The Property Market Investor team recently caught up with Daniel Walsh who shared his inspirational investing story. He is an investor who has never been afraid to get his hands dirty to create equity and delve into new markets.
Daniel has built up a property portfolio worth $4 million while still being under the age of 30. His investing strategy involves purchasing properties in good capital growth areas combined with high yielding properties to balance his portfolio.
Getting started
Daniel grew up immersed in the world of real estate investing as his parents were heavily involved with property investment in Australia. His childhood memories include seeing his parents renovate properties, and driving around with them in the car to see potential properties.
Property was a common topic of conversation at the dinner table, says Daniel. “I was always overhearing conversations, what my parents were doing and the money that they were making. They were focusing more effort into that, than they were in their business, because that’s where the money was made. So I realized pretty early on that I wanted to go down that track.”
Daniel tells us that he remembers his dad saying “‘I’ve made more money through property than I did actually going to work.”
This resonated with Daniel, who from an early age decided “‘If I’m gonna go to work, I need to be putting this money to work. I need to put it into property itself.”
And this is how his property journey started. Daniel was aware that if he wanted to build wealth he had to get started early. It was with this mindset that he purchased his first house straight out of school when he was only 16.
Working on a low paying apprentice job, he was able to buy a block of land in Sydney where he later built a house. The total cost of his first project was $324,000.
“I knew I had to go through that to be able to build the wealth that I wanted. When I purchased that property, when it was completely finished, that was making me $150 a week, and I was probably making about $600 or $700 a week at that time in my job. I was like, If I can just replicate this a few more times over, I’ve replaced my income,” he says.
Growing as a property investor
With a clear goal ahead of him, Daniel decided to buy an investment property in Sydney. It had a price tag of $303,000, and was a mortgagee sale of a property which had to be renovated.
The property was literally around the corner from his first home. “I could see one property to the next,” he says. “Like most people when they first start investing, they wanna invest in their own backyard. I was still learning at that point, so I wanted to invest close,” he says.
For Daniel, it was all about the numbers. His train of thought was: “My first deal made me $150 a week. I can’t see risk in that, and now I’m going to do this and replicate it again,” he explains.
Sacrifices and delayed gratification
Daniel tells us that in order to obtain results, you need to make some sacrifices. “I actually had a nice car when I was younger. When I was 17, I bought a nice car. I paid $34,000 for it. I sold that for $11,000 and that contributed to my first property. I ended up buying an old Diahatsu Feroza. It was $1,500 on the side of the road,” he says.
Many of his friends were driving $50,000, brand new cars, and Daniel tells us it was very hard for him to restrain himself from doing that. “I remember, I was about 24, 25 and I’d already made, in terms of equity, I’d made $1 million so, it was very hard to realize that I had $1 million sitting there if I ever wanted it. But I knew that I wasn’t at my goal at that point, so I was still living like I was really poor at that point, but it was all delayed gratification.”
Having a clear goal and strategy was the force driving his willpower. Daniel knew that if he wanted to reach his goals within the next 10 years, he had to have good self-control. His thinking was: “I can’t go out there and buy the brand new car and blow all my money, just because I’ve made a couple of good purchases at that point,” he says.
Daniel tells us his friends were not always understanding; “A lot of them were like, ‘Just go and buy a brand new car. Let’s just go on holidays. Let’s just go out and let’s party.’ All that type of stuff. So it was very difficult for them to really understand why I was doing it, especially when I’d bought a few properties and they had done well.”
TIme has proven Daniel right, with his investments and willpower paying off. “I guess talking to them now, a lot of them look back and say, ‘I wish I did what you did’, I guess a lot of them now have realized that, I did it the right way, and I had to sacrifice, they’re now doing the same thing as well,” he says.
Buying in Queensland
With Sydney firing in terms of capital growth and rental yields too low, Daniel decided to buy his next property in South East Brisbane.
He says that the biggest obstacle of going inter-estate was overcoming the mental challenge of doing something new. “Looking back now, I invest interstate every single day and it’s just normal, but I know that new investors, when they do come to me, they would be saying the same thing like, ‘It’s a little bit scary and a little bit daunting.’ But it’s not until you’ve bought your first one there, and you realize that it’s just another property,” he says.
