In this week's episode, Ben makes a guest appearance on The Australian Property Investment Podcast, hosted by Aaron-Christie David.
From dissecting why money isn’t as simple as “in and out” bank transactions to exploring why home ownership is still possible for new investors and generational renters, this week’s episode is all about the power of an Abundance Mindset.
Here’s a sneak peek of what else we cover...
🇦🇺 Is the Great Australian Dream dead?
🏠 The #2 biggest mistakes Ben made in property
💡 How Ben and Michael designed a revolutionary money management system
🕰 Building money habits for long-term success
📈 How an investor’s wealth-building speed affects their psychology
📚 Understanding PIPA's Role in Property Investing
🚩 The Red Flags a property spruiker will show
LISTEN TO THE FIRST 20 EPISODES HERE >>
MOORR MONEY MANAGEMENT APP:
👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3ioICGW
👉 Google Play: https://bit.ly/3OT86bW
👉 Web platform: https://www.moorr.com.au/
FREE MASTERCLASS:
- How to Build a Property Portfolio and Retire on $2,000 a week >>
FREE BEST-SELLING BOOKS:
- The Armchair Guide to Property Investing
- Make Money Simple Again
FIND US HERE:
- Website
- Instagram
- Facebook
- Youtube
In this week's episode, Ben makes a guest appearance on The Australian Property Investment Podcast, hosted by Aaron-Christie David.
From dissecting why money isn’t as simple as “in and out” bank transactions to exploring why home ownership is still possible for new investors and generational renters, this week’s episode is all about the power of an Abundance Mindset.
Here’s a sneak peek of what else we cover...
🇦🇺 Is the Great Australian Dream dead?
🏠 The #2 biggest mistakes Ben made in property
💡 How Ben and Michael designed a revolutionary money management system
🕰 Building money habits for long-term success
📈 How an investor’s wealth-building speed affects their psychology
📚 Understanding PIPA's Role in Property Investing
🚩 The Red Flags a property spruiker will show
LISTEN TO THE FIRST 20 EPISODES HERE >>
MOORR MONEY MANAGEMENT APP:
👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3ioICGW
👉 Google Play: https://bit.ly/3OT86bW
👉 Web platform: https://www.moorr.com.au/
FREE MASTERCLASS:
- How to Build a Property Portfolio and Retire on $2,000 a week >>
FREE BEST-SELLING BOOKS:
- The Armchair Guide to Property Investing
- Make Money Simple Again
FIND US HERE:
- Website
- Instagram
- Facebook
- Youtube
G'day folks, ben Kingsley here In this bonus episode I have been interviewed on Aaron Christie-David's podcast called the Australian Property Investment Podcast. So from time to time, bryce and I get invited to appear on these podcasts and we love sharing our knowledge and obviously he's interviewing me. So you're going to hear a little bit more about me personally, how we operate and all of the focus we put around abundant mindsets and making sure that we get our money management right, and then, ultimately, how we can execute and guide people to create wealthier tomorrows. So feel free, check it out. I hope you'll enjoy it and just remember knowledge is empowering, but only if you act on it.
Speaker 2:Get around. Welcome back to another episode of the Australian Property Investment Podcast. I'm your host, aaron Christie-David, and I'm on a more rich, broken business called Atelier Wealth, but the reason that we're here is because we like to bring guests in who are what I call best in breed, so people that live, eat, breathe, sleep, property and today's guest. I'm going to go one step above that and I'm almost going to call in podcasting royalty when it comes to the property space, because if you've been listening to Property Investment Podcast, you'll know that there's a name that comes with the origins in this space and that's Ben Kingsley from Empower Wealth, the property couch.
Speaker 2:G'day, ben how you doing. G'day Aaron how are you? I'm fantastic. Thanks. I know you're a modest guy and you're going to blush, mate, but honestly, the podcast that you guys put out yourself and Bryce really set the standard. You were one of the first in this space as well, and I personally got so much information from your podcast. It's truly inspired what I do today. So I want to say thank you very much, and you must get a real kick out of that when you look back on your journey and going. Obviously you took a life on its own and now it was 470 episodes later and still going great.
Speaker 1:Well, obviously, you're very kind to say that and, yes, our view is we love to educate and guide people and we believe in abundance. We've got abundant mindsets in terms of there's so many people that need help in so many ways and, ultimately, there's great ways in which you go about it, obviously, which is businesses like yourselves and, hopefully, businesses like ours who do that sort of work, but there are other people who put a self-interest above the interests of those that they serve. Being able to put this sort of educational content out there for people to digest and consider whether it makes sense to them and then to hopefully act on that is why we do it. So now, we do get a great kick out of doing our weekly show.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. I love it. Keep at it, Right. We say, jump on, check it out, and that's what we want. You want to see the bar get raised. You want to see good quality partners out there. You want to see education being the first and foremost, like you mentioned, but we're also happy to see each other's success as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1:Again, there's a huge amount of people that need to be helped, whether it be money management, whether it be their finances and getting their strategy and structure right, and then, ultimately, whether it's also about the asset selection that fits into the strategy that they're trying to develop for themselves.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we're a big believer in playing what you're playing to become and ultimately, that's the sort of messaging that we put out there. But most of the work we have to do is really about convincing people that there is opportunity and potential for them and working on that mindset and changing any of those sort of money habits and behaviors and their money psychology that they may have grown up with to think that it's not available for them when, ultimately, every household across Australia earns enough money over their working life even an average salary to be able to hopefully put some of that away. And in the way in which you sequence the order of things that you do, you should have every chance to also be able to build up a comfortable retirement. So I think, from that point of view, if that message gets across, then we're doing our job.
