Because it was the pain of where I was, that gave me the energy to push through the fear of taking this step forward. So, you know, hopefully your listeners don't wait until they're in a world of pain to take action.

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 Property Investor and Entrepreneur Scott Kuru, who came to Australia with very little at age 7, climbed his way into several corporate positions, and eventually jumped into the world of property investing, leading him to found three major successful companies.

Before we jump into Kuru’s history, he shares a little about what he’s doing now. 

(0:23) I'm the CEO and co-founder of ‘Freedom Property Investors’, we're the largest and fastest growing community of investors in the whole entire country. So you know, I find myself today just taking care of over 2000 members in the community, we've got over 200 members every single month joining the community. And really, my obsession today is just helping other people take an ordinary income 80k, 100k, 120k a year, and actually helping people to transform that into a multimillion dollar property portfolio. So I think that one of the things is that a lot of people can figure out how to earn good money, how to save money, how to manage money, how to get more of it, you know, get promotions at work, maybe even start a business and get some income going. But the next thing becomes, well, how do I transform that into freedom? Or how do I transform that into a special lifestyle? How do I transform that into seven figures and more, in terms of an asset base? So this is what I've dedicated my life to doing. To helping people.

But where did it all begin?

(1:46) We've been doing it for almost 10 years now. We've got over 90 full time staff, with three different businesses. Actually, I've got a tax and accounting business, we've got some of the best people, you know, the person who heads that up has five years experience with the ATO, and you'll be surprised, you know, once you start figuring all of this out, you go from ordinary employee, I don't want to say ordinary because people work so hard, but in terms of your tax structure and everything, things are quite simple. So you go from ordinary employee, and then suddenly you become an investor. You know, there's different structures and things going on. And the rules get very, very complicated. And so I spent many, many years spending tens of thousands of dollars actually trying to work out this tax thing. And you go to really ultra-smart people that make no sense. And then you go to dumb people, and you get all this conflicting advice, and then you do courses, and then you watch YouTube videos. And then you get to the point where you're paying experts money. And still none of it makes sense. So it took me years and years and years to make sense of it. And when I had made sense of it, I put together my own group of experts, basically to do my own tax, and to help our members with the tax and accounting business. 

(3:04) We're also one of the biggest mortgage brokers in the whole entire country, as well. So I've got a business called ‘Freedom Home Loans’, and at Freedom Home Loans, we do about $100 million of home loans every single month. And we've got an incredible group of people. And really what the problem is here is that a lot of brokers out there are doing the wrong thing. They're doing the wrong thing. They're thinking about their commission, they're thinking about how to lock you into certain things so that they can keep getting their commission. And a lot of them really don't provide a high level of service. I mean, there are so many lenders out there that most of these so-called brokers, independent brokers, if you ask them, ‘Hey, how many lenders have you actually used in the last two, three years?’, it'll be like one lender, two lenders, maybe three. So you gotta watch out for that. And of course, the banks don't care about you. When was the last time a bank called you up and said, ‘I've got a better offer for you’? I'm talking about the bank you're with. They don’t do that! When you're calling them up and telling them you want to switch, now they've got all the little goodies and the cookies and all that come out. So I wanted to take control of that for myself and also for our community. So we've got our own mortgage brokering business. 

(4:17) And then of course, you know, we've got ‘Freedom Property Investors’, which is the community of investors, and that's co-founded with Lianna Pan. She's a data scientist and an actuary, and actually, Freedom Property Investors, the main thing that it's founded on is property research. So Lianna Pan is an incredible research guru. She's an actuary. She's a data scientist. And when I met Lianna, she was already a multi millionaire with property. So, there's 15,000 suburbs in the country, and we are filtering all those through. The other day I was looking at her latest methodology. She's got over 90 checks for location, over 80 checks for the property itself, so she filters all this information through algorithms. If you don't know what that is, Google it. So these crazy algorithms, they look crazy when she puts them up on the whiteboard, but they're pretty simple, and she runs all the data through them. And that helps us to make really good, really, really good investment decisions.

(5:28) So what we've done is we've created an ecosystem that can help people transform that salary, that income, transform that into a multi million dollar property portfolio. And whether you're just getting started, going from income to your first property, or whether you're expanding a massive portfolio, as you grow through this journey, you hit different problems at different stages. So as I've gone through that journey myself, and encountered a problem, I had to solve it, encountered a problem, had to solve it. So we've solved all these problems. And what we do now is, we've got a clear path for our members, we know exactly what path they need to go through, we know exactly what problems they're going to hit. And we've actually got the solution ready for them, so that’s amazing.

Building three major companies is no small feat. What was his process? 

(6:44) We sort of went along as we were solving problems. So, you know, it was just Lianna and I pretty much at the start. When we founded ‘Freedom Property Investors’, it was just me and her, we had no staff. But we had really fast, incredible success. Because we were active investors, we were getting results, we didn't even really set out to start a business, we just set out to put together a group, we had a dream and a vision, let's put together 50 people. So if we could put together a group of 50 people. Lianna is a data scientist and an actuary, she's already doing all the research. Lianna goes, ‘Alright, according to my research, let's invest here’. And then if we had a group of 50 people, we could go in, look at what property, you know, what brand new property was being built in that area, go to the builders, go to the developers, go to the landowners, and there's 50 of us, we can say, ‘Hey, if we take 10 lots, 15 lots, 50 lots, we should be able to get a discount, or we should be able to get some added incentives, or we should be able to boot the traditional real estate agent out of the deal.’

(7:58) So there's some savings there, or, you know, the landowner or whoever saved some money on marketing, because rather than having to spend 12 months, a whole bunch of marketing and pay a whole bunch of sales people, a group of 50 could come straight to them. And we could do a deal. So that was our dream, because we thought we wanted to build our own portfolio. And if we can save some money on the way in, use research to position us in an area that's going to give us a great upside on the way through, as we hold the property. So that's what we wanted to do. And as we started to do that it became a business. You know, it wasn't really our initial intention. And we didn't really know how to run it. We didn't know how to charge people, we didn't know, you know, and then it just started getting bigger. 

(8:46) And then we were working and everything like that in our jobs. So eventually, you know, we just made the call, well, this can be a business. And this can help many, many more people. And when we looked around at the people that were coming to us, a couple of things they said, they said, ‘We’re confused, because there are so many gurus and experts and courses and boot camps and downloads and YouTube videos, we’re just confused’. And they knew property, they had already decided they wanted to do property, but a lot of them also just didn't have the time. So they were looking for guidance. They lacked time. And they just wanted help.

