Читать книгу AWARE - A Business in a Book - Lucille Orr - Страница 8

Consistent effort creates enormous change.

If you’re interested in gaining your Real Estate Sales Certificate I’d love you to call us and we’ll explain what we can do at AWARE Properties to help you.

The real estate knowledge is invaluable, because the training you will complete will help you with so many other types of businesses. You will learn Contract Law, Consumer Protection Law, Property Law, how to sell and manage properties, manage people, keep your accounts and much more.

Even if you don’t use this information to work in the industry it will be invaluable to you if you want to invest in property and start your own property portfolio as you’ll understand the law associated with property management and the Residential Tribunal which protects the rights of the tenants and landlords. You will know how to protect yourself as a landlord against tenants who are not reliable.

Property Developers and Investors

There is also a law course to educate you in property subdivision and development so you can confidently buy homes, demolish them and redevelop the land. So many councils are now rezoning the land so that at least two small courtyard homes can be built where one home and a large back garden may have been on the property previously. I’ve found these days, “people will pay more for less.”

In November 2010 we assisted a female doctor to secure a solid brick, four bedroom home in Christies Beach and the doctor was wonderful to work with. I was able to teach her so much over the months we were searching for the right property to purchase and she was not only a fast learner but she was teaching me things I hadn’t taken the time to do when I bought my own investment properties. She created an excellent financial matrix to help her work out exactly how much money she would need to contribute if the property was to be negatively geared. I told her I would love her to make her program available to our buyers in the future. She read every document we gave her with the Form 1 (Cooling Off). She was so thorough that she even spoke to the local council planning department and found out the council had plans to allow developers to build three, three storey homes on large, corner blocks like the one she was purchasing. This along with my advice convinced her to go ahead with the purchase.

Make Money Investing in Property

You can become a full time property investor - you don’t have to operate a day-to-day real estate office to be successful in this industry.

If you’ve read any of the books written by Robert T. Kiyosaki, especially the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” series, you’ll know what I mean by making money work for you as a business, rather than operating a business.

I met Robert Kiyosaki in Adelaide way back in 1988 when he was presenting one of his early Money and You weekend seminars. At the time I was working for Capita Finance as a managing agent. I had a team of financial advisers working for me and I earned commission on my own sales and a small over-riding commission on the sales of my team members.

At one of our daily 8 am sales meetings (regardless of how late we worked the night before), my young boss who was in his early twenties, wanted us all to attend the next Money and You weekend. He’d heard about these life-changing seminars from a friend and was very excited.

I was working all day and into the evenings visiting people’s homes, so I was reluctant to spend a weekend away from my husband and young son. The seminar started on Friday night and didn’t end until late on Sunday night. Many participants didn’t sleep the whole weekend I was told.

I guess I only agreed to go because my young boss wanted me to. I was a team leader of 15 people at the time and I didn’t want to let him or my team down because they all seemed pretty keen to go along for the experience.

It was an unforgettable weekend. I did go home very late on the Friday night and Saturday night rather than keep on playing the games and not get any sleep. But I had to be back extremely early each morning. That weekend changed my life. After hearing Kiyosaki I wanted to start my own business again. I rented and furnished a city office but my husband lost his job at the end of the same week.

I lost a lot of money because he didn’t want me to go ahead with the business and I had to sell the furniture for a loss and lose money on the office lease.

Reluctantly I went to work for MLC Life Limited. As it turned out MLC ended up becoming a major sponsor of my women’s network. I’d been successfully operating the network since 1986. No one ever knows what’s in store for the future. It’s important to keep a positive, optimistic approach to everything you do. I believe we attract the right opportunities when we are positive and happy about our decisions in life.

At the time, I had a full-time job and a part-time business and I worried about my son who was only four years old. It’s amazing how the children cope. Fortunately my husband loved to do the housework and cooking and my mother helped by doing a lot of babysitting.

I’ve followed Robert Kiyosaki’s career with interest since that weekend and he has certainly achieved a lot. When he retired in 1994 at age 47, his wife Kim was only 37. I enjoyed reading Robert’s book “Retire Young Retire Rich”. In this book he talks about the importance of investing in property. Because of his investments in real estate, he and Kim were able to retire on time. They’d given themselves 10 years and they sold their business and retired in 9 years.

Write Down Your Goals

Setting a date to achieve a goal and writing it down is so important. In Robert Kiyosaki’s case he admits he couldn’t have achieved any of what he set out to achieve without the support of his wife Kim. I agree with Robert, it’s not easy to do it on your own. However, I also agree with the many people who say it’s impossible to achieve such a major goal in your life if your life partner is not willing to support you.

I found in my marriage we were going in different directions and once that happens you may as well do it on your own. Emotional problems can stop your progress. You only have one life, so live it to the full, enjoy every day but try not to hurt anyone along the way. Do what you do with others in mind and ensure they are protected as much as possible.

The manager of the Property Division of the Mawson Institute of TAFE at Panorama, South Australia told me in 2002 the real estate courses I’d completed could soon be accessible via the Internet. It took more years than first anticipated, but TAFE do have Certificate VI in Real Estate Sales and the Diploma courses online now.

If you want to gain your real estate license a word of warning, each state of Australia has its own property laws so you will need to speak to the Real Estate Institute or TAFE in your own state before you spend money on a course, especially courses on the internet.

To work in this industry or invest wisely in property you must be prepared to put in the hours and study. You can either work as a trainee or study full or part-time, but you need the certificate in your own state before you can go any further.

A Goal we Helped Achieve

In 2002 I met Susan, a school teacher at an open inspection I was conducting in Glenelg. She liked the unit I was selling that day but told me she had seen one with water views in Largs Bay. I suggested I would have a look at it for her. After the open I went to the block of units in Largs Bay and they needed a lot of work. The staircases looked very old and dangerous and the unit she was thinking of buying was on the third level.

I couldn’t see how she had water views and when I asked her she said, “Between the trees and a hotel”. I suggested I look for something that would give her a higher rental return, better capital gain and wouldn’t cost her ‘out of pocket money’ for Strata repairs.

By the following weekend I had found a lovely two bedroom unit at Grange right on the beach front and had both buses and a train service to the city.

This two bedroom unit was on the ground floor with its own carport right next to the unit. All she needed to do was furnish it and I knew I could get a very good rental return. On settlement day we met at the unit and she had bought some second hand furniture for the unit. I remember talking to a tenant in the block of units, he asked me if the unit would be renting for $130 per week as this is what he was paying and he had a friend who wanted a unit in this block.

I told him we would be asking no less than $300 per week as we were furnishing the unit. We did get $300, later we increased the long term rental leases to $350 per week. At Christmas time we earned as much as $150 per night.

Within the first year Susan purchased another unit in the same block on the ground floor, this one had been totally renovated with a new kitchen and floating timber floors, plus it was the front unit so it enjoyed sea views from the bedroom windows. Within three years she told me a lovely three bedroom home she had sold to support her family had come back onto the market. This waterfront two storey home at Christies Beach was fabulous so I told her to put a contract on the home subject to the sale of her two units.

I was so lucky to sell the two units for a huge profit, we paid $170,000 and$197,100 and sold the units for $280,000 and $285,000, Susan was able to buy back the home she had loved and thought she had lost forever.

Why Real Estate?

It’s a wonderful medium to exercise your own creativity. Writing advertisements, editorials, brochures, information on the Internet, window displays and presenting marketing plans to vendors is a lot of fun.