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This is a podcast I encourage you to listen to, because this amazing couple are paving their own courageous path. Bianca Brown and Joel Keefer joined me as students wanting to learn about how to invest in property and get high returns from their investments. Since joining my HI-RES program, we’ve become best mates! We have shared a massive marathon and work together every day. I am so very emotional about how they live their life to its fullest potential. Not only are they building their wealth, but they have not skimped on enjoying every day. If I had my time again at their age, I would do exactly what they are doing. 

About Bianca Brown and Joel Keefer

Joel and Bianca are a young creating a life of freedom for themselves by doing things a little bit different.

Both avid lovers of travel and adventure, the couple met in 2016 and have been on a mission to set themselves up for the future whilst having fun along the way. 

Joel has spent most of his working life in the FIFO (Fly In Fly Out) industry and purchased his first property in 2012. He is a natural leader and athlete, which has helped him achieve many successes. When he is not doing property deals you can find in the ocean on a surfboard! 

Bianca is a former Ballroom Dancer competing for many years at the National Championships. She has a passion for living an inspired exciting life and has proved to be multi talented across many industries, most recently launching her own Hypnotherapy venture.

Shortly after they met, they went on to complete their first live in renovation in 2017 around the same time they joined Ian Ugarte’s, High Income Real System Program. Since then it’s been lesson after lesson in property from renovations through to development. There has been both failures and successes, and they are all to aware that each property deal provides new learnings. 

The couple is about to embark on a 12 month adventure, where they will knock down their beloved yellow Queenslander, subdivide and building their new home. All the while, they will be travelling up the east coast of Australia in their freshly renovated Winnebago, Winston.

Voice Over (00:00:03):

Thanks for joining us for the Small Talk, Big Ideas podcast, a podcast to enrich your soul, where we have conversations with inspiring people about all things property, business and life and now the host of Small Talk, Big Ideas Ian Ugarte.

Ian Ugarte (00:00:24):

Today on Small Talk, Big Ideas, our podcast is with Joel and Bianca. They are part of my talented team and probably the most talented in my team but don’t tell anyone else that they have an incredible story of going from just buying property because you can to really having a strategic direction and also helping me save my business, enjoy Small Talk, Big Ideas. You can follow us on all the social media channels and you can find me at ianugarte.com.au where there’s lots of information that you can download for free, enjoy today’s podcast. So we’ve done a few things together in the last few years?

Bianca Brown (00:01:01):

Yeah we have.

Ian Ugarte (00:01:01):

Started with Joel joining my program, actually started with you listening to a podcast about-

Joel Keefer (00:01:06):

Podcast yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:01:08):

And then ended up being a student, then said that Bianca should work for us and I said, sure.

Bianca Brown (00:01:17):

Why not?

Ian Ugarte (00:01:18):

You’re only saying that because she’s your girlfriend and you’re supposed to say that, she started working with us and now you’re working with us too which is awesome. We can talk about that later. Why don’t we start right back from the beginning, Joel you’re from Victoria-

Bianca Brown (00:01:32):

Victoria.

Ian Ugarte (00:01:34):

Growing up?

Joel Keefer (00:01:35):

I grew up Southeast suburbs of Melbourne, Beaconsfield Barkway. Grew up playing sport, footy, basketball, I wasn’t a bad sportsman. I did better at sports than I did at school that’s for sure and yeah I guess I was heavily involved in the footy club toward the end where I was-

Ian Ugarte (00:01:58):

So what sort of footy because you said footy it could be three different things.

Joel Keefer (00:02:01):

Yeah it could be. So it was AFL Victoria, you’d probably read into, it’s probably going to be AFL and then I was doing some construction work there after I finished school and it wasn’t for me.

Ian Ugarte (00:02:01):

Year 10, Year 12?

Joel Keefer (00:02:11):

I finished school. I did Year 12. Finished that and then I was doing some underground drilling, which we do a bit of in the development industry.

Ian Ugarte (00:02:27):

So when you came out of school and went into construction, that’s what you were doing?

Joel Keefer (00:02:30):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:02:30):

Underground boring?

Joel Keefer (00:02:31):

Underground drilling.

Ian Ugarte (00:02:34):

Or they’re probably advanced a little bit more nowadays.

Joel Keefer (00:02:36):

So it was back in the bed boring and [inaudible 00:02:38] days and the directional drills were just starting to come in and so more guys were getting drills and the guys that I was working for down there, all they do now is just directional.

Ian Ugarte (00:02:49):

It’s amazing what they do because we’ve had a couple of different, I did a job in Sydney actually and there’s this weird little block and I think it was 67 square meters, this block of land and it was a shed and somehow they chopped the shed off 50 years earlier to be able to have a separate title. So this young guy bought it and the back laneway didn’t have any water, so they couldn’t get water to the place. So we had to bring it in and they did a direction of water around the corner 90 degrees into the laneway and then all the way up, it was about 150 meters, it was amazing to watch it and it was really early on when said it was still a bit-[crosstalk 00:03:23]

Joel Keefer (00:03:22):

Is this going to work?

Bianca Brown (00:03:23):

Where is this going to come out?

Ian Ugarte (00:03:27):

At one point it got really close and sort of, you could see the ground moving and I went back down under. So what did you do after the directional boring?

Joel Keefer (00:03:35):

So, I was in Victoria, living in Melbourne and I just, I hated the cold or just didn’t like, I thought there’s got to be more. So I actually applied for Uni up in the Sunshine Coast. I had a choice between Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast.

Ian Ugarte (00:03:49):

What did you do?

Joel Keefer (00:03:50):

Majored in business tourism.

Ian Ugarte (00:03:52):

Business tourism, degree in business tourism.

Joel Keefer (00:03:56):

Yup. So I just drove up, we won the flag. I was playing at Jim Brook 2004. I got accepted into Uni midway, mid semester and I think we were good. We were looking good doing the flag. So I’ll put it off for six months on the flag and then yeah, that summer I’d just drive up, drop the sunny coast.

Ian Ugarte (00:04:15):

So for anyone else who doesn’t play AFL, if the flag means that the premiership [crosstalk 00:04:20]. So then came up here and got that, Bianca you were already up here.

Bianca Brown (00:04:25):

Yeah. So-

Ian Ugarte (00:04:27):

So just start way back all the way from conception.

Bianca Brown (00:04:30):

Well, when a man and a woman. So I’m Sunshine Coast, local, born and bred and I grew up here went to school here and I moved to Melbourne for about a year and then moved to Sydney and just sort of in my early 20s, just sort of finding my feet and where I wanted to be and moved around a lot, I guess and then yeah, ended back up on the Sunshine Coast and just realized it’s one of the most amazing places and I probably needed those experiences to yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:05:01):

Found out.