Kuru’s motivation to help these people propelled the business forward. 

(9:31) We just started growing very, very, very fast. And of course we were getting like incredible results because the research I mean, look, let's be real right? Go back 10, 15 years, how many properties in say Sydney or Melbourne or any major market? How many properties would you not have bought? Like you would have bought pretty much everything yeah? Yeah, even the bad ones, you made money. So the interesting thing is that property is very forgiving, but if you can utilise even dumb research, you can improve your result a little bit better than normal. And if you can use half good research, then your result gets even better. But if you can use really good, thorough research, the chances are, I mean, no one can predict the future. But the chances are of you getting a much better than average return start to exponentially increase. And that's what Lianna and her obsession has done for us. And her dream was to have, you know, she might not say it like this, but her dream was to have an army, like an army of minions, research minions, where she could crunch more numbers, do more research. And she's got that today, you know, she's got over five people in her research team now. 

After just a short conversation with Kuru, it became clear that their success was due to personal motivation and drive. 

(10:51) Freedom Property Investors was not meant to be a business, it became one. And it's not a business today. Like it's our passion. It's the way we connect with people. It's what gives us a sense of purpose. And what gives us a challenge every day. Something to wake up to, and a challenge. It's a way that we give back and contribute. It's the way we find fulfilment. So it's much more than a business. But as we started growing, then we started running into problems, like our members were coming back to us... ‘Our accountant doesn't know this’, ‘Our accountant doesn't know that’, ‘Our accountants screwed that’. Or we’d look at the numbers from our members and say, ‘Well, man, you have not claimed this correctly. This is not structured correctly’. So we knew that we had to help them. Now, we’re not licenced tax people, even though we're probably the best people to give the advice, we're not licenced to do it. So we got caught in this thing where, ‘Geez, we need to tell this person what to do, but we're not allowed legally under Australian law. So then if we refer them to another accountant, that accountant may give the wrong advice…’ So we decided, ‘Well, we'll build our own’.

Kuru and the team adapted their business to suit the needs of their members. We dig into his background and discover what started his passion for business.

(12:30) I think that age from 0-7, it really shapes, it really forms your childhood. For me, I was born in a little town of about 8000 people in New Zealand and Mum and Dad left that town when I was around 6 or 7, came over to Australia, and I grew up in the housing commission area of Liverpool, a little suburb called Miller, if anyone knows Miller, I went to Miller High School. And you know, growing up there was a really great childhood, I had a lot of fun, there were a lot, certainly a lot of challenges. Growing up, you know, there were always a lot of arguments or a lot of fear around money. And I remember being a little kid, and I remember being scared, actually being scared, like, ‘Will we have food, will we have somewhere to live?’ And that's how I grew up. And it was a real thing because Mum and Dad were always talking about money. And so I became pretty obsessed with money. And you know, what I would do is I would always ask my Mum, ‘Can I do jobs here and there to get money?’ To get 20 cents, 50 cents, $1, you know, I’d go around the house, I'd be doing a job, vacuuming, and I'd find money down the side of the couch, you know, ‘Yep, that's mine. I won't report that in, I'll grab that.’ 

(13:45) And I’d collect all of the money that I could and I put that money into a money jar. And I put that money jar under my bed. I never spent it. I never really did anything with it. Occasionally I'd grab it and maybe go buy some hot chips and sauce or something down at the takeaway. But I thought I'd put that under the bed and it just made me feel safe knowing that money was there. So my obsession with money started really, really early. I grew up, I went to high school, I did the paper run. I loved that paper run, you know, I loved just collecting that money, getting that money, all the coins, and when I got a note, like, ‘Wow, this is a note. Awesome’. Put that in my money jar again. Never really spent it. And so that's how I grew up. I grew up knowing that if I had money, money meant that I had safety, money meant that I had options, money meant that I could get what I want if I wanted something. ‘I want the ice cream.’ I can get it. I don't have to ask anyone like, ‘Dad, can I have that?’, ‘No’. I don't have to. I can just get whatever I want, when I want, how I wanted it. I felt safe. So I loved money. Absolutely loved it. You know, and if I wanted to buy a new record, this is how old I am, like an old vinyl record, but you know, I could go out and I could buy it. So I love money.

Driven by a deep desire to earn money at a young age, Kuru was in a position to start a family sooner than most. But things soon started to heat up.

(15:03) I actually had my daughter when I was 19. And by 25, I had four kids. It was a dream of mine always, to have a big family. And then suddenly, I was thrust into this role as a provider. So to take care of my four kids, you know, my wife, at the time, didn't work. So I had to figure out how to be really, really, really good with money. Thankfully, I was good at money. And I wasn't really the smartest person, but I was really hungry to grow. And I was really hungry to earn money, I was really hungry to get promotions at work. And because of that, and because of really great mentors, I was so fortunate to run into people that just wanted to help me. So because of my hunger, and because of great mentors, I was able to have a really good corporate career. So I was able to earn you know, good, good money, I had a 10 year career at Telstra, many promotions there, I was a very senior manager at Samsung for three years, I was a very senior manager for Electronic Arts, a gaming company that was a global position. And then I went and did three years at NRMA. So really, really good corporate roles.

(16:11) And I learned a lot about analysis and data and spreadsheets and you know, decision making and negotiating skills and those skills which really help serve our community today, because I do head up most of the negotiating on the property deals. Although I'm not a data scientist, or an actuary, I really resonate with Lianna because I do understand numbers, I'm very good with data analytics myself. So that's that's really how, how my childhood shaped me. 

Taking a step back, Kuru and his family moved to Australia from New Zealand, but it wasn't the smoothest transition for him, being a young boy at the time.

(16:51) We came over here when I was about six or seven. So I really did have that, you know, ‘Kiwi-ness’ in me. When I came over to Australia, you know, it was a foreign land, like the language was different. People spoke differently, people acted differently. You know, I left all of my family, my cousins and all that. And when I came over here to Australia, people sounded strange. And even back in New Zealand, you know, your friend would say, ‘Oh, let's go to the dairy’. And I came over here and people say, ‘Well, let's go to the milk bar’. What is the milk bar? What is that? And so all the time everything was different, and I really, really missed my family. But you know, Aussies are great people, Aussies are friendly people and fun people. The one thing I had to learn about Aussies early on is that you know, Aussies like to tease you, like when they like you, Aussies tease you, Aussies bully you, you know they're bullies. So I learned over the years how to become a really good, really good teaser. A good larrikin, a good bully as well. 

