In this episode you’ll learn about Gray’s inventive first steps into property, how he built his work into a $15 million portfolio, and how he broke the mould and started playing life by his own rules. It’s an episode you don't want to miss.

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(38:35) And you got to wake up and say, ‘Hey, I've got an amazing life’. And I mean, today I'm sitting in my home office looking at the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, thinking, ‘I never, ever thought I could have this kind of lifestyle’. 

 

 

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 Chris Gray, originally a London courier who came to Australia on a backpacking holiday that would change his life forever. You’ll learn about Gray’s first steps into property, how he built a $15 million property portfolio and how he pulled off retiring at 31-years-old.

 

**Start background music** 

Retiring from his career at 31, Chris Gray has a lifestyle deviating from the norm, he shares that while he’s able to live comfortably, he does have a different perspective to most.

(0:45) I'm basically an accountant turned property investor. And I basically started investing at 21, or 22 rather, and semi retired out of Deloitte, the accounting firm at 31. I then basically started teaching people what I've done, because everyone said, ‘How come you managed to retire early?’ And then after a few years of that, people said, ‘Look, I don't want to learn how to do it, can you just buy me whatever you buy for yourself?’ So probably about 10 years ago, I set up a buyer's agency. And so we buy maybe 50, or 100 properties for clients. And then I spent a lot of my time doing media on TV and radio and magazines. I guess just teaching everyday Australian’s through the professionals, how to invest in property and how to have more of a money mindset.

So how does Gray spend his time on any given day?  

(1:49) It changes day by day. And that's basically how I wanted my life. So I've got a reasonably sizable company, but we don't have any offices. Technically, we don't have any staff ever, I'm self employed. And that's because I didn't want to run a business. And I didn't want to have to turn up to an office. So ideally, I want every day to be different. I spend a lot of my time networking and learning the art of various entrepreneur groups, and I travel overseas, about a week of each month, so about 10 to 15 trips a year. So that's about a week of the month. Mondays, I'm always kind of recovering and doing Sky News. And then the other days quite often it could be in boats, supercars, choppers, having meetings, I just love meeting people and learning stuff. And part of my job is speaking to clients as well and putting deals together. But pretty much every day is completely different.

Gray leads the kind of life most of us dream of having, and it doesn't stop at supercars and boats! 

(3:03) Back in about 2008 I climbed Kilimanjaro, and it was $50,000 each, which obviously is a lot of money, it is mainly a donation to charity. But the kind of people that will go to that are people that can afford to break $50,000, or write a check for $50,000. So again, a lot of the time people say that your wealth will be the average of 10 people that are closest to you that you hang around. And so that's what I do is I hang around entrepreneurs and wealthy people, and they hang around climbing up mountains, and then supercars and car days and boat days and things like that. So yeah, that's where my target audience is which is good.

(3:43) Which is fantastic. So they are also your clients, and also close friends as well. Would that be true to say?

(3:49) Yes. So typically, I'm lucky enough now to only work with people I want to work with. So if I don't like people, then I won't work with them. And so typically, there's not that much difference between the friend and the client. Because if I'm going to work together, then I need to get on with them. And I need to like them. And I guess a lot of people become friends to start with and then they learn what I do. And then they say, ‘Well, my expertise is in chairs or is in business or something else, so can you help me with the property portfolio?’ And then obviously, I help them as a friend, and then as the client as well.

Gray shares with us the main reason for his success.

(4:42) But I guess the overall overriding kind of thing about me is more of the lifestyle. So I've always stood up and I’m pretty well known for having the lifestyle, of playing with all these toys and not having to work for a living. And I guess that's where I've got a lot of followers because then some people aspire to have that kind of lifestyle as well. But the basis of everything is that I make all my money from property. So even though I've got a business, the majority of my money I actually make is from owning my own properties and the properties increasing. And I guess, I'm also known as being a bit of a contrarian. So my philosophy on money is completely opposite to most other people. So to give you some examples, so I've got, say, 14 properties roughly worth about $15 million, maybe in Sydney and some over in the UK. But I still don't own my own home. I've got a wife, I've got two kids, seven and eight that are at school. So we've got a traditional kind of family unit, but we don't aspire to own our own home. And if we did own our own home, then we'd never pay a cent off it. Again, I've mentioned that I've got a business, but I've got no staff, I've got no office. And so having that contrarian mindset is all part of this wealth creation thing, that if you want supersonic cars and boats and choppers and big houses and the rest of it, you can just go and buy them. But there's a lot of clever ways of doing it, kind of like renting or syndicated ownership or buying second hand cars rather than brand new. And I guess it all comes together. But the ultimate basis is yes, the wealth creation is through property.

(6:17) Yeah, that's very interesting. It's somewhat like Tim Ferris, you've heard of Tim Ferris, I presume? It sounds like it's the new rich, the lifestyle where you can have all of these great things and not necessarily have to own it, because that doesn't hold you down. And you can still live a fantastic lifestyle, which is what you're currently doing. 

(6:39) Exactly, so when Tim wrote the book, ‘The Four Hour Workweek’, about a year before, I'd actually written a book called ‘How to Turn your Weekdays into Weekends’. So I had to work two days a week and have five days off versus the other way around. He had a much better title and a much better book, and he sold billions of copies. But I get the mindset, pretty much the same. And so again, going through his book, I guess, I've done a lot of those things in terms of outsourcing, having virtual assistants or personal assistants, and basically just trying to find a clever way of doing stuff. Rather than doing things traditionally, almost like Robert Kiyosaki does, the ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, is the old traditional way of going to school, get a good job, go to university, all that kind of stuff. It's not the way we do things these days. There's nothing wrong with doing it that way. But there are sometimes some smarter ways of doing stuff.

Gray delved into his past and we learn about his personal journey into becoming a successful investor.

(8:07) I grew up in North London. And I finished school at 18 and got a job as a courier in London. I just loved driving. So even though I didn't earn much money, I think I actually was more in debt after I finished working than I was when I started. But I guess how I got into property was I came to Australia, backpacking for three or four months, had absolutely no money and lived in the backpackers in Manly Beach in Sydney. But even though I had no money, and I worked seven days a week, you could still go to the beach for five or six hours, do a day's work, and then still go out drinking. And it's just an amazing lifestyle. So even if you had no money, you'd have an amazing lifestyle in Australia. And I went back to the UK, my Mum actually gave me a curfew. And she said, ‘You have to be back by midnight’. I said, ‘Mum, look, I've travelled all the way around the world. Um, surely I can get back from the local club?’ But she said, ‘It's my house, my rules, and you got to be back by midnight’. And that was the catalyst because I'd seen what it was like to leave home and to be in better places. That was my catalyst to push me into property. Whereas I guess a lot of my friends hadn't had that backpacking experience and hadn't seen what it is like to have your own apartment or to live outside from home. And so I guess they didn't have the same catalyst that I did.