Speaker 2:No, I love it. I love it, so it's what I like to call the three P's at the start. So do that yourself, personally, professionally, and your property journey as well, if you can indulge us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so personally, married with two boys, 13 and 11, jack and Harry, a beautiful wife who basically does most of the running of the house. I spend a lot of my time in terms of working on the passions that I have around property and helping other people, so I'm very grateful for that Personally. Yeah, so way back in 2004, I set up a company called Integrated Pathways with a vision of being able to bring a holistic advisory firm together. I started off as a broker, mortgage broker, did my apprenticeship with mortgage choice and then in 2007, we set the practice up called Empower Wealth, and that's the whole of wealth advisory firm that I founded back in 2007. And here we are today with lots of staff, with people all across Australia and thousands of clients that we serve there. They're sort of. And what was the last one?
Speaker 2:In your property journey. I mean, it's the property journey, of course. It's been great yeah.
Speaker 1:So I started investing in property very early on so I think I was around 21 or 22 at the time bought the house across the road from mum and dad, didn't know much better but knew that obviously property was an interest for me and at the time it was going to be a place that I lived in for a while and then worked with me in a state. So I lived outside of Melbourne for over probably about 12 or 13 years, both in Queensland I had a great job up in Hamilton Island and then also back in Sydney where I was working in the tourism sector for Hamilton Island. The Voyages, hotels and Resorts that sort of then led me into, you know, building out on that property journey. We bought a property in Sydney at the time. That's when I was getting serious with Jane and we were starting off on that journey and that's also where a sort of critical element occurred. So I was a mad, voracious reader of all of the books and magazines and going to all of the seminars and workshops trying to distill the fact from fiction and usually you know 70, 80% of the stuff they tell you is actually pretty true and real. But it's just that last 30%. That sort of steers people in different directions, that you're trying to work out where that value is.
Speaker 1:And part of the journey that I've been on is about really limiting the mistakes that I make and that we make when we invest. And so you know, I've been really fortunate. There's sort of two main ones that probably occurred during our portfolio. I mean, I've never regretted any of the properties we bought. They've all performed very well. But if I, you know, go back to the original advice I got about an offset account, I didn't get that advice about its value when you're living in a property and you can turn it into an investment property. So here I am thinking I'm great in playing and slamming down that debt, so that would have been nice to have had some of that knowledge back in the day. We're going back, you know, 20 plus years ago now.
Speaker 1:And then the other one was yeah, I sold my property in Bundura. So I've spoken about this publicly before, but so far it probably cost me about $750,000 in capital appreciation. I bought that property for $120,000 and sold it, I think, for $165,000 about three or four years later to buy into the Sydney market. What I needed to do was basically just renovate it, release the equity and I'd have both the you know the Bundura property at the time and I've got you know the asset in Sydney, has done it incredibly well. I've got $2 bedroom semi in Alexandria. I paid you know sort of $395,000 for it, I think in 2004, and it's probably worth about $1.8 million now just as a guide.
Speaker 1:And then we've just been going on that journey. So once we then got serious about our planning and started to think about kids and organizing and cash flows, we set a target to achieve $120,000 passive income by the age of 50. And within sort of 10 years of that, I adjusted that target up to $200,000 a year by the age of 50, as obviously I didn't anticipate earning a higher income that I was earning in terms of the models that I built originally. And so we've been able to adjust that. And yes, you know I'm now 53 and I've been able to achieve that dream. And now you know we look at life in sort of seven grades of financial wellbeing. I've achieved financial peace. I don't have to worry about money anymore, and now it's about financial contribution. So we're looking at ways in which, you know, we pay it forward and sort of do all the work that we do.
Speaker 2:I love it. And that almost ties right back into the start where you talk about that abundance mindset. If you are, sometimes I think clients will sell themselves a bit short, I must say clients, I'm talking about a lot of Australians, for example. If I just get to the 100K, I'm like, well, I think you're actually capable again to 200, even 300, and you may be guilty in a very pleasant way, going I think we can see a bigger future for yourself than you can in your own eyes, and going why don't you have that ability to put your foot down and think bigger? And is, what's the psychology that you think sits behind that bin?