(17:57) Oh, that sounds amazing. So you obviously went to school in Australia. Where abouts did you actually stay when you migrated to Australia?

(18:03) We moved to a little suburb called Miller. Now I don't know why Dad was out there but you know Dad was a concreter, he used to do concrete pools. And you know my Dad was not very good with money even though he earned pretty good money, he's not good at money. Mum worked at the local RSL. So she was a waitress there. She did odd shifts there. But yeah, growing up there was never any money around. My Dad actually had a really bad gambling problem, and he just, you know, money that he earned never sort of found its way home. So pretty much in our family, me, my younger brother, pretty much it was my Mum that would take care of it. So she'd do some shifts at the RSL. She'd get as many shifts as she could. And she'd make not much money at all. But like that was the money that pretty much fed us, clothed us, paid the rent, because yeah, Dad was pretty useless with money.

So how did Kuru’s upbringing affect his education and progression into the working world?

(19:28) I did finish high school. It's a good question. You know, I failed high school. My last three years of high school, I was totally bored. I hated it. I didn't hand in any assignments. I didn't even know why I was there. And you know, sometimes I run into you know, a lot of young men especially, that are just hating high school. They're in year 9 year 10. And I really, it sounds irresponsible, but I feel like telling them, ‘Leave’. Like if you're 15 and you can go out, and you can work and be around men and you know, do some more grown up things, you know, work, earn money and learn real skills, they're probably, some, not all, some are probably going to be better off to do that. But I got really bored, I found the classrooms irrelevant, I found the information irrelevant, I used to get confused with different things. And because of that I failed. I did graduate, I got a TER of, I think 18, 18.1. I don't think that's very good. But it was like one of the best in my school because everyone in my school pretty much got back then, they got 15 and under. So pretty much everyone got 15 and under. I think my best friend got 80, I think he was like the only kid in the school that got anywhere near that.

(18:44) And I might have been, I don't know, third or fourth best in the whole school. So you know that's just how I grew up, you know, I grew up in a real impoverished poor housing commission area. And a lot of the kids were going through things, you know, abuse at home, and different things going on at home, drugs, alcohol. You know, it was a tough, tough location on the planet. People didn't have money.

In spite of the adversity that Kuru faced, he has achieved a phenomenal amount in his years, including, as he mentioned, working in corporate positions for over 10 years. But how did he eventually move towards investing?

(21:59) I'm going along in my corporate career, and you’ve got to understand, I was always earning more money than I ever thought I could earn. And I had enough money to take care of the kids and do those sorts of things. And I was on a pathway where, you know, I'm married, I've got my four kids. And I'm thinking, ‘Alright, what do I do?’ And back then, you’ve got to understand, there's no internet. There's no internet. So this is, 1995 to 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003. This is back in the day, there's no internet, right? Like there is but there really isn't. Yeah, no internet, there's no mobile phones. So I don't know about different courses going on. I don't know about books, you don't hear about them. There's no way for me to get information. I've got no mentors, no one around me. So I'm sitting here in this bubble of just me, trying to figure this thing out.

(23:01) And I'm sitting here, I'm going, ‘Alright, what do I do?’ My Dad's not around. I've got no older mentors in my life. And I'm sort of sitting here, ‘What I do?’ So I'm thinking, ‘Okay, well, it makes sense to maybe buy a house. Probably makes sense to pay it off as fast as possible, I should probably spend less than what I earn, and save that’. And there's this thing called superannuation. I still remember I was around when they launched it, when they said, ‘Hey, there's this new thing coming called superannuation’. And I go, ‘What’s that?’, and they go, ‘Well, they give you more money’. And I remember reading that they're going to give me more money, but I'm like, ‘Yeah, but they probably won't give me a pay rise for three, four years to pay for this’. So I wasn't stupid, you know, even back then, without all that. And that’s actually what happened, no pay rise for four or five years until they absorbed the superannuation. So I'm thinking that's my game plan. I'm thinking my other game plan is to work hard, get a promotion. So I'm not thinking of starting a business. I'm not thinking about investing. I'm thinking the pathway is to buy a home, pay it off. You know, do all those things, work hard, get promotion, promotion, promotion. So that's my game plan. 

So what changed, and when did Kuru deviate from the plan? 

(24:07) So that's my game plan for probably 15, 16 years. Now during that 15 to 16 years, a couple of things happened. The Internet came along and mobile phones came along. And I started getting little bits of information. I started downloading ebooks and started getting more information. My eyes started opening. And then the other thing was that I started looking around, and I started seeing people that were not that good. Because I had built myself into this corporate machine. I had done my Masters of Business Administration, I'd read all of these business books and I just operated at a really high level, very professional. I was hungry, I wanted the promotions, I had to feed my four kids, and I wanted to pay my house off. So I became like a corporate soldier, like I was a great great corporate soldier. Even all the businesses I was in, every department wanted me: ‘How do I get Scott Kuru? How do I get him over to my department?’ Because I built myself into that. But I looked around and I saw, I saw lazy people, that had way more money than me. I saw people that really couldn't give you anything, making way more money than me. 

(25:21) And when I started scratching around, looking around, I realised, ‘Well, these guys are investing’. You know, like, ‘This guy, he takes six months off work, what is he doing?’, ‘Okay, well, he's got passive income. But what is that?’ So I figured out, you know, just through that, that there was another pathway, and it was investing. So that's where my journey started. Yeah, where I thought, you know, I'm going to become an investor. So I started scratching around, looking around, digging into property. But what actually happened was, I was getting so busy with the kids and different things going on, I was so busy with my corporate career, that like a year would go by, I hadn't done anything with my investing, another year went by, another year, another year. And years went by, years and years went by, before I finally got to the point where I found time to start, and I imagine if I had started way earlier, like it'd just be insane. 

In retrospect, Kuru wishes he had made a move earlier. So how did he make up for lost time?

