It seems like the media wants to bombard us with messages about how lazy millennials are.
We’re sure you’ve seen plenty of articles about how “millennials are killing X” or how they don’t want to work. But it’s absolute nonsense!
And to prove it, we have Greg and Karen. They’re an amazing millennial couple who’ve achieved some great results in their real estate adventure.
Who remembers the days of 17% interest rates?
They seem so long ago now, but that’s the rate that Greg and Karen had for their first property. At the time, they didn’t really know what they were going to do with the property. But, they had their start.
Over the next few years, they accumulated a couple of negatively-geared properties. And they also handled a few house-and-land packages.
The couple wasn’t doing too badly.
They just weren’t getting ahead.
No matter how much work they put in, they seemed to stay in the same place. Sure, they had their dream home and Greg had the cars he loved so much. But they were still negatively geared and relying on income from other sources to get by.
It was a bad experience with a friend that caused Karen to take action.
She’d always believed that people were inherently good. That was until one of her closest friends took her for a lot of money on a project. And it reached the point where Karen nearly lost her home!
They had to fight for a long while to keep their heads above water. But Karen lost her ability to trust in people and resolved to work on her own.
And then, she met Dymphna Boholt.
Slowly but surely, the teachings of ILRE got through to Karen. She realised that it’s not healthy to live a life where you don’t trust anybody. What’s key is that you trust the right people.
The couple joined ILRE in 2014 and got to work on investing property the right way.
They started focusing on asset protection and learned how to manufacture growth. And they committed themselves to their property journey. The couple attended 10 of our bootcamps in just three years and each one gave them new tools to work with.
Instead of working on deals to generate a little profit to pay for their home, the couple started concentrating on income. They started focusing on building a powerful equity position.
And over the next three years, the deals they did achieved amazing results.
Greg and Karen have made huge steps in their real estate journey.
They still primarily operate to make chunks of profit from deals. But now, they know how to fix properties up and manufacture amazing growth. And in just three years, they’ve created $1.8 million in profit from their deals.
Not only that, but they also have a few properties that they’re holding on to.
It’s important to note that each of these properties generates a positive cash flow. They’re no longer losing money for the sake of building a portfolio. And now, they’re working with somebody whom they can trust to take them forward.
There’s a lot that you can learn from Greg and Karen’s story. Here are three of the key lessons that any new investor needs to take forward.
Greg absolutely loves cars.
Karen knew this when she got together with him and that passion of his ate into their cash flow.
Greg saw his cars as investments…
But they’re not.
Cars start losing value the moment that you drive them off the lot. So instead of investments, Greg had a bunch of liabilities that held the couple back. He needed to give up on his toys so that they could focus their finances on property.
Maybe you have some toys or unneeded expenses that eat into your finances, too. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice a little fun to get to where you need to be.
There are sharks in the water that you need to avoid. And Karen found that out the hard way with the “friend” who took her for a ride.
If you team up with the wrong people, you could find yourself on the losing end of a deal.
Now, this isn’t to say you shouldn’t trust anybody. But if you do partner up with somebody – a mentor or someone you work with on a deal – do your research. Learn as much about who this person is and what they can offer before moving forward.
If your gut tells you not to work with them, listen to it and try to figure out why it’s giving you those signals.
Greg and Karen did a great job of accumulating assets before they came to ILRE. The problem was that they didn’t know what to do with their assets. They hadn’t heard of manufacturing growth, nor had protection in place for the assets.
Those are all crucial parts of an investment strategy.
If you’re not protecting yourself, your property empire could crumble in a heartbeat. And if you’re not actively working towards growth, you’re relying on the market to work in your favour.
The lesson here is that doing a deal isn’t the end of the road. You’ve still got to make that deal work for you and your investment plan.
$1.8 million in just three years is an amazing result.
And it’s not outside of the realms of possibility for you. Because with the right strategy and some great mentors behind you, it’s possible for you to achieve such results.
Take the lessons you’ve learned from Greg and Karen’s journey to heart. But most importantly, take the first step in your property journey.
Nothing will change until you decide to take action.