Bianca Brown (00:05:01):

To figure it out. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:05:03):

Your family, your dad and mum and like your whole family grew up next to family. So tell us about because you’ve got, they’ve got a beautiful property up on this escarpment looking down at the coast.

Bianca Brown (00:05:15):

Yeah,

Ian Ugarte (00:05:16):

Can you talk about that?

Bianca Brown (00:05:16):

Yeah sure. So my grandparents they have this beautiful block of land or residential land that looks out over the Sunshine Coast and originally it was just my grandma. My granddad and they had the children there.

Ian Ugarte (00:05:32):

How many acres was it?

Bianca Brown (00:05:34):

I think it was 10 and yeah, so they brought the family up there and then as the kids grew up, they actually did a couple of subdivisions and they created two separate, lots of land, one for my uncle and then one for my dad. So we’ve got this little, no through road where you would drive past grandma and granddad wave to your uncle and then you’d go down to our house at the bottom there. So yeah, it was really nice.

Ian Ugarte (00:05:57):

And your granddad only passed away recently.

Bianca Brown (00:06:00):

Yeah

Ian Ugarte (00:06:01):

Most years.

Bianca Brown (00:06:01):

Yeah about, probably 18 months ago now. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:06:04):

[inaudible 00:06:04]

Bianca Brown (00:06:04):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:06:05):

And he served in the War as well.

Bianca Brown (00:06:07):

He did. Yeah

Ian Ugarte (00:06:08):

Yeah because I saw a couple of photos about that just recently with all these metals and stuff. So realistically your family has been in subdivision development for a long time.

Bianca Brown (00:06:21):

Apparently it goes way back. It’s in the family.

Ian Ugarte (00:06:21):

It’s in your blood.

Bianca Brown (00:06:23):

It’s in my blood.

Ian Ugarte (00:06:25):

And still in the fam two of the three is still in the family.

Bianca Brown (00:06:29):

Yeah that is right.

Ian Ugarte (00:06:32):

You went to school locally, you work locally, moved away, came back. You’ve got a whole bunch of skillsets that have developed over time. I mean, you’re not that old.

Bianca Brown (00:06:46):

Not that old.

Ian Ugarte (00:06:47):

Like you’ve been working say 10, 12 years. Right but you’ve got a huge amount of skill sets. Where did all that come from?

Bianca Brown (00:06:55):

I think just curiosity like my predominant background, I would say is customer service sales and I think I’ve done that over a lot of different industries, I guess. So I’ve picked up skills as I’ve gone along the way. I’ve got my own personal interest in health and wellness and personal development and human psychology. So I feel like just purely through curiosity and learning yeah, I’ve developed a skillset. Along the way, I don’t really have a badge or, I am this.

Ian Ugarte (00:07:30):

So there’s no Technical qualification that you’ve got.

Bianca Brown (00:07:33):

No.

Ian Ugarte (00:07:34):

It’s interesting.

Bianca Brown (00:07:35):

I’ve done a lot of certificates and diplomas and things like that, but I haven’t didn’t go to Uni or anything like that.

Ian Ugarte (00:07:40):

Yeah. It’s interesting a lot of people that are very successful, very wealthy, very knowledgeable, haven’t got a call. When I was doing, we started a business called co equity, which was about business owners that had exited their business with a successful exit that was sitting at home bored and come back into smaller businesses and put their input and take an upside of the other business and we had to do research about qualifications or whatever. It was about just over 30% of people that have a degree are using it in their field. So that means that 70% of people were just not using their degree at all. Okay. A couple of questions there. So firstly, what were you doing when you were working?

Joel Keefer (00:08:26):

So firstly, I was just working in hospitality on the coast and then started driving earth-moving machinery.

Ian Ugarte (00:08:35):

On the coast

Joel Keefer (00:08:35):

On the coast. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:08:36):

And during that time, you’ve moved away from your family. Do you find it difficult to make ends meet or you just, you always had work.

Joel Keefer (00:08:46):

And we were uni students, like we just made,

Ian Ugarte (00:08:46):

Do you live with others?

Joel Keefer (00:08:52):

So when I first moved up for the first year we lived out at now it’s called UniCentral. So it’s on campus central.

Ian Ugarte (00:08:57):

Oh yeah UniCentral.

Joel Keefer (00:08:58):

And then.

Ian Ugarte (00:08:58):

I sell units to investors.

Joel Keefer (00:09:03):

Yeah

Ian Ugarte (00:09:03):

Oh shit.

Joel Keefer (00:09:04):

Oh good. And then after a year, a bunch of us got together and we rented a house in Mooloolaba.

Ian Ugarte (00:09:10):

Co-tenancies. So you then at some point in time with the earth moving, had the experience to go out and start working in mines and then you had this excess cash. You decided that you needed to get into property. What’d you decide to do?

Joel Keefer (00:09:33):

I heard someone at work talk about a little suburb called Gunnedah.

Ian Ugarte (00:09:39):

That sounds pretty good. And I have a look at that

Joel Keefer (00:09:46):

And this old sleepy little town in new South Wales and I had a look and a lot of the houses, there were positively game that the rent was paying for him. So that’s-

Bianca Brown (00:09:46):

That’s him.

Joel Keefer (00:09:54):

That’s me. That’s exactly what it is So I went a look for a house in Gunnedah and bought one

Ian Ugarte (00:09:58):

So no education

Joel Keefer (00:09:58):

No.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:00):

I just heard from someone I met in boring Gunnedah.

Joel Keefer (00:10:04):

Yeah. You got to have a look at, then there was some newspaper articles Gunnedah as a place to be. It’s on the rise.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:09):

What is now?

Bianca Brown (00:10:10):

Its moving.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:12):

And so you bought out there?

Joel Keefer (00:10:13):

Yeah I did.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:13):

You happy with that?

Bianca Brown (00:10:13):

Actually.

Joel Keefer (00:10:14):

Well it hasn’t been bad. It hasn’t cost me money but even it hasn’t grown, maybe that was in 2012 maybe and it might have gone up $30,000.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:32):

Yeah.

Joel Keefer (00:10:33):

Maybe.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:33):

It’s moving strongly now and everyone that’s listening this are going, “Got to go by and get some.” because I heard it on a podcast and that would be the biggest mistake of their life. Interesting zoning too.

Joel Keefer (00:10:46):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:10:47):

is it neighborhood three or something like that? Its B five,

Joel Keefer (00:10:54):

B five, that’s it?

Ian Ugarte (00:10:55):

Yeah. And had restrictions trying to do stuff on there. I spoke to the counselor[crosstalk 00:11:02] once where she got to the stage where she goes, I really shouldn’t be talking to you anymore, do you liked me. You, then that’s the first property you bought.

