We’re back with Mish Daniel, the founder of Revolve Commercial. In this episode, she delves into the strategy that she uses for all of her investments: look for the potential of a property and uplift. She will discuss the value of having a mentor and explore the influence that her own mentors had. As well as this, Daniel will share advice that she wished she knew at the start of her journey and what she is excited for in the future!

Timestamps:
5:14 | Growing Up
10:45 | Realising Childhood Dreams
19:29 | Working From a Young Age
26:15 | Investing For Security
4:22 | Buying Commercial
8:55 | Lessons To Be Learned
12:15 | ‘Aha’ Moments
15:42 | Looking For Potential
18:45 | Commercial Properties: The Same Rules Apply to All
20:44 | Different Mentors
24:38 | Advice to Your Past Self
25:05 | Looking Into The Future

Resources and Links:

[4:23] (this is from part 2 audio) I was 44 years old at the time and I had just got my, my businesses, my life into a position where I could retire. So, I was kind of getting everything ready for a really relaxed future, doing, just doing whatever I wanted to do, and I made the decision to give it all up.

 

 

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset, and strategies.

 

I’m Tyrone Shum, and in this episode we’re speaking with the founder of Revolve Commercial, Mish Daniel. Growing up, she faced unimaginable challenges, but despite this, still established multiple successful businesses. We’ll explore how she launched her own property investment company and tapped into the commercial property market.

I’m Tyrone Shum, and in this episode we’re speaking with the founder of Revolve Commercial, Mish Daniel. Growing up, she faced unimaginable challenges, such as being held at gunpoint in front of her children, or getting attacked and having her legs broken but despite this, still established multiple successful businesses and a property portfolio.

(Rewrite) I’m Tyrone Shum, and in this episode we’re speaking with the founder of Revolve Commercial, Mish Daniel. Growing up, she faced unimaginable challenges, such as her community being bombed, or being held at gunpoint. We’ll explore how despite this, she launched multiple successful businesses and built a property portfolio.

 

**End intro music**

Daniel has valuable business experience and knowledge. So, when she noticed a gap in the Australian commercial property market, she decided to launch Revolve Commercial.

 

[0:47] It's been quite a long and interesting journey. Revolve Commercial is a company that I established, let's say about a year or two ago, however, getting to where we are has been the, the long story. So, we started out in around about 2017 and have taken quite a couple of turns. And in January of last year, we decided to launch the label, Revolve Commercial, and Revolve Commercial is essentially a commercial specialist buyer's agent. So, we only do commercial properties nationwide and we also help clients who cannot afford to buy commercial properties. If they want to join me on some uplift deals, and some joint ventures, I invite them to come along and join me as well. So they can get to learn how commercial property works and, you know, enjoy the benefits.

 

[2:14] I think there are more and more people that are talking about commercial, and the benefits of commercial. I still feel as if there's massive fear around commercial and we'll probably talk about that later because my years of experience in commercial when I, when I arrived in Australia kind of went, why are people doing this?

 

In her everyday life, Daniel has a very busy schedule…

 

[2:45] The first thing that I do when I wake up is drink half a litre of water, stretch, preferred and exercise for at least anything between, I would say 60 minutes to probably about three hours, if I can. I say between there because either take the dog for a good stringent walk while I listen to very good Property Investory podcasts or others. Otherwise, I'm a keen, keen cyclist. So, I would do between 30k and 45K's in the morning, and then come down, come back and have a look at what's to be done. First thing in the morning is to touch base with my entire team to find out where they are and what we need to do. And respond to clients emails and all the urgencies.

 

No matter how busy her day is, Daniel loves to go on a bike ride…

 

[4:04] I'm a, I'm a little bit of an all rounder. So essentially, I'm a mountain biker. So I've been doing mountain biking since I was a kid. In fact, I learned how to, how to ride on motocross, motorcycling. So, my brothers were, all had motorcycles in motocross and I learned how to ride with them at the age of about nine years old. So, I started learning motorcycling before I learned cycling and, and, yeah, I've built a couple of those as well but we won't talk about those now. And on arriving in Australia, eight years ago now, a friend of mine convinced me to get a road bike, very reluctantly. However, I managed to get a really beautiful carbon fibre and we, we do now have a range of bicycle. So, we do a lot of just sort of touring, quite a lot of touring. And then we do a lot of training on the road bikes and, and when they are brave enough to come off road with me, we'll do mountain biking. Good speed, anything with two wheels, give me two wheels and I'm happy.

