Join us on this insightful episode of Property Investory.

Timestamps:
00:02:45 - Personal background

00:04:25 - A different kind of teaching 

00:06:20 - Learning with a purpose 

00:10:11 - A necessary first investment 

00:11:17 - Family relationships vs business relationships 

00:14:06 - Making the most of mistakes

00:01:22 - Development strategy

00:04:30 - Opportunistic investing 

00:06:06 - Lessons from COVID

00:09:35 - Benefit from new market conditions

00:15:03 - An exciting property future 

00:16:07 - Inspirations and self-growth

00:19:30 - Koulizos family advice

00:23:27  - Helpful Resources

[4:40 ]One of my interests is gentrification. One of the reasons is because I've lived it - I've lived in an area where nobody wanted to live, where it was only blue-collar, low-income workers. You fast-track 30 years, and now all the white-collar professionals, the hipsters, all want to move into this area.

 

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 Property Professor Peter Koulizos - author, lecturer, and avid property investor. We'll follow his journey from flipping houses after school in Adelaide, to teaching Year 3 in the New York Peninsula, all the way to now working as program director for the master of property at the University of Adelaide.

 

 

 

Having experience in both the theory and practice of the property market, connecting life and learning to help others is one of Koulizos’ greatest joys.  

 

[5:34] Before I was a university lecturer, I was a school teacher. So now what I have is, I have a passion for teaching and a passion for property. So being able to teach property, yeah, that's as good as it gets. It doesn't get any better than that. 

 

So, what does this fusion look like on an average day?

 

Peter Koulizos  

[1:31] So on a typical day, I'd have a class, there's obviously student inquiries before the class and student inquiries after the class. Unfortunately, there's marking, which I'm not a big fan of, but has to be done. Admin, but I mean, there's also, you know, flexibility, often I catch up with my students, just over coffee, not just about property, but also what their aspirations are not so much in creating worlds because I'm more about helping them find a career in property. 

 

Because most of my students are international students a long way from home, particularly now because of COVID-19. I think they appreciate speaking to somebody who's a bit more mature than they are, who's got some experience in life and property. So yeah, for me, it's again, keeping it real. It's not just about studying. It's also about the whole person.

 

 

Growing up, Koulizos found that being immersed in the property industry from an early age had a subconscious effect on his trajectory. 

 

Peter Koulizos 

[5:34] My father was a real estate agent, hence the interest in real estate. Now, you know, I didn't make a conscious decision to get into the real estate area. But I just think through a process of osmosis and sitting down at the dinner table and listening about property every day. Sometimes helping my dad, because he was an avid investor himself, sometimes helping dad with maybe, you know, taking rubbish to the dump or doing some jobs around some investment properties or properties. He used to be a big flipper, buy something, fix it up and sell it. And so that's how I got into property. 

 

[6:57] What kid wants to be on the back of a trailer at a dump throwing rubbish when it's 30 degrees when they could be out playing with their mates. But look, I never really found that a chore I don't know if enjoyed is the right word. But I didn't mind it.  I suppose most kids would love to be asked by their parents to help out because they will seem to be, you know, useful. And so, I enjoyed that bit. But generally speaking, childhood was good. I went to school at Underdown High School, which is a suburb, which is a school in the western suburbs of Adelaide. Yeah, I had a great time in school, had a great time at university, and am still having a great time at university.

 

Before Koulizos was a university lecturer, his students were quite a bit younger.

 

[8:13] So, straight from high school, I went to Teacher's College. Back then, you didn't have to go to university to be a teacher; you just went to Teacher's College. So I went to teachers college and got - back then it was just the Diploma and then three years - now you need a four-year degree to be a teacher.

[11:14] I got my first job out in the country of South Australia. So I had a contract for a year. And then I had some part-time positions for two years in the city. And then I got my first permanent job back out in the country on New York Peninsula in South Australia, stayed there for seven years, and then came back and taught in the city and a couple of different schools. 

