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Property investors generally make money in just 3 basic ways. Knowing these methods will give you a high level understanding of how to make money through property investing.

People invest in property in a variety of different ways. There's subdivision, development, buy and hold, positive cash flow, units, houses, town houses, investing for capital growth, dual occupancy. There's so many different ways to invest in property and people invest for all sorts of reasons. But, generally, when you boil it down, there are 3 ways property investors make money.

So I'm going to outline these 3 ways in that lesson to give you a high understanding of how property investors make money and then we'll go into more detail in future lessons.

The 3 ways property investors make money is capital growth, positive cash flow and tax benefits. You can actually make money in all 3 ways. You can make money in just 2 ways. Or, you can make money in just 1 way. But, as you'll see overtime, every different investment strategy tends to make money in one of these 3 ways, at least. So let's go over them quickly.

Capital growth, which we'll talk about in the next lesson, is basically the rise in value of something – In this case, your property. So, you buy it for a certain price. It goes up in value and then you re-sell it or your borrow against that increase price to access the money. So, you gain value that way and make a profit.

Positive cash flow is an excess of income compared to expenses. So, you buy a property and it costs you a certain amount per month to own that property and if you make more than that amount, you can pay all those expenses using the rent and you've got money left over which is profit.

And then, tax benefits through depreciation. You can actually save tax and make money as a result. This does get a bit complicated, so I will do a full episode on depreciation. I'll probably do a full series on that in the future. But, you can actually invest in property just for the tax benefits it gets. And because of those tax benefits, you can offset more money than the property costs you in tax, effectively making money on paper.

So, they're the 3 ways that people generally make money in property. There's so many different strategies, as I said, but they all tend to revolve around making money in one of these 3 ways. As you'll see, as we get further into future courses and we look at all these different strategies, you can come back and see. Did I make money through capital growth, positive cash flow or through tax benefits?

To keep learning, visit onproperty.com.au for more lessons or click a video below to continue. And while you're at it, why not check out our membership where we list new positive cash flow properties everyday? Go to onproperty.com.au to see the details.

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What is property investing? In lesson 1 of the Introduction To Property Investing we look at the definition of property investing and why people chose property over other investment options

What is property investing? On the surface, this is a really simple question and we're definitely going to go into the definitions of this sort of stuff. But, we're currently going to look at why people invest in property as well over other investments like stocks or maybe creating your own business or something like that.

First, with the definition, which I got from ye old Wikipedia. Property investing, which is generally also known as real estate investing, involves the purchase, ownership, management and rental and/or sale of real estate for profit. It's a purchasing of real estate, whether that be houses, units, blocks of units, commercial property, offices, all of this sort of stuff. And you're purchasing it in order to make a profit and that profit can be made in different ways; which we're going to talk about in the next lesson, about how to make money investing in property.

But really, you're generally holding on to that property for a period of time and you're either making through leasing that property out or renting that property out and generating an on-going income and you're making a profit that way. Or, you're making a profit through increasing the value of that property. That increase may happen as a result of the market going up like Sydney and Melbourne did in 2016 where they just jumped 15%, 18% or something like that. People, their properties have gone up $100,000 in 6 months.

It could be like that. Or, it could be actually changing property and maybe developing. So, turning a block of land into a block of units or adding a granny flat on the back of something. You can actually make changes in order to increase the value of your property and make it a profit. That's kind of what property investing is.

Some of the reasons that people invest in property over other asset classes is that one of the things with property is that you can borrow a lot of money to invest in property. You can borrow money to invest in shares, it's not as common and it can be slightly more difficult, but it's very common for people to borrow 80%, 90%, 95% of the value of a property in order to purchase it. So, where a property might be $500,000, which a normal person couldn't afford by themselves, they could save a 10% deposit, maybe $50,000 and then go ahead and purchase a property. They can purchase investments that are worth way more than they could actually afford to buy otherwise because of the ability to borrow money.