Joel Keefer (00:11:10):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:11:11):

Next property.

Joel Keefer (00:11:12):

The next one was the one that I’m Ben Colonel I currently living in. So I, again I just had some surplus cash and it was back in the days when you could get a 95% lend quite easily. And so I had some saved up and I wanted to live near the beach and I was previously looking for, I was looking at apartments and stuff along sort of the beachfront and I had to look at quite a few and while I was away at work, one of my mates rung me and he’s like, Oh, you know that little house that we used to, that we lived in human lens, Alan lens, they lived there and grace lived there for all this house. Everyone’s sort of lived in this house.

Bianca Brown (00:11:58):

My friend lived there.

Joel Keefer (00:11:58):

Yeah

Bianca Brown (00:11:58):

Everyone’s lived in this house.

Joel Keefer (00:11:58):

I guess, it’s for sale. I go, “No way.” Checked it out and it was going to auction, I was only home for a seven day period. It was going to auction while I was home. Okay. I’ll drop in and I’ll have a look and yeah, I liked what I saw. I didn’t bid at auction, wasn’t registered to bid but did you get, I got passed in, luckily it got passed in and it was fairly rundown overgrown. The guy that owned it he lived overseas, so there’d been no sort of maintenance or anything. Yeah, it was a bunch of people at the auction but it got passed in. So then I just started chatting with the agent. I think you never know the agents, there’s always other people involved anyway. So anyway, I ended up getting it for a $600,000 flat.

Ian Ugarte (00:12:52):

What year?

Joel Keefer (00:12:53):

That was 2013 or 2014?

Ian Ugarte (00:12:54):

$600,000? Property prices double every 10 years. What’s it worth today sitting as it is?

Joel Keefer (00:13:04):

As it is $1,200,000.

Ian Ugarte (00:13:07):

So it’s doubled in less than 10 years and it’s moving like crazy at the moment?

Joel Keefer (00:13:14):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:13:15):

Not a bad purchase for somebody to know whether they’ve just bought it emotional.

Joel Keefer (00:13:19):

Yeah that was a little fluke.

Ian Ugarte (00:13:23):

Not bad, so you ended up buying that place for $600,000 and it’s one block away from the beach and you are in what I know now and on the Sunshine Coast is the Golden Triangle. Explain that.

Joel Keefer (00:13:37):

So, yeah. I guess a little pocket. Essentially three sides triangle but it’s sort of up on the head land and so that sort of triangle out overlooks the ocean.

Ian Ugarte (00:13:49):

So it’s not like it’s just one or two streets. It’s like a fair bunch of streets that creates a triangle shape.

Joel Keefer (00:13:54):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:13:56):

Right. Okay. So you buy that one again, you bought that one without any thought theory or background behind it.

Joel Keefer (00:14:03):

Just close to the beach.

Ian Ugarte (00:14:05):

You also then go and buyers agent you then get caught in the buyers agency. Now either be careful here because we together run a buyers agency, and the one thing that I always said was that I’ve always thought that buyers agents have a conflict of interest because they get paid by finding your property, so they’ll find to any shit. Thankfully we don’t do that. You went and sought a buyers agent?

Joel Keefer (00:14:27):

I did. I got sucked into the marketing and figured it was the right thing to do at the time. I had the spare cash, I was working away. I wasn’t educated, they were educated. So yeah, I actually bought two properties through them.

Ian Ugarte (00:14:48):

Two.

Joel Keefer (00:14:48):

I bought two. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:14:49):

So that one and?

Joel Keefer (00:14:50):

Not the one we are living.

Ian Ugarte (00:14:51):

No sorry. Yeah. I’m already forward planning because I know the property. So you bought one on the Gold Coast?

Joel Keefer (00:15:00):

Yeah. So they were both on the Gold Coast. Three bed, two bath townhouse and a two bed, one bath unit.

Ian Ugarte (00:15:07):

The three bed townhouse was in a complex, like it wasn’t one, two or three in the complex? 75.

Joel Keefer (00:15:17):

75 or something. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:15:21):

The problem with that is obviously as soon as someone that needs to sell really quickly needs to sell at a lower price that then establishes the price of your townhouse.

Joel Keefer (00:15:29):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:15:29):

It was cashflow neutralish. It was just a little bit pregnant, as we say a little bit negative but not hurting you.

Joel Keefer (00:15:39):

No it wasn’t hurting me. Had a few shotgun tenants, cats and things ended up in there and pull up carpet and bits and pieces But yeah, it was about neutral.

Ian Ugarte (00:15:54):

And the unit?

Joel Keefer (00:15:55):

The unit was pretty much the same. It was older complex of maybe eight from memory. It wasn’t far back from the beach either but yeah it wasn’t doing much. I ended up doing Airbnb on that unit toward the end. Got a bit better return doing that.

Ian Ugarte (00:16:16):

And then, so-

Joel Keefer (00:16:19):

And then so, I actually first before I sold it, so I hadn’t made some pallet furniture and all sorts of staff and staged it with all this pallet furniture and it was all second or secondhand couches and stuff but it looked like I, it wasn’t bad and then yeah sold it. So it was awfully staged and everything when we sold it and they wanted my pallet furniture. So they took nearly all, one of the old, like pretty much all the furniture but the sticking point was this one bar. And…

Ian Ugarte (00:16:48):

And you wanted the bar?

Joel Keefer (00:16:49):

I wanted the bar [crosstalk 00:16:51]

Bianca Brown (00:16:53):

He made it himself. He was not willing to let it go. I still have it.

Joel Keefer (00:16:55):

They took the rest of it. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:16:57):

So you took the bar?

Joel Keefer (00:16:59):

We took the bar. Yeah. So there was a big fridge and stuff.

Ian Ugarte (00:17:01):

Is that the one that you work for?

Joel Keefer (00:17:01):

No.

Bianca Brown (00:17:08):

That’s 2.0. That’s the second one. The first one is downstairs.

Ian Ugarte (00:17:09):

Right. So at the same time you have a PPR deal in Nambour. Do you want to talk about that?

Bianca Brown (00:17:18):

Yeah, sure.

Ian Ugarte (00:17:19):

You grew up Nambour.

Bianca Brown (00:17:21):

Rosemount.

Ian Ugarte (00:17:24):

Sorry Rosemount, sorry. Upper Nambour Heights. So Nambour at the time wasn’t known for the best suburb on the Sunshine Coast.

Bianca Brown (00:17:38):

No. So Joel and I were looking for, so it was a PPR deal but we were looking for something that we could renovate and sell. So yeah, we did our due diligence and we were looking our budget where we could go that wasn’t, we still wanted to live on the Sunshine Coast. We didn’t want to move too far away and yet it was sort of fitted a few of our criteria, so we ended up buying there. So we lived in that one for 12 months while we renovated it.