 

[14:07] So I started off teaching the young ones like year three and year four, but most of the time, I was teaching year sixes and sevens. And I developed a great interest in financial literacy, especially when I came back to the city. So, I wrote a unit of work called money matters for kids, where I would teach kids about saving and investing and budgeting and finding your right career. And I tried to incorporate it in as many areas of the curriculum as I could. You know how you would have a school fair? Well, I would call it an enterprise fair because if the kids wanted to say set up a sausage sizzle, they had to give me a business plan. So how many sausages do you expect to sell? How much are the sausages going to cost you? Where are we going to get the barbecue from? How much are the guests gonna cost you? And then you know, come up with the bottom line, whether it was sausages, whether it was Yeah, cupcakes.

 

Still wanting to build on his passion for property investing, he continued to develop his knowledge during his teaching career. 

 

[8:15] When I was teaching, I also went back and did postgraduate qualifications in property and town planning. So, for me, your learning doesn't finish at the end of school or at the end of university because things change, things change.

 

[11:14] I realized that I had a big interest in real estate, both my wife and I did the Diploma in real estate or whatever the correct term was back then, just to have a better run because that's all you - I mean, you could do a degree, but I wasn't really interested in doing a degree in real estate back then. So, I did a diploma in real estate to get a better understanding of, in particular, the buying and selling process. And like I said, my wife did that as well. 

 

It wasn't until returning to his hometown that Koulizos realised he could forge his love of teaching and property into a new kind of role.

 

[12:20] Then, when I came back to Adelaide, I worked out that I wanted to get into adult education. I mean, there are still some things now that I miss about school teaching. But I also wanted to have the experience of teaching adults. So, I started at some places in Australia; they call it adult community education. So, you can go there to learn anything from how to start a business to playing the drums - aside from formal education, which is about finishing up with some sort of paper. So I started, I wrote some courses and started teaching there. And then I decided if anyone's going to take me seriously, in teaching property, I had a need for more than just a teaching degree. And so, it was then I went back to uni to study part-time to do a Graduate Diploma in property. And then I didn't master business and property. And then later on, I did a master's in Urban and Regional Planning.

 

**PROPERTY INVESTING JOURNEY**

 

Koulizos' first investment was - perhaps like many of us - the family home. 

 

Peter Koulizos  

[20:13] So we bought our first house when I got my first permanent job in the country. And one of the reasons was because there was nothing to rent. And back then, as it is now, it cost just as much to rent a place as it did to buy a place you needed the deposit. So far as the weekly outflow was concerned, the mortgage repayment was about the same as the rent. So we bought a house there and had our first child out of the country. And then we bought our first investment in the first year, and we came back. We bought a group of units in the town we used to live in, and we still have them now. And one of the reasons is we had good cash flow, and we had the local knowledge, which is really important in property because the one thing you can't change in property is location. Local knowledge is really important. And so, we were comfortable with buying the group of units there. And then, yeah, that's where our investment journey started. 

 

Tyrone Shum 

At the beginning of Koulizos’ investment journey, not every property purchase was financially achievable alone. 

 

Peter Koulizos 

[21:35] The next one was a project, which was buying an old house on the big block. We got the planning approval to keep the house and build two at the back. We were in no position there to build. Because I didn't know anything about building, we needed big money back then. So, I said to my three brothers-in-law if we do this together, (and we're talking now in the 80s, right, so you couldn't go out for this price) Instead of you each giving me $6,000, I'll be able to give you your $6,000 back plus another $6,000. So, this was 100% return on equity, not 100% return on investment. But I didn't have any money. So, I asked one of my brothers-in-law to give me the 6 thousand dollars because I figured, you know, while I knew a bit about property, they had the money to put it together. And let's do something. And yeah, that's how I started. 

 

[23:07] Everyone got their $6,000 back. Okay, they got a $6,000 profit. So basically, we had to put in $24,000 for the deposit. Yeah, or the rest. Yeah, finish the project, pay off all the debts, I get that, and everyone gets their money back. Plus, they get that again, in profit.