So what was his home life like before he moved to Australia?

(9:35) My Dad was a heart physician, my Mum was a nurse. And so they were very much in the church and the community. And they were very non materialistic. Obviously I came from a pretty wealthy family, because my Dad was a doctor, or a high income family, but they never had any interest in those material kinds of things. I mean, they gave us a good head start with property. So we had a property deposit. So at 22, I earned £10,000, about 20, 25,000 Aussie, and I had a deposit, I think of maybe £10,000 in those days. And basically, I just worked the numbers. So I looked at what I could afford, which is normally three times your income, so I could afford a 30, or £40,000 place, which even in those days was a pretty rundown, crappy, one bedroom unit. I then started looking at three bedroom houses in the best part of town, even though I couldn't afford them. And I fell in love with those kinds of things. And I basically set myself a goal and said, ‘Right, I want this property’, and it was one for £100,000. And basically, long story short, what I worked out is, first of all, I could buy that for 80,000, because the guy was pretty keen to sell, and I wasn't involved in the chain, so as a first time buyer, it was quite attractive, because you could basically settled on the property within five or six weeks, so it's nice and clean.

(11:00) And I basically went to the bank and through my Dad's guarantee, I said, ‘Look, if I buy a 30 or £40,000 place, I'm going to be mortgaged for life, I'm going to have no money, I can't afford to go out. Whereas if I can afford to get a seven times mortgage, and get a three bedroom house, I can rent two rooms out to mates’. And in those days, the rents are around 10 or 12%. Now that would actually pay the whole of my mortgage off, so I could actually live for free. So I then took it to my Dad, as it was more of a business case, to say, ‘Look Dad, I need some help if you can. I'm not after your money, I just need to try and get a guarantee for the bank. Because the three bedroom house is going to be free, whereas the one bedroom unit is going to cost me a fortune’. And I've just had this kind of mentality. So my skill base is very much, I look at normal problems, I translate it into basic numbers, and the basic numbers tell me a different story to what the emotional choice that our parents and our grandparents and society tell us what to do.

Gray goes on to explain further the strategy which allows him to live a free lifestyle.

(12:19) What I've worked out then is that if you buy, like in ‘Monopoly’, all of those greenhouses, call them million dollar Bondi two bedroom units with parking, lots of people want those. So the rent returns pretty high to normally at around 4 or 5%. But then I worked out that 5 or 10 million dollar homes, not many people can afford to rent them, because anyone that can afford to rent them would always buy, because there's a perception that only poor people rent. And so what I worked out about 10 years ago, is whatever I could afford to buy, I could rent somewhere three or four times more expensive for the same kind of money. And that's why I don't rent my own home these days, because I can rent something very expensive, that's only got a yield of 1 or 2%, but then all of my properties are rented out and get a 4 or 5%.

Gray’s strategy is smart and it clearly works, but how did he get to this point from being in the UK? And what did the first years of his investment career look like?

(13:56) So I bought my first at 22. I think the next one I bought about a year later say about 23, 24. And then at 27, I qualified as an accountant. And that got me residency for Australia. So I basically jumped on the next boat and came to Australia and immigrated at 27. So now I’m 45, so almost 20 years ago.

(14:16) Wow. So that was a bit of a break, so at least a five year break before you actually came to Australia. So you held on to those two properties in the UK?

(14:27) Yes, I've still got those. And basically, I used the equity in one of those to buy a Porsche. And again, the thought process with that was that I couldn't afford a Porsche on a three year car loan, but I could afford a second hand Porsche on a 30 year mortgage by effectively pulling equity out and using the equity to buy the Porsche. And then I sold the Porsche because it still held its value, because it was secondhand, and I used that as my travelling money and spent seven or eight months travelling to Australia by land.

(15:16) So, with the Porsche thing, then a lot of people said, ‘You're using debt to finance luxury goods’. Which is true, but if my property has gone from 80, to £100,000, and I've made £20,000, a lot of people would sell that and then go and buy a £20,000 car. And they think they've made 20 grand, and that's good, but then they haven't got an asset. Whereas by me accessing, and I think I borrowed about 10 or £15,000, then I still kept that hundred grand property, which then grew to 110, 120. So I'm still making that. So even if I sold it at any time, at least, I'd still have the equity there, so I wasn't chewing up too much equity. But the main thing was, I still kept the appreciating asset. And that was going up by more than the depreciating asset, or the car, was actually going down.

(16:08) So therefore, your asset was making more money than your depreciating liability, which obviously makes more sense. Because even if you sold your Porsche that was holding value, you're still getting money back anyway. And the cost or the coverage of your asset will be able to pay that off eventually.

(16:25) Exactly. And so I think this is a really strong point to make, I'm very much a believer in rewarding yourself as you go. So I got into massive debt at 22 and 24. And I think at 24, when I bought the second property, I then refinanced and then bought the Porsche. And it's to reward yourself, so sure, I hadn't worked physically hard, but I work mentally hard to suddenly have two assets that were worth maybe 200,000 pounds in the UK, then at 24. And why not then take the money off the table at the same time as well? No, don't save it all up, don't squander it all. But there's a bit of a balance in between.

So Gray came to Australia when he was just 27, with the philosophy that you should work hard, but not at the cost of missing out on what life has to offer.

(17:31) Yeah, so I actually started working for dotcom in 2000, and was basically working probably 80 hours a week. And even though I enjoyed it with young people, we went from, like 10 people to about 130, within a few months, I was working six days a week, and then sleeping on the seventh. And I made some money through dotcom. But basically after it, and after the GFC came about I then said that, ‘Well, I don't care how much money I earn. I'm not enjoying the Australian weekends and the lifestyle and the rest of it’. And that's when I said, ‘Well, to me, life isn't purely about money. And I want to live life. And this isn’t what I came to Australia for’. And so that's when I left and then I started actually into recruitment. And that got me into Deloitte through recruitment, kind of interviewing CFOs. But that's when I really learned that you got to live the life. And I met so many unhappy people that hated their jobs, through kind of recruitment and interviewing people, that's when I really learned that there's more to life than just working and money.

