Ep. 61 | Finding the right property education and renovation tips – Chat with Jane Slack-Smith

Welcome to the Property Couch, where each week you get to listen to two of Australia's leading property experts. Bryce Holdaway, co host of Location, Location Location Australia on Foxtel's Lifestyle Channel, and Ben Kingsley, chair of Property Investment Professionals of Australia and the 2014 and 2015 Property Investment Advisor of the Year.

Alright, folks, you're on the Property Couch where each week Ben and I give you the insider's guide to property investing. Hello, mate.

How are you guys? Buddy, how are you? Let's talk footy.

I was gonna say get the heck all over and done with right now. Let's get it over and done with. Come on. I'm 05.

What episode did you say? Your favourites for Premiership. You're gonna call the Premiership?

I've prepared myself for this. So come on, where was it? Come on. It was a little while ago.

Look, don't worry, we're holding up the ladder, but you are in all sorts of strife.

I gotta bet internally here.

It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

I gotta bet internally here with Danny that I. I bet him 100 bucks Fremantle would finish higher on the ladder than Western bulldogs and round three. I offered him an early pay discount of 80 bucks and he didn't take it. He just wants. He goes. The extra 20 bucks means that I can see you suffer for the next 20 weeks.

What was that great line that Paul Keating used in Parliament when he had John Hewson on the other side? It was originally about GSA coming because I just want to do you slowly. So that's what he's doing.

Maybe that needs a slight tweak, the way you said that. But I hear you. So there you go, listeners. I deserve that. So zero and not going so well, but we shouldn't waste any more time because we got a very, very, very special guest today, Jane Slack Smith, who's the author of youf Property Success With Renovation. She's a very good friend of ours, Ben, and I gotta say that despite the fact that she's very, very good at property investing and renovating, she's a very good student of life. And I've got to say that she's been a mentor of mine for a number of years.

There we go.

And I'm very excited to have you on, Jane, welcome.

Thank you very much.

So, for the benefit of the listeners.

Who do you follow in the football? Obviously nobody. By the shake of the head, you.

Live in Carlton, so. Is it Carlton?

No. Look, I'm ex New South Wales, so I never got into the afl, but When I came down here the first time to live in Melbourne, one of the guys at the explosives plant where I was working, they all wanted to know who I was going to follow. And I said, look, I really don't have a team. And they said, there's one thing about Victoria you need to know is that AFL is more important than religion, because more people believe in AFL than God. I was like, okay, all right, fair enough. So I had to choose a team. I went with the Bulldogs, ICI Bulldogs, because I was working for them at the time and had a lot of fun going to their events, but have to say, I've been remiss. And I'm married to a Kiwi, so it's all about the All Blacks and the Wallabies.

Well, Ben's offended every rugby supporter. I think it was two episodes ago, or maybe it was last week, but he's done a good job of that.

Yes, we won't go into that. But more importantly, what people don't know about you is what was your career before you became a very successful property investor?

Well, farm girl from Dubbo, first kid to go to university, break the mould. So it was all very exciting. And I studied explosives and mining engineering.

Of course you did.

Yeah. So, like most people that you're probably listening, I started as an explosives engineer before I became a property investor.

So when you see, renovate or detonate, you can do both.

I can do it. And when I speak to people about these amazing mining towns, I'm like, I've been there. I've drunk in every pub in every mining town in Australia and New Zealand. Like, give me a name.

Give me your name. I know it.

Yeah, very good. So, yes. So I started as a mining engineer, and I guess the big change there for me is being someone who worked in explosives. Every single day, I was evaluating risks. So I did my thesis on risk assessment, and I applied risks and a risk assessment to every single thing that I did. Because you've got it wrong, someone's going to lose a hand as a minimum. So I started with my little $45,000, and I wanted to see where to spend it. And I started doing ASX courses on the weekend. I got really frustrated that I couldn't control anything. It was the boards doing it. And so looked at property and my boss used to say, I can't wait for you to get a mortgage, because when you get a mortgage, it means that you're locked into your job forever. So I had this fear of property investing and my husband had A few properties and he'd convinced me that there was another way and we did some courses and started the process and I wanted to have a real step by step, low risk approach to investing. So I applied risk assessment to property investing.

Brilliant. I think that's a great story of those early adopters that you are looking at. Is there any names that jump out to you that you can sort of recognise and say, I learn a lot.