Speaker 1:Well, I think you know, obviously there are a lot of limiting beliefs in some households in terms of, you know, whether people feel like that they're worthy or they earned it or whatever that may look like. So there's a lot of psychology going on there, you know, in terms of those sorts of things. But I also think you know, as you grow and mature, maybe in your younger years, there's a group of people that really do aspire to be quite rich. But my view is, as I've evolved, is I just wanted to make sure. So I grew up in a household where money was always argued about. So I always used to say to myself you know, mum was definitely looking after the two boys. Dad worked three jobs for 37 years to give us the amazing sort of upbringing that we had and we'll also now have that you know, their dream property up on the Murray River. And but I always used to, you know, there was always that clash between, you know, mum needing money to make sure that we had, you know, the right clothing or anything like that, and dad was always, you know, focusing on paying down debt or investing that money so he could also retire early retiring at 55, so they can move up to their property. So I just thought look if we can get to a financial position where I've made sure that we're playing for the kids, school fees and we're playing for the things we need the two cars being able to have, you know, really nice experiences and nice holidays and those types of things, because I'm passionate about travel that's what got me into the tourism industry in the first place, so I'll go anywhere for an experience and a cultural aspect of that. So I think from that point of view, I'm comfortable with where that sits. But as you, as you grow older, you know it is about understanding that. You know, having X number of million dollars in the bank isn't necessarily going to make you happier. It's about what those experiences and what you're able to do you know with that as well.
Speaker 1:But I do want people to aspire to knowing that if they, you know, if they do have delayed gratification, that there is definitely some reward at the end of that story. But I'm not sure that reward is about. You know someone who's sitting here saying I've got the most property, so I win. I don't think that ever, you know, sort of does any value to their own personal internal sort of value system as well, as I don't think it adds much value to the community in terms of you know. You know you learn a lot from cultures that you experience is about taking as much as you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, getting that sort of balance right so I do. I do love business and I love, you know, growing things and and creating new products and that type of thing, so I get a lot of joy out of those sort of creations. You know a new platform that we're building and things like that. But, yeah, I'm not so much wedded to you know what the bank account says in terms of you know what my net worth is these days. I'm more interested in terms of how I can add value to you know and have a meaningful life.
Speaker 2:I love this. I love the sentiment, even if you look at inside your own business and you and I know around mortgage-broken it's, it's not, it hasn't shown. I mean, 60% of our industry is solar operators, for example right. So even though that limiting mindset around abundance and growing your own business and you look on, you look at the, the wealth effect that you know and power, wealth is done even for its own team members in their own lives and the beneficiaries of their children, for example, the cascading effect that that has. That in itself is a huge testament to what you guys have built here in a short period of time, relatively as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really love what you're saying there and and you know that.
Speaker 1:So, you know, when you're, when you're an owner of a business and you're growing, you know a business or whether you're advising customers like you and I do, aaron, in terms of taking them on that journey, there's a real humility in the sense that the responsibility that they're putting in you in helping them problem solve or them reaching their goals. So you're right, you know we've got in the next couple of weeks, we've got two of our staff members getting married, we've got babies on the way, and so, yeah, I take that really personally around making sure that there's gainful employment for them, that they can be the best version of themselves and continue to serve and problem solve for customers, and so that's that beautiful perpetual wheel that gets created off that. That. That you know you are making the contribution. It's the same. It's the same thing when you know, when I finished in the trues industry, I was a little bit unsure about what I wanted to do, and and so I the first business case that I developed was actually a coffee business in China.
Speaker 1:You know, this is back in 2004. And and basically this before Gloria Jeans and all those sort of Starbucks and all that type of stuff, and so there was half a million expats in Beijing and Shanghai and I thought, wow, this is great, I can go and do these coffee carts up there. Point of sale was just being a thing, so this is our old name. You know, there wasn't, the iPhone wasn't released yet, and so, just, you know, remote point of sale, so we could have these baristas and they could make really good coffee for all of the Europeans and Australians and doing business in those two centers. And then I read a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins and, honestly, you know, part of the big message in that book is you got to be, you know, those people who turn great businesses. You got to be passionate about what you do. Well, I hate coffee. I don't like the flavor, I don't like it.
Speaker 1:So here, I am thinking, oh, what a great business idea. And I was looking at it from a profit making point of view as opposed to you know whether I'd get great joy out of it. And so ultimately I said, well, I can't do that. So what do you like doing? Well, I do like building things and I like helping people, so that, and obviously at the time I was very deep in sort of my 10,000 hours of knowledge building around, property investing. So from that point of view I pulled all those things together. I thought I could, I could really get up every day enjoying what I do to be able to provide that.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, that's ultimately what I did, and I guess you take that knowledge itself and Bryce, and you put that into a book, and the book again, just I mean it has to be able to reach more people and to get into more, to more households as well, and have that discussion around property investing. The next book which we talk about, which you call Make Money Simple Again, take me through the title of that, because it's something that strikes me as well. I'm sure the word is but why simple? Because people are going on, money comes in and out. Like how do we make this more simple? Is this more simple? Is have we over complicated this or where is the complication coming from?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So there is lots of nuances in terms of true money management and in terms of when you're forecasting tax impacts and you're looking at compounding returns over 10, 20, 30, 40 years. So there are a lot of nuances and tax treatments associated with that landing and playing with super. So a lot of the research does say that people do get overwhelmed by managing money. Now you would think it is as simple as money and money out. But in terms of forecasting money and then understanding that when people do do classic budgets, what actually happens in a classic budget is you average that over a 12-month period. Now if we average out what we're going to spend over a 12-month period and we work that down to a monthly rate, and then all of a sudden in February we have our car insurance, our red joe, our house and content insurance all in that one month, those classic budgets just get blown out of the water and then people don't really then know how to do divide the 10-12ths of the remainder of the year to adjust for that money and it's going to ultimately, over that 12-month period, that budget is going to level itself out from a cash-low perspective over that time. So there hasn't really been strong adoption right across the country around budgeting generally, and so obviously the title was inspired by Noel Whitaker's great book in terms of making money simple.