For his book, Gray interviewed a massive number of people and discovered that many of them had a lot of income but were very time poor. This was one of the things which inspired him to seek financial freedom.

(19:11) So basically, in my recruitment role, I used to have to try and find the candidates. So find the financial controllers, and the finance directors to put into some of Deloitte’s clients from the recruitment firm. And so I basically had to interview 10 people a week. So it wasn't, it wasn't too kind of time performing on me, but over two years, then, kind of 100 weeks, so that's about 1000 people that are interviewed, and most of these guys do their jobs, they're very successful people. So the interview process was more getting to know about them personally. And quite often we’d talk about money and houses and all the rest of it because I had a personal interest around that. And this is the thing that I learned, was a lot of the people I've met that were suddenly in their 40s, 50s and 60s, were struggling to get contracting jobs because they were competing against the 30 year old backpackers from the UK or Ireland that were maybe getting 30 or 40 bucks an hour. And they were arguing, ‘Look, I'm a CFO, I used to be on 2, 3, 4 hundred thousand, and maybe 1 or 200 bucks an hour. And so I'm a bargain to a firm that wants to hire these people’. 

(20:20) And I learned it was a very ageist kind of workplace in Australia, and probably the same in the UK, in that a lot of these companies, they would rather get the fresh blood in at 30 or 40 bucks an hour, even if someone with 40 years experience would do the same job and maybe do better, because they wanted to mould the young people and train them. Whereas someone who has done something for 40 years, is maybe more set in their ways. And so I suddenly thought like, an accounting job is a job for life, but I suddenly turned around and realised it wasn't. And so suddenly, a lot of these people that had their big expensive homes in Mosmen, that had kids in private school, they might have a wife kind of out shopping or at the gym all day, expensive cars, overseas holidays. And suddenly, these guys were battling to get 30 or 40 bucks an hour at the same time. So that's when over that period of two years, I realised that I definitely didn't want a career. And at the same time, I think I was earning about $80,000 or 60,000 after tax. But the property market was really booming, this was about 2003, 2004. So I had 6 properties all rising by 100,000 a year for a couple of years. So I was making 600 grand a year from property investing, doing nothing and paying no taxes on it, and earning 60 grand from Deloitte. And this is where the whole puzzle kind of came together. What if I can earn 600 grand for doing nothing versus 60 grand for working a 40 hour week, then I'd rather take the 600 grand.

(21:57) So I think that was a no brainer for most people anyway, it's funny how many people still continue to do a full time job not realising that they can probably do that. But until you get into that position, then you can actually see how that is able to be, I guess, you can actually take that on board to be able to invest into equity.

(22:16) So like most people, they go to school, they concentrate on university, get on the career ladder, and that's all they follow. I just did things differently, because I thought people create money from wages, and then get into wealth creation to try and then build wealth. I've kind of did it in reverse. And I thought why not concentrate on building wealth straightaway. And so, in Deloitte, they found it really hard to motivate me because I wasn't motivated by money, like most other people are bonuses. Because I was making so much money from property, if they paid me a 5 or 10 grand bonus, it didn't make any difference. And so this is the problem, especially the people that are really at the top end of the ladder, they just do not have any time whatsoever to concentrate on personal finance. 

(23:04) So sure, they've got a paid off home. Sure they've got money in the bank and money and super, but it's nothing compared to what they could have, if they actually just leveraged it, even 50% or something. And that's why one of the chapters in my book is called, ‘It's not about what you earn, it's what you do with your money that counts’. Because I saw some really young, almost PA’s that had four or five properties. And they had more than the partners that were earning maybe half a million, a million bucks, because the PA knew that she was going to be poor, because she might be only on 50 or 60 grand. And so she knew she had to work harder for her personal wealth. Whereas someone on the high income, they automatically assume they can be wealthy. And so they actually get very lazy on their wealth creation. And so again, this is just learning I'm just picking up from the people around me.

Tyrone Shum: 

Having already secured two properties in his portfolio from the UK, Gray explains how he fell into the Australian property market.

(24:43) I basically bought two in the UK at 22 and 24. And then and that was basically self taught. So I don't think Robert Kiyosaki was even around in those days. But certainly there were no books or magazines or TV programmes, and I didn't necessarily want to be a property investor, the second one was a bit of an accident really. And so I guess it was really just when I came to Australia at 27, then I needed to buy a property to live in, because that was always the done thing. And so I guess I then just started building up from there. And again, it just kind of happened by chance in a way. So I wasn't aspiring to be a big property investor, I guess I bought the first one in 99, for 360 in Coogee, everyone said, ‘After the Olympics, you're absolutely mad’. But now that property's worth 1.1 or 1.2, or something. And then for some reason, I was going to buy another one in Tamarama. And I think maybe I just started sort of accumulating stuff. And rather than sell it, just refinance, and then buy the next one. So again, I don't think it really hit me till about 30 or 31, to actually kind of give up work. And that's all maybe a year before I gave up work. And I just happen to be doing something and it just kind of fell into place in a way. So it wasn't necessarily a really defined goal that I've set in my 20s and 30s.

(26:14) Well, okay, I love that story. Because you stumbled into it. And when you said you're buying your first home, was that when you started your family, or was that just because you just need to live in a place.

(26:24) Yeah, no, I just needed somewhere to live. So I didn't start a family until probably about 35 or something like that. And so I'd actually already given up work by then and had all my properties and been retired for a few years. And I think I'd just started the education business, when I met my current wife.

Gray has accumulated 14 properties worth a whopping 15 million dollars over the years. At what point in his life did he really begin to focus on the industry which would earn his success and financial freedom?

(27:12) I suddenly came across Robert Kiyosaki, the ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad' thing, which was the method I've known. I actually think I've got it from someone who introduced me to Amway, or network 21, I think they used to call it. So again, a business that everyone thinks is shocking, because it's got a bad reputation, and it's multi level marketing. But the great thing about those kinds of companies is the education that they give people. And I think when I was still at Deloitte, I went on a course. And the course was about $15,000. And I met some guys. First of all, it was the NRFL in Coogee, I think. And it was one company and then through those same people, six months later, I found this other business. And I had all these blocks that I couldn't basically borrow more money from the bank, the bank said, no, I couldn’t service anymore. I didn't really have any more capital. And so I knew I've made a lot of money from property, but I didn't know how to continue it. So I basically went on this course and I didn't even have the money for the course. I had to put it on a credit card. 