Ian Ugarte (00:18:04):

I think it was longer. [crosstalk 00:18:07]

Bianca Brown (00:18:07):

Just longer, yeah I think we got it in May and we moved out in the following July. So it wasn’t.

Ian Ugarte (00:18:13):

Not too much, okay. So let’s take a step back because you had to meet at some point in time. So let’s talk about that. You Joel were doing firefighter work?

Joel Keefer (00:18:30):

I had just come home permanently from doing it. So, I was traveling around Australia, my camper van and I was flying myself to and from work from wherever I was in my van. So I was working three weeks on and then one week off I’d fly myself to my van and I’d keep.

Ian Ugarte (00:18:49):

So you would have to get to a major city of some sort though.

Joel Keefer (00:18:52):

Yeah, so like Darwin anywhere, there’s a few spots over in WA and then I was actually working in WA, so I ended up getting the van.

Ian Ugarte (00:19:01):

Because you were working at that point, you’d gone to WA to do the firefighter work.

Joel Keefer (00:19:06):

Yeah. So I was there, I was out working over in the Pilbara and anyway, I made my way across the top and then WA and it was coming into Christmas and I had a week off work. I had my van at work at the time and I had driven out to Exmouth for the week and then on the way back the van started coughing and spluttering and here we go and it took about, what should have been about three and a half hour trip back to work took over nine hours. We got back after midnight and the next day a new mechanic in town took it in and he had a quick look at it and he’s like, I think you’ve done the head and it was coming really close to Christmas.

                  He said, we’re going over to France for Christmas for a month, the van wasn’t running. I was like what am I going to do? So I just left the van there. We were shutting down our project was finishing and I thought I’ll just fly home. Until I get the van sorted and then come back and so while I was home.

Ian Ugarte (00:20:09):

So I got home because your mom, none of your family knew you were coming home.

Joel Keefer (00:20:12):

No one knew I was coming home except dad. Dad knew, dad came and picked me up from the airport.

Ian Ugarte (00:20:17):

Did you get in trouble from your mom?

Joel Keefer (00:20:17):

Yeah sure. I’m sitting there. It was early in the morning. I caught the red-eye across at night and then I was, “Dad come pick me up from the airport.” I was hiding in the kitchen and mum walked into the kitchen. She’d been out walking the dogs or something she’s coming to the kitchen. I said, “Mom, can I make you a coffee?” And she said something like, “What the fuck are you doing here?” And then she’s just freaked out. Then she just started bowling. That’s mom. She starts bowling. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:20:54):

She pulls over some incredibly incredible things, like high ropes and stuff.

Joel Keefer (00:20:59):

Yeah she does, mum and dad is super active. They’ve done camino over in-

Ian Ugarte (00:21:06):

Spain.

Joel Keefer (00:21:07):

Yeah but they’ve climbed.

Bianca Brown (00:21:11):

Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Joel Keefer (00:21:11):

Mt. Kilimanjaro, yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:21:12):

That one that we’re going to run.

Joel Keefer (00:21:13):

That one that we’re going to run.

Ian Ugarte (00:21:14):

Yeah.

Joel Keefer (00:21:14):

They’ve done a lot, so yeah. Super active.

Ian Ugarte (00:21:16):

So you’re back. And you moved back into.

Joel Keefer (00:21:21):

Yeah. So that house is sort of upstairs downstairs and I’d always kept a room for me downstairs and so from when I came home for a week, when I wasn’t working and so yeah, I was home and the guys upstairs were having a party. “One of the boys having his 25th, do you want to come along?” I said, “Yeah sure I’ll come along.” And lo and behold Bianca was one of the friends.

Ian Ugarte (00:21:49):

So because I’ve never really heard the detailed story, when Bianca walked in, was this shadow of light around her and she glided into the lounge room. When did you first notice each other?

Joel Keefer (00:22:02):

We would have been out on the deck I think, it was that you’re going to have to correct me here. I think it was out on the deck.

Bianca Brown (00:22:07):

You’ll have to correct me. I’m thinking you answer first. No, I was on the deck and I just remember chatting to you out on the back deck and saying-

Ian Ugarte (00:22:16):

Was there concerted effort. Did you go, there’s a girl I want to go and talk to and because she could be my future wife?

Joel Keefer (00:22:22):

Yeah, definitely. There was definitely an attraction there from straight away 100%.

Ian Ugarte (00:22:29):

And so for those of you who are not watching this and listening to it, we haven’t got the two most unattractive people on earth. We, God forbid if you have an ugly baby. [crosstalk 00:22:39] So we’ll get to the next part of that but your nickname Tarzan where did that start?

Joel Keefer (00:22:48):

It started doing firefighting and just on our side, a couple of the boys just-

Ian Ugarte (00:22:55):

Any reason or just your looks there?

Joel Keefer (00:22:57):

Yeah, just the looks and the hair, definitely. Then me in the gym have an evening jumping around-

Ian Ugarte (00:23:02):

Shirt off.

Joel Keefer (00:23:04):

Not out at work though.

Ian Ugarte (00:23:07):

Why not?

Joel Keefer (00:23:10):

I do remember in that first meeting though at home and Bianca’s telling me like, “You should be putting a pool in the backyard here.”

Bianca Brown (00:23:20):

The landlord we need to talk.

Joel Keefer (00:23:24):

And the pool just for fun because the ocean’s a block away.

Bianca Brown (00:23:28):

That’s right. Well, my friend lived there and I was always around there and I’d never met the landlord. So we were there quite often in the backyard, in the little block. So I was like, finally my opportunity.

Ian Ugarte (00:23:38):

It’s an ulterior motive. So I’ll talk to him. Pretend I like him. He puts it pool in.

Bianca Brown (00:23:43):

No it was that but I just thought it was a nice suggestion that, “Hey, this could be really good for you.”

Ian Ugarte (00:23:50):

It’d be awesome, if you went down to Big W and bought your blow up 300 mil deep, so you can have a pool in the backyard.

Bianca Brown (00:23:58):

We already had one.

Joel Keefer (00:24:01):

That’s what they were using.

Ian Ugarte (00:24:01):

That’s what you were doing?

Bianca Brown (00:24:02):

That’s why I was like, perfect it’s time for an upgrade.

Ian Ugarte (00:24:03):

So you talked that night. Did you get on straight away?

Joel Keefer (00:24:06):

Yeah.

Bianca Brown (00:24:09):

Yeah definitely We talked for hours. Yeah.

Joel Keefer (00:24:12):

Then we got pizza.

Ian Ugarte (00:24:12):

After the party?