From or obviously Jan Summers. Like everyone starts with Jan, don't they? And I had the fortune of interviewing her last year and she's just, she's such a lovely person who's changed, you know, the wealth of so many Australians. And I think you'd have to take your hat off to her straight at the beginning.

And Ian, for that matter, and the.

Summersoft program, my goodness, you know, and now the new forum off that too.

So if Jan was to come on the couch, we'd lay the red carpet out, as we know, as we had.

Can you see the red carpet? Oh, wait a minute, that must have been.

I gotta say, Ibis is really excited to have female energy in the room, though she's already mentioned that.

Well, and then, you know, I have to also say that I learned a bit from Henry Kay and one of the things that I learned from Henry, a lot of great information, but one of the big warnings he used to say is, don't buy your property from the person who's educating you as well. And so he really had this kind of, you know, don't run to the back of the room and buy the things. But then at the end of the talk he said, run to the back of the room and buy the thing. And I went, wait a second, I heard, I heard this morning, I'm not going to do it. So he had some really great content. And I've over the years been to so many seminars and speakers and I still do when I can, and there's always something you take away. And I just love those stories of what not to do. They always have this. I lost everything. And I'm like, oh, tell me about that, because I don't want to repeat the mistake. I don't care about the flash car you have or these trips. Give me the good stuff where you made mistakes, because that's where I learned.

Yeah, go straight to the garage, please, because everyone has a garage story, don't they? Steve Jobs started in the garage. Bill Gay started in the garage.

Oh, no, my favourites are that, you know, I was stacking shelves in a supermarket, you know, and you still see those, those types of comments coming up in some of the articles that are, that are released out there in the marketplace.

So I think, you know, I did the hard yards.

Look, I was the same and you know, my background was exactly that. I think from the age of 18, mining explosives, like everyone, there's a few things I'd to blow up if I just had the opportunity.

Give me some names we can detect later.

But it's more along. Did I say people? There's a few things but it really was about that education journey. So wash the hype out because at the end of the day they prey on insecurities, they prey on emotion, they prey on hopes and dreams, they over promise on outcomes or they give you the fear of God in you and then they rush you to the back of the room for this amazing discounted offer that has, you know, they create artificial scarcity and then they lock you into something that really isn't of value and context. So you know, it's frustrating but you still take a few things out of it.

Oh absolutely. I'm always learning something. And in actual fact, you know the book that you mentioned, Bryce, the publishers chased me down for a year saying write a book, write a book. I'm like, seriously, I've got 135 books on my bookshelf on property and there's nothing new. Like, you know, all the good stuff's been said and they're like, oh, we want to hear it from your voice. And so, and I think that's why I love your book too because it makes it simple. There's a process that people follow and I think it's really, it did take them a lot of convincing to get me to write. And then, you know, eight months of 4:30 to 6:30 every morning writing it was a bit of a trial but you know, it's about the simple messages. And that's why I like listening to other people because the simple messages rather than the hype, which is I think what people need to take out, well.

To take on from your mining explosives. We always talk about the person who's selling the mining tools often makes more money than the miner. And I think that's really perfect for you because from the whole time that I've ever spoken to you, when we're away from the lights, when we're just talking, you and I, it's always how can I provide education to the investor at a low cost? We're not spending the equivalent of a deposit on a property trying to hear my Mentoring secrets, and that's what you've stayed true to. And I really admire that about you.

I'm giving you the opportunity, everyone, to be mentored personally by me for not $100,000, because I'll take 200,000, then I will make you a multimillionaire. So I'm not going to take 100,000. I'm going to take a mere 30 grand or 25,000. But you get one on one, 10 minutes a month with me. How many people are you signing up to this, you spru?

I think that's been the success of our podcast. We've been really generous. We've received lots of generous feedback.

I mean, but you've been generous too, in what you give.

We'll let them decide that.

But they've given us some generous feedback that we're holding nothing back. I mean, the only thing we do is we make sure that the people who come on actually fit the philosophies of what we believe is good quality information. For we have people who reach out to us and say, can we come on? And we'll check their background to see if they're actually saying the message that we think is the right thing for the investor. And I think that's something that you do. But where did that spring from? Because the temptation is strong in our industry to be the person making the money from selling the mining tools rather than doing the mining. So where does that innate sense in you that you don't want to sort of, what's the word? Just fee carve from people rather than just give them good quality information?

