February 22 2023
"We are happy to a prolific property investor make use of Properlytics!" - Marco Zande, Strategy Executive.
Arjun Paliwal was 22 when he bought his first home with his girlfriend and parents – a springboard that now sees him with 17 properties to his name.
“The portfolio at the moment is around $11.7m and that’s 17 properties, spread across a mixture of residential and commercial, and across five states including South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales.”
It’s been a seven year journey which saw the now head of InvestorKit build the confidence to buy five properties in one go last year alone as interest rates were rising.
“It started with having a passive income to be able to leave work, and then it got to a stage where it was larger passive income to also improve lifestyle, and now the goal is not only that, but also to inspire others that they can do the same.”
He said it was important for Millennials – or anyone looking to build wealth through property – to remember that compounding helped drive big wins.
“If someone’s aiming for a 50k, 100k, 200k, 500k passive income journey, the aim is still likely to be a 15 to 20 year timeline. I’ve learned to really focus on long term decisions, by making the best short term decision and hold for the long term.”
“In a 20 year period, investors should really aim to do the best they can to make those acquisitions happen in the first five to seven years of investment.”
Mr Paliwal was willing to do “whatever it takes” savings wise to build his real estate portfolio, starting with saving 40 per cent of net income.
“The system we had was the day after payday, we would save those percentages, but it would go to a two-to-sign account. It just makes it very difficult for you to really spend that. So we would just have to make do with what was left over and became a changed mentality.”
After the first three investment properties it became less about savings and more about equity, he said, with the aim to get maximum spread across cities and regions that looked to be strong performers.
“The main thing for me was to look at the local economies and housing market trends. I wasn’t looking for the size of it, I was looking for the strength and diversity of it.”
“The house,” he said, “means very little in the equation as much as the location does. Throughout my portfolio, I’ve got weatherboard homes, brick homes, 2008 built homes, 1940s and 50s built homes, even a 1920s built home. The house itself has just been focused on its condition and structure, checked by professionals, but I don’t sweat the small stuff beyond the basic due diligence of what detracts people, like floods, bushfire, main roads or a bus stop.”
Today his focus is on high income assets like unit blocks and commercial properties that require higher deposits to secure.
“It gets easier as time goes on once you get your foot in the door,” he said.
He suggested Millennials look at building a solid investment team around them, including a buyer’s agent, accountant and mortgage broker,
“What many people fail to realise is that property investment and its success is not decided upon by the price of the asset you buy but it’s those core fundamentals of the economy, supply and demand, and combine it with how much action you take.”
“It’s not uncommon to make purchases across Australia’s major regional centres from $400k. People could be getting into their first investment with one to three years of savings, and that’s not a long time in the grand scheme of things.”
Source: Courier Mail