They also tend to have limited liquidity, so stocks, in most circumstances, you can sell quite quickly, within the day. Real estate, generally, has a slower turn around time. Depending on your area, it can be as little as a few weeks in a really hot area where the buyer wants to move really quickly. But in other areas, it can take up to a year to sell your property.

So, it's less liquid, it's harder to change hands. You've got to go through a real estate agent, the whole buying process; you've got to get solicitors involved and things like that. But that limited liquidity has its benefits, as property is generally seen as a more stable investment.

I'm not saying that it's less risky because there's obviously, risk involved. But because of that limited liquidity, it doesn't fluctuate just like the stock market does. Or, maybe it does fluctuate, but we just don't see it because properties aren't changing hands that quickly.

Most property investments are made on the assumption and reliance that the market will go up in value and that's how most people have made money in Australia through property investing. They've purchased properties and they've gone up in value, but that's just one way to make money.

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After you have development approval there is a still a lot of work to be done. Here's what happens after you get your DA Approval.

Speaker 1:        Once you've received your development approval or DA, as they call it. And, you're ready to go ahead and move forward and build your property. There's still some steps that you need to take in the designing process. And, so today, I have with me Luke from durackarchitects.com to talk through this second stage of The Building and Development Process after you've had your DA approval. So, hey Luke and thanks for coming on again today.

Luke:    G'day Ron. It's good to be here again.

Speaker 1:        Okay. So, we did a previous video, which people should go back and watch if they haven't already, talking about working through the planning and getting the development approval for your development, whether it be a new house or a renovation or whatever it may be. So, we assuming that now people have that approval, and we're going to talk through the next steps, which will be getting the construction documentation ready, choosing builder, as well as going through the construction process.

Just to give you guys a really good overview of the complete process that you're going to go through. So, after we receive our DA, what's kind of the next step? Do, we then go back to an architect, and then we start working on new documents?

Luke:    Yeah, so you've got your approval, hopefully that hasn't taken too long.

Speaker 1:        Yeah.

Luke:    Meanwhile, your architect may have chosen to continue on with the documentation in the hope that there wouldn't be any real issues with getting the approval or things might have been put on hold until you've got that approval from council. So, assuming everything goes well, your architect can say, "That's great, we got our approval. We'd like to move ahead with the next stage."

So, the next stage is basically an additional level of detail to the drawings and documents that you supplied council that enable a build up to price and build your project. So-

Speaker 1:        So, this is not just the blueprints that you see, that gives you the overview of the floor plan and stuff like that. This is like, "You need X amount of timber and like all these sorts of materials to go into the house." Is that what this is?

Luke:    Yeah, it's the detail that a builder needs in drawing form, and written documentation form that allows them to build what you designed. So, you've built a house that's got these lovely screened balconies on it.

You've designed it with these steel beams that run the perimeter. How exactly do you want those steel beams to look? How do you want the screen to connect to them? How are they going to hook onto the building? It's that detail that lets a builder know, "Okay, it's steel, it's not just a line on the page. It's got a certain type of connections and this the way the architect wants us to connect it to the building."

So, builders don't typically build from DA drawings, or development application drawings, although from some cases they do. But, there's not a lot of detail in DA drawings. They're there to give the council a general idea of what you're planning to do, and satisfy them that your design sits within their rules and codes and controls.

But, in order to get the building built you have to add more detail. So, as they say God is in the detail. And, you need to take those DA drawings to the next level, which involves in many cases some additional months of work in order to get them to that stage that they can be priced.

Speaker 1:        Okay. Yeah, it's good to give people a timeline of how long these things take, because a lot of people think, "Okay, I've got my DA approval, next day, we've got the builder on site, the house will be build really quick." So, there's actually another couple of months in terms of ge...

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The development approval process can be really daunting if you haven't gone through it before. There's a lot of different steps to take that you're probably not aware of. So today, I have Luke with me from durackarchitects.com to talk through the complete guide to the development approval process so you guys can get an understanding of it and you guys can stop being overwhelmed and know exactly what to do next.