I think for me, I looked at how I grew up and I grew up, my father was a farm worker, my mum was a nurse. You know, they really worked very hard, they made sacrifices, but they did very happily to send my sister and I to a very good school to give us an education, to give us a different experience than what others in Dubbo were doing. And not that people in Dubbo never got out of Dubbo, they do. And we've got very successful people from Dubbo, but I saw them work and I saw them work on minimum wage and I knew that when it got to the time that they were going to retire, that I was going to somehow have to help them out because I didn't want them retiring the couple's pension of 26 grand or whatever it is, 32,000 now, and I wanted to be able to give that back. And then I got to thinking, my God, how many other people like me are out there who have just from a working class family doing it tough. They're willing to put in the hard work, but they don't seem like they're getting ahead. And that's why I did some writing for Australian Women's Weekly and I just trying to get the message to everyday people who don't even have property investing on their radar and they go, geez, maybe there is something else and I don't have to pay thousands for it and I don't apologise, I have courses that cost thousands of dollars, but I know that that's an educational product that people need. But I'm so committed to giving free content and education experience because I don't want people taken advantage of. And you've seen fact finds, so many fact finds as a mortgage broker and planner and you read the fact find of a person and as a mortgage broker I read the fact find and I go, I can tell exactly what podcast or what educator can you see the inverted comments. I can see these house and land packages, I can see these mining towns. And you know, I just think if I can somehow give a voice to people who may never ever contact me or have anything to do with my companies, but give them a voice of reason to make them think about not investing in the wrong place and investing in yourself is the best thing they can do and they think they're doing the right thing, but maybe it's hope in the wrong person.

So I got something handed to me in the office the other day from a company that's currently advertising on TV and they've got this very nice brochure.

I love those shiny brochures.

I was on a plane somewhere so I thought I'll just take an opportunity to read it. And 90% of the content was actually sensible, well written, well structured, some really good advice in it until they got to the asset selection, you know, which it's almost like, well, is the stock list. Yeah, yeah, you know, and we're going to buy a house and land bank and we're going to do whatever we do. And that's to me it's like, well, you did everything right until you got to that point and really there's still no harm in doing a house and land package. But there's opportunity cost in that and if you get in a great area and you do it well, there's going to be uplifting capital growth. But you've got a greater chance of a poor return compared to potentially other assets out there. And look, that's obviously our personal views and that's what we study. But it's something you also believe in.

Absolutely. And look, I'm just, you know, I have my trident strategy that is pretty much the foundation to everything that I teach and it comes from my low risk investing, whereas I don't want to make a mistake. So if I just, you know, most people have the hope strategy, I, I'm going to invest and hope I've got it right. Whereas you know, for me it's like, look, I know I have an engineer's brain. I know that I logically step it through if I can take what I know and make into a simple message that people can follow. And you know, the tried and strategy is three ways to make money. So if you get it wrong in one way, you know, you've got two to fall back on. And for me that just makes sense.

Well, tell us about it. Tell us about it.

The sacred trident strategy. Well, first of all, it's making money in the short term by actually understanding the market and buying below the market. So you've got equity gains straight up. Not always easy in a fast moving market.

Correct.

And potentially the one of the three that you'd give away. But there is still opportunity. And in fast moving markets, we've all bought where people have said there's no way to buy below the market. So we know it happens, especially with your buyer's agents. Empower wealth. You'd be seeing this every day with off market sales. So does happen. And the second way is I always buy a property with renovation potential, so I want to add equity. So it's so important to me that I have that capacity now. If I'm not a renovator, then that's okay. Having the ability to add that later is okay as well. And as the book says, you know, two properties, one renovation, million bucks in the bank. That's around. You know, someone buying a property this year, in three years time when there's equity gain, they renovate it. In five years time, they buy a second property and that's it. Five years of hard work or future tax towards your financial future. 15 years, sell them a million bucks in the bank.

Brilliant.

Oh, the third one.

Yes.

The big secret. You'll hear this nowhere else. Buy in a good location with capital growth potential. That's it. You know, big secret reveal. We all know that. Buy in a good area with good potential capital growth. So you've got three ways to make money.

Yeah, yeah, look, I like them. I mean, as you say, the biggest one, the challenging one is the below Market one. And that's because you could potentially get into an area where it doesn't fire. And so you can be sitting on something that doesn't have the growth and hence research, research, research, isn't it?