Let’s go right back in time and take a look at Daniel’s childhood…

 

[6:19] I grew up in South Africa. And I was born in, in a place called Durban, which is on the east coast. My parents moved up to Johannesburg is, is sort of where everything was happening at the time. And it was a big, bustling, busy city. I hated the place and I vowed that the minute I'm finished school, I'm going to get out of there.

 

[9:43] Okay, so I'm the youngest of five kids.

 

[10:05] But it was interesting being the last of five. My parents were very, very busy with my, my older siblings, and they didn't really, they didn't, they kind of knew that I was there, but I was actually very quiet as a child. Very, very introverted, and, and very creative. So, I used to, I used to build quite a lot of stuff, but I used to build my own little, little toys, and model bicycles. I mean, in those days, you know, you didn't have Kmart, and everything that was made in plastic. And I had these, these dreams that I wanted a better lifestyle from a very young age. And I used to build these little houses out of cardboard and plastic, and dill sticks. Magnificent houses and play there, as a kid, you know.

 

As a child, Daniel was influenced by her father and from an early age, displayed that she was interested in property investment…

[12:41] My father, my father started out as a, as a carpenter. And so I spent quite a lot of time structuring and building with him, and learning about load bearing walls, learning about cantilevers, about roofs, about pitch roofs, flat roofs, mansarde. So, I kinda, I kind of feel as if I went through an entire apprenticeship with him. And on, on Sundays, we used to go a pastime, because there wasn't very much to do in Johannesburg, it was just a big dusty city. So, we used to go and have a look at show houses. And I just loved it, because he always used to say to me, 'look beyond the walls'. And I'd say to him, 'what do you mean dad?' He'd say, 'well, what can you do if you make an opening in this wall? What's on the other side? What can you create?' You know. And he taught me from a very, very young age, to look at, at structures differently. So, he always used to say, 'look at what others aren't seeing'.

 

[11:52] As a kid, you don't know what you're given the, the the talents that you're given. And in retrospect, I look at it and I think, gee, there was one little house that I built that, funnily enough, many, many, many, many years later, I drew it out. And I actually built that house. And then that was my, that was my dream home. And I must have been probably about, I was probably my late 30s, and I built that home in the top street, up against that mountain overlooking the most magnificent view. So, and I had, I had created that little house when I was a kid.

Though, growing up, Daniel faced challenges that many of us couldn’t imagine…

 

[14:26] Unfortunately, my oldest, my oldest two siblings died at a very young age. So, they would have been probably in their 60s. In fact, my oldest brother probably would have been about 63, 64. So, there was a seven year gap between myself and him. But, you know, being brought up in South Africa, yeah. Others wouldn't like me to say this, but I do believe that we were pretty much brought up in a war zone and fatalities happened.

 

[15:35] I think a very good friend of mine has encapsulated that very well by saying 'South Africa is beautiful chaos'.

 

[15:49] And it really is. I mean, it's the most beautiful country. Like I said, rich with culture, the food is just magnificent, flavoursome. Many, many different international cultures. You know, so, it really is beautiful, but it's total chaos. So, I can remember some instances when I was growing up, where there was, you know, we really, we were, we were brought up in the Cold War. Because what was happening is the leading party, which was the National Party, was really at war with the underground, which was the, the now residing ANC. And I remember, at, at some points my, my parents wouldn't let us watch the news, because there was so much bloodshed that was happening that they, they, they wanted to, you know, protect us from, from seeing all that stuff.

 

[16:43] So, our childhood was kind of not really in the know of what was going on. However, at the age of 12 years old, I started realising that there was something that I knew that I don't know and I wanted to know what it was. So, I started kind of looking and seeing and finding out information. Wasn't very easy to find out information as, as a child about, you know, politics, and what the other side was doing.

 

After finishing high school, Daniel kept her vow and left Johannesburg at age 19. After travelling for one year, she settled down…

 

[6:44] I moved down to Cape Town. Cape Town is a beautiful city with lots of mountains, crystal clear waters and that's basically where I started my life.

 

[8:17] You know, if you speak to any Capetonians, they'll tell you that Cape Town's got soul. So, it's a very, very colourful city. It's, it's, it's rich with culture. It's got a lot of music, arts. It's a beautiful city. It's a lovely place to be in and you've got the seaside, you've got mountains, you've got all the outdoors, outdoor sports, and just down the road, about 20ks, no it's a little bit more than that. About 50ks down the road, you're surrounded by the vineyards. So, and you've got the plains and you've got you know, so it's, it really it's a city that gives you everything from you know, and especially if you're an outdoor person, if you enjoy your, your wines, your brandies, your, your, a couple of good adults indulgences. Stunning, really beautiful. We used to go on, I used to go on, on a mountain bike rides in the vineyards, which was in through the mountains for like, eight, nine hours a day. It was just magnificent.

