“From Milking Cows to Milking Houses”
As a property investor John, my husband, and I have changed our hard working farming lifestyle of twenty-five years to one of financial freedom in only one year.
We commenced our married life in 1979 on a dairy farm in Nathalia, two hours north of Melbourne. Here we raised our five children. Over the first twenty-five years we worked physically hard and grew from very little, monetary wise, to purchasing several small farmlets and milking hundreds of cows. We knew there had to be another way to create wealth.
We decided that we needed to educate ourselves in the area of investing, with a lot of reading, attending seminars, beginner’s mistakes and consequently more learning. We embarked on investing in the residential property market after a failed attempt at share trading. Once we understood the power of leverage, compounding capital growth and using equity etc etc we couldn’t wait to utilize our available equity from the farm to purchase property. Over a forty week period we purchased forty houses in several states, only to be stopped in our tracks by the traditional lending system where we were told we couldn’t use any increase in equity from our upward spiraling purchases to service our debt. We were told “YOU CAN’T USE DEBT TO SERVICE DEBT, you’ll have to milk more cows to increase your REAL cash flow”. This wasn’t an option for us, we were already working our bodies to capacity.
We stagnated for the next few months while searching for an answer to this predicament. The answer finally came in the form of Bill Zheng and Investors Direct. John and I heard Bill speak at a seminar regarding property finance strategies. Bill’s information was contradictory to the lenders and general public’s thinking. He illustrated how you could use debt to service debt and use equity as a form of cash flow. This knowledge is what we had been searching for. It would open up new opportunities for us. We still continue to use Bill’s finance principles and Investors Direct continue to look after our property finance and they continue to help us expand our portfolio.
We sold the farm at the end of 2004 and our entire family moved to the Sunshine Coast, fifty minutes north of Brisbane. It is a beautiful part of the world, so like others, we have seen the enormous investment potential in this area and in the last twelve months have stayed very active, purchasing twenty properties within the Turner family portfolio.
Property investing is a family affair for us, with our four boys now having purchased a combined, yet individually owned, total of sixteen properties. Elle, our twelve year old daughter, is concerned she’ll never catch up to her brothers.
Property investing and helping other people understand the principles of investing is our passion. Many other investors have been inspired by our examples and the many experiences and learning curves we have been so willing to share. As a result we have decided to start a business,
(www.harvestinghouses.com.au) to help budding investors work through the maze of information when you first enter the property investing arena or when developing you property portfolio, in an easy to understand effective way. We start by helping you understand the utilization of equity finance right through to settlement of your property.
In future newsletters we will discuss and report on what’s happening in our personal property investing world and on the property front on the Sunshine Coast.
To visit our website click here: www.harvestinghouses.com.au
Marg Turner
Harvesting Houses
Sunshine Coast, Queensland
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