It all comes down to knowing where to buy. And, you know, location for me is the absolute key. And the research people, you know, they buy around the corner because it's convenient.

Well, they understand it. So they think that I've done the research, I've been around the block, and, you know, I've grown up here. I know there's a safeway down the.

Road and there's, you know, a safe area. No one's been to my car.

Bus route 38 goes through here. You know, that sort of goes somewhere.

And that's when I challenge people who tell me they know the area. I'm like, okay, so what is the vacancy rate? What's the percentage of renters? What's the typical house? What's the typical demographic? What's the infrastructure changes? You know, what are the. What's the yield? What's last year's median price? What's this year's? And they're like, it's still a really good area. Go and do that research. It's all about getting the right location in my mind and to the success that people can have in property investing. And the core message to me is, do the research.

What's your tips to someone who is keen to embark on. What is it, the strategy? Number two, the renovation. Because would you agree or disagree that renovating is not for everyone? And by that, I mean it's available for everyone, but it's not for everyone.

No, I think there's a lot of fear around renovation. And I mean, look, my first project, I had my $45,000. I bought a $425,000 property in Carlton. I borrowed 50,000 to do a renovation, and at the end of nine months, it was worth $700,000. So I poured the money out, did it again, did it again, did it again, did it again, and no longer had to do it. But, you know, we were living on beans. You know, we were living around the corner from Lygon street, and we couldn't afford to eat there kind of thing. So, you know, we paid that future tax of the thing. And, you know, I've slept on the floor in the kitchen while the, you know, the paint job in the house is so fumey that you could die if you're in another room. You know, there is pain associated renovation. And I Don't. I don't lie about the hard work. But the thing is you can outsource that. I know it took us months to paint this huge three bedroom terrace, whereas we had the terrace next door. Painter came in five days later. So I realise where my value is. And I think a lot of people think when they see the renovation shows that they're going to be getting dirty and having to go through that. I did two renovations last year of existing properties in my portfolio remotely. So did they were in Sydney. I did them from Melbourne.

So basically project managed them.

Absolutely.

Put the trades in, got them to.

Do their job, got it done. I got great little videos at the back of every day off my tradies saying, here it is. They even put it to music and video sometimes, you know. So this is what we did on the roof and a bit of it's raining men in the background. It was great, you know.

Well, it's interesting you should say that because we're going through a renovation stage at our house and the builder that we're using has got a new software program that allows them to basically. So at the end of each day what they're playing is that they're going to take a few photos or a quick video to show them, you know, great day today. We hung 10 doors, whatever it may be, and a couple of pictures to show that and that goes into the history of that. So if you're remote or whatever, that type of information or I suppose feeding that back to the people who you're going to get the work to do each day. I'd like to see a couple of snapshots or just a summary of what you've done today for the wages that.

I'm paying and are we on track, you know, and because you don't want the tiler to turn up before, you know, the paint job's done. So, you know, if you're not on track, you have to change things around. So that's good. Or you can even outsource that to a project manager who usually pay 10%. So to answer your question, I think buying a property, even if you never want to renovate it yourself, but it has renovation potential and I'm very, you know, I'm quite a bit of a nutter on this renovation potential. There has to be pricing to say between the renovated and the unrenovated properties in the area to show there's enough of a profit that, you know, once you've got that, you don't necessarily have to renovate yourself, but Geez, if you have to sell the property in the long run with renovation potential always adds another set of eyes in the market to that property for sale. So you're buying yourself a new market as well.

I like that point because you come to the stage where if you buy emotionally or you're impatient with your execution, you could potentially pay that finished product price. So you might say, I can see the potential in it and I know we can make 100 grand. It comes to auction and then you find yourself paying that extra hundred thousand for it. So there's definitely some arguments there that you make your profits on good buying. I definitely agree with that.

Mortgage broker of the year in 2009 and 2014. So you're what we consider an investment savvy mortgage strategist, which is good. So how did that all come out? So you've gone from mining engine, you've gone to actual renovation.

You want me to reveal the path towards mortgage brokers. It's a kind of strange one because.

You just talked about outsource, but then you actually brought that in house.