 

After Daniel moved to Cape Town, she saw what her parents tried to protect her from as a child…

 

[17:38] I got involved with, with groups that were fighting, quietly, fighting apartheid, and my eyes were really open to the bloodshed and the war that was happening. You know, so at any given time, you never knew, you know. I mean, for instance, some friends of mine were, went to church, and some, some, they call them Eppler. Attackers walked in and mowed everybody down in the church, you know. A couple of months later, a couple of friends were, were a well, in a pub that I used to go to, same sort of thing happened. So, there was a lot of this, you know, we kind of just lived with what was happening, and you just dealt with it. And you lived with eyes in the back of your head, you're always looking behind you and, and the level of, of security is just unbelievable. So, I'll tell you a little bit later about the security and, you know, the stuff that we were forced to live with, but I think South Africans became a very resilient nation because of, of how we were living, you know. You adapt to your circumstances and we became very resourceful as a result of that.

 

[19:40] It almost becomes like a norm where you, you, you'd never expect it, but when it does happen, it's like, damn, it's happening again. And I'll give you an example. There was the Hard Rock Cafe, was a cafe that we used to go to in, on the waterfront. Beautiful place and it was bombed now, and everybody says, 'gee, I could have been there', or 'wow, I've just left there, I just survived it'. You know, and it's like, lives have been lost, people have been killed, and nine times out of 10, we know a lot of those people that were in the line of fire. So, whenever these attacks happened, and we were always hearing about Joeseph was shot in the James Street attack, or, you know. So, as a community, it kind of brought us together and, and it made us, I guess, looking after each other a little bit more, you know. Where you're always looking out for your neighbour, you're always looking out, like I said, looking over your shoulder. And you never know, when there's some sinister idiot, that's just going to, you know, plant a bomb, wherever you are.

The events that happened in Cape Town heavily affected Daniel…

 

[20:56] There's this, there's this incredible level of fear. And, and we were, we were always trying to protect ourselves from that. So, I mean, by the time I left South Africa, I'd been attacked four times. I landed up in a wheelchair, my, both my, my feet were broken in, in an attack. It took me three years to learn how to walk again, let alone run, hence me, hence me being, enjoying cycling more than then running. However, they changed my life forever. I mean, I used to hike up that mountain virtually every second weekend. I couldn't do that anymore, you know, changed my life. I've been held up at, at, at gunpoint, shot at with AK47's. You know, and I think when I tell people these stories, they, they think I'm, you know, making it up. I ran factories, and we had seven gunman that came in and held us up at gunpoint, you know. And another time, I got a phone call, I went to pick up my kids that were all of a year and three years old, and I was busy driving back to my factory to go and, and close up the factory. And I got a phone call from one of the staff members say 'Mish, don't come here, don't come, don't come. There's a, there's a shootout happening in the driveway'. And it's like, 'gee, thanks for letting me know'. And this is life, you just get used to this.

 

[23:06] We got to a point where we had three security companies that were looking after us. So, I had security companies that, at the office, at work. We had a security company who used to look after our homes. And often if we, for instance, if my, if my partner was, was who worked on the other side of the mountain, was working late, I would tell her that she has to phone me when she's leaving. And, and I know that the drive was 20 minutes, if she's not back here by 20 minutes, I'll be phoning her again. And often I would get the security company just to escort us into our home. You know, if we felt like there was, that there was something that was out of the ordinary, we'd phone for an escort. You know, so and that becomes the norm. You know, that's how it is, surrounded by armed guards.

 

From a young age, Daniel was always driven and hardworking…

 

[24:49] As a kid, I always wanted to work. All I wanted to do was work. So, I actually started working in a shoe, shoe store at the age of 12 years old and, and the legal age was 16. But I managed to win that one. I was very convincing and in fact, I became the best salesperson. And then I went on to doing all sorts of other casual jobs and, and continued with school, obviously. However, I always wanted to pursue the creative side. And my, my, my now late sister was a professional photographer and she, she convinced me to go into advertising. So, I started my first job as a graphic designer in advertising in an agency called Young and Rubicam, which was retail advertising.