(26:26) Eventually, when I found the time, and I got really into it, I started doing all the boot camps, because you know, you go to these seminars, right? And the music's pumping and it seems like everyone is on drugs, I’m like, ‘What's going on? What's going on? Why is everyone so excited?’ I'm sitting down and someone comes up on the stage and they're clapping and they're like, you know, ‘Say yes.’ ‘Yes.’ I'm like, ‘What's going on?’ And then they put up all the testimonials, this person made that money, and I'm sitting there, I'm a corporate sceptic, I'm like, ‘Number one, you've got no numbers, no tables, no nothing, there's no links to any sources or anything’. So this sounds like BS, but I started to meet real people that had real stories. And it wasn't so much the people presenting from stage, it was more the people in the audience. So I was a really good networker, and I would network with people and meet people, and I'd ask them like, ‘Hey, do you invest?’ And then they go, ‘Yeah, yeah, I've got seven properties’. And I’m like, ‘What the heck? What do you do? Oh, a school teacher?’ Like, what do you mean? I'm earning three times more than a school teacher. And then then I'd meet someone else. ‘I've got six properties’, ‘I've got this’, ‘I've done that’, ‘I made 500k on this deal’. I’m like, ‘Ok, what the hell's going on?’ And I thought, ‘Hey, I love money. I want more of it. This is a real thing’. Not from what's happening on stage but from real people. 

(27:55) So that's actually how I met Lianna. I met Lianna basically just attending all of these crazy weird events, don't get me wrong, like they were good. And I could see that people were getting results from these things. Even though maybe some of the things were exaggerated and things like that. But you know, people were enjoying them, and different people were getting results for them. And I met Lianna there. And Lianna being a data scientist which actually caught my attention, because I knew early on already just from my own background that there was so much property to choose from, so you need a way and methodology to actually pick the right location, the right property and pay the right price for the property. Because in my corporate career, we've got the nerds. So we've got us guy's, great at excel, great with numbers, but we've got like actuaries in my companies that run really, you know, high level numbers, pricing models for telecommunications. And I thought, well, Lianna is one of those people, you know, they're quiet, they're introverted, they seem antisocial, they read Harry Potter books. So Lianna will kill me if she hears this now. But yeah, that's how I met Lianna. And you know, we formed a great friendship. And that's what really helped me start my journey.

He shares with us the moment which sparked this change, when he realised the corporate life was no longer fulfilling, and he needed to act for his family. 

(29:39) About 10 years back, it took me about probably two years two and a bit years to really gather up the courage to make a move. Because what had happened, I haven't really gone into it here, but, you know, I did actually go through divorce in 2008. So I went through divorce. I took the care and custody of our four children. So it was me. I'm a single dad. I've got four kids, I've got a really heavy, demanding corporate job, I've got four kids that are a bit shaken up from everything going on, I'm trying to take care of them. My Mum's sick, my Mum has a mental illness, she's in and out of hospital, she's probably spent about 10 years of her life in hospital actually, she was having a bit of an episode at that time. And, you know, I went through that, that actually took me about five, six years to really get the family solid, get myself solid. 

(30:27) And that was probably around 2011, 2012, that's when I really started to focus on the property. Because I just realised it got to a point for me where I became sick and tired of my work, I wanted more time with my kids, I was burnt out, I had no energy. And I was just on this downward spiral because I was spending, you know, four or five hours caring for the children every day, I was doing 10, 12 hours a day in a corporate job, I was staying up late at night on the laptop from 11am to 1am because, you know, when you're in these these high pressured roles, there's a lot of work to do to maintain that position. And I was doing that and I thought, ‘I'm sick. I just can't keep doing this’. And there were school teachers with seven properties… I needed to figure that out. So it was around that time that I really started to look at property, I joined a boot camp, I paid for all the courses, I had DVDs and CDs and books, and I still got a lot of them here. They're everywhere. I paid like all the money, I did all the stuff. And anything, anything you listen to or see out there right now, I've done it, I did it. I met Lianna on that. 

(31:41) And then I kind of had formulated in my mind a strategy. And I wanted a strategy that was going to take me very little time because I had none, literally had none. And I needed something that was going to work, not maybe, I didn't want a coin flip, I didn't even want a 70 or an 80% chance. I needed something that was 100% going to work. So I formulated my strategy based on that. I've got little time to give it, and it must work, it must. I’ve got to run all the numbers, and it must absolutely 100% work. So I'd formulated that strategy. I'd looked at what Lianna was doing with the research, I'd done all these courses, and I'd reviewed dozens and dozens of different strategies, I'd taken the best from them, I had my strategy, I had Lianna’s research to be able to pick the location, that was one part of the strategy. And, you know, I made my moves. 

(32:40) So going out of the divorce, I didn't wind up with much money. And, you know, it took me all those years, you know, it was very hard to manage my money during that time. So everything was going on. I had about 80 to 100 grand to make my first move. So you know, I was very nervous. I was like, ‘Whoa, what if I make the wrong move?’ So, you know, this might be the only bullet in the gun. ‘I've only got one shot here’. Because it took so many years to save up that 100 grand. And so you know, I made my first move and then just went from there. 

It was a risk for Kuru to make a move during this uncertain period in his life. He details the strategy he used to ensure the likelihood of success.

(33:42) I had spent money on a lot of courses and all this kind of thing. And I look at it now and I probably overspent. I spent way too much on that. And, you know, I learned a whole lot of things about the whole industry about courses and things like this. And you know, it's not always the greatest industry. But I did learn some stuff, but I had to piece it together from everything that I had, because there were elements of truth, of really good truth in everything that I did, but ultimately, the strategy that I did was a very low one or a very low risk strategy. So I'm earning a good income, I'm paying a huge amount in tax so that led me to brand new property, and I knew that if I had a group of friends that were buying in a certain location together I could get a discount on the property on the way in even though there's only about four or five of us like on that, on those first few deals. I'd make some money there, get some cash back or get something there. And then I knew that if I allowed the property and the location to do the heavy lifting, not me renovating, or not me doing a development, or taking big risks, or you know, doing things like that…

(34:55) ‘Cause I didn't have the time to be out on the weekends renovating, I didn't have time to coordinate builders or whatever. I didn't have that time. So if I just allowed the property and the growth of the property, the growth of that location to do the heavy lifting, then that that was going to be my strategy. So I got my first property, that did very well, I continued to save money, I got some equity on that property pretty quick. And that allowed me to go into property too. And so I've just continued to do that. And then obviously, you know, I've been able to fast track my portfolio. As I've turned this into a business, the business has been very successful, my income increased, that's given me more borrowing capacity. So I've been able to go from 4, 5, 6 properties, you know, now to 17, 18, 19 properties rolling.