Yeah, well, it's funny because my mortgage broker kept saying to me, oh, you'd be a good mortgage broker. I'm like, geez, you know, I'm senior in my company, I'm on a great salary, I've got this career partner up, I'll buy stuff up and I have a good day. At the end of the day, if I don't blow up a mountain, you know, get rid of stress and go home, it's a bad day. So, you know, but what was happening, I was ending up on these mine sites and we waiting around for a blast, you know, in Mount Isa or something. And the guys are saying, oh, what are you doing that weekend? I'm like, oh, you know, 10 properties I'm going to go and see on Saturday morning. This is before the Internet, so we had to get up with the Melweighs.

10 BG before Google.

Yeah, BG. As if it ever existed. So. And they go, what are you looking properties? Oh, we bought a few and you know, we're investing and they're like, how do you do that? I'm like, how don't you? You're on the same income. So I started running what in the mining industry is called toolbox talks, which is, you know, we all stand around the toolbox and have a bit of a chat about topic for the day. And then I thought, oh my goodness, if I actually tell these people how to do this and they do it and then they get it wrong, it's back on me. And I don't have any professional indemnity insurance to protect my asset base. So I started looking around and I thought, I'll become a financial planner, you know, in my spare time. And so I did the half the course. And the financial planning person from AXA, who was teaching the course for the Australian Financial Planning association said, you know, you can never talk about property. I'm like, why not? It's not an asset class. You know, back in 2004, I'm like, well, who can talk about property? And they said, well, I guess you could be sneaking on the back end of a mortgage broker and you could speak about property. So I've always wanted to teach people how to buy property. And by the virtue of the fact that I wanted to do it and protect my portfolio, I had to become a mortgage broker. And then my mortgage broker kept saying, you're going to be really good at this. And after a while, he's a prophet.

Sounds like everything you touch turns to gold. Looks like a high performer. There we go.

He's a prophet.

Oh, no. Is that our segue to some mistakes?

Oh, definitely. Haven't we all? That's what we learned from. So mistakes, Is that what you're going to ask me about?

I don't know, Bryce.

Well, I mean, you've got the pen. There was a flow there because you've now got the. Your property success, which is your education portal. And part of that is the. The ultimate guide to renovation. So we will get to your mistakes. But I did.

They're not that many.

I just want to. Good. That's good. We're happy to hear that. But what with the renovation and the amount of renovation you do and the students that you have, can you, you know, without notice. Where do most people incorrectly spend their renovation funds? Even once you've taught them the principles and the frameworks and these are what you need to do, then they go out and they're live and they're on their own. And where are they spending the cash? Is that the, you know, the emotional purchase on the tiles?

It's good because in our private Facebook group, I get to see people putting their projects up and they'll float them beforehand and say, what do you think? And so we can kind of steer them away before they make these mistakes. But often what happens is it's something they couldn't do in their own home. And they're like, oh, I've always wanted the double headed shower. Really. You know, in Camden, in our Suburbs of Sydney, not appropriate.

Rented are going to say, oh honey, we've made it. Double head showers in here.

This is beautiful. They're actually putting, you know, they're putting their own wish list on the specifications that should be which is a numbers. It's a complete numbers game if we call it a game. The renovation process of understanding exactly how much it's going to cost, how much it's going to be worth at the end. They don't do that research. So they kind of get going and go, oh, I've kind of gone over budget. Oh, I didn't have a budget. So you know that discipline of having the budget, having the time frame. Absolutely. Knowing what the end value is before they even buy the property and then being very clear on what they're going to do. They're going to renovate fit for that market. Which means you need to know what the market is. Is it a three bedroom weatherboard house with lemon X or Caesar stone bench tops. And so they don't over capitalise and they don't put their own taste and emotion into it. So it's the numbers.

Only experience is that thing you get two minutes after you need it.

Right.

So how does that apply to a renovator? So they're going, okay, I'm on board, I've got the intent. But they're not going to learn the lessons until hindsight kicks in. So how do you advise your students around that first one? Is it just to make sure it's a. Don't bite off more than you can chew, make sure it's.