While his group investing experiences have largely been positive, he wouldn't recommend it as a regular tactic.  

 

[23:06] We've generally done stuff on our own because when there's enough risk in investing anyway. But when you invest with other people, then you introduce business risk.  Even though they're the people you work with, you know whether it was my brother or my cousin - all lovely people and nice. Number one, they might not be the best person to do business with. Because they may not be business savvy, may not spend wisely, or they're really tight, and they won't spend at all. But the other reason is, even though the person you're investing in is really nice, you don't know much about their partner. And if it's a long-term project, you know, and things go wrong with the partnership of your friend or your relative, then you know that that puts some complexity into the project.  Then you might have to sell when you didn't really want to, or they are being influenced by their partner, which then puts pressure on you. 

 

So personally, I just find it's better for me and certainly easier to do projects on my own. But when I first started, I couldn't afford to do that. Yeah. So that people who are listening to this need to make up their own mind, just be aware that there are added risks when you do deals with other people.

 

Not all of Koulizos’ property investments have panned out perfectly, although he thinks that through every frustrating experience, he is continually learning. 

 

[26:48] Probably the worst was -for those people that know Adelaide, you've probably heard of Glenelg beach, which is the premier beach - Sydney's equivalent of Bondi. So, we had a property, just one straight back from the beach. And it was a group of 13 bedsitter units or studio apartments. And the location was fantastic. But the quality of tenants was awful. And it was going to be a long-term investment. But we only had it for six months; the market was going up, so we actually sold it at a profit, which was good. And now I see because it is so close to the beach, somebody's going to build some apartments on it, which is lovely. I'm sure they will make a mozza with it, but we don't regret selling because that was the best decision at the time under the circumstances. And so, that probably taught me a good lesson in local knowledge.

 

 So, it's not just about the suburb, but it's about where in particular in the suburbs. So which street Are you buying in? Which part of the street Are you buying in? And what type of property are you buying? Obviously, if I bought houses in Glenelg, I probably would have been better off as far as the quality of tenants was concerned. But you know, very small properties in poor condition, even though the land component was quite valuable. It didn't attract the best tenants. So that was a very interesting lesson.

 

For Koulizos, someone who understands the value of lifelong learning, these moments of realisation have helped him become a more savvy investor. 

 

[29:19] When I was doing my master's of urban regional planning. The reason I did it is because I wanted to learn more about it personally, not professionally, but personally so I could do more developments, but do it with an educated and informed mindset, rather than just hoping for the best. So, I cherry-picked the courses that I wanted to do. I said to myself, I don't need to do the whole masters, but I'll pull out when I stop enjoying it. I stopped enjoying it when I was writing my paper, but by then, it was too late. So, I just finished. I decided to write my paper and move on. However, the big lesson I learned was - and this is still true for anyone listening in - in Australia when you're looking at development. You're looking at the plans, whether they're developed by the Council or the state government, all of these plans are guidelines. So, where it says you need a minimum of 300 square meters per dwelling and a minimum of nine-meter frontage, that doesn't mean that if you have a block of land that's 290 square meters, they're gonna say no. Or, if it's eight and a half meters wide, they're gonna say no, because before then, I would look at sites and if it was just under whether it was area or frontage, I would just move on and look for the next one. 

 

But for me, that learning presented me with many more opportunities because it was the properties that were on the borderline that might get approved or may not that many people left alone. And more experienced developers were willing to risk it - now there's no guarantee, you know, you might buy. Let me do my math here on my head. You might buy an 870 square metre block, which allows you to cut it up into three 290 square metre allotments. But in the end, the Council says no, then what are you gonna do? So, when you purchase it, you are subject to council approval, or you may have worked out even if you can only get one there, you are still gonna make money. 

 

So, one thing that I teach in class is when you're doing a development - in particular, more so than a long-term investment - because time is quite forgiving in long-term property investment. But when you're doing a development - which has a short-term timeframe - you need to do a scenario analysis. What's the most probable outcome, what's the best outcome, but very importantly, what's the worst outcome, and if you're still making money in the worst outcome, you're in a pretty good position. 

