Latest / The Follio Property Podcast / My 7-year Journey to Outgrowing the Australian Property Market — Here Are The Lessons (Lachlan Delahunty)

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My 7-year Journey to Outgrowing the Australian Property Market — Here Are The Lessons (Lachlan Delahunty) · The Follio Property Podcast

• 0:00
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• 0:56
  It's getting harder and harder to get any property in the next six years. I reckon we're going to get more headwinds. How could it go wrong? It did, but it nearly sent dad break up. So it was a tough pill to swallow. When you've got a pretty humble family, then it's gone miserably wrong. You took the leap whilst at all university. What that was, I convinced my dad that it's a great idea to double down in a townhouse development in a regional location. And on paper, it all looks 30, 40% profit margin on that. But once you start something that big, there's no way out.
• 1:19
  It took seven years, seven years, to get back to square one. And I was training full time, essentially trying to be a professional footballer. And then I was delivering mail around university. And I was steam cleaning carpets for people's homes because I just wanted to repay the favour because I knew people were in them financially.
• 1:34
  A lot of people will think property landlords with multiple properties, you know, they've had it handed to them. What was the strategy to get out of that direction? I had to learn the true value of property and what drives value. But my job is to try and outperform the market through the years of experience and the data, and that's our obligation. Six years later, we've outperformed the Australian property market almost 3%. If you can own your home debt-free, after that, everything else is a bonus. And that's what I'm passionate about.
• 1:58
  You're listening to the Folio Property Podcast. I'm Rhys Bettle, joined each week by my co-host Lachlan Delahunty. Lachlan, this is a special episode, one you've been a bit reluctant to do, but we've had the podcast running 12 months now under initially a different alias, but in terms of podcasting, we've had it 12 months, so we thought it'd be good to get the Lachlan Delahunty story. Yeah, Rhys, you've twisted my arm to do this, but...
• 2:19
  Here we are. At your request, we can go through a bit of a journey. Excellent. All right. Take us back, Lachlan. Matoa, 600 people, one kid in your year level. How does that shape your mindset? People don't even know where Matoa is. So Matoa is a country town halfway between Melbourne and Adelaide, population 600 people.
• 2:37
  Very small, remote town built on pretty much two things, farming and football. And the local pub, that's pretty much it. So there's not a lot there, but full of lots of love, lots of family still there. And yeah, like you said, I grew up with 13 people in my primary school, of which Jack was the only one in my year level for all of primary school, me and Jack.
• 2:57
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• 3:23
  So for someone who's very sociable, that must have been a bit of a challenge then to meet people if you've only got 13 people in your school. I was related to four of them, so it sort of, yeah, it starts to be a pretty sheltered upbringing, but it was quite the opposite, Rhys. When you go up with not a lot, and these days everything's in abundance, whether it's
• 3:45
  friends or social media or everything else when you grow up with nothing, no technology. Not a lot of friends, just Jack and I, right? And not a lot to do to create your own fun. I think it's an upbringing that many would envy. We just had so much fun. You make your own fun and you learn so much more because...
• 4:01
  you're out there doing productive stuff and things that you wouldn't do these days. Talk us through the upbringing from your family side. You've mentioned on the podcast previously about your dad being a builder. I think your mum's a nurse as well. Is that where the property interest came from?
• 4:17
  Yeah, so growing up, school holidays, in Mattel, there isn't a heap to do, right? So, and you don't have daycare. So it was, go to work with Dad every day and pretty much slave labor for the old man. But you pick up things, right? So Davids is a local building in the area, mostly doing old character home renovations. Everything there is...
• 4:36
  He was built sort of 100 years ago when they were putting down the railway, so they're all homes that have a heap of problems. So naturally, just around property all the time. And like anywhere, particularly in Matowa, there's no different. People take a lot of pride in their homes, and their home is their castle, and it's probably more relevant there than anywhere I've ever seen, because it's...