I mean it's kind of like rules of thumb. And we're talking cosmetic versus structural innovation and we're usually talking flipping versus buy and hold. So flipping is buy, renovate, sell. So there's a number of different strategies. So first and foremost you need to determine what strategy you're after before you buy. Because if you're buying a flipping property, which is not being rude property to flip a flipping, your target market is owner occupiers. Now the census data allows us to find what streets the owner occupiers want to live in. So you're buying properties in those streets. If you want to target the buy, renovate, hold. There's streets where renovators so renters live. You target those streets. So you know, you need to be very clear in your strategy. First of all, once you have the strategy, it helps you to determine where you buy. So then you get the location and do that analysis and then you get down to the is There the pricing disparity, because sometimes you just have to give up on a suburb because the differential will not make you the profit that you want. And then once you find the property that allows you to do that, you know, a rule of thumb is 10% of the value of the property you'd spend on a cosmetic renovation. Having said that, I went and did a refresh renovation last year of one of my existing properties. It was valued at 820. I did a $35,000 renovation, six weeks later it was valued at 920, you know, so I knew it was going to be valued at 920 because I did six or seven comparable sales to say, if I renovate up to this standard, what will it be worth? And if the profit's not in there, you don't do it, you know, so I think for people who don't have the experience, it's a process and it's a, you know, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

Yes, we've said that a few times.

It's not easy.

We talk a lot about process on this podcast and it's the same thing when you take your clients through that. That's exactly what you're doing. This is the framework, this is the course material, this is exactly what you should follow. Try not to go outside of those because there's reasons for that. But I'm not going to document everyone in the next hundred pages. But just stay within the frameworks, follow those systems and processes and don't get excited by the end result. The end result comes from the process that you deliver.

And you know, my grandmother, bless her heart, she died at 96. I've got one still going at 93, so which is pretty good. But she was CWA woman for 60 years and she used to win the, you know, the scones bake off every year. She had a recipe, she just followed the recipe, you know, and she never ventured from the recipe. The recipe was always right. You know, it's like the process, if you have the recipe that works that someone's showing you before, it's like, you know, why, why venture off?

Why do you have to take on all this extra same sort of thing? People like, well, once we do that, then when you want to get in development, then we want to do more development, we go commercial. It's like, so if I could tell you you could have your $200,000 passive income by just buying six or seven of these really high end properties and you didn't have to put all hands work and have to get to. And you could actually go off and have a lot more free time rather than being the business at of developing wealth. All right, well, I'm interested to hear that. Well, let's start with that first before we go off and do all this risky stuff. I remember reading one of those magazines, $190,000 profit in six months from my first development. And then you read the article, I think I've mentioned this before. You read the article and it talks about, wait a minute, $2.3 million of risk to earn that sort of money. And then it was a 50, 50 joint venture. He takes that, then he's got to pay tax. And I'm like serious, Are you serious about wanting to promote this? This is not a good investment.

This should not be a feasibility.

It should not have stacked up as a feasibility. You should not have bought that development.

I know, I agree.

It's a very good point. Is there a self assessment that a listener could do to work out if renovation is for them? Have you seen with the students any common human traits that the successful ones do versus the ones whose ambition exceeds their ability?

It's interesting because I have kind of like a exercise that the students go through which is a risk profile of different types of property investment. So off the plan, subdivision renovating, granny flats, you know, NRAs home, blah, blah. But the thing is what it comes down to is that you have to understand your own risk appetite. And you know, I reduce risk. So as I said, risk assessments to me is about likelihood and consequence. So I work out the likelihood of something going wrong and then what's the consequence? What's the likelihood I'm going to have a tenant? So I've got 20 tenants at the moment. What's the likelihood that one of my tenants will dem into property? Kind of high, right. So how do I minimize that risk? I have landlords insurance tick. Is this a risk that's acceptable to me now? Yes, I'll move on. Whereas for renovation, you know, people might look at this and risk and say what's the risk that I could get it wrong and lose money on this? Well, the risk is quite high because we hear about successful people but we all know a lot of people over capitalize and especially for their homes as well. Like the techniques that we have for.

Homes as well as hand up investment renovations.

Hand up when you said 10 doors.

Like wouldn't let a DA lapse.

But you look at it and you go, so what's the risk involved? I'm not going to make money how do I learn to make money? Well, I either read a book, I get some education, I get a project manager in, I get some expertise, somehow that will reduce my risk. But the characteristics that they have, they have to be detectives. So you have to be able to do that research. You have to find the property and find the suburbs. You have to absolutely be a project manager, even if you outsource the project management because you need to know the timeline and what's going on. I think you have to be a solution based person. So here's one of my mistakes I'm going to share with you. You get into the renovation and your head space is in the renovation and you don't step out and look at the big picture. So plumber came to us in the middle of a renovation of a property in eastern suburbs. Sydney said, you know that toilet in the back laundry, it goes to ground, there's no sewage attached to it. I'm like, oh my God, gotta get sewage, rip up the concrete path, lay the sewage. Eight grand later, wasn't in the budget, had to let things go out of the budget for that to happen. And we had the second toilet. Now what I should have done was step back and go, do I need a second toilet? And the answer was no, you know, because your solution base. So you need to be solution based because every single day in renovation it's like we put up the tiles and we found this problem with floorboards. What do you think? And so you're always thinking through, but you have to have the ability to also step back to the big picture and go, how does this get me to that end value? Because if you're doing structural changes, it's not the bang for the buck of your dollars. So I would say that they were the things that I think are characteristic of a very successful renovator.