 

Even though Koulizos has experienced so much success in both his professional life and personal property portfolio, he is proud to help contribute to the success of others. 

 

 [17:53] Well, I mean, thankfully, the kids that I had in my class that were taught money matters for kids, hopefully, you know, they picked up a few basic tips, and simple things like, make sure that you spend less than you earn, and make sure that you save some money. And investing is about some sort of sacrifice now for the benefit later. 

 

[19:03] That's one of the things that I'm thinking of doing when I retire, is I'll go back and volunteer in schools to teach them financial literacy. I mean, I don't know how much one person can do, but it's better than nothing. 

In all his years as an educator and an investor Koulizos has learned to never overlook an effective strategy, even if it may seem daunting at first.

[3:46] I find the sweetest deals are those where you just subdivide the land. All the development projects that I've done, not all the development, all the building projects that I've done, I've done to build and keep, not build and sell. And generally I'll keep it for around five years because that's the best depreciation period. And then I'll move on to the next development.

Like any investment strategy, Koulizos says in his own experience of property development it quite literally pays to look into the numbers.

[1:32] So I'll give you an example, and people can Google if they want. So it's 25 Peterson crescent, Port Noarlunga, which is a seaside suburb, here in Adelaide. So if you go and have a look at it, you'll see that it's a triangular block, which puts a lot of people off. But if you look at it on Google Maps or Google Earth, you'll see now that it's chopped up into three elements. So the first two allotments are quite rectangular, except for the slide at the back. But the other block is, yes, triangular. But for memory, Oregon might have a percentage profit of 25 to 30%, just by chopping up the land. But, you go there now and you'll  see three houses there. But I never built the houses. Because I mean, let me give you some rough numbers to see what it's worth now. 

So if let's say I, I bought the land for 500. Alright, knock down the house, good - The subdivision. And now it's worth 600. Right? But it cost me 600. And I chop it all up. And each block owes me 200. But it's worth 250. All right. So somebody buys it at 250. And they want to build their dream home. And their dream home costs another 250. So for them, you know, 250 plus 250 is 500. But if I was to do it and spend another 250. So each block of land owes me 200. Now I'm going to borrow another 250. That makes 450, it doesn't mean that I make $50,000 profit, because now I've got interest to pay. And there are other major holding costs. So for me, I would have been better off (which I did) -  It owes me 200, I sell it for 250. So make 50 rather than it owes me 450 and sell it for 500. I still only make 50.  Well, not really because I’m gonna lose money in paying interest. 

Koulizos claims that most of his property purchases have been opportunistic - taking the right chances at the right times. He says that the simple forces of supply and demand can also be an investor's most powerful guide. So his key takeaway is learning how to read them. 

[6:28] Mine - most of my purchases were all opportunities, I saw the opportunity and I took advantage of it. I've been fortunate enough to go through a number of property booms like the one that we're experiencing. And that's where the satisfaction and the reward comes, like in the smaller capital cities like Adelaide and Brisbane. Even in places like Darwin, oh actually Darwin fluctuates too much. So say in Brisbane, not much happens for many years. And then for about two or three years, there's a big spike, and then not much happens for many years, and then you get another spike. Whereas, Melbourne and Sydney, you can get big spikes, but also big dips, big spikes and big dips. So you know if you're holding property in Adelaide or Brisbane, for most of the time, there's not much happening, like you might go up a few percentage points. 

But it's periods like this where it goes up by 20% in one year, which is good, but we've had better years in the past. Like I've done the research and I know that in the early 2000s Perth increased by 45% in one year. Hobart increased by 55% in one year. Can you imagine owning property in that period of time? So that's why I say that owning investment property long term is the best way to make money because you don't know when that boom is coming. But when it does come and you own a number of properties, that's where the money is to be made.

COVID impacts have caused huge disruption to many investment strategies, whether by changing markets or patterns of behaviour. However, as a lifelong student despite his success, Koulizos says he’s learnt from Australia’s pandemic changes.    