(28:18) And all of my colleagues at Deloitte said, ‘You're absolutely mad’. And I thought, well at Deloitte, they’re never going to pay for me to go on a course to retire early. And I said, ‘I'll go and do it. And I'm sure even if I implement one thing, then it's worth the money’. And I just got all the logic from this. And there’s good courses and there’s bad courses. But I just concentrated on all the things that I liked about it, and all the other stuff I didn't worry about. But I guess what was different between me and a lot of the other people in the audience is, I was determined to go and put it into practice. I'd spent a lot of money on the course. And I wanted to put it into practice. And basically, it taught me that there is no such thing as no. So when you come across a barrier where a bank says, ‘No we're not going to lend you any money’, you go to another bank, you get 10 banks or 100 banks, or, however many you need, or you go to a solicitors fund or you do whatever. And that basically taught me the mentality of not working for the rest of my life, to basically go out and think of this as a business rather than just a part time hobby.

(29:24) And I just put a lot of work into it and hired the best people I could. And so within a year, I gave up work, and I bought a 355 Ferrari, which was my dream car. And so effectively, I gave up work at 31. So a lot of people say, ‘That 15,000 you spent on the course was a lot of money’. And I said, ‘Yes, it is, but in hindsight that's worth millions and millions of dollars’. Yes, and even though technically I work and sometimes I work hard and sometimes I don't, but to have basically from my 30’s to my 60s or 70s to not have to do a proper job again ever, ideally, touchwood, then that is worth even 10s of millions of dollars.

(30:04) I know they could even put $1 value on that to be honest.

(30:07) Exactly. Because the lifestyle is pretty amazing. Like, sure, I don't fly in my own private jet, and I don't have a 50 or 100 million dollar home. But I'm pretty happy with what I've got. And just having that freedom of doing different things, different days and choosing who I want to spend my time with, to me that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm a massive advocate of learning. And a lot of it doesn't need to be expensive. You don't have to go on these expensive courses. But like there's plenty of books that I've got, magazines, the TV show, I don't think there's any excuse these days for not having enough knowledge and for getting out there, just like these podcasts and things like that. There's so many people giving information and not all the information is good. And there are some shady people in the industry. But yes, there's no reason you can't build good quality knowledge.

Gray has a focused attitude and mindset when it comes to investing, but the mistakes he made in the past are what have enabled him to learn and grow into a success.

(31:44) So my biggest issue that I've had with investing is I invest too much. So for most people, they don't get off their backsides and do anything. I've always been too far the other way. So in the UK, you could get into debt at 18, I got into debt at 17. And my debt’s just got bigger and bigger, and to get that first mortgage of seven times your income versus three times… So my mortgage repayments were more than my wages before tax, let alone after tax. So I've always kind of got used to debt from an early age. But look, in probably the late 90s, maybe early 2000s, I was probably almost in negative equity, because they were highly geared maybe 90 or 100%. And then the market kind of fell off a bit. And so it's, it's kind of 50/50, whether my properties would have actually paid off my debt. But again, going to see the accountants and getting all the good advice that I got, from people like Angus Raine, from Raine and Horne, he’s a very generous guy that gave me a lot of time to help me. And a lot of these guys said, ‘Look, Chris, you've got to hang on to your portfolio. If you sell your portfolio, you're gonna end up with no assets, and you still have some debt, and you'll never be able to repay that’.

(33:01) Whereas whether you beg, borrow or steal, or maybe not steal, but get five jobs... just hang on, because I think at the time, I had about three and a half million in property. And all you need is to get 10% growth, and you suddenly make $350,000. And suddenly all your problems are over. And so I think at the age of probably 30 to 40, there were various different times when I've really pushed the limit massively down to probably my last 10 or $100, or something like that. And I was almost wishing for heart attacks to claim on my insurance and hopefully survive the heart attacks to then get the payout to try and get myself out of a rut. And it was very, very tough. So at times, I've had years of sleepless nights. So this is the downside. So it's not all positive. And a lot of the speakers and people say it's so easy. And it feels easy in hindsight... but at the time, and it's all my own doing, and I did it knowingly, and I was willing to take those risks, to then have the upside on the on when the market did move. But look, there were some sleepless nights and a lot of stress and stuff like that, because I was pushing the limits beyond what most other people would do.

(34:18) And that's an inspiring story. Because if you, which you did, as long as you hung on to it, the market does change. It's just a matter of time and whether or not you can actually ride out the waves or ride out the downtime, which is what you did.

(34:32) Even now then, I don't know if I've kind of completely got there. Hopefully another few years. I'm trying to build my buffer and reduce my LVR, so maybe only 50% geared. And I'm not doing that by paying off debt. I'm waiting for the market to rise and rather than pull the equity out and reinvest it, I'm just trying to hold on to it. So look, I might be bankrupt tomorrow or in 5 or 10 years time who knows. But what I always say is if I do get into trouble, it'll be through mainly, part of the market, but part of it my own doing. And so I've pushed the limit, I've pushed the limits on my lifestyle. And I live larger than a lot of people. And I drive Lamborghinis and expensive boats and travel the world. And so I could be more conservative, I could save more money and be much, much safer, maybe not with that as much. But at the same time, I'm very much a person that's really active and wants to get out there. And I want to live my life in case I die tomorrow. 

(35:33) And as much as I don't want to risk losing everything. And I don't think I will, never say never, we never knew about the GFC when that came around, I think the kind of property though investing is really low risk, or the least risk property you can buy, because it's all blue chip, median price property. But look, you never know. And I take massive insurance policies out of my houses, if I ever get sick, then I'm almost set for life. You never know what's around the corner. And so I'm quite prepared to say, ‘Look, I don't know everything. And sometimes it does go wrong’. Well, but maybe I should have been slightly more conservative.

(36:09) Yes and no. I have to say though, if you didn't live your life to where you are now, you wouldn't be able to live life to the max. And I think you're doing what you're doing that suits your lifestyle and suits what you want as well. And I think a lot of people will regret if they don't do anything, and they look back and go, ‘Man, I could have done that. But you know, why didn't I?’, but you're doing what you want to do. So I think that's huge.

