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#252 - Why I Don’t Own Property (As A Millionaire) · Money Grows on Trees

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  Property's falling fast. So why in the world would I be trying to educate
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  people to get into a bubble? It doesn't make sense. I much prefer to educate people
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  to get something they can bootstrap when they're younger and build freedom. Because at the end
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  of the day, wealth's about freedom of your time, especially the younger generation.
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  You know how many kids aren't going to be able to buy a house because of the greed in this country
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  with property? It's disgusting. Politicians should be limited to one
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  house because if they're not, they've got six. They're going to put policy in place to pump up
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  the price because they're greedy pieces of shit. People that own lots of property, they
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  just seem to be under absolute financial stress all the time. and they seem
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  to have no freedom. And so for me, it was kind of compromising my own personal desires
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  to have a freedom driven life. But I just never gravitated towards
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  property because of the success. If you're stuck in old money habits, overwhelmed
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  by investing or unsure where to start, this is for you. I'll
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  give you the mindset and strategies to take control, grow
• 0:48
  your wealth and achieve financial freedom. It's time to make
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  your money work for you. Why I don't own
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  property as a millionaire. What a hot topic
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  this will be. The fighting in the comments
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  should be extreme. Why I don't own property as a millionaire. I
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  wanted to do this episode because a minute, there's a couple of ads floating around we've done
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  talking about our book here, Money Buys Happiness. In the book, I talk about
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  other wealth building strategies besides property. A
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  lot of people grab the book and want to look at other avenues besides
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  owning a house. The reason why I've kind of created this anti-property
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  rebellion is because I actually didn't build my wealth
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  through property. It's really interesting. I'll explain
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  just a little bit of my background so you understand where I'm coming from here. You got to understand, I'm
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  from the Gold Coast which is like the epicenter of property in the world. My
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  dad has had a property business for 35 years, marketing
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  property. So there's people that buy property and build wealth
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  and there's people that have businesses in property. I'm a business guy, I'm
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  not a buy property, build wealth guy, just so you know. But my background
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  is, listen to this, lawyer, qualified lawyer, specializing
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  in property law, got my full
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  real estate license that I still have that's actively still fully licensed agent,
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  a full license, and have had that since I was 20. So
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  what's that? I've had that for 11 years. 21 years
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  I've had that and I was in commercial sales and leasing for Ray White.
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  I then went into property law, then I went into real estate development in
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  the Middle East. So my whole background up to the age of about 28 and
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  then I went into running a property business which is marketing properties
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  with my dad and kind of rebuilt this family business. So
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  all the way until the age of say 31, my whole background is property. Just
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  so you know, it's not like I don't know
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  what I'm talking about when it comes to property. It's just that I
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  personally made a choice to invest in liquid assets and
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  small businesses before owning property.
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  I looked at all the people that own lots of property and they just seem to be
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  under absolute financial stress all the time and they seem to
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  have no freedom. For me, it was kind of compromising my own personal
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  desires to have a freedom-driven life. When
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  I was the age of 30, I started marketing supplements online. And
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  that's what allowed us to scale a business to step out of our job. So it wasn't property
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  that did it. In fact, even if I go back to when I was
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  working in the property industry, I was actually taking the
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  money that I was making from a wage, doing certain things, and I was buying shares. And
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  so I was taking the money I was making. I was not buying property, I was buying shares. I
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  was offered properties to buy. I could get pretty good deals. I was
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  getting put and call option deals, but I just never gravitated
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  towards property because it just never felt like a freedom asset to me. It
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  felt like it was taking money from me, not giving me money. So I thought, what if
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  I get into shares? One, they're liquid. Two, they produce income. And in Australia, they
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  can produce, depending on what you buy and when you buy it. your
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  tax rate, they can produce tax-free income. I actually started to
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  buy shares from the very outset, probably
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  15 years ago. The reason I wanted that is because I wanted to build up a portfolio that
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  produced passive income. I started in online marketing using
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  the power of social media back in 2014 because
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  I wanted to develop a side hustle outside my job to fund the portfolio. I
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  also wanted to get out of my job and be free. Property didn't do
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  that because I had to get tons of leverage. Property
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  was going to force me to get a big mortgage, force me to be at the
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  mercy of the banks, and it wasn't going to produce any income for me for
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  a long period of time because all of it for 20 or 30 years is used to pay off the debt. I
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  wanted to have free cash flow earlier. I just decided against
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  property from the very outset. I had every chance to be in it. My dad says
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  it's a miracle I've never owned any. And I think it is too, because I've said
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  no to that whole, like, I'm not one to just buy into a doctrine and
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  go along with the crowd. So what's interesting, and the reason I'm telling you this is because I
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  have a free life. I just literally, I'm not joking, tomorrow I'm going to Thailand for
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  a month. And the only reason we're coming back is because we have a small puppy here.