Bianca Brown (00:24:15):

I think that’s when he decided he really liked me because I was like, we should order pizza and I paid for it. So he was like, “Job done.”

Ian Ugarte (00:24:26):

So at the time, did you make a decision to stay back permanently then or you still did firefighting?

Joel Keefer (00:24:32):

Yeah, now I stayed back permanently. So I always had in my mind to just start my own little earth moving business and I’m not sure, had I bought any equipment when I met you? I’m not sure.

Bianca Brown (00:24:47):

I think it was like sliding doors of you were just starting up the business. 

Ian Ugarte (00:24:53):

Alright. So you go and what point in time, it was before the Nambour purchase that you started getting some education

Joel Keefer (00:25:05):

Just before Yep.

Ian Ugarte (00:25:07):

So did you purchase number on purpose because of the education?

Joel Keefer (00:25:10):

Yeah, so we wanted to, we would definitely want it to do a little chunky. And so that was what that was.

Ian Ugarte (00:25:16):

They’re going to have a little up slide of money, get more back than what you put into it. The good thing for you is that, as a firefight worker at the time, you would have been listening to multiple podcasts because you’re sitting in a machine for 12 hours a day. What are some of the podcasts that you listened to?

Joel Keefer (00:25:33):

Joe Rogan. Jocko.

Ian Ugarte (00:25:38):

Yeah Jocko.

Joel Keefer (00:25:40):

And all of real estate.

Ian Ugarte (00:25:43):

Yeah. There is a guy there that did some of the early podcasts and I love real estate because it was amazing.

Joel Keefer (00:25:50):

I remember him saying, if you do a renovation and you don’t put a glass sliding door.

Ian Ugarte (00:25:59):

[inaudible 00:25:59]

Joel Keefer (00:25:59):

You got something wrong with you.

Ian Ugarte (00:26:00):

There’s something wrong with you.

Bianca Brown (00:26:01):

So what did we do in Nambour? We did [crosstalk 00:26:05] this big, it was huge. It was really tall. We had to cut open a bigger doorway because it was too high and I float it up to the deck. So-

Ian Ugarte (00:26:13):

Brilliant difference.

Joel Keefer (00:26:14):

Absolutely.

Bianca Brown (00:26:15):

100%.

Ian Ugarte (00:26:15):

I mean, you look at my place down there. We’ve got nine, eight and a half meters. We’re not talking to three meters. I got a big, smaller than your big. So you then go in and you join and start getting some education and you sold Nambour after you joined HI RES?

Joel Keefer (00:26:39):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:26:41):

You didn’t take the opportunity to buy first time that I got HI RES out there?

Joel Keefer (00:26:45):

No.

Ian Ugarte (00:26:47):

You joined straight up[inaudible 00:26:48]

Joel Keefer (00:26:48):

Yeah. I might not have even been. Yeah. I think I was maybe involved in the whole thing when, you first started [crosstalk 00:26:56]

Ian Ugarte (00:26:56):

Probably the second, third.

Joel Keefer (00:26:57):

Second round yeah.

Bianca Brown (00:26:58):

I remember as soon as he started hearing about HI RES and positive cashflow and making sure you put yourself in the best position for the next one, I just remember him being like, “We need to do this.”

Ian Ugarte (00:27:12):

And interestingly, the Facebook page, the members only Facebook page, when someone joins I’ll show it to you about this the other day. So as a teacher, if I went into a TAFE class, I could tell, give me two hours and I could tell it without having met anyone in the class, I could tell the bottom third, the middle third and the top third of that class within two hours and I also, I was telling Joel about this, I’d moved college, so when you move college, you get all the classes until you earn your stripes and I had two first-year classes. So brand new, never been to TAFE before most of them just out of school because the careers advisors says, “You can’t read and write and you can’t add up numbers, so you got to become a tradie which is the thing you need the most.”

                  And so one class I treated super harshly, homework turning up late. I just gave him a hard time. The other class, I just mucked around like crazy and I chose the second class on purpose because they were the least talented as far as me being able to choose the classes. First six months when the first set of exams came around and results came out, the second class that I treated just mucked around with the whole time outperformed the first class streaks ahead and so then knowing clearly this is working. So I then did it for the first class. They didn’t know what had hit them in the second half of the year because all of a sudden it was a different guy. What happened here?

                  I know really quickly when someone joins HI RES, the questions that they’re asking and the way that they’re asking them although they don’t have the information is a clear indicator for me that that person’s going to make it. I know it, I can see it. There’s other people that have to try really hard to get that knack about themselves and so the one thing I noticed really early on for you Joel was that the questions you were asking, was yeah this guy’s going to make it and you just happened to end up being his girlfriend.

Bianca Brown (00:29:11):

Lucky me.

Joel Keefer (00:29:14):

Better half.

Ian Ugarte (00:29:15):

Better half. So with all of that said done and you working with us, you sold Nambour at a profit, you sold the unit. Couldn’t sell a townhouse.

Joel Keefer (00:29:27):

Couldn’t sell it. No. I paid $265,000 for it and then was trying to sell it, I think it was three years later, three or four years later, started at $320,000 could get a $310,000 and I think the lowest we might’ve gone was offering it for $310,000 and we still couldn’t get rid of it.

Ian Ugarte (00:29:52):

And they would low-ball offers?

Joel Keefer (00:29:54):

Yeah under $300,000 were the offers coming through. Yeah. So, I didn’t really want to take that. So I ended up doing a little bit more research on that property and what it could actually do for us and it turned out that’s something could be done.

Ian Ugarte (00:30:14):

So tested the market?

Joel Keefer (00:30:15):

Yeah. So we tested the market.

Ian Ugarte (00:30:16):

You didn’t think it was an area where singles and couples would live.

Joel Keefer (00:30:19):

No. And honestly, it wasn’t that close to shops and public transport and those sorts of things that we look for. So I didn’t think it would that work that well but I did a test and the response was huge. So yeah, I started feeling my way through, I thought, can it be done in a townhouse? What needs to happen, everything around all around that and then-

Ian Ugarte (00:30:44):

At that stage Bianca had started to work with us?

Joel Keefer (00:30:47):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:30:48):

So working your way into the inner circle, I always find that that’s a good thing and because that’s when, I was like we, we’ve got a Slack channel on social quotes that I just think of at two o’clock in the morning and there’s one I put in today that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree but sometimes it can roll down the hill and that’s about getting yourself away from where you’ve dropped from to getting around people that know much more than you do and when you’re in the inner circle of where you want to go to, that makes a big difference. So I don’t deny that people might say, “Yeah, but Bianca and Joel had it easy because they’re in the inner circle.” No they had to work to get to the inner circle and from that stuff comes too.