Speaker 1:I think it make money simple.
Speaker 1:I think it was the ultimate book which I read, I think when I was about 16 years of age, and so that was the inspiration for Bryce and I to sort of give it that title.
Speaker 1:But effectively, yeah, I mean the story that we tell in the book. It's a manual for managing a cash flow system that we run called Money Smarts, and it's a rules-based system and the idea is because people don't like basically doing their bookkeeping in their household. The idea is it's a very powerful system but it only needs 10 minutes a month to actually reconcile, rather than sort of tracking every dollar that you spend and the like. So it's definitely a passion of mine to try, and you know like you can't create wealth by saving your way to retirement, you've got to be able to create wealth through a trapping surplus and then putting that money to work, and so that's, you know, that's the foundation. So it's almost the prequel, originally, to the armchair guide in terms of then how you obviously use sensible leverage to be able to get into the property space and accelerate that cash on cash return.
Speaker 2:I love it and I guess, sitting under the empower wealth banner, you've got mortgage-broken, you've got financial planning, you've got the buyer's agency, you've got the tax advisory side. So the beauty is you get this complete view of the client, for example, where, probably when they're going to different professionals and we're probably this time and time again where they're getting conflicting information or misinformation about what to do next, or what's the right structure, for example, or strategy, and then it's the conflict within the team and who's clipping the ticket, for example. And we've got that in-house and you have a little bit of that within the team, versus the client being smack bang in the middle of, I guess, empower wealth philosophy and going right, we're all on the same page and we're all very much aligned from a wealth creation with blueprints are here for the client. That's, at the minute, obviously a very smart model, but very client-centric model at the same time, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean you know most of what we've built has been off mine and Jane's experience as we've gone on the journey. So the simulator and the property planning services that we use were basically created from the decisions that I wanted to optimize and make every post a winner. But if you come back to the fundamentals, when I was doing those seminars and going to those events and those expos when I was in my early 20s and so forth, I would just get conflicted information and I wouldn't know who to trust or which advice was right. And so my view is once I had sort of that 10 years of practical hands-on experience myself in terms of as I started to grow the advisory business, it was always going to be a fee-for-service business. So you know it was always the customer was very much going to know what they were up for. In terms of the payment, obviously with the brokerage business you can't charge an upfront fee, so you know that's a free service to the borrower. But it was always based on this idea that if everyone's singing from the same hymn sheet and everyone understands that, yes, we have a set of rules and investment philosophies that no one can move outside of and we have an investment committee, that we discuss those parameters and what we do. So you know that comes back to that whole story.
Speaker 1:I mean, people are entrusting us as effectively their accountability partners and there's a lot of humility and responsibility in terms of looking after other people's money. It's all right when you're on. It's all right when you can sit back and say I did this and I did that and look at me, and I made that mistake, but I recovered it. Here, when you're actually playing with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of other people's money, there is a whole different scale of responsibility that comes with that. And so you know I wanted to make sure that, through the advisory business and that whole of wealth is, you can get to see. You know you're working on the core, which is basically what lifestyle, by design and what sort of you know value set is the customer looking to achieve, and then we build on that and money is just a mechanism by which that, can you know, can obviously be realised.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. It's great philosophy. And then, I guess, building off top of, on top of that, for example, I talk about talent stacking. I think you guys tech stacked very well, so you've got money, smarts, you've got more as well. So I guess this is I guess, keep pushing your kind, offering and offering more. I guess high tech, high touch. So take us through how does more work and what is?
Speaker 1:that, sure, sure, I'll start with the foundation. And the foundation is, you know, again I went looking. I love, you know, jan and Ian Summers and I love their original sort of summer soft software and you know that's.
Speaker 2:I think it came delivered on a CD-ROM.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it was a CD-ROM at the time and so when I use that personally forever and you know, in those earlier years in terms of doing feasibility assessments on property and so forth and still one of the best in terms of summarises that beautifully.
