All Forum Posts by: David Nolan

@Helen Rolls @Scott Mardle G'day! Welcome to BP from another Aussie. If I can help you guys please don't hesitate to contact me.

Happy investing!

@Brandon Heath Your issue as it appears to me Brandon is not what should you offer to buy this property but more about you learning how to create wealth. Making money is about using your assets to the best of your and their ability. This means understanding what investment really means, what investment options are open to you, how to manage money and taxation whilst balancing a risk reward ratio. All sounds very confusing, and it is until you learn how to do it.

The best advice I can share with you is this. Make your money work harder for you than you do for yourself. Money is to be employed to make more money. Investing is the art of deciding what jobs you want your money to perform. Do you want your money to grow, produce income, to stay safe? What is it you want your money to do for you?

If you put your money to work for you to produce income, then you can afford to live in better rental accommodation due to having more income. Assume you could make a net $1,000.00 per month extra income from your investments. Could you use that to pay your own rent? Of course you could. Or, perhaps reinvest that money each month to make more money. When you have enough money to buy your home outright then do so, and borrow back as much as possible to put it back to work for you.

When we are young we exchange our labour, our only real asset, for income by working for money. As we age we lose energy, we slow down and so want to work less. This is when we need our money to be really working for us. This is a natural transition of aging. However, many people do not learn how to make money work for them. The sad fact is that money and wealth creation are not taught at school. We do not learn how to make and manage money.

Brandon, it appears that you, like many other newbies here on BP have found a possible attraction to property investing and that is admirable. But property investing is only one part of the bigger picture of wealth creation. Please spend some time learning more about investing before making any decisions regarding your financial future. It is not about this particular deal being good or bad, it's about you understanding what you are doing in regards to your family's financial well being.

Here are some books I would recommend to help get you started. "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George, S Clason. "Rich Dad Poor Dad", by Robert Kyosaki and "The Cash Flow Quadrant", also by Kyosaki. These are basic books about the fundamentals of investing. The Richest Man In Babylon is probably the best book ever written about investing and wealth creation, in my humble opinion. The rules it teaches are the foundation of every successful investor that I could think of.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step and your journey of financial independence, if that is what you want to achieve starts with your first steps in learning about money and how investing works. Your decision to discuss this possible deal here on BP is a good decision. You are seeking help and guidance and that is one of the key characteristics of a good student. The desire to learn how things are done. So congratulations on that. Now it is up to you. Do you want to really know what you are doing or do you want to act from naivety and ignorance and hope you get it right? I think not.

Enjoy the learning journey and good luck on the way!

@Account Closed Welcome to the discussion! 

@Johanna Anderson It sound like you need to do a lot more learning before you start doing deals. You appear to want to live beyond your means by living in a house that you do not appear to be able to afford.

You mention that you have started an investment LLC. Good on you! But have you written a business plan and set a budget? Running an investment business is like running any other business in regards to the need for planning. People don't plan to fail, they simply fail to plan. If you write a realistic business plan and set a budget that you can discuss with a financially competent person, such as your accountant then you will see that you are looking to live beyond your means and give your business little chance of succeeding.

Many people have already commented on this for you. So please take the advice of those more experienced and learn more about property investing before you start, set realistic goals, write a business plan, have a budget and stick to it and above all live below your means for a while. The dream of owning a nice home will come with your success. Don't force it, earn it. As @Steve Vaughan said, "your house is not an asset" if you have a mortgage on it for the original purchase.

Good luck on your journey and happy investing!

@Steve Vaughan Yes I do know of Ric Otton. He has been doing his thing here for many years. He runs training courses that get quite a turn out as it appears. I have worked with a number of his past students who paid lots of money and never did any deals. They didn't learn what really matters and that is how to manage their emotions, have money high enough on their values or understand their own risk profiles. Learning about these things is good provided you can put them into practice.