• 4:57
  It is a very social place, although very small. It's come around for a barbecue, come around, watch the footy, come around for a beer and how you use the property and how people took so much pride in doing a renovation and inviting people around. It's on display for the whole town, right? So when you don't have a lot, that home becomes everything. And that was a big part of many people's lives in the area because he was able to turn what was an old run-down derelict home into something that was beautiful.
• 5:23
  And being a part of that journey as a young kid, at the time I didn't think much of it because David just had me running around picking up bricks and throwing them in the bin. But just being around that was, now in hindsight, a pretty beautiful time to learn, I guess, small fundamentals of property, right? Yeah.
• 5:38
  Well, having seen some of the properties you've had or previously had in your portfolio, you do love a character home, a value add as well. So I'm assuming that's probably where you've got the passion from. Must have picked it up. But yeah, I love keeping heritage in homes, right? There's only a finite amount of homes that have been around longer than 100 years. And every year they continue to bulldoze them. So I do have a passion of trying to restore the young history that we have. Now, I'm assuming at that young age...
• 6:02
  you weren't thinking of starting a property investment company. What was their passion at a younger age? And what did you kind of think you were going to be when you grew up? Sort of two things. You either get in trouble or you play footy, right? So that was all I did. You obsess about football. Football is like the community in the town. It's what drives that whole district, the whole area. It's your family is the football club and dad was
• 6:30
  household name for many people in the area. You know, one, plenty of best and fairest for the Matawa footy club, the Matawa Magpies and just growing up around that, that was all their dreams and ambition were all around football. And for me, it was a vehicle not just to pursue football, but actually to become really important for my education. Brothers, sisters? Yeah, older brother, older sister. Big thing about mum and dad, they never had tertiary education and all they wanted for their kids was to do everything they can to give their kids the opportunity to go to university, right?
• 7:00
  And even though I was always trying to push a footy career, the most important thing was to give us the opportunity, not force it, but give us the opportunity. And when you're in Matawa, that's a big stretch for modern people these days. We're like, going to uni is just a walk-up start. But in Matawa, really difficult, not only by proximity, four hours away, but financially and the idea that you're going to go to university.
• 7:25
  And when you're growing up in the 90s, it was as far as you could possibly reach. You didn't know too many people that actually inspired to go to university. So it was a massive achievement. They achieved it, put one through med school, another one did construction, and I went through and did property degrees. So hats off to mum and dad. They achieved their goals.
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• 8:44
  Talk us through that. So what moment did you go down the property angle in terms of university? Like was that there from a qualification perspective? Was that always where you were going? Not always. Obviously I always had a passion for it. So to get onto the next phase was football became something that I've become more, I guess, involved in. You sort of go through the programs and that enabled me to go to boarding school. It was there that I realised that I was a long way behind academically.
• 9:13
  And Dad was pretty, although super passionate football, was always pretty grounded that education's got to come first. So I remember we had to pay, we got a scholarship. Mum and Dad had paid a lot of money for me to go to boarding school and I was never going to waste that. I spent four hours studying every night, every recess race, everyone was out kicking the footy and playing cricket. I was in my room studying because I just wanted to repay the favour because I knew how much it was crippling them financially. I didn't have anything and yet they're paying for me to go to school. I couldn't abuse that.
• 9:39
  which gave me the ability to get a score that I know we need to get into Deakin University to study property and specialise in valuations. And that was predominantly off a book that I was reading at the time, Zero to 130 Properties by Steve McKnight. Certainly wouldn't advise people to take the advice that he did, but that...
• 9:57
  That was something I was reading in year 11 that got me excited about property and seeing this particular investor took a strong position in country, regional towns. And I knew, that's all I knew. I'd really been out of Mattowa, right? So it started to make sense. I thought that's pretty interesting. What am I going to do post-school? Property become the next to-do thing.
• 10:18
  University, you mentioned this on the podcast, you know, several episodes regarding you took the leap and started acquiring your first property while still at university. Talk us through what that was and where that sort of purchase went.
