When I set the goal in my 20s to own 10 investment properties, I pictured something very different to the reality. I envisioned fast growth, big wins and momentum from day one.
Last week, my wife and I settled on investment property number 10; almost 15 years to the day after I secured my first. To put the achievement into perspective, there are roughly 2,500 Australians out of 27 million who have achieved the goal of owning 10 or more investment properties. Fewer still hold houses on land rather than units.
Our combined land holding now sits at 4,873 square meters, a number those who’ve read my book, Bulletproof Investing, will understand matters more than property count. I’d imagine even fewer reached the 10-investment property milestone by the age of 35.
Now, I don’t say that to brag, although after rewriting this paragraph three times, I accept it probably does sound that way. I say it because when I look back to 2011, there were three things I underestimated completely.
Mentors are a cheat code:
You hear it everywhere: get a mentor. It’s become a bit cliche. But I say with complete certainty: I have hit this goal because of my mentors. Could I have eventually figured it out alone? Probably. Would it have taken longer? Absolutely.
Mentors show you mistakes before you make them. They normalise what feels impossible and they see potential you haven’t earned the confidence to see in yourself yet. My mentor had built the portfolio, made the mistakes and survived the ups and downs that inevitably come with investing.
If you have someone in your circle who be that mentor, great. If not, invest in a professional who can, your future self will be glad you did.
We are the sum of our habits:
In my 20’s I set a goal of acquiring 10 properties because I thought ‘anyone with 10 properties doesn’t worry about money.’ That part turned out to be true. But not for the reason I initially expected. Financial independence isn’t created by owning 10 properties, it’s created by becoming the person capable of owning 10 properties.
To know the difference between needs and wants, to understand cash in and cash out, to seek knowledge and experience from those more knowledgeable and experienced, and to find continuous improvement.
I underappreciated the importance of habits and understanding how they’re
formed and identifying which ones need to change in order to become the person we want to be.
Time is a friendly companion:
We wildly overestimate what we can do in a year and massively underestimate what we can do in a decade.
In my 20’s I was looking for immediate results. What I got instead was little to no price and rental growth those first few years, a big gap between property number one and number two, and the slow realisation that momentum only becomes obvious in hindsight.
Particularly when that momentum is coming in the form of compounding growth. The first few properties felt like dragging a sled uphill. The later ones felt like pushing a snowball downhill. Same effort, yet a different phase of compound growth.
Here’s how the timeline looked:
- First 5 years: 2 investment properties
- Second 5 years: 2 more investments + our home
- Last 5 years: 6 investment properties
The ‘nothing’s happening fast enough’ years have brought many an investor unstuck (including a bunch who started around the time I did). If you’re building right now and it feels slow: good.
Property investing takeaways
- Slow is OK. Fifteen years is a very long time if you stay disciplined and stack good habits on top of one another.
- Find a good mentor and build positive habits that last.
- Then let time make you look smarter than you are.