                  So to finish that story I was getting hammered on Facebook about what I was doing and people give me a hard time about slum houses and you can’t do this in any council and you can’t get approval quickly and you can’t do the conversions that quick, so we formulated a 48 hour challenge.

Bianca Brown (00:31:54):

Yeah. We were like, let’s do it. Not only can we do it in a short space of time, let’s do it in 48 hours.

Ian Ugarte (00:32:00):

Why wait a week when we can do it in 48 hours?

Bianca Brown (00:32:04):

Yeah, that was good. It was hard.

Ian Ugarte (00:32:06):

It was and it was really great. I mean, we had 1,000 on the webinar, so we started Tuesday at 6:00 and finished at Thursday 6:00. Basically a video every hour. An hour and half for me, I think it was maybe sleep in that 48 hours. So I was wrecked but we got it done and-

Joel Keefer (00:32:32):

So just for everyone made three, we took a three bed, two bath townhouse and turn it into three bed, three bath, three little kitchenettes in the space of 48 hours, which was very interesting, like you said there wasn’t much sleep there.

Bianca Brown (00:32:58):

And it didn’t just involve the additions. So there was an additional bathroom we’ve added two kitchenettes. We moved the laundry out of walls and doors and bits and pieces, but not only did we get the renovation itself finished, we also staged it.

Ian Ugarte (00:33:11):

At the same time.

Bianca Brown (00:33:12):

At the same time, so when we went live at the end of the 48 hours, we got to showcase what it would actually look like fully furnished and ready to go for tenants and yeah, I think it’s an amazing outcome.

Joel Keefer (00:33:24):

Yeah. Went from 360 a week to 830, I think maybe 850 something now maybe. I think what’s interesting about that too, the big thing that we spoke about in the lead up to that was in your presentation that you do the fastest growing demographic of homelessness in Australia at the moment is-

Ian Ugarte (00:33:49):

Is 50, 55 females.

Joel Keefer (00:33:51):

Yeah. First two residents we got in that was women over the age of 50.

Ian Ugarte (00:33:57):

And absolutely loving the ability to be able to save some rent and get utilities included and have their own space, which they don’t have that choice at that price point.

Joel Keefer (00:34:06):

No.

Ian Ugarte (00:34:09):

The third room took a little bit longer to fill.

Joel Keefer (00:34:15):

It didn’t honestly didn’t take that long. It was a lead up to Christmas, I think to two fields straight away and the third one was just in early January but yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:34:25):

They were unsure about filling it with someone other than, a female.

Joel Keefer (00:34:27):

Yes because we had two older females in there now and the property manager was a bit unsure about essentially putting a male in that third room, we ended up having a young guy, I think in his 20s, he was super quiet. It was a good mix.

Bianca Brown (00:34:46):

They the property manager let us know that they’d formed their own little community and they would catch up often. So even though they had their own areas, they’d become a little community within the household. So yeah it’s everything that you talk about.

Ian Ugarte (00:35:02):

So that’s [inaudible 00:35:03] doing its thing, you go off and you start realizing because of the education that the-

Joel Keefer (00:35:14):

I will just add something to that. So we couldn’t sell it for $320,000. We couldn’t sell it for $310,000 and then after we did that conversion, we did that for $20,000, I think you know the numbers better, about 20,000 and we got a valuer in a couple of days after we finished the conversion, they voted at 330,000. So it came in at a value more than we could sell it for. So anyway.

Ian Ugarte (00:35:37):

That was a good outcome. So that because of education, turn that property around, even now it was done sold to you by the buyers agent. Now it just happens to be going up so as the rest of Australia other than Sydney and Melbourne Central. You realize because of the education that emotional purchase of being near the beach because that’s where you want it to be, it’s not a bad block of land.

Joel Keefer (00:35:59):

Yeah, there’s a few little things about that block that’s positive and did some research on that that, it turns out it’s in medium density and subdivided, we can do a bunch of things there, we’ve got all the approvals now. I mean, we’re just waiting for some builders quotes to come in and we’ll be ready to go with that one. Probably talk about it a bit more.

Ian Ugarte (00:36:26):

Yeah. Let’s talk about it. So let’s talk about what someone who wasn’t educated was going to do it with, if you didn’t know what you could do on that property, what would you have done knocked down the house and build a house that was big,

Joel Keefer (00:36:37):

Yeah big house, then also you go through different stages of the education, I suppose and then, so then I looked at subdividing and keeping the house and selling the back block of land off then I looked at and so that was going to be the thing that I was going to do. I was going to keep the house and sell the back block and then you get, learn more and more along the way. And then I was going to-

Ian Ugarte (00:37:03):

Did I say to you at some point in time ago, you won’t be selling anything? Did I say that to you? I don’t remember if I said something like that too, but I do remember having a discussion about why would you sell it?

Joel Keefer (00:37:11):

Yeah, I do sell it. Yeah and then we were going to keep the existing house, slide it to the rear because it couldn’t stay where it was, we couldn’t get a driveway down past, it could go to the rear, renovate that and then build on the front one but then we did the numbers on that. It wasn’t great. So-

Ian Ugarte (00:37:30):

They were okay but it wasn’t great.

Joel Keefer (00:37:34):

They were okay. The cost of the renovation, we could probably have just built something almost brand new for-

Ian Ugarte (00:37:40):

Yeah. And you would still would have had a secondhand product which is a problem I’ve got with houses that get moved from site.

Joel Keefer (00:37:45):

So then, the final thing that, we looked at, which came from the education was now subdividing into two, we’re building a duplex on the real lot, three stories. One of them has a rooftop and we’ll get ocean views and then we’re building our house on the front lot and that’ll have three stories as well.

Ian Ugarte (00:38:09):

Your PPR will be getting approval for ruining.

Joel Keefer (00:38:15):

Yep.

Ian Ugarte (00:38:16):

So you’re using the strategy of co-living in your own home where some people would say that’s absolutely crazy. Just give us some numbers on this, on your projections because we haven’t started subdivision or anything yet by the end of this deal you’ll end up with a duplex down the bottom. Plus your principal place of residence. You’ll be living on site top floor. How many square meters on top floor?

Joel Keefer (00:38:44):

About 100.

Ian Ugarte (00:38:44):

100 square meters. Top floor rooftop garden, views of the beach.  Tell us what the uplift in value. So how much equity gain will you have?

Joel Keefer (00:38:54):

Definitely near $1,000,000.

Ian Ugarte (00:38:56):

$1,000,000 of equity uplift, on a principal place of residence deal. Now I know the answer to this one but I’m going to presume I don’t, but truly Joel and Bianca, when you’re living there, it’s going to still going to cost you money to live there. What’s the cashflow going to be?