He dives further into the first property he bought. 

(35:56) I agonised over it. I had like, I guess you could say ‘analysis paralysis’, because it was the biggest one. And I really couldn't have made that move unless I had Lianna there who had already bought so many properties, just giving me that level of reassurance. So even though I'd run the numbers, even though I'd done all the comparable sales, even though I'd agonised over all the fine details over it, probably over agonised, and I looked at it, and even though I knew logically, my mind, my brain said, ‘This is a good buy, this is a good location, this is going to help you achieve your goals’, even though it ticked every single box, but there was just like something in my heart, where I just found it really hard to push the trigger. And I think the biggest lesson that I can share with people is for me just to share that vulnerability that like, it was actually a really tough decision, a big decision.

(36:52) And you're gonna understand, I've had a lot of failures in my life, you know, my marriage had failed. That was a big thing for me. And, you know, my dream of having this really happy, big happy family, that had failed. So, you know, like I had some failings at that time, because I was starting to really hate work, I was having troubles at work, I wasn't getting along with the bosses. And, you know, I could see that, you know, I felt like I'd hit like a plateau in my career, I couldn't push through to those next levels, I felt like I was, I was kind of capped. I felt like some bosses were holding me down, in fact. So I was really good at getting results, but I wasn't really good at playing that political game, you know, to be able to get to that next level. So I needed reassurance and so it was just many coffees, many lunches, many phone calls with Lianna for her just to give me the reassurance to do it. And I still remember signing the contracts and all that kind of thing. Like it was quite nerve wracking but, you know, like, it almost felt like I just closed my eyes and did it. And, you know, I'll tell you, Tyrone, if I had been in a happier place, I probably would not have done it. 

(38:08) Oh, okay. 

(38:10) You know what I mean? Because it was the pain of where I was, that gave me the energy to push through the fear of taking this step forward. So, you know, hopefully your listeners don't wait until they're in a world of pain to take action. And what I say to people now, and what I see in people, is that the people that are getting really big results in property, it's the people that are action takers. 

Tyrone Shum:

Scott Kuru has a property portfolio of close to 20 properties, and he has faced his fair share of challenges to go along with them. 

(0:21) I think the biggest challenge was when I had one particular property or really wanted this property. It was a great property. And I was maxing out on my borrowing capacity. I had like a lot of banks telling me, ‘No, you can't get financed for this’. So really, the tough thing for me was, I committed to the property. Even though I was being told I wouldn't get financed for it. So I put the deposit down, I just went screw this, like, I'm gonna somehow make this happen. I put the deposit down. And, you know, then settlement was coming around. And I had to talk to my tax guy, I had to balance things out on the tax side, or the balance things out on the income side. And then when it came close to settlement, I literally had to run around so many different places, to be able to settle on this property. And ultimately, I had to pay like a ridiculously high interest rate, I had to go to some lender that was going to give me 2 [or] 3% higher interest rate than what I could get in the market, but it meant that I could get the property. 

(1:28) So that was really, really, really tough because I was going through all the different lenders, and they're asking for documents and proof of this and proof of that. And you know, all of these requests for information and all this kind of stuff. So that was like a huge amount of stress. Because I had a date that I had to settle. If I didn't settle on that date, I was gonna start getting penalty interest. So we're talking, you know, a couple of thousand dollars I think it was from me, it was a couple of thousand dollars every week, but I didn't settle on this property. So that was probably the most stressful one. I ended up settling on it on a really high interest rate, waited six months, paid the higher interest rate within six months, and then I was able to refinance down, like onto a proper competitive loan. So that was probably, I guess, the toughest one for me. The properties that I've wanted, that I didn't want to miss out on. You know, I had another opportunity. I typically don't like apartments. But, you know, I had a deal that I came across where this apartment was discounted by 80 grand, basically, some overseas Chinese investors had put down a 20% deposit on it, and had literally disappeared.

(2:42) The developer, you know, just through the different contacts that I've got in the industry, and this is what we do for our members. But the developer basically had tried so many different ways and gotten legal advice. You know, we've emailed, called, we've done everything. This buyer has literally disappeared. And then they had some different things and needs for the money that they had. So they just said, ‘Look, we just need a buyer to come in, we need to sell it fast’. And the market at that time, because this is an apartment in Brisbane. And you might even remember Tyrone you know, if you go back, say what was this now three or four years? You go back three or four years, there was a so-called oversupply in Brisbane. The vacancy rate on those apartments now is down below 2%. Vacancy rate was about 8%. 

(3:28) So there was an oversupply of apartments. These builders, developers could not sell them, no one was buying them. And he had this Chinese buyer that had bought one and disappeared. There was 20% in the deal. So I said, ‘I'll buy it for your price, less 20%’. So yeah, it was an $80,000 discount, but again, I had problems. I didn't have much liquidity at that time. So what do I mean by liquidity? I didn't have a lot of cash laying around at that time. Because you know,  I had gone on a shopping spree of property. So people have to understand my mindset. Like I went to the reverse, I was very scared on my first one and then I went crazy. 

(4:10) Like crazy talking about what you bought.

(4:14) If I had anything more than $5000 or $6000 in my account, I would put it into property. So I built my property portfolio. Sometimes my bank account would go down to $2000, $3000, $4000, $5000, and when I did that apartment deal, when I did it, I had left in my name about $5000, right? I didn't have our multi multi million dollar business. 2000, I didn't have that then. So I was taking a big risk, but I wanted the deals because I knew that I did these deals, the cash flow came in and it would repay me so I just took all the liquidity I had out. I put it in to secure it, I hadn't got the finance secured, or had to sign a contract that fully locked me in to be able to do it quickly, because so many other people wanted to come in and jump in on this deal.

(5:15) And they didn't want it without the 20%. But once it was 20% everyone wanted it, you know, the brother-in-law of the developer wanted it. So I did that, I took that risk. I went out, I did eventually figure out the finance. So probably my biggest challenge has been in growing my portfolio. My portfolio has been getting the loans and getting the debt, because I would have loved to have grown faster, I would have loved to have grown bigger. But my cap was always how much I could borrow. So I would love right now to get a loan for a trillion dollars. Like I'd love to get a loan. Sometimes I run into people and they go, ‘Oh, isn't that a big loan? That's scary’. I'm like, ‘I would love a loan for a trillion dollars’.