Speaker 1:But I then sort of said well, actually, I've got several properties now and I've got offset balances and I've got different money rolling through the household, and so I need to make sure that that I'm again thinking about the medium, short, longer term cashflow impacts of that and am I getting a true reading? And so back in the day and this is, you know, no discredit to the wonderful work that the Summers, you know, ian and Jan did with their tool, but it was like it wasn't, you know, wasn't fit for purpose in terms of for me to build out a property portfolio. So, from the ground up, we built what was at the time one of the very first simulator models and effectively, that measures cash flow movements by month for every month for the 50 odd years or 40 years in the original spreadsheet. Now it's indefinite in the cloud version that we built. So we then went about building all that and building those strategies and looking at cash and yield management, looking at the 43 variables, and so ultimately there's around 230,000 calculations that are occurring in those models. In fact, in the very first version I remember when it took us about nine months to build and the great Michael Pope who assisted me in the build, the ex-old genius that we got into the business, he and I sat there as we did the first calculation and took about six minutes for the computer to crunch all the numbers and was sitting up.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not sure we can sit in front of customers and say, oh, so what do you do? Like we'll just click that button and we'll let it go off and do its thing and we'll just have some small talk for the next six minutes and then, oh, wait a minute, what if we have two kids? Or what if we put the kids in private school? And what if I want a holiday here? And what if we want? So? It'd be like those appointments would go for the half a day just to get a result. So we've obviously iterated on that through 2009 and 2010 and then put a product to market and ultimately, that's the foundation. So I think it's really important for people to understand that, at the end of the day, they're the tools, and so for yourself and your team and for anyone who's advising others, it's just a tool that allows you to sort of make the invisible visible.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, the problem solving is still about connecting the value to what are we trying to achieve here? What big rocks in the jar do we need? What does living your best life look like? And some of that is reality checking, some of that's a hard conversation around. Well, if you keep spending like you are now, then guess what? You're gonna be retiring at 75, or you're gonna take a 30 or 40% pay cut when you retire. And how do you feel about having that type of lifestyle then, compared to the lifestyle you've been having now and then? So, ultimately, the exploration and the conversations you have around opportunity and potential and then so, off the back of that, yes, we've now built that into a cloud model We've also made available to the general public to use, which is what you were saying before we're on about.
Speaker 1:But yeah, where we're going with that is obviously we wanna build the best property management and sort of money management solution in for those people who have a couple of investment properties.
Speaker 1:So that's the mission that we're on in terms of that. But if we're coming back to the why yes, we need that for our advisory business to do the work that they do. But ultimately we also want coming back to that whole idea of paying it forward. Value adding and thinking in abundance is that we want money smarts that we free forever in terms of for that platform and sort of managing your finances, working out your annual budgets and all that thing. That'll be free for as long as we can afford, again, the power of those tools and those simulations and all that are only as good as the problem solvers and the professionals that are in there as well sort of doing that work. And that's why you and your team are so successful at what you do, because you've built up that subject matter knowledge and you're really great at sort of getting to the core root of the opportunity or the problem and then you go about solving that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's inspiring to see I mean, this is what we talk about when you're leading the charge at the front of being captain of the industry. It's like it's gonna inspire the next tech tool to come along and the beneficiaries that are investors, more Australian families that take control of their money. But you guys have had to kind of lay the groundwork to build it as well. So kudos there, well done. Speaking of Australian families and this is a topical subject that's coming up, which is the dream of home ownership, whether that's buying more investment properties or the greatest dream of having your own home, and you and I were at a recent the people conference and hearing about that as well what's your view on the market? Do you feel properties unachievable, unattainable, unaffordable for a lot of Australian families? Or do you kind of go look, I'm probably if you're gonna go against the grain and say, look, it is accessible, but there's gotta be some ways to roll your sleeves up to get into the market as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's an excellent question and someone who does value the idea that every Australian should own their own home. I do believe that, through necessity being the mother of invention, we are going to continue to keep finding ways in which we can find solutions for people getting into the property market. Now, the pathway to that is definitely going to be different based on your circumstances. So if you are blessed with the bank of mum and dad, that's going to help, obviously, with deposits. So we know the biggest challenge for most households is going to be the deposit and saving that bulk amount of money. So we're starting to see really good solutions coming in there now in terms of shared equity schemes, and so the governments announcing the federal government announcing a 2% deposit that will allow them to avoid mortgage insurance and get them into the market as well. So I see a lot of that sort of invention starting to come into the market if they're looking to get straight into an owner-occupied property, and I think governments will continue to incentivise that. I think any sensible government that understands that the power of the residential market and in terms of the wealth creation that comes off that and the value in terms of living standards and quality of life as society and obviously the taxes and the stamp duty revenues that do provide those services etc. Etc. Knows that it would be unwise to basically destroy the appreciation or the long-term appreciation of capital growth in that particular property market, and societies will get judged by that. I think one of the other things that is a little bit more difficult for those who are seeking to get into the market is this concept of this potential belief that living in place or expecting that I will be able to buy in a particular location because maybe I grew up there or something along those sorts of things. So what we do know through the creation of cities and large omega cities is the productive use of that land has different grades and as those productive use of that grading goes higher and higher, it's very hard to then obviously justify single use purpose for a block of land, except for when you obviously put restrictions around that because you're trying to build communities that may not be high density or medium density, but you're actually looking to build classic sort of low-rise communities and that's sort of what happens.