 

[25:49] So, and I learned my foundations. I basically did a, an apprenticeship with them for about three years and then went on. However, while that was happening, I always thought there's got to be something bigger, there's got to be something better. And when I, when I left them travelled, as I mentioned, came back, went to Cape Town, started and then I was freelancing as a graphic designer, and just decided that I need to settle down and do something bigger and better. So, I started my own promotional clothing company. Now, you'd wonder how I jumped from one to the other, but my mother was a dressmaker. And while my father was teaching me about construction and buildings, my mother was, insisted that every single one of her girls learned how to, how to, how to make clothing, and we all had our own sewing machines.

 

[26:58] I hated it, but, but in retrospect, it turned out really good for me. And as a kid, what I used to do is, I used to take menswear, and pull it apart and restructure it, put it together and make it this, these creative clothing, turn them into really creative outfits. So, I used to do that in buildings and instruction as well as clothing. Anyway, while we didn't really have the money to go out and buy outfits for, for end of year parties, and that sort of thing. So, I used to make it and when I moved down to Cape Town, I got involved in promotional clothing, because I had the clothing background, and the promotional side was the creative side. And it was very, very new. We were, we were one of three agencies. We were one of the first and we did incredibly well. So, I just developed that into a very profitable business. And long story short, I ended up with 400 staff, and I was running three businesses. I developed that, I took that into an embroidery business, a screen printing business, a manufacturing business, and we called it a vertical business. Which means that we would design, we would manufacture, we would procure, so we'd hold stock, and we would do distribution. So, it was end to end. So, an entire operation.

 

In order for her promotional clothing business to become successful, Daniel tapped into a niche market…

 

[28:55] I realised that in order to make a business like that highly profitable, I did contract work. So we contracted to big corporate companies like Caltex, Caltex national. Now bearing in mind that Caltex is very different in South Africa to what it is over here. The average Caltex service station would have anything between 40 to 120 staff members, and those staff members would have 22 garments. A full kit, full fit-out of 22 garments, which would be summer as well as winter, which is jackets, trousers, shirts, jerseys, hats, caps, rain gear, summer gear. So, those were massive, massive contracts. I mean, we were manufacturing 22 million garments across various different styles.

 

[30:02] South Africa is a very labour, labour intensive, labour rich country. So, because it's, it's, you know, you've got the the great divide. So, the cheaper labour would do anything for work. So, they would wash windows for work. So, when you go to a service station in South Africa, everything's done for you. You pull up, somebody comes along, they put petrol for you, they'll open your bonnet, and they'll, they'll, they'll fill up your water, they'll check your oil, they'll check your tires, they'll pump, they'll pump your tires for you. Everything is done for you, you know, they get paid for that. And then the other thing that they had is, they had retail shops at the service stations, and way ahead of virtually other countries that I've seen around the world. So, you could go to the retail shop, and you could buy anything from, they'd have a Woolworths distribution in there, they'd have, it's a mini Woolworths, they'd have a bakery, a pizza shop, curry shop, you know, something like that. So, you could go to your local service station, and they were massive, huge service stations, which is subsequently started as a see, Australia's getting more and more of those now. So, it's obviously working, where you can go and do a whole shop in, in when you're filling up for gas.

 

Caltex was just one example of the brands that Daniel manufactured for…

 

[32:31] We used to manufacture the licence to quite a lot of the sports brands as well. So, I picked up the Adidas accounts. High, high, high intensive sort of precision manufacturing and high pressure very, very high pressure. I mean, at some stage I think I was working probably 18 hours a day.

 

[0:04] (From this point, all audio is from part 2) I structured the companies in such a way that I had a lot of managers in, you know, in the positions. So, setting up all of those systems, every single, every single department was very well managed. So effectively, I was helicopter managing all of those departments and just my, my core people. But it is a, a big undertaking, yes.

 

 

Next we take a look at Daniel’s property investing journey and how it began…

 

[0:56] Just going back a little bit, at the age of 22, I realised that South Africa was, was well and truly on a, on a slippery scale going downhill. And I decided I needed to basically put my own insurance in place. So, I started buying properties, it was something that I'd been very familiar with. 

[1:53] So, we had quite a, you know, I had a good portfolio of that happening on the side while I was in the manufacturing. And then things really started hitting the wall.