(36:31) And I think that is very true. Because I mean, most people on the deathbed, and the old cliche is that no-one's ever said, ‘I wish I'd spent more time in the office’. And, ‘If only I'd done this and done that’. And I'd like to think that look, if I did die tomorrow, then I think all the things on my bucket list, if I think it's something to do, I just go and do it. So I don't really have a bucket list of things that I haven't done that I really want to do. If I come up with the idea, then quite often it's implemented and done straightaway.

Coming up after the break, we talk about Chris Gray’s mindset and philosophies.

(2:16) So not repaying a loan and becoming bankrupt or something isn't an option, you've got to repay all your loans. And so you will kind of beg, borrow, steal or have 5 or 10 jobs to be able to do that. 

We learn about a strategy which is gaining popularity, which allows those with less money to get onto the ladder faster.

(19:35) But in essence, yeah, they might split it into 10,000 shares of that million dollar property. And so effectively you can then with your $5,000 or $10,000 then buy a part of that.

Gray shares his advice for those who are just starting out.

(22:57) I think a typical person, they don't tell anyone what they earn for living, they don't tell them what they've got in their bank and what their strategy is. And so I think it's very hard to become an expert at something if you don't talk about it. 

And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

Welcome back. Chris Gray and I move on to discussing his proudest moments.

(37:20) Owning that first property. I remember coming down the stairs, and I had nothing in the house whatsoever, because I had no money, no furniture, but I had 100 pound IKEA futon mattress, and a case of warm beers, and in the UK, we used to drink warm beer, so you didn't even need a fridge. Just room temperature beer was fine. But that was one of my proudest moments. I think refinancing the Porsche again was another massive one. And I didn't know what I'd done. I didn't know about refinancing. And I did a joint venture with my dad, I didn't know what joint ventures were, but I did one, I just did logical things. And then I've learned what they're called afterwards. I think the day I retired from work at Deloitte, and I sent an email to everyone saying I'm retiring, I'm no longer going to be on this email, is again, a very, very proud moment. But as much as getting on TV and doing the TV things, each year just celebrating my successes and just saying, ‘Look, I'm still on the journey, I haven't got to the top of the mountain. I think there's still a tiny bit of a way to go’. But I just think there's lots of little wins and like we said at the start, you've got to reward yourself and you've got to have these wins. And you got to wake up and say, ‘Hey, I've got an amazing life’. And I mean, today I'm sitting in my home office looking at the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, thinking, ‘I never, ever thought I could have this kind of lifestyle’. If I look back 20 or 30 years into my kind of late teens and early 20s, I'd have no dream. And a purple Lamborghini downstairs, and the boats on the harbour and all these kinds of things... It just sits there. And it's just normal stuff now, which is when you still gotta pinch yourself.

Gray mentioned that he still has a little way to go. So when will he feel he has reached the top of the mountain? 

(39:15) I guess my next goal is really just having enough of a buffer. So I'm probably about 60% good in my portfolio. And I guess I really wanted to get down to about 50 to then have 30% of buffer, ideally in cash. So that no matter what happened with interest rates rising or if I completely stopped work and didn't have any income coming in, then I kind of wanted enough cash for maybe 10 or 15 years that I didn't have to worry about no matter what. But look, I mean, if interest rates did suddenly double to 10 or 12%, then my cash flow position would be massively changed. I think I'd still be fine because in my book, I still work on interest rates of 7, 8 and 9%. So I do kind of stress test myself, but I’d just rather have a lot more excess cash, just to counter anything that might happen in the future. And so that's the next thing on my to do list, which is again, part of a journey that will probably take another one or two years or something like that.

Gray shared with us his excitement for the future and the new adventures and opportunities it will bring. 

(43:43) So I just try to find new things to go and do. So one of the organisations I'm involved in is called the entrepreneurs organisation. And there's about 12,000 of us worldwide. And you basically need to be the founder of a business, turning over at least a million dollars, and a few other criteria. But I probably changed about two thirds of my friends a few years ago, to just hang out with a lot of these guys. Because a lot of friends before were typical employees and they did their kind of eight to late and then they go home and watch TV and have the meat and two veg at home and then some time with the family. With a lot of these entrepreneurs there are no rules. And especially when you go overseas, a lot of them, the Asian families, are third generation, so they might have billion dollar companies. But whether you turn over a billion or a million, you're all equal around the table and this is a big philosophy of the organisation. And there's no judgement and there's no ego.

(44:40) And so I travel around a lot of Asia and around the rest of the world just seeing these other guys all learning off each other. And we've all got different things to teach each other. And, I just love learning now. So I spend a lot of time not so much reading books, but just listening to speakers and listening to people that have actually done stuff. And I go to countries that I've never even heard of like Komodo where the Komodo Dragons are, which is an island in Indonesia, to various places in China I've never even heard of. And so I think we're off to Mexico in March and then Seoul and then Fukuoka in Japan. So I'm travelling to all these amazing places, meeting lots of amazing people. And I'm just learning new things. And that's what I strive for these days is just to meet interesting people, learn things that I haven't even thought of, and come up with other ideas of things I can put on my bucket list and go off and enjoy it.

Gray and I move on to discussing the importance of mindset, and how to overcome mental obstacles. 

(0:25) My mindset was pretty closed, like most people's. My dad was a heart physician at Cambridge University. So he was very much an academic and decided that we should go to school, ideally go University and get proper jobs and things like that. And so I was going to be an employee for life. And I just happened to go down a different type of journey. And I guess I was quite rebellious as a kid. And if I was told to do something, I would do the opposite, even if I wanted to do it. And so it's only kind of 10, 12 years later, that I ended up being unemployed or self employed, or retired, or whatever you want to call it, and then more of an entrepreneur these days.

So what kind of mindset did Gray adopt to be able to implement the property investment strategy that he’s currently on?

(1:18) I think the main thing with mindset is knowing that anything is possible. And really, there aren't any rules. And if people tell you that there are rules, then there's always a different way. And ultimately, it all comes down to your ‘why’. Now, being an accountant or an ex-accountant, I'm very numbers focused. And I'm not into these airy fairy kind of seminars where you kind of dream and draw pictures and the rest of it. But in hindsight, I know this is one of the most important things. So your biggest thing is, what are the reasons you're doing this for, because it's going to be a tough road, and it's going to be a long journey, it's not going to be overnight. And there's going to be some pretty tough hard times that will really test you. And this is when, if your ‘why’ is strong enough, then that'll get you through things—that if you're going to ring 10 banks, or 50 banks, or 100 banks, then you'll go through that—because failure isn't an option. So not repaying a loan and becoming bankrupt or something isn't an option, you've got to repay all your loans. And so you will kind of beg, borrow, steal or have 5 or 10 jobs to be able to do that. And that's when you need an open mindset to say, ‘Well, okay, I keep going down this way. It's not working. What are the other options? How can I get it?’ So rather than accept the, ‘No’, it's, ‘How can I just go and do it?’