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  But I don't have to be here. And so
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  I look at all my friends that went into the property game, they have to be everywhere. They
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  cannot leave. I decided to take
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  my capital and put it into small businesses that will leverage the
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  power of the internet to build freedom and put into shares that produce passive
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  income straight away. I built that to live this life.
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  It was an actual decision. As
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  you can imagine, I was almost seduced into property many
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  times. In fact, I had an expression of interest on a
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  real estate transaction only about two and a half years ago. I was just
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  seduced by a couple of – it was like a family thing. I was like, yes,
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  sounds good. It was an emotional thing that almost got me. I was like, what the hell
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  are you doing? And I stopped and then I moved the money back out and bought a
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  laundromat. Check this out. The amount of money I put into the laundromat deal
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  was like one, I guess you could say it was the same amount
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  as the deposit for the property. However, the property would have produced no income,
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  it would have taken income from me, it would have been negatively geared and
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  it would have produced a 3% yield. The laundromat produces a 40% yield
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  and it's paid off in three years. It's just so many
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  better deals out there than an apartment for two million. And
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  again, I'm not completely against property. I just don't like
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  it and I hate to see it when people buy property because one,
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  they don't understand anything else. Two, they buy into a really inflated market
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  and it completely destroys them financially in the sense of they've got to
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  take three jobs just to pay the mortgage. And they lose all their freedom. They
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  lose their relationships. It just completely destroys the financial dynamics
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  at home because you're under stress from your mortgage. And I just don't want to see it. So I'm like,
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  hey, there's other ways besides property to be building wealth, just so
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  you know. And I've done that. I'm proof that you can do it.
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  And so, a lot of my friends who are successful too, they got successful building businesses,
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  not becoming property moguls. Yes, there are people that have done it, I get it. But
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  for me, it was just about freedom early. And I don't know anyone that's
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  bought a ton of property that's completely free because all the income from the property
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  is paying them off over time. Again, they're not coming to Thailand for
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  a month with me tomorrow. They're stuck in their jobs. Just quickly, if you're
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  ready to take control of your finances but feel stuck on where to start, I
• 7:08
  have a solution. My book, Money Buys Happiness, simplifies
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  investing and wealth building with practical steps to help you achieve financial
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  peace. Get your copy via the link in the show notes and let's get your
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  money working for you. Now back to the episode. And I just think
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  about the capital that I had that I could have put as a deposit for
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  a house into our home. We live in a nice place on the water. We've
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  been renting there for 11 years, and I think about the amount
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  of body corporate fees we would have paid. I think about the equity that I
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  would have put into it, but I took the equity and built four businesses
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  out of it, and that's the difference. Then I also scaled the
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  wealth and put that into shares. It's not like people often think, oh,
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  Lord, if you don't own property, what do you – I was like, well, we own a multimillion dollar share portfolio
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  that does 14% returns each. where there's
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  other things besides property, you know, like there's other asset classes,
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  and people are so hell-bent on Bitcoin and stuff. I'm like, what? Like,
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  it's one alternative, but it doesn't produce
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  any cash flow. So how can it produce freedom? I was just always about freedom from
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  the start. So businesses that produce cash flow and investments
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  that produce cash flow just made more
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  sense to me 15 years ago than ones that don't. That's
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  all. And now I'm a living example of why I chose
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  that, because I like to have geofreedom. And a lot of my friends who
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  are living all overseas, they all have geofreedom too. I just felt
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  that the capital was better spent on small businesses that can scale and produce
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  cash flow than to have a property that I lived in that wasn't going to produce anything
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  for me. And I see this a lot with people that live in the house that they've purchased.
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  They've put a large deposit in there, which is their cash. They have no
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  emergency buffer. They're borrowed $1.5 million. There's
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  no deductions on it tax-wise if it's their PPI, their principal place
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  of residence. And they're all struggling, sending their kids to
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  daycare, and they struggle street, commuting every single day just to pay
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  off a house. It just doesn't occur to me that that's
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  a life well lived. That's all. It's not that it doesn't work. There's
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  a lot of people that build wealth out of property. It's just that wealth
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  is not just the amount that your house is worth that you sell when you're
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  65. There's more to life than that. I find wealth
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  in the freedom. That's where I find wealth. I find money buying
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  me happiness not slavery. It's just a
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  philosophical difference that I have. So I want to share the
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  philosophical difference with other people. I want them to be hopeful, especially
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  the younger generation. Do you have any kids? I'm going to be able to buy a house because of
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  the greed in this country with properties. It's disgusting. Politicians
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  should be limited to one house because if they're not, they've got six. They're
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  going to put policy in place to pump up the price because they're greedy pieces of shit.