Ryan: Hey Luke, thanks for coming on today.

Luke: Good day, Ryan. Good to be here.

Ryan: Do you want to first give us an overview of the development approval process for getting a development approved so we can start building it? And then, we'll go into the nitty-gritty and the step-by-step.

Luke: Yeah, sure. It's one of those areas that doesn't need to be as daunting as it probably is for a lay person. Typically, you would employ an architect to start the design of your new house or your alterations and additions to your existing house. They would work with you to get the appropriate documents that you could then submit to council or your private certifier if you're going through a compliant development pathway.

Once you've got that, assuming everything goes well, you get your approval from council then you write to move on to the next stage, which would be an extra level of detail to the drawings that you've supplied for your DA so that a builder can build what has been designed. You will then select a builder, get them to price what you've designed and then you move on to the construction process and pretty much where you go.

That's it in its briefest form, I guess.

Ryan: Yeah. And so, we're going to break this into two parts. The first part we're going to talk about the process up until getting your development approval. And then, in the second part, we're going to go more into the construction drawings and what sort of things you need to do after development approval, but before the construction of the property actually starts.

Let's say that I've just purchased a piece of land and I want to do a development on it. Or, I've purchased a property and I want to do a renovation on it. What's the first sort of step that someone in that position needs to take?

Is it to contact an architect like yourself and just say, "Hey mate, I'd like to build a house. What do we do?"

Luke: It is that basic. I'm a bit biased, but I would say the first step is to contact an architect. The other options are to speak with a building designer or a draughtsman or even a builder. But, from an architect's point of view, the best thing you can do is to contact an architect.

Ryan: I was just going to say, what are the reasons for that and then how do we choose a good architect?

Luke: The reason I'd say that and without sounding up myself, I guess –

Ryan: Well, you're going to be biased, you are an architect. So, we can expect some bias advise here.

Luke: Yeah. But, from a design outcome, if you want a great result, you go with an architect. Now, the great buildings in the world, and I'm not talking about just Opera Houses and Guggenheims and so forth, were build by great builders, but they were designed by great architects. Builders are great at building, but architects are there to design your building.

We're the ones placed to negotiate the various aspects of the whole package. We spent 6 years or more – I probably spent 7 or 8 years at uni learning how to design buildings, learning how to put together what we design. Understanding the various environmental and cost implications of different construction methods. Learning how to guide you through the process of getting approvals, liaising with the consultants, the whole gamut.

We're the ones best placed to have a hand along the whole package. A colleague said to me the other day, I thought was quite accurate is, "If you prioritize design, you prioritize budget.

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House sitting can be a great way to stop paying rent and help you save your deposit. Here is a basic guide to house sitting.

More and more people these days are finding it extremely difficult to save a deposit either to purchase their own home or to go ahead and purchase an investment property. One of the options to save money to help you achieve that goal is actually house sitting. Reducing your rent by sitting in someone else's house basically rent-free.

So, today, I have Robyn on from comparehousesitting.com.au to talk about this new trend that is happening where people are house sitting as a way to save their deposit.

Ryan: Hey Robyn, thanks for coming on today.

Robyn: Good day, Ryan.

Ryan: So, why don't you talk through what exactly house sitting is for those people who aren't completely aware of it.

Robyn: Sure. House sitting is a booming worldwide trend where homeowners open their home to house sitters to live in while they are away and care for their property, home, gardens, whatever they have. It might be just an apartment with a cat. And particularly, caring for their animals. This enables animals to remain in their familiar environment and not have to be put into pet prison and be cared for and loved and have their familiar routine and it doesn't cost anybody a cent.

The homeowner doesn't pay the house sitter and the house sitter doesn't pay the homeowner anything because it's a fair exchange – a mutual exchange of services. House sitting, the communities are made up of people who cooperate for mutual benefit, rather than financial gain. And, from my experience, it's a really nice way to live.