(6:01) You can imagine how many properties you could get for a trillion dollars!

(6:10) And then I had another one where it was actually a very similar deal. I was overseas at the time I did the deal. And the problem was that I couldn't complete the deal, because I needed to sign this contract in the presence of a lawyer or something like that. And they wouldn't accept an overseas lawyer. So I was going to miss out on the deal. I literally cancelled the holiday, I was gone, and flew back to get this deal. So that's how hungry I have been. If you want to know how anyone that's gone from, you know, two, three properties to like, 10, or more than that... That's the type of hunger you have to have. 

(7:03) Dedication and persistence.

(7:04) ‘I'm on holiday, man. I'm gonna miss out on this deal? No way. Over this dumb holiday!’ You know, and I'd called about eight, nine different solicitors and lawyers. ‘How do I do this deal? I've spoken to the bank, I was trying to get their paperwork change, they had this really stupid rule’. And yeah, I couldn't do the deal unless I flew back. So I flew back. And it was done. And I did it.

Kuru has had some hairy moments in the past. But what about the good stuff? I asked him what he remembers as his ‘aha’ moment. 

(7:55) I think the aha moment was when I took the massive action, like when I did my first few properties, and the big aha moment for me, because my big worry was, ‘I've got all this debt. So who's gonna pay it?’ And then when I got my first property, and I had the rent come in, and I got the rental statement for the first property, I'm looking at it and I went, ‘Hey, wow, that's real money’. And then you know, you log into the bank account, you see your wallet, there's money there, so I went, ‘Hold on, this actually works’. So that was like a big aha moment for me. And then the other big aha moment was when I did my first tax return. I did my first tax return, and I'm sitting down, I'm learning about things like appreciation and all this in the world. You know, I'm sitting there.

(8:37) And then I get my first tax return. And I go, ‘Damn, that's a big chunk of money back’. So those are two big things. And then when I started getting revaluations on property, and then I'm revaluing that one, or that's increased, you know, three months or went up by $30,000. I went, ‘Wow’. And then, you know, a year later, that's gone up. ‘$80,000? Oh, wow. This is great.’ So I think when the theory became real, it started. And I was like, ‘Damn, this works’. That's why I'm like cancelling overseas. I'm running around begging banks, ‘Please give me a loan’.

(9:27) You did whatever it took to be able to get those deals. And now, you know, obviously where they are now has actually helped you build that portfolio because it's compounded time. You know, 10 years is quite a good solid amount of time. That's at least one close to property cycles, actually, when you think about it. So you've seen so many great gains from it.

(9:45) Yeah, yeah. Time is really important. So yeah, the time goes really, really quick. You'd be surprised how even now though, some of these experiences, I'm just being reminded of them now. And if you think back the things that you did, you're grateful that you took action, you know,

(10:04) Yeah, clearly. So you've built a portfolio up to say 20 properties. What's been sort of the mix of the properties, the purchases? Then maybe let's talk about your strategy. It sounds like when you first purchased those properties, it was like a buy and hold, and then you pull equity out and you leapfrog into the next one. And you keep doing that. What's been your overall strategy since then, because to build it up to close to 20 properties, it's not just something you just go and buy and hold, and you do it over the next 10 years or something like that easily. You have to actually have some kind of specific plan to be able to achieve that.

(10:34) Yeah, well, my strategy is just to get, number one, undervalued location, and then get an undervalued property, because a lot of people talk about how to fast track your gains. They talk about manufacturing equity. So what that means is you get a property, you make some adds to it, some changes to it, you add a granny flat, or you add a second story or you renovate or something like that, you revalue it, and then the price becomes higher. Now, I didn't have the time to do that. I didn't have the expertise to do that, that took more cash. And I'd run all the numbers on it. And I said, ‘Alright, if I get one property and put more money in it and make some changes, and maybe possibly, possibly maybe get a higher revalue on it’.

(11:18) And I put all that time into it, which I didn't even have, so I couldn't even do it. I thought, ‘I don't really like that’. But when I looked at the strategy of getting an undervalued suburb, an undervalued property in an undervalued suburb, then that suburb, if you look at the trend line and growth, what I'd also found through Lianna’s research is that most of the growth for a suburb, 70% of the growth for a suburb came in 30% of the time. So she'd run all these numbers. And she'd worked out based on a number of really complicated factors, how you could pick an area that would have that long term growth trend, but the bulk of that growth would be within the first one, two or three years of me owning that property. 

(12:08) So what we were trying to do was to position a property in an undervalued suburb and an undervalued property in an area that we felt was going to have more immediate growth, not growth out into the future. So we did that. And so that's still our base strategy today. And then I was able to create equity that way, not through the manufacturing, I'm not talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I'm talking, you know, maybe you can make a $30,000 equity there, get a tax refund of $9000 there, another $12,000 of savings. Alright, there's the deposit for property number two, so if you can keep repeating that, you can move.

(12:48) Now, when you get your first one or two or three properties, it's pretty slow. But when you've got say, three or four or five properties, and they're kind of growing like the equity or the growth across the four [or] five, the tax deductions across the four [or] five, so it becomes exponential. So you know, one becomes two, very slow, two becomes three, quite slow, but three can become five a bit faster, and five can become nine, a little bit faster. So that was my base strategy. The other strategy for me was to always keep the cash flow positive. So as much as possible, I mean, sometimes there were deals, but if we can do deals, when you look at the property, and you go, that's not cash flow positive, with the asking price today, but if we can get that ask asking price lower, then we can turn a non cash flow positive property into a cash flow positive property, not through a renovation not through anything like that, but through using my mouth.

Kuru puts it into perspective using some basic numbers. 

(13:47) So, you know, we use a bit of data to find where are the areas where we can sort of strike a deal like that, and then just, you know, use the mouth, like a half hour conversation to do the deal. Not 10 weekends of slavery, doing the renovation. So that's pretty much been my strategy. Now, this will not turn you into a multi millionaire in the next five years. But a strategy like this, if you're looking at market averages and things like that, probably an average income earner could, if you get at least, you know, a market growth rate of say, 7–7.5%, if you're able to create equity along the way, then you may be able to create something like one and a half million, two million, two and a half million over like at least a 10 year period. If you wanted to create more than that you need to give it more years. So if you want 3 million, 4 million, 5 million, well, you probably need a 15 year investment window or you've got to have a higher or above average salary or income so that you can borrow more and put more assets into your portfolio earlier on. 