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  I'm thinking to myself, how do you provide hope and another
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  way for younger people to build wealth that's not property? your
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  kids going to – and by the way, if you're guaranteeing your kids on your property, congratulations,
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  well done, awesome. It's nice you're doing that for them. But what about the kids that don't
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  have you as a parent? How are they supposed to build wealth? Have you
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  ever thought about them? Like I think of my niece and nephew. So I think of people, young
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  kids that they're going to build, come up in a country that can't own their
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  house. Like they want to build wealth, how are they going to do it? That's
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  the message I'm giving. I want to show them another way. They can
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  start small businesses. They can start online businesses. They can invest in shares. You
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  can invest in shares as a kid when you're with some cool apps like Raise
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  and Acorns and wherever you are in the world and you can actually help them invest when
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  they're kids and they can get good habits. They can't do that with property when they're in
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  their teens. How? They're not going to be able to do it.
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  Without a doubt, property has worked for sure, and it will continue
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  to work for the right people, but there's also a contingent out there, I'd say 50% of
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  the population, that can't do it. What about them? How are
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  we going to help them? I'm concentrated on helping them. That's why I
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  decided to start the Anti-Property Rebellion. because I'm one of the few people at my age that's
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  got a multi-million dollar net worth that hasn't owned one. Frankly, I'm bloody rare. So
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  I wanted to be able to inspire that generation to actually build
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  wealth other ways. And if you're watching this and you're inspired, good, I
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  want to inspire you too. There's just other ways, right? And
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  by all accounts, if property went through a massive correction over 50% and it's
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  happened before, don't even, you look at history in the past, it's happened.
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  It's happened right now in the United States. Property's falling fast. Now
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  I'm not suggesting it's gonna happen in Sydney or you're flipping freaks about Sydney property market.
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  You put something about Sydney and they're like, nah, and they throw rocks. Look, it
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  may be that Australia goes through a correction. It might be that it
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  makes a lot of sense for people to buy properties when they're cheaper and
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  they're producing income that actually pays for themselves. It might be
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  you can buy a cash cow property. I have looked at properties that produce 10% yield.
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  I remember selling houses during the GFC. There was opportunities, right?
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  But they're just not present now. And if you look at that
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  market, it doesn't scream, buy me. So why in
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  the world would I be trying to educate people to get into a bubble? It
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  doesn't make sense. I much prefer to educate people to get something they can
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  bootstrap when they're younger and build freedom. Because at the end of the day, wealth's
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  about freedom of your time, becoming time rich, than
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  it is to just accumulate property and build wealth. You know how many people I've spoken to
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  who've got, I'm just talking to a lady, she's got $6 million worth
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  of property, $3 million worth of debt, her net worth's $3 million, and she's
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  looking for a side house to make ends meet. And she's mentally cooked
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  because she's mentally in this social status game of like, I've got to buy more properties,
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  like a flippin' idiot. I said, you know, if you divested them, put your money over
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  here and did this, you could actually be free and just travel the world. She's like, what? This is what's
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  happening. People are so flippin' focused over here with this property game. They've
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  forgotten what the whole objective is. is to buy yourself happiness!
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  Enjoy and live a flippin' fruitful life! Not accumulate goddamn
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  bricks and mortar! Get over yourself! Like, there's other ways! Anyway,
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  that's why I've done those ads, because I want to start a rebellion that's just different. Because
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  we have to teach people how to build wealth differently than just land, because it's getting ridiculous.
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  So, I hope you've made, you've got value from this. I hope you see why
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  I'm trying to carve this new thing out. I'm trying to inspire others to do something
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  different. So, if you've enjoyed this and you feel the same way, leave
• 13:04
  me a comment in the comments below. Do you agree with this? Do you disagree? Do you think I'm
• 13:08
  a flippant psychopath? Pop in the comments. I'll come and fight you in there. I don't care. I'm
• 13:11
  all about this. So leave a comment. If you want to start a fight, start
• 13:15
  a fight. I'll come and comment there with you and we'll have a nice discussion. And if
• 13:18
  you support me, put it there anyway. I appreciate the support on the channel. Go hit the
• 13:21
  subscribe button. Share this with someone who needs to hear this. There's more
• 13:24
  to life than owning houses. See you in the next episode. Thanks for
• 13:28
  listening to Money Grows on Trees. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a five-star
• 13:31
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• 13:35
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• 13:38
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• 13:42
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