• 10:32
  You know, Rhys, you're at university, your second year in your degree, you've done a couple of essays and you think you're the absolute expert at property investment. And being relatively good at the sales side, I convinced my dad that it's a great idea to double down. I've done a lot of feasibility, I think we should start doing developing. He's the builder, I'm clearly a fantastic, astute investor, know everything about property and I'm second year in university.
• 10:59
  Did something that would tell any client or any investor not to do, and that was buying a small regional area. The town was Horsham, so 20,000 population that's built predominantly on one economic driver, which is farming. So very volatile to droughts and so forth. So again, not an area that you should be investing in.
• 11:19
  and participate in a development of six house, townhouse development in a regional location. And on paper, it all looks great, right? In sales, it's going to be 30%, 40% in this development. They have to build us, there's going to be profit margin on that. How could it go wrong? Well, as you can imagine, how could it actually go right and true to form at...
• 11:41
  Almost, not sure how close it did, but it nearly sent dad bankrupt. So it was a tough pill to swallow, particularly when you're earning pretty much no money at university, right, trying everything you can and you've got a pretty humble family that have taken a leap of faith and it's gone miserably wrong. It was definitely a testing time for me. How did you navigate that? I'm assuming it's not just probably affecting yourself, it's affecting your parents and maybe even your siblings with...
• 12:08
  My sister bought one. I was in for one. Dad was in for the rest. One thing I learned, it's like they always say never mix your personal life with your professional life. Business for pleasure. And I absolutely echo that just because it become really a testing relationship because you're wanting updates to have what's going on. He couldn't get bank finance because it's a development. And it's these things. It's like there's no way out. Once you start something that big, there's no way out. And if the banks say they're not going to give you the money, well, you're sitting there with a half-built development. You can't sell that.
• 12:38
  there's only one way out and that's to continue to find a path forward and it took seven years seven years racist development put me behind you know that and some to get back to to square one and I learnt so much through that
• 12:55
  development and it's you know look at him like we should never have done it it was a terrible idea but to be honest that set up the foundation of investing for me in what not to do and what to never do and what to never advise clients to do and i learned more through that seven years than any degree could have taught me i'll give you give you the tip
• 13:12
  At this stage, you're still playing football in Melbourne. You've obviously gone through this seven-year experience as well. What was the strategy to get out of that and go down the valuations route post-university? Yeah. What was the strategy? I can save as much as I possibly can, work as hard as I can, and there's no...
• 13:30
  no two ways about that it was what is currently in play you can't you can't undo what had been done but how we were going to get out of that and the way we're going to get out of that is we need to raise more funds i need to make more money to put in to strengthen dad's position to be able to get funding to be able to finish development the only way we could get out was by finishing that um yeah at the time i was training with essendon so the schedule was pretty hectic you're training full-time essentially trying to be
• 13:54
  professional footballer and then I had a job at the university as the local Deakin mailman, so I was delivering mail around university. And I was steam cleaning carpets for people's homes. So the only way I knew was just work, work really, really hard. But get the degree and then learn the fundamentals of property. And I don't think I'd been, I had a mentor at the time.
• 14:15
  that I was doing some work experience as well at a real estate agency and the idea of getting really large commission checks at that time seemed like that was the direction I had to take because we needed to get out of this debt and this dire situation we're in. So I thought, yeah, I can sell, pretty confident. I've been able to sell that on the fact that it was a good idea to do six townhouse developments in regional Victoria. Probably gonna be able to sell a few houses in Melbourne. So I was doing work experience there. They'd offer me a job after my first day of work experience. I had to do two ways of work experience.
• 14:45
  And I was out there knocking doors and getting listing opportunities for the agency in the northwest suburbs of Melbourne. But a mentor said, don't sell your soul like that. Go and learn the foundations of property. And the best way to do that is through valuations. It's not sexy. It's not fun. It's not pretty. It's not fun.
