Summary
I have an interesting episode for you guys today and I think you’re really going to like it. My guest today is Scott O’Neill. Scott bought his first investment property in 2010 with a $60K deposit after saving for 5 years. Just 8 years later, Scott and his wife had 28 properties generating $300K of profit each year plus around $7Million of equity. And Scott is very adamant that he didn’t receive any financial help, gifts, inheritance, living at home rent-free until his late 20’s etc. He’s self-made and agreed for me to dive deeply into exactly how he managed to do it.
Some of the topics we talk about today are:
- Scott’s background. What type of socioeconomic situation did he come from? (00:06:24)
- How did Scott come to be an investor? (00:11:41)
- The schools Scott attended and what type of career he had once he graduated from uni? (00:14:13)
- A timeline of Scott and his wife’s salary and savings rate during those 8 years from 2010 to 2018 (00:17:15)
- How did the banks let him and his wife load up on that much debt? Especially during the APRA crackdown in the early/mid-2010s. (00:42:04)
- How much of their success does Scott attribute to timing and luck vs skill and hard work? (01:00:26)
- How much he personally draws from his buyer agency business even after reaching financial independence? (01:13:39)
Links
- Website – Rethink Investing
Phenomenal podcast. Really enjoyed it.
Gracias amigo!
Do middle class Australians go to $30k a year schools?
lol… probably not in my book. But I didn’t get the sense that going to a fancy school assisted Scott throughout his journey. It could have, but it wasn’t mentioned in our conversation.
Nice podcast AFB. Thanks also to Scott for being upfront and transparent. What made this such a good listen is your experience and understanding of the property investment game and asking the ‘hard’ questions.
Well done.
Thanks Pete!
Great pod, I’d love to hear more about the how – commerical property has the yield but how do I go about researching and finding these high yield investments? ok, so Scott took a flyer up and down the coast to get a monster deal but how did/does he typically do it?
Thanks Scott.
I’ll add it to the list for the next podcast if Scott comes on again 🙂
Same goes for me. I bought 8 investment properties in the last 18-20 months and even people that know me on the fb group forums suggest im hiding something. Similar to Scotts story. 2 out of the 8 went through the roof up over 70% each. And 3 of them were close to 10% yields in a major city which people cant believe. And we pushed super hard and put every dollar into the next purchase until we were maxed.
Thanks for the pod mate – just wanted to comment that I’d definitely be interested in a commercial real estate based episode.
The barrier to entry from both a monetary and knowledge/understanding perspective seems high, so anything to assist in getting the ball rolling there would be awesome.
No worries Mark.
There seems to be a lot of interest. I’ll see if Scott is keen to come back on.
Great podcast. Would love it if you could do an episode on commercial property!
Thanks Ash.
I’ll see what I can do 🙂
This was an interesting listen, but it really rubs me the wrong way when people talk about property as nothing but an asset. In the case of residential property, that is someone’s home, and for commercial, ultimately the rental costs are passed on to a consumer. What does raising the rent on that IGA by $150k do to that business? How is the community that IGA serves affected when the owner has to raise prices to compensate? All so a shopping centre that is already turning a profit can be snowballed into ownership of another shopping centre somewhere else? Is that really necessary?
It’s important for rental tenancies to be available both residentially and commercially, and people who provide those properties have every right to benefit from them, but there have to be considerations beyond your own pocket if you are going to be in that line of business.
Agreed Tristan. I find it hard to celebrate or be impressed by these “success” stories. Especially, when young person around me is being priced out.
I Totally agree Matt.
My son, went to an auction the other day…Investor or developer…not sure…blew everyone out of the water. He said the looks on the other young peoples faces were heartbreaking.