Bianca Brown (00:39:16):

Last time-

Joel Keefer (00:39:17):

Last time we did the numbers, a bit of a 50 grand would be now with everything that’s happening. It’d be close to add 70 grand.

Ian Ugarte (00:39:24):

Sorry, just one second. You’re going to do a deal. That’s going to set you up with $1,000,000 of equity and a wage of $70,000 while you still live there for the rest of your life, that would do 80% of people in Australia. One deal.

Joel Keefer (00:39:43):

100%

Ian Ugarte (00:39:45):

Is it a unicorn possibly? Going to it’s doable in other sites and but you just happen to stumble upon it in a good way and you bought it at 600.

Joel Keefer (00:39:56):

Yeah, definitely bought well, and honestly I got lucky 100%.

Ian Ugarte (00:40:00):

But it’s the lucky is.

Bianca Brown (00:40:03):

The lucky is acquiring it. I think the work that went into well, what else can I actually do with this? The exploration to actually figure out what you can do to maximize its potential. That’s where the uplift has come from.

Joel Keefer (00:40:17):

Yeah. It’s a good point, doing what we were originally thinking of doing would have been. Yeah, you’re right. You did well.

Ian Ugarte (00:40:23):

So luck learning under the correct knowledge. That’s what the acronym for luck is and I don’t believe in anything such as luck or coincidence again, things don’t happen just for a reason they happen because they were motivated to be a reason. All right. So that’s great little deal, you buy a block of land in the infamous Nambour and you decide to put a duplex on it.

Joel Keefer (00:40:54):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:40:56):

Good little deal.

Bianca Brown (00:40:58):

Was, it was actually one of those ones when you talk about there’s no such thing as coincidence. We actually had a contract on another block of land to do a duplex build` and long story but basically at the very last minute, the seller pulled the contract from us, which is unheard of

Ian Ugarte (00:41:18):

Not in a great market at the time.

Bianca Brown (00:41:20):

Either not in a great market at the time the guy had probably pushed some things through and hadn’t actually finished the day as he was supposed to, which he knew we knew. So, he got the opportunity to pull the contract.

Ian Ugarte (00:41:31):

So because there was a condition in the contract to say that you could, well, either party could remove because it wasn’t a proper title yet because the conditions of consent hadn’t even though there had been given the conditions, but they hadn’t completed all the conditions, he decided to use that to pull it.

Bianca Brown (00:41:47):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:41:48):

Do you think that was because he was off with you or because-

Bianca Brown (00:41:52):

We, no. We asked for an extension because of finance, we had conditional approval and it was kind of down to the wire and we’re sort of waiting on feedback from the sister, which didn’t come through and when we hadn’t satisfied that clause, the next day we’d asked for, well, do we have the extension? And we had unconditional finance approval the next day he didn’t extend it.

Ian Ugarte (00:42:13):

[inaudible 00:42:13]

Bianca Brown (00:42:13):

So, it was, it’s happened a few times, so yeah, I would say a good agent. He, someone said, well, what about this one? Because I rang up on another block and I was Oh no, that’s not really what we’re looking for but we looked at it and the set of plans that we had for the original block fitted on it perfectly, so same thing. So we ended up with the same deal just in a different location and this one came off. So…

Ian Ugarte (00:42:46):

Purchase of land under 200, which you wouldn’t get at the moment because the market’s moving so quickly and bill cost. So all in for about 700 cost and bits and pieces.

Joel Keefer (00:42:58):

Counts and contributions it’s just over $700,000.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:01):

So it’s just over $700,000 refinance has just been valued and it’s just going through now, what’s the refinance on it?

Bianca Brown (00:43:11):

So it was $880,000.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:12):

$880,000 in value. So you’re getting all your money back?

Joel Keefer (00:43:15):

It’s just about very close.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:17):

And cashflow because they’ve rented. So these are places that would normally rent of 4, 000 to 5,500 and you’re getting?

Bianca Brown (00:43:24):

We’re getting, I’m going to-

Joel Keefer (00:43:26):

[inaudible 00:43:26]. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:29):

Instead of getting 900, you’re getting 1,800, what’s the cashflow on it?

Joel Keefer (00:43:34):

Yeah. 3,800 for you.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:38):

3,800, that’s a good outcome.

Bianca Brown (00:43:39):

It’s a good outcome.

Joel Keefer (00:43:41):

Deal for free.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:42):

Yeah. It doesn’t cost you any money. What’s the return on that one. Well it’s infinite because you can’t calculate for something you haven’t got money in, which is pretty good.

Joel Keefer (00:43:51):

Now learnt a lot on that one too. Learn a lot.

Ian Ugarte (00:43:55):

Yeah. You went together to do the strata title, because you can build a duplex without needing to go to council. You go through a proper certification process but the council has to sign off on the strata. You’ve got approval but they changed the rules. So you wouldn’t be able to do the same thing.

Joel Keefer (00:44:13):

No not now.

Ian Ugarte (00:44:15):

And they pushed back and made you put it in a full day anyway. Which was a bit of fun.

Joel Keefer (00:44:19):

Yeah. So yeah, there’s been definitely learnings throughout that day and through the exceptive development process and everything but then also through, to getting the titles at the back end and the refinance and there’s definitely been a lot of learning.

Ian Ugarte (00:44:32):

Good learning, good learning for what you’re about to do on the PPR.

Joel Keefer (00:44:35):

Yeah. So-

Ian Ugarte (00:44:35):

Process wise.

Joel Keefer (00:44:37):

The PPR one was actually first and I really wanted to do a small little deal dip our toe and try and iron out and any issues that are going to come across, there’s always going to be new issues on every deal. But if we could just get the process down and sort of know what’s comes next, that’s what we really wanted to do. So that’s how we went and did that little cheaper one, which turned out to be a really good little one anyway.

Ian Ugarte (00:45:02):

So everyone’s thinking and listening to you and going God, I’ve had an easy run. Yeah. They probably did a little bit of work in some restless nights, maybe one or two of them, whatever. And surely nothing surely everything’s just worked out perfectly. You go and, secure a corner block deal, funded in a particular way as part of the contract, you say you ask whether you can put plans in the council beforehand that this is a block that’s on a corner has a house existing house on it. Everyone’s thinking I’ll just knock down the house and put two blocks land in.

Joel Keefer (00:45:38):

Yeah or you might get one extra one off to one side of it.

Ian Ugarte (00:45:42):

But the numbers didn’t work doing it that way.

Joel Keefer (00:45:44):

Yeah. So everyone ought to look at it. It was in the right zoning and I was looking at it and I got out there and I stepped out my steps from where I think a boundary would be to the other boundary.

Bianca Brown (00:45:59):

Yeah. You made up.