• 15:00
  but you learn the true value of property and what drives value, how to understand true value of property, what adds value, what loses value. But you're going to get paid next to nothing to do it, but you'll learn more in those four or five years than you will flogging houses or selling houses in different markets. So it's pretty hard because the commission checks that were potentially going to come through were, my income would have been four or five times, maybe six times what I was going to earn as a valuer.
• 15:25
  but it was very good advice from a good mentor at the time to take a more conservative and educated process, which will set me up better long-term and it was the best decision I've ever made in my career to date. What made the move to Western Australia then? So country, a lot of people wouldn't realise this. We're based here in Perth. Obviously, we've got an office in Melbourne as well, but not a lot of people know that you're a country boy from Victoria. What made the move to Western Australia now?
• 15:53
  That was, again, to pursue football. So throughout this period of property devastation and education, I was always trying to fulfill the dream of playing AFL. So it started at Essendon. I couldn't get on the list there and ended up at a VFL club, Frankston, and then West Coast and both Fremantle had shown a bit of interest. They wanted to see me come across to WA and play on some big rounds.
• 16:14
  sort of flirted the idea that I could be a good fit. So straight away I packed the bags, get a job. And it was always speaking to over here, what is waffle clubs is, you know, if you ever can get me a job in property, I'll play with. And Subiaco got me a valuation job in the city at JLL.
• 16:31
  made the move and committed 100% at the time. 2014 was the absolute peak of the Perth property market. So I was like, this is fantastic. Melbourne at the time was pretty slow. And you're in valuation, so it's probably easier valuing a slow market than it is in a bullish market. But it's not as exciting, right? Because there's a lot of ambitious in Perth. So you come to Perth in 2014, it's like they've just been on a bumper run where properties have gone up three to four times in the last decade.
• 16:54
  It was exciting. It was fun and true to form. The next six years was probably the most depressed Perth market I'd ever witnessed. So you learn a lot during that period of where people got overexposed to what they shouldn't have bought. And it was an obvious link for me then when people were coming to me with development sites and I'm doing...
• 17:11
  post-purchase valuation saying, this is a terrible deal, it's not going to stack up, you're going to lose money, to then starting to give advice to those developers and investors to say, hey, maybe bring me the property before you buy it and I'll give you my advice. So that's how the sort of transition made obvious sense from valuations to advisory because I can actually help you make a better decision before you buy the property rather than value the property after you've purchased and said, hey, this is a really bad idea. Try the best you can to get out of it because you've overpaid.
• 17:37
  Coming to WA, playing football, working at JOL, did your property investment journey start then or were you just grinding at that point trying to make AFL? Yeah, obviously I still had this regional property that we were trying to finish this development, so any dollars that I had there were going into finishing that. Once I had a handle on that, I did kickstart the portfolio and that was again in a metro regional as we call it in Geelong.
• 18:04
  and started to understand more of the foundations. And I could really see at the time that Perth was in a supply and demand imbalance. They oversupplied the market in 2014 by 110%. And being on the ground, it was very easy to see that Perth wasn't a great place to invest. So that sort of rent vesting began for me and the borderless investing. But I was familiar with Geelong, probably more familiar with Geelong than I was Perth at the time.
• 18:30
  And I was fortunate to time that market extremely well, but obviously the research and education that I'd done up to that point was certainly far more informed than it certainly was for that regional development that we took on. Do you think getting that valuations degree and actually doing the job for four or five years...
• 18:47
  That put you in good stead to move into more on the buyer's advocacy side of things? Yeah, the advisory side, right? And that's what I said. That was the passion because in valuations, it's not a super rewarding job. You don't really get a call to say, hey, thanks for that report you sent through. It's $100,000 under what I paid. You know, it's not a...
• 19:06
  fulfilling job but I was doing a lot of development evaluations as well, some commercial stuff and then you start to form some relationships with these people and they start to appreciate the advice so the natural progression for me was let's help them before they make the mistake rather than after and that's when you know I seen the opportunity that we can, I didn't really know you could charge our buyer's agency fee at the time, I didn't know there was an advisory services.