That's a good list. It's a good list. First invest property was 2001 one.

Yep.

So we're now 15 years on.

I know.

So if you were talking to Jane SLACK SMITH For 2001, what would be the three things you would say? Obviously to make sure the sewerage is connected, but what would be the two or three things you'd say to yourself looking back, starting out on the journey now that you've had the experience?

I would say based on the research back yourself and based on the numbers, definitely I would have bought more. I would have bought more. You know, there's that risk profile coming out of you.

You're naturally risk averse, no different.

You know, my dad said to me once, oh, you better be careful. This whole property investing thing, Jane, one day you'll owe a million dollars. I'm like, oh, how am I gonna tell him we're over that now? But, you know, so I think I, I would also. And it brings me to an important point. Friends and family are so important to you and they always have your best interest at heart. But often they're not the experienced people to give you the best advice. So when you're kind of on the path of, you know, my best friend should say, you're always in the self help section of the library or the bookshop. You know, you're always trying to better yourself. Sometimes the family and friends that you have aren't going to be supportive of that. And property investment is not a game. If you do it right, it is an absolute process to genuine financial security for the future of you and your family. And sometimes friends may not be supportive and family, often you can't get rid of family, but friends. You can create a new space of people you talk to and surround yourself with the right people. But I think you have to be really polite and say thank you for your advice, but you know, I've done a lot of research on this and try to bring them with you, but be aware that you may have to leave them behind.

Yeah, very good points on that. What's the must read non property book that you would say that people should.

Read is Rich Dad, Poor dad, not Property?

Well, it's financial literacy.

But it's interesting with Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I mean, having read that many, many, many, many years ago, they didn't, he didn't want debt, Remember, he was always about saving up and buying the asset. Saving up and buying the asset. Whereas property in the Australian sense, well, we have to have leverage. So as much as I got a lot out of that, there was also a part of me that says different environment, different set of rules. So I've got to play to the game plan of the rules in the game that I'm playing, which is the Australian property market.

One of the things that he said was find out the skills you need to get to where you want to go and then find a company to work for that has those skills. So when I moved on, I was working on a mine site as a drill and blast engineer in central New South Wales. And I thought, if I want to improve my career, what skills do I need? And I actually looked at the different companies within the mining industry and then targeted them. I didn't care what the job was because you can always grow within a role in a job. But I targeted the training they were going to give me. So, you know, I looked at the training I needed and I've applied that. I've always been very strategic about the future plan and that's why I'm so in my conversations with clients. It's like, tell me about what you want in the future. I don't really want to talk cheap interest rates now. I want to know. I want to be on that journey and understand where you think you're going to be.

You want to be an advisor, not a transactional broker.

Yeah, one and done. Let's, you know, move it on kind of thing. So, you know, to me it's, I guess, you know. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, yeah. No, I can relate to that.

Rich Napoleon.

Yeah, that's a good one. I think it's a good one. It's one of my most influential. I don't know if there's any how to win friends or influence people type of books.

Look, I'm reading and I've read it a few times, Persuading Aristotle and I like, I know it sounds really high brow, but it's not. And it kind of goes back to, you know, how you talk to people and the psychology of talking to people and influencing people for the right motives as opposed to NLP them and get them in for the wrong motives really interests me. So psychology of why people do what they do. So predictably irrational. I've been reading recently and persuading Aristotle because the thinking process of why people make decisions really intrigues me.

Very good. Well, Ivis has just let me know that we've raced past 30 minutes. Well, Drew, I'm sure our listeners won't mind because he's getting some really great quality content here. But last question for you, unless Ben has a closer. Do you have a view on the negative caring debate on both sides of politics right now?