 

[2:05] We had we, we've, I've got two beautiful little blonde girls, gorgeous little girls and I looked at my lifestyle, and I looked at what I'd been through, and I thought, you know, it's, it's unfair, because I can't see things getting better for these kids, to bring these kids up in that environment. So, it really, really was a tough decision, that and I knew that I'd have to give everything up, and at that time, the money was worth nothing. The exchange rate was 10 to one, which means that every, every 10 rands that we own was worth $1. So, either which way you look at it, we'd be, we'd be losing, you know, it was a massive loss. And then my factory was burned down, and a year later, I was, I was attacked, and I landed up in this wheelchair. And then we were held up and it was almost like the universe was speaking to me, and saying, 'get out of here. This is your time, just get out of here. Just take whatever'. And I decided that's it, I need to actually make this move. And my sister had moved to Australia about 15 years earlier, and decided that she wanted to get married. So, she invited me over to Australia to her wedding and I thought hell yes, I'm going. Well, I used, I used to come and, come and go quite a lot in between.

 

[3:38] But anyway, and I was sitting in a park in Chermside, and these two little kids came past pushing their bicycles, they must have been all of 10 or 11 years old. And I looked at this, and I thought, there is no ways that my kids are ever going to experience this kind of freedom ever in their lives. I'm moving here. And I phoned my wife back home and said, 'that's it, I'm not coming home until you say yes'. Because I've been saying for 10 years, I've been saying we need to move, we need to go, we need to actually go. And everyone back home was saying 'no, no, you're joking. You're not going to do this'. And I said, 'I'm going to do this. That's it. I'm giving it up. I'm actually giving it up'.

 

[4:49] And long story short, we arrived here when I was 45 years old with three suitcases. We couldn't get our money out of South Africa for six years. So, we really, really battled to get our money out, with the way the things were going, and I just decided, you know what, I will give away everything that I owned, because there's one thing that, that the government can't take from me, and that's what I've brought with me. And that is my intelligence, my experience, what I've learned. You know, years of experience and that's basically what I brought, you know, and that's, and that's how we've started doing what we're doing now.

After experiencing the events that happened to Daniel personally in Cape Town, she had to make a big change in her life and that’s when she made the move to Australia. There were new challenges she faced with the move.

 

[6:07] Look, I ran the numbers, I did the maths. So if we, if we talk about third world currency versus a first, first world currency, I very quickly worked out that if I were to keep our assets in South Africa and try and live off those assets, they're going to be very short lived. Because when you're doing the conversion, by the time you get the money over here, to put it into some sort of context, we lost 93% of the value of our money by doing that sort of conversion. So, by the time, by the time we did get all our money here, which, as I said, took a number of years, that, the money that arrived in Australia was only worth 8%, of what it was worth previously. Okay, so that was enough for us just to kind of start and get going and, and, and, you know, just find our feet. But it's, it was quite a long time going before we could do that. You know, and I think for those, for the listeners who have immigrated, they would relate to you know, you move here, you don't have a mechanic, you don't have a dentist, you don't have a doctor, you don't have friends, you don't have, you don't know the food, people speak funny, different accents. So, you know, it's, it's a whole, it's a whole different world.

 

In order to land on her feet, Daniel had help from a friend…

 

[9:11] Well, it was, it was a massive fall from grace put it that way. Because I was, I was brought in on a visa called the 567, which is a working visa. And it was a company that had been inviting me to move to Australia for probably close on 10 years. So, a family connection. And every time I came to Australia, he'd always say to me, 'come and work for me, come and start a branch you'd be so successful, you'd be so good'. Anyway, and eventually I took him up on it and said great. He said choose any city on the East Coast, go wherever you want. We need because they were on the west coast in WA and I said 'well, no brainer, Brisbane is the city to go to'. Although, although I must say I was very hard pressed because I knew that the business would be far more successful in Sydney. And I said, 'no, I'm choosing Brisbane and we're going to set that up'. So I arrived here three days later, I found a warehouse, I had, I had shelving where, and all the equipment coming in office, office materials coming in, and started setting up marketing advertising and got out there and started, basically started a new business for this company in Brisbane.

 

[10:43] Hit the ground, got it up and running, worked for them for two years. Brisbane became the most successful branch in the, in the company, took over the Sydney office and then established a Melbourne office as well. And yeah, and after two years, I said, 'guys, that's it. I've done my time, time for me to move on and go and do what I want to do'.