• 19:29
  And that's when JLL asked me to head up that department for them, really create a department under their umbrella, which was advisory. And under that umbrella, a buyer's agency service. And I took that with open hands and started to build out that division. A lot of people will think when they're looking at property landlords with multiple properties, they think they're greedy and there's a...
• 19:49
  They've had it handed to them. What sort of sacrifices did you make? Sounds like modest income as a valuations degree. Sorry, with a valuations company. $50,000 I was getting paid. $50,000. People wouldn't get out of bed for that. First year it was $45,000. I think I might have gone up to $50,000. So you're working for a valuation company. You've got football on the side, so you're trying to balance a professional football career with valuations. What sort of sacrifice did you make to start getting these purchases in Geelong and some of these value-add properties in Perth?
• 20:16
  all the sacrifices you need to make. And I think probably what people don't necessarily think, like I know it's getting harder and harder to get in property and it's always a story. It was hard then, right? It's like it wasn't easy to buy property. Banks didn't like me because I wasn't earning a lot. So it was, you know, how can I increase my capacity?
• 20:33
  So when I was at uni, I had four jobs at any given time. I was playing footy, getting paid for that. I was a deacon mailman, getting paid for that. I was steaming people's carpets at night time, then going back to footy training, and then I'd work a bar shift at the local university bar. That sacrifice.
• 20:49
  Every spare moment you have, you're either studying or working. I've never owned a credit card until this day. I still don't have a credit card. So I can't go and splurge on things that I actually don't need. And it's funny now that very different times from when I was then starting my investment journey, I still have got the same discipline. I just don't see the need or the want to have a credit card to go and splurge.
• 21:10
  I've never owned a car, still don't own a car. It's like that discipline, I find it really hard. Even when people are like, how do you not own a car? I've literally rented a car the entire time because banks view the debt on a car extremely poorly. When you're trying to get funding, first thing they look at is, have you got a hex debt? So first thing I did was try to pay that down as quickly as I can. Do you have a car loan? Never had one because when I looked at that, it's gonna hurt my serviceability. Do you have a credit card? Even if you've got a,
• 21:38
  you use it once every blue moon. If it's got a 50K limit, they're going to take that off your serviceability. So all these things, I was like, how can I increase my serviceability and decrease my risk and exposure? Only a few levers I could pull was work harder.
• 21:54
  make more money and spend less. So the sacrifices, I rent vested in my entire 20s. I only bought my primary place of residence and lived in that when I was 32. Like some people that's probably pretty normal, but I've had nine properties in my portfolio before I actually bought my home because I was like, well I don't want to, I don't need a nice house. And when I'm talking about room sharing or renting, I'm talking about living with like five, six, seven people to keep my rent always under $100 a week.
• 22:23
  because every dollar that I could save on rent, I could put that into paying off debt. So it's lived in the worst houses you can possibly imagine. I've never owned a car and I don't own a credit card. And every dollar or penny I've saved, I've tried to put into my investment portfolio, which has gave me more options later on in life.
• 22:40
  You've mentioned that with your actual investment portfolio at the moment. Is there any strategies that you implement on most of your acquisitions? So, one of the things we talk about quite a lot, I know you're very passionate about, mentioned it earlier today as well, is the value add strategy, especially on a character home. Is that something you employ on the majority of your assets in your portfolio?
• 22:59
  Yeah, like standing back now looking at all the assets that I've accumulated over the years, they've all had an element of value-add. So we call it VAS in our world, Rhys, but it's just a value-add strategy. And even that first investment, that development site that nearly sunk the ship, that was still value-add, right? We took a parcel of land.
• 23:18
  out of one house and tried to turn it into six, albeit timing was off, was the wrong market, was the wrong strategy for me at the time, the overarching principle of adding value, not just being reliant on the market was in play. And then I look at, I've done a handful of retained subs, where we retain the house at the front, subdivide the land and sell. Then that, as Trent Fleskins, through his journey, the size of his developments have got bigger, so did mine. I've done large renovations and bigger developments
• 23:47
  I haven't done apartments, but they've all had an element of value-add. And that's just probably ingraining me from a young kid when you talk about growing up with dad. I was pretty useless with a hammer in the hand. But seeing that strategy in yours, I like to be able to control, as you know, as you work with me, I like to be able to control things and control my own fate. And yes, our data and research gives the ability to predict markets, and we do a bloody good job of that, I think.