Daniel advises that having a good team behind you is key to successful real estate investing. He says this becomes more pressing when investing interstate. Having good rental managers and property managers is vital.
According to Daniel, this perfect team should include a mortgage broker that has gone down the path you are trying to achieve. His thinking is simple; “I don’t wanna have somebody telling me what to do, unless they’ve got what I want.”
He tells us that at this time in his journey he went with a mortgage broker who had 21 houses. He thought “You know what? “That’s exactly what I want.” This sealed the deal.
Looking for finance to grow your property investment portfolio? Property Market Investor can help. Simply fill in a form online in 3 easy steps and we will put you in contact with a home loan expert free of charge.
The importance of Diversification
With the Brisbane market reaching its peak, Daniel decided it was time to diversify and start exploring other markets.
“I’m a big believer in diversifying my portfolio, so I like to move around quite a bit. Again, it always comes back to the research, and what we do, and why we’re buying a property. Each property’s gotta do something in your portfolio. Not every one’s for growth, not every one’s for rental yield, they are all doing something different but they have got to come together to make your portfolio work,” he says.
“So at that point I, actually it was my wife, she bought one in her name in South Australia, so she bought a high yielding cash flow property. What we wanted to do with that one was, change that to principal and interest straight away. We wanted to pay that off and then that would create passive income for us to keep buying.”
Entering the Melbourne property market
In 2016, Daniel got started with property investment in Melbourne. The decision was made by keeping up-to-date with Melbourne property news and predicting an imminent increase in market value.
“I ended up making the conscious decision that I wanted some other properties that were going to do something different in my portfolio. They were a little bit lower yielding properties, but I could see from the research that I’d done that they were gonna grow in the real short term,” he says.
With a clear strategy set, Daniel bought in the South Eastern area for about $300,000.
“At that point obviously, we’d seen the CBD had grown quite significantly, the yields became a lot lower, and I could see that we could still pick up fairly good yields on the outer regions, and as Sydney did the same thing, it grew and it flowed on out, it was going to do the same thing with Melbourne. So we were trying to capture that growth before it happened,” he says.
His next purchase was in the Geelong area of Melbourne. This time Daniel bought with the intention of venturing into property development by building three townhouses.
“The actual land value there pretty much doubled, and I know that over the next five, 10 years it’ll do quite well there. So really for me it was just about going into something a little bit different, developing and doing something a bit different in my portfolio,” he says.
This purchase was an eye-opener for Daniel who realised the value of land was crucial when thinking about long term investments.
“I would rather, in my opinion, buy something 30 minutes out with a land content, than something close to the CBD, but it’s a unit, and I can’t do anything with it. I know that over time, when population grows, population grows out, and as the population grows out, it means that the land becomes more and more scarce as you go out. Over time, that means it’s going to be less land, you could see obviously Parramatta, 10, 15 years ago wasn’t what it was today, and if you have a house around there, it’s done very well, because the land is now becoming a lot more scarce,” he explains.
Present and beyond
Daniel tells us that over the past 18 months, he has been focusing on paying down debt. “My LVR at the moment is around 50% so it’s around a $2 million debt to a $4 million portfolio,”
He explains that he is planning to go into a growth phase in the near future, but he is very satisfied with where he is now. “I know that within the last year, I created $60,000 of passive income, so that’s paying for my immediate expenses, in terms of my living. My ultimate goal would be to probably create around a $5 million net worth so, it’s currently at around 2 million, so I wanna at least double that over the next sort of five to 10 years.”
He finishes off by saying that he wants to continue growing his portfolio, as long as he can maintain a good work-life balance. “I’ve always been of the opinion that, yes, you can build a $10 million portfolio but, I don’t wanna be stressed doing it. I wanna have a really good lifestyle while I do it. And I knew what outcome that I wanted from my portfolio, and I have pretty much achieved that now.”
Looking for the ideal property investment in Melbourne? Property Market Investor can help. Simply enter your details and we will match with properties to suit your needs.