 

 

After leaving this position and using her property knowledge from South Africa, Daniel began to invest in Australian properties…

 

[11:31] When I arrived here, I thought, well, it's something that I know, like I love, I want to do. So, I started having a look at the residential market and I thought, well, I'll stuff up, I'll stick my toe in and start with residential. And I did a couple of courses and, and thought, well, I need to know how things work over here. So, I spent, I probably spent the first two to three years looking, seeing, learning as much as I possibly could. And I did every single prop, property course that I could. However, being on that kind of visa and I'm really grateful for this is, I wasn't allowed to buy investment property. I was restricted to buying investment property as a foreigner on a 457. And it was actually a saving grace, because we did find a really good property and that I wanted to jump into and I wanted to do a development on it. And at the last minute, I couldn't do that.

 

[12:31] So, I was a little bit disappointed but I found out shortly afterwards and I thought, what about commercial? Because commercial is, is something that I know. It's something that I've been into for a long time and I've been involved in a lot of commercial in South Africa. And I found that commercial was a far better option and I was allowed to buy commercial. So, I went out like a bull in a china shop and had heavily leveraged boosts. Bought my first commercial, which was a warehouse, industrial warehouse and yeah, just, just basically started, started purchasing as much commercial as I possibly could with what we had, and started that journey. And being that I, I've always done uplift properties, that's kind of my niche. So, I was, I was out there looking for properties that I could add value to and, you know, leverage against.

 

After investing in that first commercial property in 2017, Daniel began to take part in group deals…

 

[14:02] From there we just, you know, I've been leveraging off whatever, whatever monies we could, whatever we were making, and look, I'm a very good saver. So, we save very well and manage money, I would say pretty well and also having come from, from where we have and built my, my estate up to where I had, and starting all over again, I really had to be very mindful of our finances. So, we did quite a lot of leveraging and did so valuing up equity drawdown and to purchase the next one and the next one. So, what I've gone into since then is doing couple of group deals where buying, you know, using other people's money basically, bringing investors in, doing those uplift properties. And either strata titling them, selling them off. Otherwise keeping them, managing them and we've subsequently started a asset management company, where we're looking after over 40, 40 properties.

 

[16:01] A lot of the assets that we were buying, we were purchasing through the end of sort of 2018, into 2019. And a lot of those assets we bought through COVID-19 and have turned out to be probably the best, you know, best acquisitions that we've made. You know, and, and now we managing those properties as property assets, you know, as management fees. We've done huge uplifts on those properties, not necessarily external, but on the management side. So in other words, with leasing, tenanting, that sort of thing. We've added tremendous value and had those properties revalued at 40, 50% more than what they were when we purchased them.

 

 

Throughout any property investment journey, there is always something to be learned. For Daniel, this is making sure you have a good education…

 

[17:24] I guess the biggest lesson is, is, is not having the right education or not having the right advice. You know, going in and buying a property. So, one of the biggest mistakes that I made was I went in like a bull in a china shop and bought this really fantastic property. And everything stacked up and I listened to the real estate agents, I thought, gee, what a nice guy, we, we great friends, bla bla, bla, bla bla. Well, when you, your selling agent is never your friend.

 

[18:08] And bought this property and about three or four days later, I went and had an interview with the tenant. Well, back to front, honey. First you have the interview with the tenant, before you go unconditional. And I found, and the tenant was a hell of a nice guy. He said to me, 'yeah, but you know, we moving out of this building in a year's time'. And I was like, 'What? No, you can't be, you been here for 25 years, you got all of this machinery?' He said 'no. We amalgamating and we moving out'. You know, and it was like, ouch. Okay, so the cardinal rule number one in commercial property is interview your tenant. Speak to your tenants, you know, have that, that one on one conversation with them, no matter what.

 

[19:48] So, the, the we, we sat with that property for around about six months. And what I did is I rallied up all the agents and basically interviewed the agents to find out which ones were the better agents. And gave them a memorandum of, of what we wanted in terms of type of tenants and what we were prepared to do. So, incentives for the tenants. So, we, we ended up getting a temporary tenant for about four or five months, which kind of saw us through. However, we'd own that property for just under 18 months. So, we had a good, a good profit that we'd made on that property. And the vacancy was, and we call, we call it holdover costs. So, the holding cost of their property was basically sucked up by the profits that we made the year earlier. Long story short, I had set my sights on getting a national tenant in there. I wanted a five year, five plus five year lease and this is all about mindset. I had, I had re, repurpose the building. And the funny thing was, I put pictures all over my office of where I've been working and I decided that's the tenant that I want and I'm going to go for this and no matter what, I'm just going to put it out there to the universe, that I want a national tenant that's with a five by five year lease. And that's exactly what, what we got. So, it came through one of the bid agents that we'd been working with, because we kind of shortlisted down to three agents. And a little bit in negotiation back and forward and we, we put a national tenant in there with our five by five year lease.