Ryan: Yeah. And people who have pets and who want to go on holidays, it can be very difficult to find accommodation that will accept your pet. So if you put your pets in those pet hotels or pet prisons, as you called them, they can be quite expensive. I remember my mother-in-law needed to do it and it was like, $40 or $60 a day or something like that, and that was to have her dog go and stay with another family.

It can be very expensive so I understand why people would want to have people come and house sit and look after their pets. Because it saves them money, allows them to go on holidays. And then, obviously, for the person house sitting, they get free accommodation, basically, in exchange for looking after pets or the gardens or the house, etc.

So, obviously, we can see that this can be very beneficial. Did you say that this is a trend and more and more people are house sitting these than they used to?

Robyn: It's a booming worldwide trend and particularly booming in Australia because people are increasing home ownership. People are living longer, they're more healthy, they're traveling and they're internet savvy. Also increased mobility in the workforce, more and more people are location independent, work-from-home; which is perfect for homeowners because a lot of homeowners do like the house sitter to be around quite a bit. But, that's all negotiable.

That's not always the case. Often, in a city, there are homeowners who just want someone living, coming and going out of their home. They may not even have pets or they may just have a pussy cat. You can go to work full time because the homeowners go to work full time and the animals are accustomed to being home alone.

So, yeah, there's all sorts of house sitters for all sorts of reasons and the house sitting websites featured on my site – Compare House Sitting. They're really easy to follow. You can put your preferences in, the dates, whether you want the location in the city or in the country. And it's a win-win-win situation, I say. It's a win for the homeowner, a win for the house sitter and a win for the pets.

Ryan: I think in the past, with house sitting, it used to be just friends or friends of friends. If you were going away,

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In this random update I share how I recently achieved my long term goal of financial freedom and the difficulties that come with that.

Ryan:    Hey, guys. Ryan here from onproperty.com.au helping you find positive cash flow property.

This is one of the first solo episodes that I've done in quite a while, where I'm not actually going to be teaching you a specific property technique or principal or anything like that. This is going to be more free-flowing, talking about financial freedom, goals, and things like that, because this year has been very interesting for me. This year I achieved a certain level of financial freedom. I actually call it pseudo-financial freedom, because I'm financially free now, but if I completely stopped, then in the short to mid future, then I wouldn't be financially free.

I didn't actually achieve my financial freedom through property investing, but I achieved it through businesses and more specifically the web sites that I have. I run a big network of web sites, each which generates different levels of income, some more than others, and I'm basically at the point now where I can generate enough income without actually working. So I've achieved a level of financial freedom; however, these web sites are making money now.

In a couple of years, if I don't touch them, if I don't update them, then they probably won't be making as much money.

So I call it pseudo-financial freedom because I have achieved it, but also there's some work required in order to maintain it or to increase it or keep it going in the future, but I'm at a point now where I can choose what I want to work on. I can choose whether I want to work at all or not. I could spend the entire day at the beach. I could spend the entire week at the beach, and it wouldn't really matter. So I'm in this new phase of my life.

I'm in a very interesting position now where I get to experience things that most people don't get to experience because they never actually achieve financial freedom or they don't experience them until they're 65 and I'm 28 at the moment.

I always thought that when you would achieve financial freedom that it would be super happy days, that you would just click your fingers, quit your job, and then live happily ever after because you could do whatever you want, but what I'm finding is that it's actually very different to that, at least for me. I'm a very driven person. I like to be creative. I like to teach people and share things.

I really like to challenge myself, and achieving financial freedom and not working doesn't really accomplish those things for me. So, I'm in an interesting position where I've achieved the goal I set out to achieve, or at least a version of it, but I'm not in a position where I'm completely in sync with that or completely stoked to that.

You can hear kids in the background. It is happy hour here, bath time, and my son has just had his immunizations. He's a little bit cranky.