I have interviewed a lot of people on this in the last two weeks, to be honest, because I'm not too sure. But every time you read in the media, it's either it's going to happen, it's not going to happen. It's on the table. It's not. And it's based on a survey of 1,000 people that seems that the government are changing their position every. Every day. Look, negative gearing should not go as far as I'm concerned. I'm really happy that I have my portfolio done and dusted and not in an acquisitional role. So everything's going to be grandfathered for me. But for the people I speak to, that's not the case. So I really see some significant issues in the long term. If the changes in the capital gains tax for investors when they sell changes and negative gearing, I don't think it's positive for the industry. And yeah, I'd like to lend my voice to your complaints on that, Ben and Bryce. I think that the government at the moment is just doing a media play and obviously the opposition and it will be a topic that's on the table. But lo, behold, if they have the guts to go through with it. What? 80% of people earn less than $80,000 that are claiming negative gearing.

It's middle Australia that's using it as a tool to get ahead. And sure, higher income earners can get great advantage from them, but anecdotally from the people we see at the coalface every day. We're not talking to CEOs and we've got CEOs as clients, but we're talking to middle Australia and they're using it as an opportunity to get ahead.

But none of us recommend negative gearing as a strategy. It is something that you can optimise and we all believe that if you buy the right property in a number of years, you won't need negative gearing because it will be paid for itself.

That's right.

You know, it's not a strategy, it's.

Not a long term strategy, it's an event and then over time it becomes positive and you pay your taxes. But don't get me started on this. I've got more to come on this topic because now we know the Liberal Party have made their political position known and we know the Labor's party's position. So we're going to spend a fair bit of time in tearing it to shreds. I suspect over the course of the.

Next couple of weeks. You see how Ben's put his hands. That's how he.

I thought it was a gunslinger, it was a slinger move.

That's a, that's how he keeps the adrenaline down. Hands well and should in the pocket. Well, it's been great chatting with you, Jane. I mentioned at the top that you've had a huge influence on me personally on investing and personal growth as well. So it's a privilege for me to have you on today and I hope it's been good for the listeners too to hear that Jane has actually walked the talk. You heard us talk about her portfolio. It's done and dusted. The acquisition phase is over. She's now just fine tuning and watching that portfolio grow. So it's not always about acquiring, acquiring, acquiring forever and ever. There is a point that you can reach. So we're going to put all Jane's details up on our website, ThePropertyCouch.com if you want to reach out and chat to her. She's on Instagram, she's on Twitter, she's on social media. No getting the number.

Not on Instagram.

But we'll send you some links so that you can reach out to Jane. And so you go to the property couch. And we've also got a. Because we know you're a renovator, you're going to give us some opinion.

It's pretty essential guys to renovation. Yeah.

The 20 essential tips. It's a guide for renovation. So if you go to the property couch, just gave me that panicked look of how am I gonna get this on the website? By this afternoon you'll be able to go there and download that.

And you've got a renovation course that you do. And that's a sort of a DIY type course.

Yep, absolutely. It's a 12 week online module and video content, lots of resources and bonuses and we only have that open for enrolments twice a year. So that's March and September. For one week at a time, we grab the people and then we get in and really help and handhold them through the process.

So what we do is we'll get to anyone who's interested in that, they can send an email to us ivis@ the property couch. And when it gets closer to September.

We might put the link up.

Sounds a great plan.

That'd be great. All right, Ben.

Oh, that's me.

Ben. What am I doing? You got two jobs. You got to heckle me at the beginning.

Yeah. Which I did. Well, I thought I did. All right, tick that box.

And now let us know where we're signing off. Do you know any languages?

Do you have any languages?

No.

Do you know any? Because I'm very happy to handball this.

No, no, no.

So Korean today.

Korean.

Korean. So you know everyone. Drum roll please.

I'm splashing. Why did you pick one? There we go.

Drum roll. And it's annual. I'm getting the. I got the giggle first, but now it's like, oh, yeah, Anyong sounds like onion. Where is it? Everyone, where are we? Korean. That's the Australian.

I don't know why I even bother.

Anyong.

It all becomes Australian accent.

Got nothing for me, okay? You pushed me off the bridge. Both of you.

So, again, Jane, thanks for coming in.

Thanks, Jane.

Always welcome on the couch. Ben. I'll probably see you next week at 0 and 6, will I?

Yep. I'm done here. My work's done.

And to the rest of the listeners, Ann Yongi.

Annyongi.

See you next week, folks.

Bye.