 

 

On most property investment journeys, you’re also likely to have an ‘aha’ moment. Daniel shares one of hers…

 

[23:17] Well, a couple of aha moments. And I think one of the one of the best that I can relate to in Australia is helping people out. You know, because people, people were seeing what I was doing, and I was talking about, and I was showing them, example, samples, case studies of what I had done. And they were saying, wow, you know, like, can you do that for us? So, the aha moment was, there are so many people that are in negative or neutrally geared residential properties, that they don't know the splendorous wonder of, of commercial, let alone how to do this in commercial. And I mean, I've met the most amazing people. There was one guy in particular, who really was my aha moment we really clicked and he saw, kind of got a glimpse of it. And he said, right, ‘I'm going to throw caution to wind and I'm going to come on board with you. Show me what you can do’. Long story short, it was a property that was on the market for 1.9 million. I negotiated that property. We ended up buying it for about $1.54. And I said to Peter, 'just leave it to me. Let me sort this property out'. And it was really ailing. I think it's, there were 10 tenants, of which there were four vacancies. And those, those tenants really were not happy at the time. Long story short, we turn this property around, re-tenanted it, repositioned it, you know, cleaned it up. And the aha moment was when he had that property revaluated it came in at just under three million.

When investing in property, it’s  important to find a strategy that works for you. While Daniel lived in South Africa, her strategy was to buy properties at a consistent rate…

 

[1:20] I started buying properties, and my commitment was that I would buy one property every single year. So, different kinds of properties and I collected about 29 properties over the years, residential, commercial, right across the board. I did a couple of developments. We did what you would call strata titling over here, so blocks of flats, where we would go and clean them up, turn them out, turn them around, and reposition them in the market.

 

Throughout Daniel’s property investment journey in both South Africa and Australia, there has been one key strategy that she used…

 

[26:06] I think the most, the most successful strategy, right throughout my entire real estate career, across the, across the, the big blue lake, has always, has always been uplift. You know, because right from the age of 22, when I started buying property, with my father's words ringing in my ears. I always, I always change those properties. I would turn them around, or I would, I would create just a beautiful space, opening them up and creating flow. So probably 90% of the properties that I purchased, I would always do uplift, sort of renovations on them. So I love adding value and that's exactly what I'd be doing.

 

[27:02] That's exactly what I was doing on, on those properties is, you know, I'd see the potential, walk into them, see what we could do with those properties, knock a couple of walls out, turn those properties around, and just creates, you know, a beautiful space.

 

[27:21] Now, in, in commercial, you don't actually have to do as much as what you're doing in residential. So in commercial, we would, we would focus on giving it a clean lick of paint. You know, doing floors, doing walls, doing facades, doing outside areas, maybe cleaning up parking, parking lots, pavements, walkways. You know, making it, making it sort of desirable for tenants, to want to invite their clients to come to. Because bearing in mind that they are destinations. You know, so you want to, you want to create a destination that the tenant is proud of, that they're proud of bringing their clients to. And in commercial always say that, you know, people could live in dumps at home. But they're, what they, what they're portraying in the workplace is professional, clean, and, you know, a beautiful destination to invite. It's got to be inviting for their clients to come to.

 

No matter what type of commercial property one purchases, it needs to be welcoming to clients. Daniel shares that this is important factor, even in a warehouse…

 

[29:08] It depends what type of tenant is moving into and what type of warehouse that you have. But for our warehouse in particular, we repainted the entire warehouse, you know, on the outside. So, we repurposed the, we gave them a blank canvas so they could see it from you know, they, they could do with it whatever, whatever they wanted. And when moving on the inside of the space, we had a beautiful mezzanine that in fact, I had just paid for with the previous tenants and the new tenant that came in said 'oh Mish, we need to remove the mezzanine because our machinery is too high machineries'.

 

[29:54] So, that was a little bit of a compromise, but I thought, hell, you know what? $50,000 worth of mezzanine versus five year lease? Hello, I'll go for the five year lease. You know, so and all of that is negotiated as you, as you so rightfully said into the lease, over a period of time. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of repurposing that you can do. Something that we really, really love, and we've been looking at is taking just ordinary tool slab, ugly warehouses, and turning them into beautiful workspaces. So, it's sort of a industrial office kind of thing. Where you've got beautiful wood, and stainless steel railings, and just, you know, adding, adding a couple of different types of open, open office with beautiful finishes. You know, in turning it into that, that industrial, but friendly, warm, cosy sort of environment.