The Property Market Investor team recently caught up with Daniel Walsh who shared his inspirational investing story. He is an investor who has never been afraid to get his hands dirty to create equity and delve into new markets.
Daniel has built up a property portfolio worth $4 million while still being under the age of 30. His investing strategy involves purchasing properties in good capital growth areas combined with high yielding properties to balance his portfolio.
Getting started
Daniel grew up immersed in the world of real estate investing as his parents were heavily involved with property investment in Australia. His childhood memories include seeing his parents renovate properties, and driving around with them in the car to see potential properties.
Property was a common topic of conversation at the dinner table, says Daniel. “I was always overhearing conversations, what my parents were doing and the money that they were making. They were focusing more effort into that, than they were in their business, because that’s where the money was made. So I realized pretty early on that I wanted to go down that track.”
Daniel tells us that he remembers his dad saying “‘I’ve made more money through property than I did actually going to work.”
This resonated with Daniel, who from an early age decided “‘If I’m gonna go to work, I need to be putting this money to work. I need to put it into property itself.”
And this is how his property journey started. Daniel was aware that if he wanted to build wealth he had to get started early. It was with this mindset that he purchased his first house straight out of school when he was only 16.
Working on a low paying apprentice job, he was able to buy a block of land in Sydney where he later built a house. The total cost of his first project was $324,000.
“I knew I had to go through that to be able to build the wealth that I wanted. When I purchased that property, when it was completely finished, that was making me $150 a week, and I was probably making about $600 or $700 a week at that time in my job. I was like, If I can just replicate this a few more times over, I’ve replaced my income,” he says.
Growing as a property investor
With a clear goal ahead of him, Daniel decided to buy an investment property in Sydney. It had a price tag of $303,000, and was a mortgagee sale of a property which had to be renovated.
The property was literally around the corner from his first home. “I could see one property to the next,” he says. “Like most people when they first start investing, they wanna invest in their own backyard. I was still learning at that point, so I wanted to invest close,” he says.
For Daniel, it was all about the numbers. His train of thought was: “My first deal made me $150 a week. I can’t see risk in that, and now I’m going to do this and replicate it again,” he explains.
Sacrifices and delayed gratification
Daniel tells us that in order to obtain results, you need to make some sacrifices. “I actually had a nice car when I was younger. When I was 17, I bought a nice car. I paid $34,000 for it. I sold that for $11,000 and that contributed to my first property. I ended up buying an old Diahatsu Feroza. It was $1,500 on the side of the road,” he says.
Many of his friends were driving $50,000, brand new cars, and Daniel tells us it was very hard for him to restrain himself from doing that. “I remember, I was about 24, 25 and I’d already made, in terms of equity, I’d made $1 million so, it was very hard to realize that I had $1 million sitting there if I ever wanted it. But I knew that I wasn’t at my goal at that point, so I was still living like I was really poor at that point, but it was all delayed gratification.”
Having a clear goal and strategy was the force driving his willpower. Daniel knew that if he wanted to reach his goals within the next 10 years, he had to have good self-control. His thinking was: “I can’t go out there and buy the brand new car and blow all my money, just because I’ve made a couple of good purchases at that point,” he says.
Daniel tells us his friends were not always understanding; “A lot of them were like, ‘Just go and buy a brand new car. Let’s just go on holidays. Let’s just go out and let’s party.’ All that type of stuff. So it was very difficult for them to really understand why I was doing it, especially when I’d bought a few properties and they had done well.”
TIme has proven Daniel right, with his investments and willpower paying off. “I guess talking to them now, a lot of them look back and say, ‘I wish I did what you did’, I guess a lot of them now have realized that, I did it the right way, and I had to sacrifice, they’re now doing the same thing as well,” he says.
Buying in Queensland
With Sydney firing in terms of capital growth and rental yields too low, Daniel decided to buy his next property in South East Brisbane.
He says that the biggest obstacle of going inter-estate was overcoming the mental challenge of doing something new. “Looking back now, I invest interstate every single day and it’s just normal, but I know that new investors, when they do come to me, they would be saying the same thing like, ‘It’s a little bit scary and a little bit daunting.’ But it’s not until you’ve bought your first one there, and you realize that it’s just another property,” he says.