Anyway, I am going on this journey of exploring what this is going to be like to share with you guys. I'm not at the point now where I can really talk about it in like a super succinct way and get across to you the feelings that I have or solutions that I have. I do believe that this is going to have an impact on the content that I create for onproperty as well as the way I approach teaching people, the way I approach goal-setting and things like that, because I got to the point that I achieved a goal that I have been trying to achieve for years and realized that, well, maybe it was the wrong goal.

Like financial freedom has been the goal for so long, but you achieve financial freedom and that's not the end of it. Like you don't just give up on life once you achieve it.

I know there's so many people out there working really hard in jobs they don't like, to invest in property to achieve financial freedom down the track.

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Most of us know about the headaches of the council approval process, but not many people know they can fast track approval through the compliant development code.

Ryan:    When it comes to renovating or developing property, most often you need to put your designs through council and go through that entire process in order to be able to actually build what you wanna build. However, there is another way to do it through the state environmental planning policy, we're specifically talking about New South Wales here. And this may eventually be expanded to medium housing as well. So there's opportunities to fast track developments for you guys.

And so today, I have on the show Luke Durack from durackarchitects.com and he's gonna give us an overview of what exactly this is and so you can understand this opportunity. So hey Luke, thanks for coming on today.

Luke:    Good day, Ryan, thanks for having me.

Ryan:    Okay so I think it's best to start where people are probably most familiar which is if we wanna do something to a property, let's say we wanna add a second storey or we wanna add a room at the back or any sort of development or renovation, most people would assume, "Okay, I've gotta put that through council in order to get that approved."

But you're saying there's actually for some particular types of renovations or developments, there's another way to go about it. So can we start there?

Luke:    Yeah, so as you say, at the moment, still the standard way to go through a development pathway is to go, put your documents in place and submit to council a DA. But there is a fast tracked way of getting development and building approval in one hit that allows you to bypass council altogether.

So for certain types of development, for example a house, adding a second level to a house, a single storey house or a two storey dwelling, you put together your ... there's certain documents that are required to satisfy the requirements of this compliant development code and submit them to a private certifier and you can have your building approval within 10 to 20 days as opposed to going through council and all the months of headache that that might create.

Ryan:    Yeah, and then if you do get approved or you don't and it comes back and you've gotta adjust things and you gotta go through the council process again. It can be very difficult for people, I know.

Luke:    Exactly. So this is a real winner but a lot of people don't know it exists. And you know, it's only for certain types of development. And it's very black and white whereas the current DA process, there's some room for movement, there's some gray areas. With compliant development, you basically have to tick all the boxes. As soon as you don't tick one box, you fall outside, the ability to run down that path and you have to go back to a DA.

Ryan:    So do granny flats fall under this? 'Cause I know recently in New South Wales it's become much easier to build granny flats?

Luke:    Yeah, it does. So it includes studios, granny flats. As you probably know, there is I think 450 square meter minimum lots size for granny flats.

Ryan:    For me to build up to 60 square meters, et cetera.

Luke:    That's right. Those sorts of ... just the way DA has certain requirements through the DCP and LEPs, the compliant development has a set of controls that revolve around the same sort of things.

So [inaudible 00:03:39], landscape, you know, building height, setbacks and that sort of thing. So you have to still comply to a whole lot of different rules but as long as you do that, you can streamline your process, save time and cost.

Ryan:    So let's say someone who's thinking about doing a development at the moment, whether it be a second storey or a renovation or something like that, how do they know whether they will fall under this or not? How do they find out about it?

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What do all the different property types mean? In today's episode we explain the difference between houses, units, townhouses etc.

When searching for property, often you'll come across the different property types being house, apartment and unit, townhouse, villa, land, acreage and rural, blocks of unit and retirement living. So what do all of these different property types mean? That's what we're going to go through in today's episode.

Hey, I'm Ryan from onproperty.com.au, helping you find positive cash flow property. In today's episode, as I said, we're going to look at the different property types. The easiest way to do this is to simply go to realestate.com.au and go ahead and search by property types.