 

Over her business and property journey, she has had a few mentors that have helped to shape her beliefs…

 

[32:56] I think my biggest mentor was probably my father, in terms of structure and design, and, and, you know, just learning the stuff from a very, very young age of knowing how things work. I mean, I can walk into a building now, and I can see what a load bearing wall is. I can look at I-beams and tell you whether it's a 16 inch or 22 inch I-beam and what the weight capacity would be. You know, on that stuff, just by virtue, you know? 

[33:27] Yes, I don't have certifications for that and I'm not an engineer. But I could tell you some, a lot of very funny stories about that, but I won't bore you with it now. But I think my biggest mentor, and, and growing up in a family of five and coming from the background that we did, with lots of war, there was a lot of sadness and, you know, my, my parents were very religious. I didn't necessarily believe in their religions, and I kept on thinking there must be, there must be something bigger. There's, there's, there's a bigger something out there and that's why I talk about the universe, the universal energy.

 

Daniel’s second mentor was somebody that she met a little later in life…

 

[34:10] I ran into Tony Robbins in my early 20s, and I mean, it was back in the days when Tony Robbins, the only recordings that you could get of Tony Robbins were on cassette, on tape.

 

[34:36] Now it's all online. Yeah, so I set myself up for a challenge and I decided that I was going to do his, he's 31 he's, 30 Day Challenge. That was his very, very, very first training. I think I must have been about, probably about 20, 22, 23. And I was just starting out in business. I was starting out with, with all of this and I did that, and actually ended up doing it 3, 4, 5 times because it was just so insightful. There was so much and every time I repeated it, I would learn something new. So, it was, it was great information.

 

Daniel looked up to one last mentor because of something that they had in common…

 

[35:20] One of my biggest mentors was Richard Branson. So, I was, I was totally amazed because Richard Branson is dyslexic, and I was dyslexic. And I always thought when, when growing up in a school, because I couldn't, I couldn't write very well, or read very well, that I was stupid. But I was incredibly creative and when I ran into Richard Branson again, when he was starting out in his 20s, and 30s, I found out you know, he's name was, was around before virgin times, and he was dyslexic. I thought, there it is. I’ve got something in common with this guy, I'm gonna follow him. 

[36:09] So, the businesses that, that I ran, I kind of principled it on a lot of what Richard Branson did with collaboration. So, all those, all those businesses were kind of set up in collaboration. And, and I really, really feel very strongly that success is all about collaboration. You know, the more collaborative unions or partners or joint ventures that you can have, the more successful you can be.

 

When it comes to learning about and being involved in collaboration, Daniel has another influence…

[36:57] I also follow Mindvalley, which is also about collaboration and yeah, same sort of thing. So, this beautiful stuff  it is, lovely stuff, working together.

 

Reflecting upon her journey, Daniel shares her advice that she would tell her younger self…

 

[37:20] I would have said to her start, start investing offshore number one. I wish I could have, I wish I did, I wish I took my advice earlier and, and never give up. Never give up. Tenacity. You know? Really go for what you believe in. Yeah, don't ever give up. Yeah. Dream big.

Now, looking towards the future, Daniel shares what she is looking forward to…

 

[38:00] I'm most excited about doing more group deals. So, we busy, looking at putting together and we sort of halfway through putting together more group deals that more people can get involved in. So, so people that don't have the funds or the resources to buy these uplift properties by themselves, or they can't afford it. 

[36:25] I mean, these, these are fairly expensive properties in there's quite a lot of holding cost involved, and uplift cost as well. And I'm inviting them to come along and join me and learn with me. And, you know, on this journey of, you know, sticking their toe and seeing how it's done. So, we really are in 2022, planning on doing more of those and inviting yeah, inviting whoever wants to get involved to come along and join us to find out more, and do this with me. Yes, the more the merrier.

 

[39:20] Yeah, I'm super excited. I mean, I'm, I'm super excited about putting that team together and pulling all those people together, so.

Lastly, how much of your success do you think is of your skill and intelligence and hard work, and how much of it is because of luck?

[39:59] Luck is a result of skill, intelligence, and hard, hard work in my opinion. So, the harder you work, the more you, you get educated, the more skills you have the luckier you're going to be, you know.

 

 

Thank you to Mish Daniel, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.