Some of life’s most valuable lessons can come from a book that costs $30.
My favourite books are biographies. Better still, autobiographies. They’re the closest thing you’ll get to a one-on-one conversation with someone who has provided something invaluable to your own journey.
The best part? You get the benefit of the lessons they’ve learned (usually those they’ve learnt the hard way).
One of my favourite books of all time is the first biography of Frank Lowy by Jill Margo (there are two).
From a business perspective, Frank must be one of Australia’s greatest success stories. But beyond that, I think he’s one of our great national success stories.
He arrived in Australia as a migrant with very little to his name. By way of vision and persistence, he went on to build one of the most successful property portfolios in history. That portfolio is what we know today as the Westfield empire.
At 95 years of age, Frank is no longer actively involved in the business, but his legacy continues to shape Australia’s property landscape. More importantly, the lessons behind that legacy remain as relevant today as they’ve ever been.
In my view, Frank Lowy’s story teaches the single most important principle for building life-changing wealth through property:
- Understand demographic trends
- Understand the value of land
- Combine the two over long periods of time.
The Westfield story itself is remarkable. Today, the portfolio includes approximately 670 hectares of land, equivalent to around 6.7 million square metres. Across that land sit dozens of major shopping centres (3.9 million sq m of leasable space) generating billions of dollars in rental income each year.
That alone would make Westfield one of the great investment case studies of our time.
But the story doesn’t end there. For decades, shopping centre owners have been transforming their sites into denser properties with more paying tenants. Starting with building on top of the car parks, then building multiple levels, and now transforming into mixed-use communities, with residential developments being built alongside and above retail assets.
Westfield now has a pipeline of 25,600 units approved or in the final stages of approval, with ‘multiples of that to come in the future.’
Westfield started with a row of six shops and a large car park in Western Sydney in 1961. In fact, that’s where the name came from: ‘Westfield’ literally referred to land west of Sydney.
What followed was decades of patiently acquiring land in growing areas, developing shopping centres, expanding those centres as populations increased, and continually unlocking more value from the same sites.
The playbook hasn’t changed. It’s why I believe everyday investors can learn so much from it.
Our version of the Westfield strategy is obviously smaller in scale, but the principles are the same.
We buy land. We place a house on it. Over time, we look for opportunities to increase the value and utility of that land by turning one tenant into two, two into four, or one dwelling into multiple dwellings.
We target areas where population growth is strong, jobs are being created, infrastructure is expanding, and demand is likely to accelerate in the years ahead.
In other words, we follow the same fundamentals that helped build one of the greatest property success stories Australia has ever seen.
The names, numbers, and scale may be different, but the principles are not.
Buy quality land. Hold it for the long term. Position yourself where people are moving, working, and living. Then allow time, growth, and scarcity to do what they have always done.
It’s worked for Westfield going on 70 years now… and if I were a betting man, I’d wager it’ll work for the next 70 too.
The next time you’re looking for a way to grow and learn, don’t start with social media.
Start with a biography.
For about $30, you can access a lifetime of hard-earned lessons from someone who’s already walked the path. And sometimes, one great idea from one great book can be life changing.