Speaker 1:So I think if people were sort of saying housing affordability yes, I do agree that it's still challenging. I do agree that you also have a lot longer to worry about it because, compared to my father's generation, who were sort of set to work to the age of 60 and then they pretty much died one or two years after that, then my generation who were set to live into our 70s and then my kids' generation who were set to live beyond their 90s and so forth, with all this gene therapy stuff that's going on. So I feel like it's just about expectations and making sure people understand that, yes, housing can be affordable, but it's about the expectations you have about where you want to live and that intention to deserve or feel entitled or maybe that why can't I buy in Middle Park or why can't I buy in Milsen's Point or something along those lines right into it. I struggle with reconciling their argument on that side, but I appreciate the wider that people have to go, potentially less employment opportunities or the commute time and the quality of life is certainly sacrificed. But that's a choice I mean. Ultimately, the same sort of choice happened when societies have evolved over time and these cities have grown over time. People have dispersed themselves wider, they've relocated to a more accommodating city for their needs and I think those sort of cities will evolve and people still have that choice.
Speaker 1:So I can't just sit back and say, right, stop everything. No more appreciation for all those people that are in the market, because we need everyone else to catch up. That's not how a democracy or a capitalist system works. And a capitalist system is not perfect we get it but it's certainly.
Speaker 1:If I have a choice between capitalism and socialism, I know which one I'd want in terms of increasing the bulk of the living standards for most and when you grow an economy large enough, the other big important thing that's actually when you do provide enough income off that economy for governments to also provide those services needed for those most vulnerable in our community. So I'm a passionate person about what the government needs to do around growing the economy and continuing to focus If they did that work really well all of the other services, such as health and education and all that. There's enough money in the system to be able to do that. But when they start tinkering around that and start putting throttles on the economy, ultimately it just means they have to keep borrowing more and more debt and then we're basically wasting that money on interest costs, and I just don't get that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Do you fear for generation renters, for example, that they get stuck on the rental trap and getting into the market gets harder as time goes on?
Speaker 1:There's no doubt that I'm sure if I sat down with a hundred renters that there would be some more difficult cases to solve in terms of their situation. So, especially if they've got a health issue, if they're a single person, the battles of entry become harder but not impossible. And that's that sort of abundant mindset and that positive thinking message. If I could work with an individual or a couple in their late teens, early 20s, and I could get them gainfully employed, I could make sure they've got a good education to get them into a workforce. I'm almost certain that, through the sequencing of the ideas that I would have for them, that they would be in a position where one day they'll be homeowners and then one day they would also start a family. Now the adjustment of those expectations do come on to. Well, how much money have I got to work with and ultimately, where does that live? But I have not lost that dream or belief that that's not possible for every Australian household. It sits actually up in the office that I you know.
Speaker 1:The reason I started this business is I believe everyone has a chance to achieve financial independence and financial freedom and no one can convince me otherwise of that other than potentially these riskier outlier cases where they may be mentally or physically disabled and not able to necessarily look after themselves. So I realise that there is a small minority group there and we need to do everything possible to help them live a dignified life. But in terms of what I normally see is mistakes, I normally see from a prevention versus a cure point of view, and so most of those things, I would say that through better planning and through better decision making, usually that's the piece that I want to go after. So part of my longer term mission is making sure that you know platforms like more and sort of financial tools and instruments that will allow people to understand the consequences of potentially going in a reverse order, like if you're single and you have a child, your chances of actually getting anywhere near owning a property becomes much more difficult for you, and so I don't want that to be the case. So I want people to think carefully about the decisions that they make and the order in which they make those decisions, rather than just expecting well, why can't you know? Why should you stop me, or you know, or make that decision If you're going to trade off the idea that that you know or you believe that you should be entitled to a home as well and having having kids whenever you want to have them.
Speaker 1:Well, ultimately, what does that say for all of those people who worked hard, got the education, got their jobs in order and then ultimately did it the right way? Well, they're the ones who are going to have to be paying higher taxes and higher fees and services to provide, you know, those solutions. So I worry about, you know, that middle class welfare and what that message that that sends to the Australian people and Australian community. I won the lotto, I got born in Australia and so all of a sudden, now you know, because I'm here, I expect you to actually look after me, and you know so I should be getting an unemployment payment.
Speaker 1:I should be getting, you know, a family benefits payment. I should be getting all these services, but what contribution have I made? And so I do believe that you know we should always, you know, work for the rewards that we get and then, ultimately, when we're in a position like that that allows us to, then, you know, sort of pay it forward and be more, you know, gratifying in terms of the way in which we can help others. But I do worry about some of the trend of the psychology of the citizens in some parts and sections of our community in terms of that story.