Daniel advises that having a good team behind you is key to successful real estate investing. He says this becomes more pressing when investing interstate. Having good rental managers and property managers is vital.
According to Daniel, this perfect team should include a mortgage broker that has gone down the path you are trying to achieve. His thinking is simple; “I don’t wanna have somebody telling me what to do, unless they’ve got what I want.”
He tells us that at this time in his journey he went with a mortgage broker who had 21 houses. He thought “You know what? “That’s exactly what I want.” This sealed the deal.
Looking for finance to grow your property investment portfolio? Property Market Investor can help. Simply fill in a form online in 3 easy steps and we will put you in contact with a home loan expert free of charge.
The importance of Diversification
With the Brisbane market reaching its peak, Daniel decided it was time to diversify and start exploring other markets.
“I’m a big believer in diversifying my portfolio, so I like to move around quite a bit. Again, it always comes back to the research, and what we do, and why we’re buying a property. Each property’s gotta do something in your portfolio. Not every one’s for growth, not every one’s for rental yield, they are all doing something different but they have got to come together to make your portfolio work,” he says.
“So at that point I, actually it was my wife, she bought one in her name in South Australia, so she bought a high yielding cash flow property. What we wanted to do with that one was, change that to principal and interest straight away. We wanted to pay that off and then that would create passive income for us to keep buying.”
Entering the Melbourne property market
In 2016, Daniel got started with property investment in Melbourne. The decision was made by keeping up-to-date with Melbourne property news and predicting an imminent increase in market value.
“I ended up making the conscious decision that I wanted some other properties that were going to do something different in my portfolio. They were a little bit lower yielding properties, but I could see from the research that I’d done that they were gonna grow in the real short term,” he says.
With a clear strategy set, Daniel bought in the South Eastern area for about $300,000.
“At that point obviously, we’d seen the CBD had grown quite significantly, the yields became a lot lower, and I could see that we could still pick up fairly good yields on the outer regions, and as Sydney did the same thing, it grew and it flowed on out, it was going to do the same thing with Melbourne. So we were trying to capture that growth before it happened,” he says.
His next purchase was in the Geelong area of Melbourne. This time Daniel bought with the intention of venturing into property development by building three townhouses.
“The actual land value there pretty much doubled, and I know that over the next five, 10 years it’ll do quite well there. So really for me it was just about going into something a little bit different, developing and doing something a bit different in my portfolio,” he says.
This purchase was an eye-opener for Daniel who realised the value of land was crucial when thinking about long term investments.
“I would rather, in my opinion, buy something 30 minutes out with a land content, than something close to the CBD, but it’s a unit, and I can’t do anything with it. I know that over time, when population grows, population grows out, and as the population grows out, it means that the land becomes more and more scarce as you go out. Over time, that means it’s going to be less land, you could see obviously Parramatta, 10, 15 years ago wasn’t what it was today, and if you have a house around there, it’s done very well, because the land is now becoming a lot more scarce,” he explains.
Present and beyond
Daniel tells us that over the past 18 months, he has been focusing on paying down debt. “My LVR at the moment is around 50% so it’s around a $2 million debt to a $4 million portfolio,”
He explains that he is planning to go into a growth phase in the near future, but he is very satisfied with where he is now. “I know that within the last year, I created $60,000 of passive income, so that’s paying for my immediate expenses, in terms of my living. My ultimate goal would be to probably create around a $5 million net worth so, it’s currently at around 2 million, so I wanna at least double that over the next sort of five to 10 years.”
He finishes off by saying that he wants to continue growing his portfolio, as long as he can maintain a good work-life balance. “I’ve always been of the opinion that, yes, you can build a $10 million portfolio but, I don’t wanna be stressed doing it. I wanna have a really good lifestyle while I do it. And I knew what outcome that I wanted from my portfolio, and I have pretty much achieved that now.”
Looking for the ideal property investment in Melbourne? Property Market Investor can help. Simply enter your details and we will match with properties to suit your needs.