[8:03]  I didn't predict that property prices were going to go up over 20% because of COVID. Like many others I thought that it was going to go backwards. But, I said it was going to go backwards by 5%. Others said it was going to go back by 15 or 20. But to go up, and it's all about for me, it's all about shortage of supply. It's because there's not many houses to buy. It's not like stacks of people are looking to buy, it's because there's not many properties for sale. 

[9:07] So back in March last year, when COVID first hit, I was very worried because I knew we had economic downturns before but not pandemics and lock-downs, you know. So I went back and looked at what happened to property prices after the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s recession, and global financial crisis. I discovered that residential properties were actually quite resilient, not necessarily commercial property but residential properties. And you just need to look at some of the major events, global events and what's happened to property prices. Like we often talk about the post war boom. So we had the war which lasted for six years and it was horrific. Yeah, huge impact, not just economic but after that there was like a big release or a big relief. And I think the pandemic is a little bit like that. People were very scared. And often when people are scared, they flock to safety. And one of the safest investments is real estate. 

[10:17] But also, not just looking at it as an investment, but people wanted to secure their home as a place to live.  So, what's happened is, for many people, I think the reason why there's not a lot of properties for sale, there's some people still very scared and not willing to put their property on the market. Because they might not be sure of their job. You're in lock-down. And when you're on job-keeper and job-seeker, things might be okay. But if you're off job-keeper or have job-seeker, and you're in tourism or travel or hospitality, then you know, it could be an issue. Or if your job is in retail with more and more people buying stuff online, we don't need physical people standing in the retail store. But we might need people back in the warehouse, and loading up the delivery vans. So I think that's the main reason why people are not putting their properties on the market. And for property owners, the story is going to get even better, because when international borders open, and somewhere between 300,000 to 400,000 people are coming to Australia every year, they're gonna live somewhere. And so, you know, rental vacancies are really low at the moment. There's hardly any properties to rent, which means rents are going up. And that's with nobody coming into Australia. What do you think is going to happen when hundreds of 1000s of people start coming?

As global borders start to re-open for the long-term, his opportunistic strategy means taking advantage of what will surely be new property conditions. Whether you are looking to enter the market, renting or even managing a large portfolio, he says everyone should act accordingly.

[12:39 Unfortunately for any tenants or renters that are listening, the news is not good for you. I'm not going to get into too much economic speak. But, supply is inelastic, whereas demand is elastic. What I mean is demand - people can change their mind about buying property overnight. Like as happened with home builder. Home builder was announced on a Sunday, on the Monday stacks of people are out looking for new homes. But it's not like on the Monday there were 100,000 new homes magically built. It takes, first of all, you've got to find the land. And then you've got to build the house. So there's a big, big lag with supply. And look what happened when we tried to increase supply. There is a shortage of building materials of concrete, structural steel, and timber. And so generally speaking, new property adds about 2% to the existing stock. So in simple numbers, if you're going to a country town with 100 houses, probably next year, we'll have 102 houses. Now people might be thinking, well, let's just build more houses. Well, look what's happened when we tried to build more houses, there's a shortage of materials. And so you know, maybe we need to look at designing properties differently, or constructing them differently, because if we're going to build them brick by brick, and it's going to take a year to build, you know, we're going to have this rental issue for a while, because not only will those migrants continue to come in like they used to, but we've got to make up for loss time. 

[14:22] So, if we used to take in 300,000 people we'd probably take in more to make up for that loss. And we're fortunate in that Australia is a very popular country to migrate to for many reasons. And now they have another one, because Australia copes with COVID-19 very, very well. So, unfortunately if you're a tenant, you know, I would encourage you maybe to secure a long term lease rather than just a year. The other thing you might want to look at if you can, is to save some money to try and buy something. Because, I've just talked about the rental situation, but the property price situation - what happens is most people that come in, they're not allowed to buy because you're going to become a permanent resident. Most immigrants can buy when they get the permanent residency, which means they live here for two years and work for at least one. So in two years time, after the gates open or the borders open, then we're gonna have a lot of people moving from renting to buying. Yeah, well, like I said, you can't just magically bring in hundreds or 10s of 1000s of new homes. So, I think for property, it's going to be if you own property, it's going to be a golden era, a bit like a significant portion of the 70s and the 80s. And the early noughties, where we had large increases in property prices, whether it was because of increased demand or limited supply. And this time around going forward, there would have been increased demand, in particular from overseas migrants.