(2:38) Definitely having the resilience to be able to push through and persevere without giving in, because a lot of people will end up giving in, either they sell the property, or they just, as you said, lose it through the bank, which is not a good thing as well. It's definitely having that resilience to push through and changing that mindset to go, ‘Okay, nope, I've got to do it. Whatever it takes, I've got to be able to push through this whole issue that I've just put myself into’.

(3:03) And it depends on how hard you push yourself. Because if you just buy one additional property, and if it doesn't go right, sure, you can sell it and hopefully things will be okay with the bank. And it's not a big deal. But if you've suddenly bought 10 or 20 properties, and the market turns, or you're in trouble for 5 or 10%, that can be a lot of money. And it's not a kind of thing that you can ever get from having a job. And so, yeah, sometimes you gotta push through. So I remember hearing John Simon, he says, ‘I couldn't get a job at McDonald's to solve my financial problems, I kind of had to do big or nothing or effectively fail’. So it's really getting in a position where there is no choice and you've got to make it work.

(3:51) The stories that John Symonds had are very, very inspiring as well, too. Because at the end of the day, those people who have succeeded, like yourself, have actually been persistent. And that's really, really important. I think that's what listeners need to understand is that it's so important to persist. And no matter what happens. You mentioned as well, you took a 15k course on real estate or property investing? Is that one of the resources that you would recommend, or do you have any mentors and resources that you could recommend?

(4:23) Yeah, so I've done multiple courses over the last 10 or 15 years, and a lot of them are probably not around these days, because quite often the speakers might be around for a few years, and they morph into something else or their business changes. I guess just like my business. So I started off mentoring at I think about 32, 33. I did that for a few years. And then now we just do the buyer's agent business. So the courses that I was doing aren't even around these days. So my thought is, I think all the courses are good. And some are free, some are thousands of dollars or maybe 5, or 10, or even $50,000. And they're all good and do what you can afford, you can't do them all at the same time, but maybe think about doing one course a year and start off with the free ones and move to the paid ones. But the general thought is, is you get what you pay for. So if you go to a free course, you're probably going to be sold lots of other things. 

(5:20) But there's still lots of great information there. If you're paying a few-thousand for a course, then chances are then you're going to get more value out of that, because you paid good money. People are only going to give information up. So I mean, for someone like me, I don't go and speak for a few hundred dollars, because if someone really wants my time, it's thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars. So if you really do want those experts, then you've effectively gotta pay for them. And some people say, ‘Well, how do you know who's good and who's bad?’ and I say look, even if someone's just got out of prison, I think it's worth learning from them. Because you can learn how maybe they did the wrong thing, or how they ripped someone off, or how they bent the rules or whatever else. And obviously, I'm not going to advocate that anyone ever does anything illegal or stretches the boundaries too much. But it's more a case of learning how other people got ripped off, so you can then go and counteract that so you don't get ripped off.

(6:18) So probably one of the biggest things I learned from the first course I did, which I advocate all the time now, is getting an independent bank valuation. So wherever you buy property anywhere in the world, if you go to a completely independent valuer, and probably pay them 500 bucks—I'm not talking about getting a $25 online one, I'm talking about getting a full inspection—that value has then got an insurance policy where if it was ever proved that the property you bought wasn't worth what you paid for it, effectively, you could sue the valuer. And it's not to have a property investing strategy that’s based on suing people, but if he's putting his balls on the line about things, he's not going to lie over it because he can get sued, and their policies are very, very expensive. That's almost a guarantee that you're never gonna overpay for a property. But the reality is, most people will try and save that 500 bucks, and they won't do it.

(7:15) Yep, so we buy the same types of properties in the same areas all the time. So we know our market very, very well, because we've been in it for 10 or 20 years. But every single time we buy, we get an independent valuation for 550, a building inspection for 440 and a Strata inspection for 250. So we pay 1250 bucks, before we even consider putting an offer in. Whereas the general public that hasn't got the knowledge, they virtually never used any of those services.

(7:45) That's an excellent tip for the listeners. And I highly recommend doing that too, because I have done the same thing as well. And it does make sure that your property that you're buying is going to be valued at the correct price as well. Any mentors that you sought help from? As you say you've been through a lot of training, you've probably got a lot. But do you have one that you currently use? 

(8:10) Yeah, not so much. Look, I've used lots of mentors over the years. And I think you grow out of them at times. So there's quite often no mentor for life, but you use them for different amounts. I mean, I hire the very best professionals I can. So a lot of the professionals that I use might charge 1000 an hour, and they've worked with some of the top firms. A lot of the entrepreneurs I speak to through the entrepreneurs organisation which I mentioned in the previous interview. A lot of those it's almost no cost, we’re part of a club or an organisation that's all self helping, and we discuss things together. But I mean people like Anthony Bell, from Bell partners, who is John McGrath’s accountant, he's always been very good to me, because he understands the local eastern suburbs and Sydney market that I invest in, because he's invested there as well. And he spends a lot of time with the agents.

(9:01) And again, people like Charles Darby, Tom Panos, a lot of these people I get on my show now. And so this is quite a good thing. In the old days of 15 years ago, I've looked up to these people and been very grateful that they’ve even given me five minutes of their time. Whereas now a lot of these people, because I do Skype business, and I can get them on as guests, a lot of the time when I want to meet people, I just say, ‘Hey, John, come on my show and show your experiences’. And I'm almost not thinking of the viewer. I'm thinking of me. What stuff do I want to learn from these guys? And I can ask them any questions I want. And of course, it's of interest to the viewers as well because obviously they've got a similar thing that they're trying to achieve at the same time. So suddenly, I can almost be like an equal to these guys, and we've got the valuable numbers and we can talk to them and ring them pretty much anytime we want. Because I get them on TV, I give them exposure, I can help kind of get them out to my clients as well. So it's more of a two way relationship now rather than paying them specifically for some of their advice.