@Vincent Crane It is good to hear that you are taking things slowly and moving forward with your plan. The key difference here is that @Brian Gibbons is talking about teaching people the right way to do no money down deals. Your issue Vincent is one of risk. you are not comfortable taking risk and I fully appreciate that. However, many new investors are not risk averse as you are and because they do not necessarily understand all of the dynamics of no money down deals and the associated risks involved they go ahead through ignorance. I think the more the experienced among us can highlight the risks associated to these types of deals to the new investor to help them learn.

I might add though that anyone startling out with no money has a bigger problem than doing no money down deals. People with no money simply do not value money enough. Wealthy people tend to have a high value on money. They understand the importance of money and do the things necessary to keep it. Can we all earn more money? Most of us can, in fact I know of many people, myself included who worked more than two jobs at a time to build up some reserve funds so I could start investing. Just as Vincent has saved his money before he starts out. Just about anyone can do this. 

The apparent lure of no money down deals means you do not need to be responsible for not having any money to start with! This is a fallacy. It is fraught with danger, not because the deal may be bad, or the newbie didn't get their numbers right, but because unless money is high enough on your personal set of values then any money you make from a no money down deal will follow all the other money you have made over the years. It will disappear into the ether, or wherever it goes for those who cannot save.

I spent a large part of my life as a professional financial adviser and the number one rule of wealth creation is to pay yourself first. That simply means save a part of every dollar you ever get into your hands. This habit will and does create wealth. Without saving it is impossible to create any form of financial wealth. Spending does not create wealth.

The talented proponents of no money down deals are experts at understanding the real value of money. That is why they do these deals. Brian Gibbons has mentioned that he has many solutions for sellers. What he is saying is that he values money more than they do and he shares his knowledge with them and as a consequence leverages their assets to make him money. If he didn't value money he would not be able to do this. No money down, but a very high regard for money. Follow Vincent's lead and save some money first, then start investing.

@Jay Hinrichs Hope you enjoy the trip. As you say. close but not quite. 

Thanks for trying to teach my fellow countrymen how its done in your world. The posts here on BP help us a lot, if we spend the time to learn.

I would also like to teach them, but from what I have learned we need good people on the ground to assist. Skin in the game makes a whole lot of difference. I think that there are opportunities for JV's between people in the states and here in Aus. Would need a lot of work though.

Safe travels!

@Brian Gibbons Great place. I live 40 minutes drive away from the Gold Coast. Good to hear you have experience in my market. Not easy to make a dollar here at present. Looking to do some deals on your side of the world.

I like your comments and your desire to help people. Too many novices get ripped off by doing things they really don't understand. Perhaps a weekend workshop could be put on by people like yourself and @Jay Hinrichs and others from BP to help novices learn from real professionals. I found when I last did mentoring that people I mentored had done numerous courses and paid lots of money to learn about how to do deals, but never learned about the emotional issues, the psychological issues, the real costs of risk and stress. A workshop taught by experienced professionals not so much about how to do a deal, but how to live with a deal. Real life expectations. It is certainly needed here in Australia.

Hope we can catch up one day when I am next in the USA.

Ah, the misnomer of no money down deals. Let me see, getting my real estate education...FREE, my time whilst learning about these types of deals...FREE, finding sellers...FREE, negotiating deals...FREE, Understanding legal contracts...FREE, and the list goes on. All at no cost to me!

The only thing of real value is YOUR TIME. The one thing every human being has in equal value is the amount of time we have in every single day. 60 Minutes per hour, 24 hours per day no matter who we are, what we believe in or how much money we have. NO money down...I think not. The difference is where has the money been expended before the deals are done? Where has the money been put down? Or is my time not of real value?

@Brian Cook The question to consider Brian is not should I use property or which type of property deals. The question you need answered is, "how do I achieve financial independence", full stop. The answer is to learn about money and finance in general. I would recommend reading a little book that is just about the best book ever written about wealth creation called, "The Richest Man In Babylon" by George S Clason. This gem of a book will help you understand the principals of wealth creation.

Once you have read that book then read some others such as, "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The Cashflow Quadrant" both by Robert Kiyosaki. After you have read these three books you will ask different questions of yourself and others in regards to a wealth creation strategy that might work for you.

Investing in property has the potential to help you achieve financial independence but it should not be the only thing you rely on.

Happy investing!