From studying historical property patterns and applying basic supply side principles, Koulizos says property investors should actually be excited about what the future holds.

[16:14] I don't think we'll be going as fast as we are. But, I can virtually guarantee you property prices will be higher in 12 months time than they are today. And they'll be higher again in 24 months time than they are today. And some areas will benefit more than others. I actually think Sydney and Melbourne, their rate of growth will slow down mainly because of people's -  I wouldn't say Exodus - but certainly considering moving to regional areas or moving to smaller capital cities. You know, I know personally of three people whose job is based in Sydney, but they're living in Adelaide. I just spoke to a journalist just before I spoke to you - Melbourne job - lives in the country town in Adelaide. So imagine that. You're on a Melbourne salary and you live in a country town...you're paying peanuts for rent or property. 

But like any other of life’s endeavours, Koulizos believes to make the most of a good situation, investors should arm themselves with knowledge, which he continues to do. 

[18:09] When I was a young lad, many years ago, when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I read a lot of books written by Noel Whittaker. He's fantastic. He's written many. And even now you're looking at him; he's written books for young kids, written books for people that are looking to retire, you know, with super, and everything in between. So I'd strongly encourage people to read books by Noel Whittaker, there's some other very credible property authors. I really like Margaret Lomas' books on property investment. When it comes to property development, there's a Western Australian architect called Ron Forlee - F O R L E E is how you spell his surname. He's written three books on Australian residential property development. 

[19:40] Or you can do a course. Yeah, and unfortunately, nowadays, not many people Interested in courses because of the time more so. And I'm not saying you need to go to university to be a successful investor or developer, but even like I mentioned adult community education. They might run courses that go for two or three hours, it might cost you 50 bucks or 100 bucks. And those sorts of organizations wouldn't have pirates running them. They'd be legit people who were there to educate you, I would imagine, or, you know, look at what other courses credible institute's are offering. 

[20:36] One of the beauties about the course, unlike a book, is assuming the courses are being taught by a real person, you can ask them a question. And you can also learn from other people. Now, the other people may not be in the room, they might be on Zoom, right. But not only do you learn from the person at the front of the room, but you also learn from other people who have similar interests, but maybe different experiences to you. So, as far as resources are concerned, you can start very simply with articles and books, go to informal courses, and then you might want to do some more formal courses to further your education.

In his own life some of the best little nugget’s of wisdom have come from the most unexpected of places. Yet they may have been wasted if he didn’t get out into the real world and just had a go. 

[22:06] So like I said, at the beginning, I reckon it was through a process of osmosis, sitting at the dinner table with Dad talking about property every day, that I learned. So I don't think he deliberately wanted to mentor me or teach me, but it was just being engaged in the discussion that helped me learn more, and also importantly, getting out and doing it. And so talking about resources, it's one thing to read and do courses, but in the end, you need to get invested. If you don't buy something, you're not going to make any money. Some people, unfortunately, suffer from analysis paralysis, they do so much analysis, spend so much time working out what's the perfect property? - And by the way, the perfect property does not exist - that they miss the train. And so they end up never buying anything.

Koulizos says his own father left him with some advice all investors can utilise. 