The most straightforward one is going to be the house. So, this is generally a freestanding building on its own block of land. I'm not going to go into all the different types of land titles or the different developments, types and things like that, different zoning for areas because that varies from council to council. But, if we go ahead and have a search for houses, we can see a few detached houses here, which means the house is completely freestanding.

But then, we also have some semi-detached houses or houses that are attached to each other. Here, we have one in Erskineville in Sydney in New South Wales that is a terrace sort of house. There is joining walls on both sides of these houses.

However, we'll see when we go into townhouses and villas that these differ because they don't have common land. So they share common walls and, obviously, you need to work with your neighbour if you're doing anything in the common wall. But they don't have common areas or strata or anything like that that they need to pay for. They just have their own house, their own block of land, etc. If you keep going through, we'll see a lot of detached houses.

Let's go back and look at the next one, which is going to be apartments and units. These are very different from houses. Generally, this means a building with multiple units within it. Generally, we can see a big unit at the start here or we can see smaller units as well. These generally have common internal areas, common external areas. Generally, it's one building with lots of different units in it.

This one here in Croydon, New South Wales, is a prime example. You've got the entrance and it looks like there's 4 units at the front there. There may even be more at the back. They would all share the front garden. With units, something to consider is strata and body corporate fees. Everyone who owns the units, they all come together as a committee.

They form a body corporate and they make decisions on how to spend money. There's extra fees that go into a unit that don't necessarily go into a house because you've got to pay these quarterly strata fees that go towards the maintaining of the common areas or if they want to do renovations to the building or things like that.

Next, let's have a look at townhouses. Townhouses and villas are quite similar. Townhouses and villas are generally properties that are attached to other properties. But, they tend to be in complexes as well.

It's kind of like a mixture of houses and units. We can see a freestanding townhouse here. We can see a freestanding one here as well. But, what it means is that you've got a property, whether it be fully detached or semi-detached or attached to other properties, but you are in a common complex or a common block of land. So you share that block of land with other people, kind of like a unit.

It's like the house version of a unit. Again, you're going to have strata and body corporate fees with this to manage the common areas and things like that. Often, the externals of the property are set by the body corporate in terms of colouring and things like that. But, you do have more room.

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When buying property off the plan there are some serious risks you need to consider or you might end up with a bad investment.

When investing in property, one of the things you'll probably ask yourself at some point is, "Should I buy existing property or should I purchase property off the plan?" It's a question that a lot of people wrestle with. And so, today, I wanted to talk about some things to consider when buying off the plan. Both the benefits of it as well as some of the risks that are associated with it.

So, hey, I'm Ryan from onproperty.com.au. I help people find positive cash flow property. And a lot of people do email me asking what do I think about buying off the plan. In fact, I was on a webinar with Ben Everingham last night and someone asked this very question.

What do you think about buying off the plan? They were saying, if it's got a decent yield, does that mean it's okay? The fact is, there's a lot of things that you need to consider and thing about so I thought it'd be great to create an episode. At the end of this episode, you'll be more educated and you'll know the things to look for if you are actually considering going down this route.

First, let's look at some of the benefits of buying off the plan as well as why people seem to get so excited about this type of investment. Well, I think, one of the most exciting things as a human being full of emotion, which we all are, is buying something brand new is extremely exciting just for the fact that it's brand new.

It's all of this really nice fixtures, really nice fittings, brand new everything. And chances are, you've probably never moved into a house and lived in it and been the first person that's lived in there or in a unit. And so, to get something that's brand new versus something that's existing and old and a bit worn down is obviously very exciting. It makes us feel good about ourselves and our place in society.

There's also a lot of marketing hype around new build properties. They've got signage. They've got sales people. They've got models of it. They've got walkthroughs. And so, it can very exciting with all the marketing hype and things like that to try and get the best of the best in terms of property.

