard for that and I'm doing it with some special forces guys. I'm doing with a blind guy, Ben Pentagle. He's blind. That'll be interesting.

And are you doing that for charity?

We're doing that for Indigenous Education to Seed Foundation.

So people can sponsor you through that.

If you go to Seed foundation, you should Google Seed foundation will come up with their website and you can support us there. And then last but not least, a new project we've got going on now is called Ignite Me, which is a platform for raising capital for startups. So if anyone's got a project that I want to check out, Ignite Me, go to the website. And also we're putting social enterprises on these. Social enterprises and some charitable enterprises too.

Andrew, I'm completely born out. You are once again just an amazing, inspiring person. I'd like to say young man, but it really dates me if I say.

That I don't feel as young as I used to.

Well, I just have to thank you so very much for coming into the studio, being part of the youe Property Success podcast. You are an inspiration. The tips that you've shared and I think the inspiration that you have given to us and to our listeners, this is amazing and thank you very much.

Thank you, Jane. Thanks for having me.

Well, what a great interview. So many lessons. Not just about property either.

I am so worn out and I look at him and look how old he is and I'm thinking, what is he going to be doing in the next 10 years?

Yeah, I know he's a young guy but he's done a lot, hasn't he?

Absolutely. And you know what I love about his, his whole journey is, you know, he gave due respect to his dad and his dad gave him his first job.

Yeah.

Mind you, slave labor.

Yeah, well, maybe, yeah, A hard education.

It's like rich dad, poor dad, you know, they kind of learn on the job and didn't get paid much.

Yeah, I reckon it's a great hiring tip, isn't it? Like if you're ever hiring someone and they've worked for their parents, they're almost a shoo in. Well, it works for Mark Boris anyway.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, just that whole story, you know, if we go back to, you know, the way that Australia was kind of founded on a lot of these immigration around 50s and 60s and even 70s, you know those, those guys came in and even till even today that work ethic.

Yeah.

Is amazing, isn't it?

It's true. It's amazing. When you think about his parents, I think they came from post war Europe in 56. He said his parents came out as kids and from that he's built the businesses with the garages and then built a property portfolio and it was great. That little story he told about the way they would drive home from the reception centre in Campbellfield. Great, wasn't it.

I don't know. I don't know if you guys could tell, but that really made me tear up. I got quite emotional about that because as I've shared with John over the last, I don't know, five years or so, I just have this absolute belief in the work that we do in communicating and helping people learn about property and creating wealth and showing the kids the hard work ethic and teaching them some tactics and maybe even getting them into better education or schools or whatever so that they can change the world. You know, his dad did that and that kind of validation of driving around all the properties. He didn't have his father there to say, mate, you did a good job. He was like, yeah, I've done good, I've done good. And I just, I really connected with that. I just thought it was just a beautiful life lesson.

Yeah, Great little analogy. Yep.

But and having a dad who's, you know, what, 70 or so, and you could still go and say hi to him at the servo down at Pasco.

Vale Road, corner of Pasco Valle Road and Buckley Street, I think, is it.

I remember I caught up with Andrew last year and he turned up in this kind of bomb and I'm like, what's this? He said, oh, whenever I come to Melbourne, dad loans me a car from a servo. So he's getting those. Trading cars too, but good guy.

Yeah.

Obviously a huge influence. But it was interesting too, about. Andrew talked about, you know, advice for people starting out today that, you know, that hard work maybe just isn't enough today with all the pressures of, you know, modern lifestyle and affordability pressures, you know, what you earn versus what your house costs and all that kind of thing. And he said, you really need to be around smarter people to get ahead.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, there's that old saying around the fact that you become the product of the five people you hang around with.

Yeah.

And he's definitely hanging around with pretty interesting people. And I hope it rubs off on us, John.

That's right.

By extension, at some stage it should. But, you know, this is a guy who, you know, he learned during the summer holidays the value of work, maybe made a little bit of money, but at 14, you know, decided there was a business opportunity when the blue light discos, kind of like we're a bit daggy and, you know, just. Just extraordinary.

Did you have blue lights in Dubbo?

We sure did have blue light discos in Dubbo and I even remember going and staying with my cousin in Port Macquarie and I went to my, my first blue light disco there. Very exciting. But yeah, old halls, very boring. So I can, I can see the vision that he had and the fact that it's still going today, you know. And he sold that business at 17.

Yep.

You know, so he could move on.

To the real estate business.

Absolutely. And he had his brother there as a role model, you know, who's obviously still a great auctioneer today. If you're out in Western. Yeah, Western Melbourne, you'll see him around the traps. Absolutely. And I've seen a couple of their, their auctions on Facebook live too.

So it also had some good tips for people purchasing an auction. And he should know. In an auctioneer.

Exactly. From the other side.

Yeah, that's right. So he said, have a budget in mind and do your due diligence. So know what the price should be, you know what the prices are in the area and what it should be selling for and have a relationship with the agent. And you had a suggestion there, you know, go and scout out the guys that are doing the auctioneers at other auctions.