(15:01) But typically what I see, because right now I'm seeing like over 200 people every single month join our community. Me and Lianna are right in there, we help them out with their strategies. And yet, typically, you know, I think a great outcome would be one and a half million to two million over a 10 year and over a 10 year investment window, minimum. And I would say to anyone that thinks that doing better than that through any strategy, renovating, doing whatever, anyone who thinks they can go from like a normal income, and a normal amount of savings I’m talking $50,000 to $100,000, anyone who thinks that they can do probably better than that.

(15:46) As an investor, you really can't. Now there's another way to be in property. The other way to be in property is to have property as a business. So like, I would say, someone that's buying property, renovating it and selling it, that's a business. Or I would say someone that's doing developments, many developments or larger developments, medium sized developments, that's a business. So it is possible to make more money than what I've just said, as a business. But if you're what I call an ordinary investor, and so I'm talking about someone on ordinary income, ordinary employee, ordinary savings, then, you know, target something like a couple of million dollars in 10 to 15 years. And if you can actually achieve that, that is massive, because if you set up your chief 2 million in 10 years, well, that could be 4 million, 6 million in 20 or 25 years. And if you're getting started in this journey at around 40, then by 60, you can be a multi-millionaire, if you're getting started at 40, in whatever time by 50. That's possible. And if you're getting started at 30 or lower, then you could be a multi-millionaire by you know, 40 [or] 50.

Welcome back. Kuru suggests a realistic plan for those he would call ‘ordinary earners’. 

(17:06) As an investor, as an ordinary earner, ordinary savings as an investor, typically trying to aim for more than 2 million in less than a 10 year window. Very hard to do. You have to be very, very fortunate, even with all of the negotiating discounts, because if you think about it, you’ve got a half a million dollar property, you negotiate a $25,000 discount in the whole big scheme of things. But when people really learn this math, in the whole big scheme of things, that's nothing. That doesn't get you any further. So I would rather get a $500,000 property with no discount, and get an 8 or 9% growth on it, than get a $500,000 property with a $25,000 discount with a 5% growth on it.

(17:45) So the discount you're getting on the way in is not the big thing, the big thing is going to be, how does that property perform? And typically it's going to perform based on the location that it's in, and then the quality of the property of the location, but I hope your audience can understand... Because what'll happen is, if you've got an unrealistic expectation, or if you're desperate, you've made yourself desperate through your mindset, you're in this desperate mindset. If you're later on in life and you're desperate, what will happen is, you'll go to these events and you'll get stitched up. Because you’re desperate. 

(18:24) And you make poor decisions based on some of those things due to emotion rather than facts and figures. I've got a few more things I wanted to just touch on as well. You mentioned mentors, Lianna has obviously been extremely extremely important and crucial to support you. Have you sought any other mentors? Or did you have any mentors you could share along the way? And what's been the impact on your whole journey?

(18:48) Yeah, I think a real big mentor for me has been Tony Robbins and if you don't know Tony Robbins he's not particularly a property person but he's definitely like a mindset person. Some of this helps you to stay positive you know, because you know like property investing is going to bring in a lot of emotions that are going to come to play and I feel that if you can master your emotions you're gonna make wiser better decisions and then you actually can transform yourself into an action taker. So I really look up to Tony. I've done a lot of his programmes and courses. I watch him a lot on YouTube. And I'm really inspired. I'm really inspired by Tony. And then you know, Lianna has been like a really good dear friend. I mean, she's got a unique skill with the data and I mean, that's a real tangible thing. And then just as a friend for someone to give you, you know, reassurance. Sometimes you need that so, you know, definitely you know, those have been the two big people that have really helped transform my life in terms of my property.

(20:00) Also to talk about, I guess, resources along the way. You've said you've pretty much attended all those courses, you've learnt so much. At this point in time, do you have anything that you think you could share with the audience? Which is a fantastic resource that you have actually thought of, that, you know, has impacted you and has been able to help you along your journey?

(20:18) Yeah, well, what I've done, like, together with Lianna, we thought, ‘Look, what can we do?’ Because we don't sell courses and things like that. But obviously, people want some information, some education. So we put together a really powerful live event. So we run this event, you know, a couple of times during the month, and it's a two hour live event. And what we actually do is we step people through our exact strategy. Now there are many strategies in property. And you know, all of them do work to varying levels, but you have to find the right strategy for you. So on to our live event, we actually break down step by step, our exact strategy, what we do. And again, our strategy is more for a time poor, ordinary investor, that's aiming, you know, to reach financial freedom, like in a realistic window. But not maybe get it… Definitely get it. In a 10 year, 12 year window. So that's a really powerful experience. Yeah, if you can make it along to that.

Kuru shares the most influential book he’s read, and suggests all of you read it too.

(21:34) I think a really good book that really helped me, I read this book years and years and years ago, there's a guy named John Lindeman, and he's written some really good books about the property market. And it gives you a really good historical perspective on what the market has done, what some of the key drivers are of the market. So he'll give you a really good base fundamental. So I just say that is really good mandatory reading, for anyone that wants to invest. So John, I think now he's got two or three books out. So I'm talking about his original and first one, I would absolutely, definitely read that. It's mandatory reading for anyone that comes and joins us as staff here at Freedom Property Investors. I go, ‘Well, I actually got copies of it, you know, take this book’. So absolutely read that. But anything, anything from John is really good.

(22:20) Yeah, I've had John on the podcast, he has been amazing. And the knowledge and, you know, the research he does is just phenomenal. He's very, very meticulous, and also very factual as well, which, you know, allows him to be able to make the right decision. So he's done really, really well. That's great. And also, what do you think's been the best advice you've received?

(22:39) Oh, wow, jeez, that's that's a tough one. That's a really, really tough one. Best advice that I have received? Well, probably Lianna, look, if I can be honest, like Lianna basically bullied me to get my foot in the door. She was like, ‘You are a moron if you don't buy this property’. I'm like, ‘Really?’ So I think it was her bullying me to do my first one. Because if I hadn't done that first one, I wouldn't be where I am today. So you know, those first few steps are the most fearful or the most gut wrenching, but you know, they're the best ones. They're the best ones. So I'll hand that one to Lianna.