Speaker 2:Well said, well said. Thank you very much. I've had a lot of questions before. I love what you're putting out there and it's very similar to kind of what I'll say, which is, you know, the market rewards action takers and decision makers. And it's a hard one because I guess when you're at the start of your journey, you don't know what you don't know. You know that time goes on to scar tissue or making mistakes or opportunity cost or other people now are doing better than you and the psychology can change. So take us through as people come on that journey. They're starting out a little bit fearful. They're about to build up some confidence, for example. Now they've got a little bit more to lose, and I think you said even at the start, it's about making less bad decisions than sometimes is about making more good decisions as well. So how do we timpah that type of growth and, when people are looking to scale their portfolio, that they don't become overconfident as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I wish I had all the answers in this place because I wouldn't have to do the podcast every week. I mean, I love what I do, but look, that's that classic case of you know, don't, don't touch the pot Because you'll burn yourself. But there are a group of people that can't be told and will ultimately touch that pot. So I'm trying to convince them, before they go near the pot, to just start thinking more broadly and long term about what they're, what they're trying to achieve, and and avoid the sort of social media which you know I call. I call it social envy, right? So the more people early on in their lives, get attached to that social envy of what other people are doing and what they're achieving, I mean, I can tell you countless stories of people who look like they're super successful and they're driving around in nice cars and you know, and so their shot front looks really terrific, but behind that, you know, their finances are in disarray. They've got bad debts there, you know so. So our message is really simple around building money, habits and behaviors that reward you over the medium to longer term, and and I get that that's hard for people who may have grown up comfortable and not have to worry about money and and a lot of people you know they don't worry about money, they they literally go through life in this sort of, you know, relaxed haze about. You know that that sort of stuff will just take care of itself.
Speaker 1:And you know, I was always someone who was worried or anxious about money in my early years and so I've worked really hard on trying to change those money behaviors and, you know, sort of making sure that you know I had said, well, yeah, I've worked for this and I did plan to spend this, that it's actually okay to spend that money because it's not necessarily impacting the bigger, the biggest story.
Speaker 1:Now we also know that there are going to be surprises, bumps on the road, road shocks and so forth. And you know, in my own sort of family with my brother and at the loss of his fiance at the age of 37 I think it was you know that that's a shock that you can never plan for. And so ultimately, you know, but then watching the responses of a network of friends around, that sort of, some of them saying, well, that's it, I'm living for today, I'm not planning for tomorrow, and and you know they're going to go on live for the next 50 to 60 years and, and you know, they're going to struggle in terms of what sort of wealth base they've got behind them.
Speaker 2:So I just think you know.
Speaker 1:I think long and hard about this idea that if you don't believe it's possible, there's evidence all around you of people who have done it. They've tried to treat it that pathway for you, and so we've just got to continue to keep working on some of those behaviors and mindsets. And that's why, you know, we created the well speed gauge. The well speed gauge for all your financial information and it tells you what you're earning per hour. You know for 24 hour, 24, 7 o'clock, and then you break that into you know exertion income, so we call it working income speed and passive income speed, and then you can see your spending speed and you can see all these different gauges. Right now. The idea with that is to just basically give you your dashboard right in front of you. That the most, most of the problems with budgets is that you sort of you're looking forward. You know with the, you know driving forward, with looking at the rear vision mirror in terms of what's happening. The idea and the concept of well speeds and well clocks is this while I am driving forward, and so how can I make that gauge? In other words, you go, I'm in my wealth creation car. Well, it's logical that my well speeds got to go quicker, doesn't it? So where can I find opportunities to trap money and then put that to work? And the problem you know that even James Clear and all that talk about is that with the long term habits and you don't see a lot of that improvement early, so people go. Well, this isn't working for me. So you know, the classic part of that is to say, well, every time you go in and update your numbers and your financials, it'll actually give you a percentage gain. So even though I might say it's $7.22, well, you might just picked up a 4% gain. Now, 4% is meaningful if you can continue to continue to keep doing that every month, you know, or every year. And then all of a sudden, you know you start thinking about your money and your life in hourly terms and you can then start to say, well, actually it's not too bad. I just ate lunch today, and you know that lunch cost me $13.50 for my salad roll and my potato cake, and then ultimately it's like but I know my well, speed is growing at and I'll just make up a number here but $47. So even though I took half an hour for lunch, I'm actually making money whilst I'm having lunch, and so it's about training that sort of psychology in terms of you know, is my money working hard for me or not? And then what the big story here is, what we've got to do is basically take your exertion income so you're working income and we've got to replace it with passive income. And that requires investment, because if we don't do that, you're not going to retire because there won't be enough money there for you to retire on. So they're the sort of little tricks and and sort of instruments we've been building in these next generation gauges to try and help change that psychology.
Speaker 1:And coming back to what you were saying before about how do you implement that? Well, first of all, you gotta you gotta be problem aware. And if most people don't even want to be problem aware, well it's very hard that we're going to be able to help them. But the ones who do want to be problem aware and this shows up also in the research when you look at aspiring people, a lot of aspiring people who build goal habits and behaviours and they're checking they naturally want to check in on their progress. So they look at their finances, so they're the easy people to help for that 25% of the population. You've already got them. You had them at a hello. It's that next 25 and that 25% after that that I'm going after to try and make sure that there's an opportunity for them to sort of say you know, we've got a real shot at this, but if we don't do it early then we're going to be chasing our tail doing it later.