Absolutely. Because I think when you go to an auction and it's your first time, every auctioneer has their own bit of jeopardy and drama and how they run an auction. And often, you know, you can actually, if you go and watch the auctioneer, you can actually see what their method is. So they might always walk in, consult the owner. Now, if it's your first auction and you, you think, oh, gosh, I've got this. Oh, I don't know if it's on the market or not. And they go in and see the owner, you could be sitting there double guessing yourself. You could be going, oh, maybe I should just put in a big bid. Where in actual fact, if it's just part of their formula. Know the formula.

Yeah, that's right. It would be way less scary. But he also, there was a great tip, wasn't it, for us as buyers to cooking the auction.

Yeah.

So to cook it. So we actually, we have that in the ultimate guide as well. But the. It's a great technique because it just takes the heat out, knocks all those people out.

Yeah, of course.

You really need to know what your price is. You can't just, you know, just rock up and throw it in the old price. So you have to have done your due diligence.

Exactly. And it's interesting that he uses that when he's buying for himself.

Right.

But he hates it when it's used against him.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's definitely an Insider tip to watch for sure. But, you know, it's just the. The standard type of research, you know, he says he registers for domain.com realestate.com you know, you're interested in the units or the houses or whatever you're buying criteria in that area. Get the alerts, be current in the market, set yourself up with a good team.

Yeah, yep.

Yeah.

He's. He's big on that, isn't it? Surrounding yourself with a good team. So a good accountant, you know, financial. Financial Planner, mortgage broker, etc.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, once you've got your team in place, you can swing them into action when you find a property, but once you find a property and then all of a sudden you have to go and find the finance and the, you know, the accountant or the.

Scrambling at the last conveyancer, it's all.

Too hard and becomes a bit of pressure.

Yeah, yep. And the Apprentice, that was good, wasn't it? I liked hearing about that.

Yeah. The insider story in the Apprentice, you know, you kind of watch it and you don't really know what goes on. And the fact that nothing is scripted. They're filming you all the time. If you're going to call something, you have to back it up because you're being filmed all day, every day. So it's all about being authentic and being yourself.

Pretty serious scrutiny that, isn't it?

Yeah. I don't know if I'd like to be filmed. I've had a lot of filming done of me, actually.

I've done it.

And I've got to say, I like the fact you've got the editing ability to take out out all those bloopers and mistakes.

Yeah, yeah. It was interesting how they filmed the two endings, wasn't it?

I know, how sneaky is that? But how hard is that, too? Because you've got two responses you've got to give, and you've then got weeks and weeks of waiting going, which one was right? And you've lived through both of them, so. And he, you know, obviously he gave due credit to his competitors as well, and obviously a fan of Mr. Boris and the fact he had to pick up his life and move pretty much straight away to take on that job.

Yeah, for sure. Also had some good tips around all the shakeup that's happening for investors at the moment. He said, you know, don't be afraid of the changes and keep an eye out for opportunity because there will be opportunity. And don't be afraid of collaboration was the other thing he said, too.

And there's so many things and I think people are getting confused and I know people are calling my office every day talking about what does this all mean for me. But as Andrew said, there is opportunity there and rather than closing down and becoming a snail.

Yeah.

For the next next two to three years, I think the really clever people are going to make some money. And look, just lastly, John, you know, I really enjoyed this podcast because Andrew is so engaging. He's got so many stories, it's really hard to know. Hard to know which one to talk to him about. But he also had so much value socially as well. You know, he does all that social work in the western Sydney and western Melbourne. You know he works with the people in Cambodia. Yeah, that was educate students, runs little mini apprentices over there. And now he's just got this platform for raising capital for startups called Ignite Me. So all of the details are in the show notes. But you know, he's active, he's out there and you know, every time we catch up, he just completely, you know, is doing something new and exciting and it's just so amazing.

What have we been doing with our time?

I know, I know, I feel like I need to catch up. But you know, once again, I hope you've enjoyed listening to this as much as we did. And hop onto itunes, let us know, make sure you rate and review us and catch all the details in the show notes because we'll have links to all of the things that are mentioned here.

Absolutely.

So John, is it that time again?

I believe it is.

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 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 by to play Suburbs against the Clock?

Karen, are you ready to play Suburbs against the Clock?

That's it.

I'm pumped. Okay, now tell me, what city are you playing for? Oh, Sydney. Okay. Oh, good, good.

Okay.

Have I got a question for you. Perfect for Sydney. Alright, so can you name 10 Sydney suburbs with roundabouts?

Castle Hill, Balkan Hills, Blacktown, Rouse Hill, 5, Terry Hills.

10 seconds.

Warunga, Bimble, Macquarie.

I got it. Yay.

See, how easy was that? I bet you people are kicking themselves now. Karen, well done. Well done. Congratulations. You have an annual subscription to your Property Success Club, which we'll get your details and give you access to. But good on you for fronting up and having a go.

Good on you, Karen.

Thank you.

There's just no other quiz like it, I think.

Yes, that's probably an apt description. Well, John, that is it for today. A huge thank you to today's exceptional guest, Andrew Morello. And if you would like instant access to the transcript, plus get access to some free training we have for our community and all of the show notes and links to everything mentioned in the show, go to your Property Success. And that is yourpropertysuccess.com au eva p4pp17. So that's it for today. Stay safe and 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 lengths 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.