(10:06) Yeah, it's absolutely a win win situation. And by doing that, I think everyone will appreciate it because not only are you helping them leverage and giving them exposure, you're also learning what you want to ask questions that you don't know about. And you're able to get them on the show as well to be able to share that with your viewers as well. So it's absolutely win-win. 

(10:25) And that's the whole idea with property investing or business, it’s about creating win-win solutions where everyone wins. And then there's a reason for everyone to be involved in it. I mean, another firm that I spend a lot of time with is, well I used to work at Deloitte, so I’m a client at Deloitte private. Now, a lot of people think that the Big Four accounting firms, that's the global companies and billionaires and stuff like that, but quite often, their fees aren't that different to a second tier firm. And where a lot of their clients might be half billionaires or a billionaires, when they've already spent the money trying to work out structures of how to hold their billion dollars, and what entity to put them in, if they've already worked that out for the billionaire and the billionaires paid them the big fees, it's so easy for them to translate it to little old me who’s only worth 10 or 15 million. And I can access a knowledge bank, but for a fraction of the cost. And so I now don't really worry, or I don't necessarily know how much I'm paying for advice, because the main thing is to get the right advice. Whether I'm paying $100 an hour or 1000. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't actually matter at all.

He shares with us some insights about how the times have moved forward from his parents generation. 

(11:52) So, quite often, what I say is our parents' generation, they try to get wealthy by saving money, and they'd look after the pennies, pennies look after the pounds. But if you only earn 100 grand, and you pay tax on that, you're only going to increase your wealth by maybe 60 or 70 grand, because that's all you earn. Whereas I think the new generation's way of thinking is to say, you've got to spend money to make money. And so the same is with the buyer's agent service that we have. So we charge say 2%. On a million dollars, we charge 20 grand. But we might buy a property for a million dollars rather than pay 1.1 million or a million and fifty at auction. So in our parents' mind on my business they’d say, ‘Take the 20,000, because you can do it yourself’, which sure people can. But a clever CEO or high net worth would say, ‘Well, I'd rather buy it for million dollars and pay you 20 because then I paid 1,000,020 rather than do it myself, waste all my time, maybe make a mistake, and still pay a million or 50 or 1.1 at auction’. So in some people's minds, the negative sceptics, they'll be saying, ‘Now I want to save the money’. Whereas in the entrepreneur or the wealth creators mind is, ‘Now I've spent money, but that's making me maybe four or five times more money’.

Tyrone Shum: (13:05) Yeah, and I totally agree on that part. And also because you've done all the research as well and have the knowledge and networks in between, you can actually get much more under market value compared to what maybe a retail person or CEO could do, because they don't have the knowledge all the time to be able to do all that. So there is a huge, huge advantage.

Chris Gray: (13:24) Exactly. It's the same with shares or business or accounting. There's no point doing that... you can't be a specialist of everything, and so I think you're actually better off being a generalist, it's good to know a little bit. So I know a bit about accounting, a bit about law, a bit of finance and stuff. But I then go to the expert so I know how to talk to these guys. But they're the ones that do it all day, every day. And they're the ones that I actually get the advice from.

Gray is a Jack of all trades, which has helped him to maximise his potential. His $15 million portfolio didn't grow itself, after all. So what other strategies did he use to achieve this impressive portfolio? 

(14:16) My strategy I quite often say is so basic, it's kind of too simple for most clever people. So most people are trying to out think it, trying to think there's something special that there must be some hidden secrets that I'm not telling them or, or someone else isn't telling them. But basically the bottom line is, I bought properties and I waited. And I guess that the main thing I've done is I've always bought blue chip. So right from buying in the UK, when I was 22 my thought process was, if I rent these properties to young professionals, they've generally got well paid jobs. They don't want to lose those jobs. So they're always going to pay the rent. If they end up in trouble, they've generally got wealthy parents. And generally in those areas, there is no, I guess quite often there's a limited supply of property. So if they're in kind of built up areas, there's lots of young professionals that can afford to rent them. And so generally that lack of supply and increasing demand... that basic economy pushes prices up.

(15:25) And obviously, now I’m at 45. So I've spent the last 10 or 12 years interviewing people on TV, reading hundreds of books, speaking to thousands and thousands of people. And sure, I know a hell of a lot now, compared to what I knew 20, 23 years ago, but the main thing of my portfolio is still the time. So these days, I don't buy in the CBD, because I think there's no limit of supply, you can keep building all these American towns. So I typically go on 5–15Ks from the main capital city, i.e. Sydney. So I'm in the Eastern Beaches, the Lower North Shore, the Inner West. And that's all the areas where there’s a three storey height limit, you can't physically build any more properties, lots of young professionals can afford to live there, and so I think prices continue to rise. And I don't try to time the market. I think, even when the market slows, it generally slows down rather than goes down. So property is always more expensive tomorrow. It needs kind of medium priced areas. And that's the other thing, I'm buying medium price. So within 20% of the median price, so roughly 9–1.2, for a two bedroom unit in those areas. And I just keep accumulating, pull the equity out of one after it grows enough for another deposit, then I buy another one. And I just wait. And it's pretty much as simple as that.

Tyrone Shum:  

So for people who are just starting out, how can they actually get into a market like that and start accumulating thinking of the long term?

(17:17) Look, it is pretty tough. But it was tough 20, 30 years ago when I started as well. And so you got to do different things. And so it may be getting four or five jobs to build your deposit, it may be dealing with a brother or sister to show you serviceability, it may be working with a parent on a guarantor or to use some of their equity that quite often they've got. Basically, the bottom line is, if there's a will there’s a way, there's always a way of getting in there. If you can't afford a 500 grand or a million dollar property, buy 100 grand one, buy something way out west or in a different state, do your research and get the best property location you can and use that equity to then build up. I think that one of the issues with I guess the youth of today, if I didn't sound old and sound like my parents or something like that, is people expect to be able to buy a two bedroom in Bondi when they're 20 years old. Now Bondi is the best or the most expensive suburb, you can't expect that when you're 20 years old. And so it's something that you just gotta build on. So even if you're not into property, buy some shares. Now we're looking at a new product next year, which is called fractional ownership. So even if you had 50 grand say, or some savings towards 50 grand, there’s this new product now where you might be able to buy a 20th of a Bondi property, at least to get you in the market. So I think there really is no excuse these days, you just gotta want it enough and do whatever it takes to get in there.