Speaker 2:I love it. Great sentiment. Thanks for much. The last question I had for you was around Pippa. Now, for some people, they may be very aware what the people proposition is. You're you're very fortunate to be the chair of people for some time. So for the uninitiated, take us through. What would people stand for and where is it currently at in terms of its, its level of growth and market awareness?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the backstory that sort of is my narration to where I got to and how I discovered Pippa was this you know, I wanted to be a property investment advisor. I didn't know, you know, whether that was a thing at the time, and I know that there was, you know, sales agents masquerading as property investment advisors. I knew that for a fact, you know, in terms of the, and so I looked for a course to, you know, basically, and I stumbled across what was called QPIA qualified property investment advisor, and it was run by Deakin Prime, which is part of Deakin University. So I started doing night school and part time study and so over the course of two and a half years I completed the modules of that and got my QPIA qualification to be a qualified property investment advisor. In addition to that, I, you know, met Margaret Lohmass, who at the time was on the board and was the chair. She invited me to speak at an event, you know, we got to know each other and then she invited me onto the board and then ultimately I, you know, I took the chairmanship from her and and sort of ran that, I think, for about four or five years at that time. And so then Peter the Lee Soss took over, and then obviously we've got the wonderful Nicola McDougal. Who's who's heading that up now?
Speaker 1:The big thing that attracted me to PIPA is their code of conduct and the idea that, you know, in in the property market space there's a lot of money to be made.
Speaker 1:There's lots of commissions, kickback, soft dollars and referrals.
Speaker 1:Well, under the code of conduct, if you want to be a PIPA member, you've got to abide by that code, and that is that if you are receiving a commission and again, we don't, but if you are, you need to fully disclose that you're receiving commission from the developer or from an agency or anyone who's in that chain of sale that's occurring.
Speaker 1:And so that, just to me, meant that we can put a little bit of a professional association together and build on that professional association to help protect consumers in terms of what is a marketplace where there's some great operators, such as yourself, who operate in that space as specialists across all the ecosystem, from mortgage-broken through to property investment advisory, to taxation, financial planning, buyers, agents, etc. And so you know, we've formed that association for the people operating in the industry, and so you can, you can be safe to know that they're operating under that code of conduct, and if they don't, obviously they'll be expelled and there'll be other consequences associated with that. But we do know that there's obviously a bigger, wider community out there, because property investment isn't regulated, and so there are plenty of people who can put on a shirt and basically advocate to buy this property in this new estate and earn $50,000 in the process.
Speaker 2:What are some of the red flags? So someone's listening going. How do I maybe identify a couple red flags? Maybe say a couple, come across your desk, you know, to your trained eye, probably saying the good, the bad, the ugly. What does that look like?
Speaker 1:Well, ultimately, the first one is how are you paid? You know so. So if their service offering is for free, someone's ultimately paying. So, in terms of you know, if you're asking that question, you're sitting down thinking you're talking to a buyer's agent and saying they're a free service or that's more than likely that they're a property marketer associated with an agency that might be selling a complex or something of the plan. So usually that's the first thing I do.
Speaker 1:If they are a free service but they also provide a professional or they provide a recommendation to go and work with somebody else, one of the other questions I'd have for them is do you get paid by introducing us to your property manager or to your accountant or to your mortgage broker? So there are relationships out there and these are perfectly legal relationships. But a selling agent at an open home could pass out a business card for a mortgage broker, as an example, and if there's a payment, like if that client then gets the mortgage through that broker, then ultimately there's a payment that might be exchanged between that real estate agent and that mortgage broker.
Speaker 1:So as long as all of those are basically disclosed and the customer's looking at that disclosure document that says, oh, that real estate agent just got $600 or in some cases, thousands of dollars when it comes to people selling off the plan or house and land packages and the like, then you know that somewhere in that equation a payment is being added to the fulfillment service and we know that some of these marketers will tell you well, it saves hundreds of thousands on other marketing costs. So we're just basically saving those. But that's ultimately what the consumer needs to make a judgment call on in terms of do they feel like they've got?
Speaker 1:value in that conversation and were they happy for those referral fees to be paid and ultimately make that informed decision for themselves?
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm glad that you were heading that up and you kind of put those plans in place as well, where the beneficiaries are, as an industry, raising the bar, raising the standard. For example, most importantly for a client and a borrower, it's transparency and also gives more trusted industries as well, which I think that's fantastic outcome as well. So well done.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Hey folks, bryce here again. I just wanted to catch you real quick before you go. If you're new to our community, I want to encourage you to listen to our very first 20 episodes, as the concepts we share in EPS One through 20 are foundational principles, pillars and frameworks that you need to know for you to get the best value from our content week to week on our show. My little tip is to listen to it at one and a half speed. Now, for those of you that are time poor and don't have the option to go back to the beginning, don't worry, because we've got you covered as well.
Speaker 3:We've created a binge guide that summarized these foundational episodes into one easy to digest booklet so that you can get up to speed super fast. So go to the show description on whatever device you're listening to now and simply click on the first 20 episodes link to download it straight away. Oh and, by the way, whilst you're there, you'll find a few extra goodies for you, including a link to download our lifestyle by design app more, the home of Wealth Speed and Wealth Pop, and our hugely popular MoneySmart's Money Management System, as well as how to get free copies of our best selling books. Now, just a reminder that anything we cover on this podcast is not considered to be financial advice, and we certainly recommend that you seek out expert advice tailored to your unique circumstances, and everything we talk about is general in nature. Folks, I wanna encourage you again to click on the show description, wherever you are listening, to access all the free goodies that we have for you Until next week.