So what advice would Kuru give to himself, if he could go back 10 years? 

(23:28) Well, you know, 10 years ago I was stressed out, I was worried, I was fearful, I was anxious. I was worried about the future. I would have said, ‘Scott, look, enjoy everything that you've got now. Be grateful for what you have and really enjoy it. It's gonna be okay and you're doing great. You're doing really really great ,everything's gonna be okay. Enjoy your kids, enjoy the ages that they are, even enjoy your job that you hate so much, even find things there to enjoy’. I would say like literally enjoy it because I was so worried about the future and time and succeeding and getting more money that I put a lot of energy into that worry and it just took some of the shine out of life, I really enjoyed all those times but you know, it just took some of the shine off it because of this worry.

(24:17) And I would also say to have more courage, take more action, just take more action, because I was so... Not making a mistake was more important to me than having success, if that makes sense. So I would rather, at that point, I would rather not achieve much but not make a mistake, than make a mistake, but have success. So I really changed my target subconsciously. I didn't realise this was going on. Subconsciously I moved from waking up every day saying, ‘Scott, don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake’, I moved from that to ‘Scott, get what you want, get what you want, have success, move forward, take action’. So it's that shift in the mindset that I, you know, encouraged myself or coached myself to do. 

(25:17) Wow that's, that's amazing. I resonate with that, because I think about the fear that holds us back, it's usually fear. And you just don't know what's up ahead. But it's when you start taking that action, then that fear starts to subside, it sounds like that's what happened over that period of time, it just with all that action, you know, it just kind of alleviated all of it. And there's not much to worry about, as you said there. So that's a really, really good response. Let's take a step forward, you know, looking at five years, what do you think you're most excited about in this next five year journey that you've got here?

(25:50) I've achieved my financial freedom. I'm gonna keep investing, obviously, I love to do that. But it's transformed for me now, because I've reached that point where I am free, I do feel safe achieving those things. And I feel like I've won the respect of, you know, my family, my children, and they're safe. So, you know, my life now is more about building a legacy for my family. And it's more about, you know, building a legacy for all of the members and all that kind of thing. So what I really, really love now is like, every time I go online, and I don't know how this sounds to people, but sometimes I'll go online, and I'll type in Freedom Property Investors, and I'll go to Google reviews, and I'll just read them.

(26:30) And I really love reading them. Yeah, there's some bad ones in there, that's fine. But you know, there's so many great ones there. And, you know, every single day, there's new ones going in, and I just love reading them. And, you know, I had to try and find some purpose for my life, because the purpose of my life was to make my family safe. So like, that was the ultimate guiding mission programmed into my head and I achieved that, and I kind of thought, well, what's my life going to be about now? Now my life is about helping other people, other providers, you know, other people with families that might be struggling, it's about trying to help them. 

(27:07) And then it's also about all the other great people that work in the group of ‘Freedom’ companies as well, you know, helping them to grow and expand. And so that's where I get a lot of my joy and fulfilment now, it’s just helping people to grow, helping people to expand, whether it's expanding professionally if they work with us, or whether it's them, you know, growing and expanding their property, their wealth, their futures, because like you and I will know, 80% of people are going to wind up on a pension. And even if these people get one property, and not even a very good one, but hold it for 20 years, they’ll probably avoid that. And if they can get two or three, in a really great location, they can have a really, really good life in their later years.

(27:56) We're all gonna live much longer, we're all gonna live probably until 85 (or) 90. So we need 30 (or) 40 years of, you know, the government, will the government have money to support us? We don't know. Because I don't have a full time job as such, you know, I mean, I spend a lot of time out during the day. And that's when you see a lot of the older people that are in retirement, they come out, you see them around, and you see them scratching around for $1, just to buy a coffee from Donut King. They're struggling. There's a royal commission right now into aged care, because it's that bad, people are dying in aged care, people are mistreated and abused in aged care. So you don't want to be 60, 70 or 80, laying in some bed with some person, vulnerable. 

(28:40) So, you know, I have a special heart for young children and older people. And I just think it's because they're vulnerable. And I think that we should take care of them. But I think the responsibility is on people right now, like to just have a little bit of foresight, 30 (or) 40 years down the road, start preparing for that. And when I look around how to prepare for that,  I'm still 100%—property is 100% the way. That’s why your listeners are in the right place, you're doing a great job, thank you, you're promoting it, you're putting it out there, I love your content, your audience, your audience love you and the value they get. So the more people out there, you know, promoting the positive side of property is really, really great. 

(29:23) I appreciate that. Yeah. And that has always been my value. And I'm just as passionate as you because I want to be able to help as many people as well. And this podcast is able to impact and do that as well. And you know, it doesn't cost you anything to listen and learn from people like yourself, you know, all the successes. It's definitely out there and possible too. So the last question I have for you, Scott, I always ask this question to all my guests. How much of your success is due to your hard work intelligence and skill? Or how much of it is based on luck?

(29:58) I would say 100% it would be just down to me. So, you know, I feel whatever the answer is, I think that you should decide that the answer is, 100% of your life is up to you, and live your life that way. I mean, that's something I learned from my mentor Tony Robbins, like, take 100% full responsibility for everything in your life, and take 100% responsibility for everyone else in your life and every event in your life. So, you know, I was very fortunate, because, you know, when I began my journey, it was right before the 2012 [or] 2013 massive property boom. So that absolutely gave me a really great opportunity to grow through equity, and to be able to get the number of properties that I was getting.

(30:47) So like, that was a great opportunity that was there. But if I hadn't done all the work or anything like that, well, then I wouldn't have been positioned for that. And people are sitting right now, as we record this, people are sitting right now, in the middle of another boom. So we're predicting a very strong price growth boom, over the next two to three years, and we predict the next 10 years will be really, really great for Australian property. So people have another opportunity. So, you know, the people that invest now, is it down to them? Or is it down to luck? I would say it would be down to them.

Thank you to Scott Kuru, our guest on this episode of Property Investory. 

If you want to hear more about his journey and get a copy of this episode guide on the website head over to PropertyInvestory.com/guide

This guide will give you the inside scoop on the little gold nuggets of wisdom all our guest's share from their backstory and all their overall strategies and philosophies. Plus, you’ll get a copy of their advice broken down and shared in a quick and easy-to-consume format!

Just head over to PropertyInvestory.com/guide and download it today.

Thanks for listening!