Читать книгу Buy Now - Lloyd Edge - Страница 11

At some point everyone needs a mentor — someone with hands-on experience to help them get on track. I didn't start out with a strategy. If I'd had someone to advise me from the beginning, I probably would have done better, faster. My own experiences, both positive and negative, have helped me set up my clients strategically far better than I was, and I look at some of those in chapter 6.

At the time, I simply wanted to buy a principal place of residence, and if that's what you want as well, I cover it in chapter 4.

But if I'd had a strategy back then, I probably wouldn't have started out by buying that unit in Rockdale (more on this in chapter 1). I definitely wouldn't have lived in it. Instead, I would have ‘rentvested’ and built up a portfolio faster. And I would have started investing when I was younger but, of course, I didn't know any of this back then. A mentor might have advised me, ‘Don't buy a home to live in — just invest’. Who knows? I might have been advised to buy Rockdale anyway. Being close to amenities and close to the water, it was a sound investment (albeit an accidental one). All I know is I had no strategy, because I didn't know what I was trying to achieve. I didn't have a clear goal.

In fact, I wasn't happy with my first few properties, because in those days I had quite a bit of debt. Those properties were negatively geared, and it frustrated me because I wanted to create money through property. So you see, even after I'd started buying investment properties, I didn't know what I was doing.

That was almost 20 years ago. Today I've achieved a lot of what I set out to do. My goals included buying my dream home (I cover that in chapter 5) and building security for my family. I have a strategy in place for how to pay my property off through my investments. I no longer dream of what I want to achieve in the property markets. I've got other dreams, but they're a little different.

My advice to my clients is not predicated on a hypothetical strategy, but on long experience helping hundreds of clients each year work towards achieving their own goals. That's what's important. It's about achieving your big goals and enjoying life to the full.