You also have the opportunity to lock in prices. So, you purchase the property and it might be a year or 2 years before that development is finished. But, you signed it a year or 2 years ago and you got a price at that point. So, there's the opportunity to lock in the price. You have a smaller earlier commitment. You do need to put down a deposit. But, obviously, you don't assume a loan for the development until you actually take over that property and own it yourself.

You also have the opportunity for depreciation. Because it's a brand new property, you can depreciate a lot of things. So that can help for tax purposes for some people. So, that's kind of the exciting things and why people think about it. But, there are actually a lot of risks when buying off the plan properties that people don't think about.

So, I really want to cover them because they'll never talk about these in the marketing flyers that you get or in the consultancy call that you talk to people about this sort of stuff. They're not going to talk about these risks.

They're just going to talk about how great the area is, how great this development's going to be, how you're going to lock in your price now. And so, I thought we're going to look at two types of risks. There's risk when actually buying the property. But, the larger risks are actually the ones after you've property, what happens then.

I just want to start by saying that there are some good new build properties out there – new build developments and things like that. There are some that are really, really successful. And so, if you can find them, great. But, there's a lot of duds out there as well.

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How can you find a good property mentor who will help you achieve your financial goals?

The best golfers have coaches. And some of the best property investors also have mentors to help them along the way. I recently got an email from an On Property listener asking them about what's the best way to find a good mentor? And so, I thought I'd create this quick video to help you find a good mentor if that's something that you're interested in.

Hey, I'm Ryan from onproperty.com.au, helping you find positive cash flow property. Finding a good mentor out of all of the different candidates out there can be a really challenging task. First, you have to find someone actually willing to take the time out to give you advise.

Is it better to pay someone or is better to find someone for free? And also, you don't want to get caught by a property spruiker and you don't want to get a mentor who's actually going to leave you in the direction that they want their life to go, rather than maybe the direction you want your life to go.

First, we'll talk about some tips before you start searching for your mentor and then we'll talk specifically about how to find your mentor. First, let's talk about what can you do before actually going out to look for a mentor.

Let me tell you, there are so many different ways to make money in property. There's so many different strategies out there that different people will have achieved different things. And most of the time, when someone is a paid property educator or a property mentor or whatever it may be, even if they're just invested in property themselves and had some success, they're likely going to say or have the idea that, "This is the best way to invest in property." And that's not always the case.

Look, there's so many different ways to do it. And depending in your goals and who you are, one way may be better than another. So you really need to understand, before you start looking for a mentor; what is it exactly that you want to achieve through investing in property?

So, this takes 2 forms. First, it's those goals of financial freedom or whatever your financial goals are mixed with the lifestyle that comes with that. So that's one goal, that's kind of the end goal that you want to achieve. But the other facet of that, the aspect that people don't usually think about is how much work and how much sacrifice are you willing to do to get there?

One thing for me, in order to achieve my goals, I don't have huge goals of multi-billion dollars or anything like that. But, there's only certain sacrifices I'm willing to make. I'm not willing to work 20-hour days every single day and not spend time with my kids as they're growing up.

So, when I'm looking at investing in property or investing in businesses or whatever it is, I'm looking at, yes, I'll invest some time into it. But, I don't want to have 2 full-time jobs, do you know what I mean? So, think about, "What are my end goals?" and also, "How hard am I willing to work? What sacrifices am I willing to make to get there?"

For an example, let's say developing can be a great way to make money through property. But often, it takes a lot of work. Creating the plans, being onsite everyday, dealing with council issues, all of that sort of stuff. You're very active in the investment when you're developing something. Whereas, if you just buy and hold a property and rent it out, then you're not doing much for that property.

So it's very sort of passive investment. So, one investment might make you more money, but it also requires more time of you. And if you're someone who doesn't actually want to invest that time, even though development can be a great way to make money, it might not be suited to you because of the heavy time investment. So, it's just these things that you think about before you go out and search for a mentor.