(18:51) Yeah, it's interesting. And you mentioned fractional ownership there. I've heard a little bit about that story. For listeners who don't really know much about it, it's when there is, I think it's a trust from what I read about it in the paper, saying that the company will buy these properties and then split ownership of it to people who actually want to buy parts of it. Correct me, am I wrong? Is it something along those lines?

(19:14) Yeah, yep. And so look, it's a fairly new thing these days, the philosophy comes from, say if you had a million dollars, you wouldn't necessarily buy a million dollars of one share. So why buy a million dollars or one property? So obviously you buy little bits. And there's different pros and cons and stuff like that. So it's not quite such an easy thing. But in essence, yeah, they might split it into 10,000 shares of that million dollar property. And so effectively you can then with your $5,000 or $10,000 then buy a part of that. Say that you had 100 grand. Rather than buy 100 grand property and it’s only yourself that's in the middle of the work and you've got no idea if it will ever grow in value, you might prefer to get 10% of a Bondi property. And sure you might not get as much leverage, you might not have any control over it, or there might be a few more costs of getting in... But is it better to have 10% of a blue chip property than 100% of one that's absolutely rubbish in the middle of nowhere? And some people will make a lot of money from buying those hundred grand ones. And there's other people that will say, ‘No, I’d just rather a percentage of a blue chip one’. So there's just more and more options these days. And you need to work out and find someone that can truthfully tell you the real pros and cons of that strategy to work out if it's the right strategy for you.

(20:35) Yeah, that's right. And also, it's got to fit within what you want to do as well. So it comes back down to why? As you mentioned at the beginning of this interview.

(20:43) Yeah, and so the main thing, and I guess it's almost a disclaimer with these kinds of interviews is, there is no one right strategy. So just because I do something, it doesn't make it right. For all the other people in the audience, it might take 50% or 90%, or 10%, it depends on who you are. So it's very much a case of, look at the strategies, work out the pros and the cons of them, then go to some decent advisors that you're actually paying for advice. Because if you're not paying for them, effectively, they're biassed, and they're going to sell you something that they get a commission on. And so you need to go to independent financial advisors or accountants or mortgage brokers, to then work out, is it the right thing for you? And if it is, then go ahead and make a move and do something. 

He shares with us the habits he practises which help to boost his success. 

(21:38) I guess the the biggest thing is, I'm constantly pushing to learn and constantly pushing to invest, so I spend a lot of money in networking, and socialising, and going to meetings and learning at seminars and things like that, to just always be looking for whatever the next thing is, or to make sure that there's nothing that I'm missing. So it's, even for me, and I think I'm a reasonable expert in what I do. But I still don't get too complacent. And I make sure that I think maybe there's something I'm missing. And so one of the things I've done is, I advertise or I've shared what my wealth is, how much assets I've got, how much money I'm making, and my P&L’s almost in the media, and I’ve got lots of friends and advisors. And it's not to go and boast to say that this is how much money I've got. But I wanted people to question what I was doing and why I was doing it. And initially, a lot of financial advisors would say, ‘I wouldn't be investing in property, it's not liquid’. All these complaints and the rest of it. And I've learned all the counter arguments, to all of those different things. 

(22:47) And so I'm probably 99% confident of what I'm doing now, because I've pretty much put it out there and heard all the counter arguments that I could possibly get. Whereas I think a typical person, they don't tell anyone what they earn for living, they don't tell them what they've got in their bank and what their strategy is. And so I think it's very hard to become an expert at something if you don't talk about it. And say, if you take sports, if you want to get better at sports, people have coaches and they share and they go to the gym, and they have personal trainers. Because if someone else has done something they can then hopefully put them on a better path. But that's the whole thing with wealth is if you don't talk about money, you don't share it, there's no way you're going to get very clever there because you're only going to learn at your own learning pace rather than someone that's maybe 20 years ahead of you.

(23:36) Yeah, that's very important. It's very interesting that we apply and have coaches for sports. But a lot of us don't have coaches for wealth creation or property investing, because it is pretty much a journey. You know, if you want to improve on anything, you've got to really find and seek mentoring or help from others and seek the right professionals to help you grow your wealth base as well. So I think that that's a really good point that you've put out there as well. And it's great that you do share all that all your all your wealth, and your assets base and put that out in the media so that people can learn from you, not necessarily to boast as you said, but to actually learn and be inspired to go on a journey. And if the strategy that you're teaching every one of us is something that people resonate with, then definitely go ahead and apply that strategy as well. I guess to wrap up this podcast as well. Is there a book that you would recommend or or currently listen to, to share with the listeners?

(24:37) Look, obviously the best book in the world is ‘The Effortless Empire’, which I wrote back in 2004. But no look, I think there's a lot of really good books out there. And I would almost just go and buy them all. Or if you haven't got the money, go to the library. Books are the cheapest things. They're like 20 or $30 or something like that. And they really do give you a lot of information. Now, I guess one of the things is, some people are trying to make money from the books. And so they might have a series of 10 books, and they drip feed you stuff all the way through. Because then they want you to get the next book, the next book and the next book. I mean, one thing I did with my book is, so I think that I sold something like 60, or 70,000 copies, but never really actually sold them, we just gave them all away. Because what I thought for my book is, I want to tell everyone everything there is to know about property all in my book, because effectively, otherwise, I'm going to get lots of people coming to me wanting two or three hours of my time. And I can't afford all of that time to give to people. 

(25:38) So if I give them the book for completely free and tell them everything they need to know, the ones that are never going to buy my services or want to invest somewhere else or don't believe in the buyer's agents model, they'll take the book or get the information, they can go somewhere else. Whereas the ones that do believe in it, then say, ‘Hi, Chris, that's great. I've got three or four questions, and then we're good to go’. So I've actually put all the information in my book of everything I think I know. And it's obviously in a bit of a summarised form, because I wasn't trying to sell a series of 10 books. But I think it's a great book to give you the overall summary of positive cash flow versus negative geared and all the rest of it, and then if you decide you want to follow a different speciality, like you wanted to buy, renovate and flip, go and then get the 10 books on buy renovate and flip, or positive cash flow properties or negative geared or off the plan. So I think there's so much stuff out there, there's, again, there's really no excuse for people not to go there. And I think the libraries have legally got to have a copy of every single book that's around. So even if you've got no money, as long as you can afford a library ticket, then that's all the information that you need.

Thank you to Chris Gray, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.