I am lucky that met a young guy by the name of Jimmy. He is just 24 years old this year and having a great property portfolio. His portfolio will can be found at the end of this article. I am pretty impressed with his achievement as many of his peers still partying at this time or stay happy go lucky kind of attitude.

I would like to take to thank Jimmy for willing to share his investing journey with the readers here.

Tell us a little bit about yourself

I was born in an average family, where none of my family members venture into business. My parent just work for 3 meals to raise all my siblings. I study and majoring in IT field. I started my career working in a big IT firm as a technician for more than a year. Later on I move into sales team as I realize that something has to be change.

What is your experience with real estate?

Basically, I have zero experience in the real estate industry. Not even a single family members or relative of mine has venture into real estate. In another words, I started from scratch on my own.

What got you started in property investing?

What gotten me started in property investing is when I start reading property investment books. I still remember that the first book I read which the author owns more than 70 properties throughout the world and that got me inspired to venture into property investing. The main impression of that book gave to me is “Never Work Again Through Properties” and the idea of not working and still having money is simply awesome!

Why do you choose investing into property investment since there are so many other investment vehicle out there?

Before investing into the property market, I was investing into mutual funds and foreign exchange market. After some time, I realized that these 2 markets unable to produce consistent profit over time. It is like riding a roller coaster which you cannot have control on it. That was then I realize that property investment is the best investment vehicle for me in the long-term. Let me tell you why I said so. It is simply because of 2 factors that attract me:

• assets will appreciate in value over time
• loan amount will decrease over time

What amaze me is my tenants help me to pay my bank installment along the way, meaning that I can own the property for free at the end of 30 years! On top of that, I will have extra pocket money every month. Where can you find such investment that can give you such return!

What was the most memorable lesson in your property investment experience?

The most memorable lesson is that, when I am in the process of applying loan for my 4th properties (An apartment), the loan process has taken for more than a year. Initially my loan is not able to go through due to my high commitment. The bank classified me as a high risk personnel due to own too many properties in such a young age.

I spend a lot of effort and energy to prove to bank that I am a good paymaster and bank will be able to be comfortable with me when they lend me money. That could be one of the biggest obstacles and I do not give up easily. Since I have set my goals earlier, I kept pursue it. I strongly believe that, setting a goal makes a big difference in overcoming challenges and obstacles ahead comparing to one who doesn’t set a goal.

I am grateful that throughout the last 3 years during my investment journey, I have made quite a good decisions and take massive actions to accomplish my own goals. I have to thanks to all the books I read and seminars I have gone through. I learned a lot of from their sharing.

What do you think was the biggest factor that attributed to your success in property investments?

I think the biggest factor that contributed for my smooth investing journeys is my parent’s contribution towards my investments. At the beginning of the journey, I do not have enough capital for down payment, the only source of my first seed of capital come from FA-MA bank. I managed to convince my parent to borrow me some money for the startup capital, but I made a promise to pay them back with no interest charged. In conclusion, the best way to source for capital is your own family members! Just kidding…

What are the criteria required to match before putting down your hard earn money?

I only have 2 criteria:

• Properties which has high potential of capital appreciation
• commands good rental yield.

Remember that if your property is easily rent out, then it is easily to sell off as well.

What is the best thing about investing in rental properties for beginners?

Investing in rental properties means that you investing in long-term. By doing that, you are not speculating. Besides that, if you buy good rental properties, you can have additional pocket money every month and allows you to continue your investment journey non stop.

How would you advise a young person, with zero experience, who wants to invest in properties? What are the risks involved?

Start as young as possible. Before you start thinking of investing in property, you must first invest in yourself and equip with knowledge by attending some seminars, read a lots of books and magazines related to property, and most important have several mentors or someone which you can learn from. All you have to do is just follow each of different mentor’s strategies and combine them all together. I fine tuned it to suit my own preference strategy. As per saying, investing will always has risk, but it will be minimal when you equip with the right knowledge.

As mentioned earlier, below is the Jimmy portfolio. Forgot to mentioned that he took 3 years to achieved below portfolio.

In just 3 years, Jimmy has accumulated $1.05 million dollar asset. Jimmy Total networth is $467,000. Almost half a million for Jimmy at the age of 24 years old. What a great feat for this ordinary guy making an extra-ordinary for himself! From all his four rental properties, he is able to pocket in $1400 positive cash flow.

He shared with me his goals:

Short term (2 years):

• 2015 -> Buy 2  rental properties
• 2016-> Buy 2 rental properties

Medium term (5 years)

• Accumulating total networth of $1 million
• Positive cash flow of $5,000 per month based on 5% rental yield

Long term (10 years)

• Accumulating total networth of $10 million
• Monthly positive cashflow of $20,000
• Target by 35 years old, 11 years to go

Thanks Jimmy for his unselfish sharing with us here. I wish Jimmy able to achieve his goals in the near future. If anyone want to shared their investment journey, you may contact the admin.