[23:09] Like he would always say, look, if you buy a property and the property pays all your expenses, that's a good property. Well, today, you can do that. And 30 years ago, you could, but when we had double digit interest rates, and most people were negatively geared, you couldn't do that. But I mean, I understood what he said, it was really more about affordability. So  buy something that you can afford, I mean, back then, all right, it didn't cost you any money. Now, it might cost you $50 a week or 100 bucks a week. But that was certainly a valuable lesson. And also, marketing - as in if you're going to renovate, you want to fix up things that people will appreciate and pay money for. So I found or he found painting was the best bang for your buck, you know, he spent $3,000 on painting, you get much more than $3,000 back.  But you spend $3,000 on putting a rainwater tank in, nobody cares. Or you spend $3,000 and put something in that nobody can see. So they need to be able to see it. So there might be extra insulation in the walls or in the ceiling. Nobody can see that. You're not gonna pay extra. Spend $3,000 on an air conditioner. People will see that. They'll pay extra for that. 

We asked Koulizos to give us a piece of his own advice. 

[25:58] Isn't luck the crossroad between opportunity and preparation.? Some people might think, you know, that I'm lucky or other successful people are lucky but there's a lot of work that's gone into that for most of my working life. I was doing something else other than work, whether it was, you know, working full time at school, and studying. Or, whether it was working full time somewhere and teaching somewhere else part time. Or whether it was, you know, working and doing developments, or working and renovating. So, no, you might look at successful people, whether it's in property or whether it's in business, anything "oh gheez they're lucky". Well, for most people, unless, you know, some rich parent gave a million dollars or rich grandparent gave them a million dollars. But most people, it's hard work that they may not moan or whinge about. But it's hard work that they've done in the past that bears fruit later on. Remember I said earlier, investment is about sacrifice now, for a benefit in the future. So sacrifice some time, whether it's learning about property, working extra, because if you work extra, then your service ability increases, then you can buy more. But you won't reap the benefits until the property market goes up, in particular in a property boom like we're experiencing now.

Despite experiencing incredible success with his substantial portfolio, Koulizos isn’t planning on slowing down any time soon. He thinks he’s been gifted with the perfect opportunity to share his genuine passion for property. 

[25:09] Well, you know, teaching at one of Australia's best universities, in an area that I'm really passionate about. For me, it doesn't get any better than this. Yeah, this is good as it gets. So I just want to do more of this for as long as I can. I'm not hanging out to retire.  If retirement comes in, I'm sure I'll live very comfortably. But you know, so long as people are happy to pay me to teach property, I better continue to do it.

He has some of his own helpful resources. Spanning topics from residential development to large-scale commercial properties, here’s how to access them. 

[19:06] So the third book, which is coming, I'm writing together with Margaret Lomas, is on small-scale residential property development. So that could be another good resource for people. I've written a series of articles. If people Google my name and property development 101, they can see a series of 10 articles I've written basically on the steps of property development. If they Google my name, property development 101 videos, they'll see a series of videos, which is all about the development of those places I've built on the Esplanade at Port Noarlunga south, which I talked about earlier. Talking to the people involved like the mortgage broker, the accountant, the builder, the town planner, and so on. 

If you want to reach out and learn more from Koulizos about his strategy, and enrol in his new course, here’s how.

[27:54] So people can email me at Peter.Koulizos@adelaide.edu.au. Actually the new course that I'm writing, which is called introduction: property and valuation, I'm also making a non-award course, which means you don't have to enroll in the Masters, you don't have to have had an undergraduate degree, anyone can enroll, you don't have to do the assessments if you don't want.  We start off easy, but then we move into some more difficult concepts. And you may not stay for the full 12 or 13 weeks. But one of the important bits of the course for me, again, is keeping it real. We do a field trip. So we go around and I'll explain why this makes a good investment, this does not make a good investment, this makes a good development, this does not make a good development. So you can talk about it all you like in class. But it's not until when you're actually physically there, that it really succeeds. Now I know that might be hard for people that don't live in Adelaide, but you can do the course remotely. And then you just might come for that one weekend, - because the field trip is on a Saturday- and do the field trip. But, that should be on the Adelaide University website early in the new year.  Introduction of property and evaluation. Yeah, that's for anyone for the non award component.

Thank you to Peter Koulizos, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.