• 24:14
  being in control of being able to create value in an asset has been really important to me. What's your favorite property in your portfolio? One that's probably really close to heart. During that tough period, Reece, that I spoke about at the start, I don't know if I did bankrupt Dad, but it would have been extremely close, and he's too proud to ever admit it.
• 24:34
  But there was a period there, probably at the time, when I couldn't afford to do it. Dad had built his retirement home next to his home in Matawa, and this home was where I grew up, where my brother and sister, we all grew up together. Beautiful old, you know, 1890-character home in Matawa. And because of the situation we sort of explained earlier, there wasn't the ability for them to be able to move into this retirement home that they'd built, which was purpose-built for disability, and as they get older, they weren't going to be able to keep that and keep our family home.
• 25:03
  So this is sort of still early to mid sort of my investment career where I didn't have the capacity or the ability to buy it, but there's absolutely no way I could let go of our family home.
• 25:18
  And really trying to help mum and dad out as well. I know they didn't want to let go of that home. So I did. We got a valuation on our family home. I think it came in at $300,000. So people say you can't afford to buy a home. There is still places, albeit regional. So I paid them above market rate, which is exactly what you shouldn't do as an investor. I bought in a regional town, paid well above what the valuation was to keep that asset in our family home. And if I look at my portfolio, one thing I'll never sell is our home.
• 25:48
  And it's definitely my favourite asset. Certainly not what I'd advise clients to do, but for me that is you're allowed a portion of your portfolio to be a passion project, and that's for me. And it's now Airbnb'd. If anyone's staying in Matawa, stay in, I think it's called the Matawa College. All the reviews are about Deb and Donk. Great hosts because they're next door and they'll always pop over for a beer. So there's a little plug for the Airbnb in Matawa.
• 26:11
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• 26:39
  Might have put the link in the show notes for those that want to go stay at Matoa. All right, let's talk through your services, I guess, you helping clients over the years. So Folio's obviously been running for just under 12 months, but you've had a previous business for six, seven years. Is that right? Yep, 2018. 2018. And this is on the investment advisory side, and I think –
• 27:01
  In this rise of buyers agents that are popping up left, right and centre at the moment, there's actually a strong stability there from a track record from yourself with your previous business, obviously with Folio, you have mentioned the valuations. But let's talk about numbers.
• 27:16
  in you helping your clients. Over the last six years, you've helped more than 1400 clients, I think when we're starting to look at the book. 687 million, which is massive. So that's 687 million in uplift. Now if we look at the big thing on that is roughly 526,000 average uplift per client, about 80% growth. For property, I think that is. Correct. And you're also sitting on a 10.2% annual compounding growth rate for your clients.
• 27:44
  I think for me, you know, I think in the way of the buyer's agent race, everyone throws around figures. I've built a $100 million portfolio. I've done this and done that. That's not our – that's not us, right? But what makes me super proud is those individual case studies. My brother, I've used an example on the show where it's made a radical difference in changing their life because they could use that – the average was $550,000 uplift. And he was banging on that to be able to pay off debt and have the definition of financial freedom.
• 28:11
  But to be out to perform the market, so running at what, 10.2% compounding growth, when the Australian property market over the last sort of decades ran at about 8.2%, I believe. 7.2. So when the Australian property markets ran at 7.2% and to be able to achieve a 10.2% compounding growth for our clients, that makes me super happy because I think-
• 28:31
  our business, advising clients and buying and building our investment properties, we have an obligation to try and outperform the market. And I'm not going to say we absolutely always do that. I'm not guaranteeing that. But that makes me super proud because I used to get asked, you know, 2018, 2019, why would I use a buyer's agent? Why should I listen to you? And, you know, the reality is you can go build out your own portfolio and buy your own property and hats off to you and good luck. And I hope you do really, really well.
• 28:56
  But my job is to try and outperform you and what you can do through the years of experience and the data and the technology we have. That is my job and I can't guarantee it but I'll do everything we can to do that. So to be able to sit back six years later and have outperformed the market almost 3% higher than the Australian property market makes me super proud because that's our job and that's our obligation. I do get annoyed now with all these buyers agents that...
• 29:21
  We had a recent guest that just said, I just buy properties, it doesn't really matter where it is, you guys do all the data, you do all the analytics, you just buy and hold. I'm like, that goes against all the morals of what we do as a business as a buyer's agent or an investment advisor. Our job is to try to outperform the market, to find those good deals.
• 29:41
  and that's what I'm passionate about, and seeing clients, and had a guest, Wayne Green, on last week, just an old bloke, really good fellow on a pretty modest income, and what we've done for him over the last few years, it's life-changing, we've set him up for retirement, he wants to do more, and I'm like, Wayne, there's no more to do, sit back, enjoy retirement, because, mate, you've done the heavy lifting, that's the stuff that is why we do what we do, Rhys.
• 30:04
  And it's something we haven't really spoken about as well. And we're very anti these people that are talking six-month uplifts. I've made 60K. It's all inflated. Valuations that are getting manipulated by those buyers agents that have probably only been around for six to 18 months. I think when you look at these core figures from a six-year period, you can see a long-term compounding growth rate of over 10%. That's pretty impressive.
• 30:27
  It is. And yeah, something we're super proud of, Rhys. But like I said, it's not there to sit on what we've been able to achieve in the past. It's what can we do for those clients moving forward? But like I said, more importantly, for those that have, for me, what is financial freedom? And I'll speak a bit of it on the podcast. If you can own your home debt-free, and I'm talking about your dream home, your castle,
• 30:50
  After that, everything else is a bonus. And for a lot of these clients, a big part of the strategy has been getting that five, $600,000 uplift, paying down debt, and being just happy with that. And that makes me super happy. You get a card in the mail saying, thank you, we couldn't be happier, we're so glad we met you. Wayne was perfect, we caught up a coffee shop in Leaderville in 2018, 2019, he's like, mate, that was the cheapest coffee I ever got. Those are those things that really make me happy when we look at the journey and where we've got to thus far.
• 31:19
  Our job through this podcast is to try to do that for more. I've helped 1,400 clients in the last six years, was it, the data? How can we help 10,000 clients in the next six years? And they're not going to be all clients of our business and that's okay, but through the podcast, hopefully we can educate and inform on the mistakes, what not to do and put my hand up, I've done that, but hopefully give some strategy and planning around what I think will be a more challenge in six years ahead. I think we've had really good market conditions
• 31:47
  That growth hasn't been Lachlan Delaney as an investment advisor. We've had some really good tailwinds with market conditions, which support those figures. The next six years isn't going to be as easy. I reckon we're going to get more headwinds. We're in the midst of that at the moment.
• 32:03
  So strategy becomes more important than ever and having a plan becomes more important than ever. So hopefully we can show personally and as a business and through this podcast, we can add more value to the listeners over the next six years than what we've been able to do for the previous. And that's my goal.
• 32:20
  Before we wrap it up, Lachlan, what's next for Folio in 2026? Help more people, Rhys. That's where we started the podcast. I think it's been 12 months since we've been doing this. We can't reach, you know, I can't speak to everyone, but through this channel, we want to get better guests. We want to get better insights. We want to help more people. And to do so in a way that, you know, is always data-focused. I think that's what I've learnt my entire way. It's like everyone's going to have an opinion. There's always going to be a headline.
• 32:48
  but the more we can invest in a business in our research division, through our indexes, our sentiment, the more informed we can be for our clients. And I think as a business, that's our obligation to try and continue to outperform the market and direct clients to make the right decisions. You've been listening to the Folio Property Podcast.