Joel Keefer (00:46:00):

I made a steps and I felt very, can you get three out of this? And I rung at plateau and she’s like, I’ve had a few calls about this one CDA, look, I want to do a one into three, keep the house, I need a three. And she’s I’ve had a few calls that are only for wanting to two or townhouses. We’re going to get a one in three. It’s like, Oh, everything looks good from my perspective. So yeah, we negotiated on it. We ended up getting a 60 day due diligence period.[inaudible 00:46:30] so it had already fallen over once on finance.

                   We ended up securing it for, they wanted four 20. I think we got it for three 90. 60 died due diligence, 60 by finance period throughout that time I had the block surveyed, had whole planet development drawing out and also all the artworks lodged all with council. And, then we were doing this one in JV and it was only might’ve been a couple of weeks before our 60 days was up and he, and he sort of said, I’m having some issues with finance. I said, Oh, what’s going on? He said, Oh, because we’ve got a DIA lodged on it. the bank that he had the pre-approval with, didn’t like that and said they wouldn’t fund it. So his broker was scrambling around trying to find someone else. So I got him onto our broker and they said, we must’ve been like maybe a week out at this stage.

                  And they said, look, it’s going to take at least two weeks just letting you know. So we had all these plans in their lodge with council and, the D-Day came, we asked for an extension. He gave us a week extension that weight was up and we still didn’t have finance approval. We asked for a[crosstalk 00:47:59]nother extension and he didn’t, he never got back to us and then it was a Thursday. He, canceled the contract, terminate the contract. And then we got finance approval on Friday, the day off and so…

Ian Ugarte (00:48:17):

I think they know that, I recognize they judge, how far would we push this in the bank and go, Oh, hold on. We’re pretty happy with them. But it’s the day we know that the contractor is unconditional today. Let’s just offer it tomorrow just so we can lower our risk.

Joel Keefer (00:48:35):

Yeah. Anyway, I was got it. I’d been negotiated on that for maybe for at least four months worked out what we could do with it and then worked on it for another couple of months with the planet development, the artwork.

Ian Ugarte (00:48:47):

So you went back to them and said, we’ve now got approval. Can we reinstate the contract?

Joel Keefer (00:48:52):

Yeah. Reinstated agent said, it’s already on the contract for asking me.

Ian Ugarte (00:48:55):

So there was a backup contract sitting there for 420.

Joel Keefer (00:48:57):

420 Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:48:59):

So now here, you’ve got to set a plan sitting in council, which you pulled out.

Joel Keefer (00:49:06):

We didn’t, so we hadn’t paid for the application at the time

Ian Ugarte (00:49:10):

That was sitting there, but everyone can get access to them.

Joel Keefer (00:49:11):

And can see them. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:49:13):

So here you are with, everyone can see what can be done now. They’re all throwing numbers around again. Holy. This is a good deal bought it for four 20. All the contact details are surveyor, planner[crosstalk 00:49:25]

Joel Keefer (00:49:25):

Everyone’s He’s on there. And so it was a little couple of weeks for me, I guess, just yeah. Coming to terms with what had happened.

Ian Ugarte (00:49:38):

I have to say that, Oh, I didn’t notice it that much.

Joel Keefer (00:49:45):

Yeah. We probably noticed at home. It was mainly the first few days. 

Bianca Brown (00:49:48):

Yeah. I think it’s like anything when you’ve put a lot of time and energy and you got this fantastic and then to lose it at the last minute and for it to be something that potentially was avoidable as well, there was still learnings in it for both of us through that process. Like we walked away more wall, what could we have done, to avoid that situation. But I think it’s just

Ian Ugarte (00:50:16):

[crosstalk 00:50:16]Probably the only thing that could have happened was that if he knew that there was a funding problem happening, not to tell you two weeks beforehand, it should have been three or four weeks ago.

Joel Keefer (00:50:23):

Yeah, and we should have been more on it to be checking up with him. Hey, how’s it all going? So there was learnings for[crosstalk 00:50:30]both parties a hundred percent.

Ian Ugarte (00:50:31):

So there’s an update to this story because behold the property comes back on the market starts to go crazy.

Joel Keefer (00:50:37):

Yep so-

Bianca Brown (00:50:39):

It’s about six months.

Joel Keefer (00:50:39):

Yeah. I just put it to bed done it. Justice moved on to the next one and then yeah, I have certain alerts, on real estate.com. And what do you know? There’s an alert comes up and going to yeah, it’s back on the market. Now offers over 535 and we didn’t have to look. There’s my plan in development.

Ian Ugarte (00:51:04):

Realestate.com add as subject to council approval.

Joel Keefer (00:51:08):

Yeah, so-

Bianca Brown (00:51:10):

That’s something that we had 396, months later, 535 offers over.

Ian Ugarte (00:51:18):

Of course now the plan is getting multiple calls because here’s a plan and it’s probably the surveyor probably got a thousand calls as well. We talk about going in and do it. It’s still worth it. Like the market’s moved, you’re paying an extra 30 or $40,000 for each parcel of land but it goes on contract within dice.

Joel Keefer (00:51:38):

Yeah straight away went under contract 550 cash off our cash. Yeah. So I can all come back and get your note on this.[crosstalk 00:51:47]

Ian Ugarte (00:51:49):

So they’ve made 130,000 in six months. I think it’s stupid idea, to have sold it. I still think there’s movement in there and there’s upside in the development. They’re obviously just not experienced maybe.

Joel Keefer (00:52:01):

It’s definitely, our planet development showed the wanting to three, so it was wanting to three subdivision, retaining the existing house and flicking it but there was no, there was no mention of what we wanted to do with those blocks of land.

Ian Ugarte (00:52:16):

Right. So they’ve got no idea where the duplex part of it because you would have put a duplex on [crosstalk 00:52:20]HDR, each one. All right. So learned heaps.

Joel Keefer (00:52:26):

It was like I feel like we paid for education on that one.

Bianca Brown (00:52:33):

That’s right. It is 100%. You need to go.

Ian Ugarte (00:52:38):

Yeah. You need a degree in it in one deal, not bad, so then you start thinking, okay, we’ve lost that one. We’ve got going, going to have to move out of the PPR to build it. PBS in your name, Bianca can do a PPR deal while you’re not living in the Golden Triangle. So you go looking for this property deal.

Joel Keefer (00:52:56):

Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:52:58):

Find one.

Joel Keefer (00:52:59):

Find one.

Ian Ugarte (00:52:59):

Medium density. [crosstalk 00:53:00]The unicorns that no ones, we can’t get the unicorns, but they’re out there. Yeah. Interesting because I’ve spoken to three people that would looked at that and said they couldn’t make it work. So those unicorns just were horses and you put the horn on it. Tell us what your original thoughts were. That property was

Bianca Brown (00:53:20):

So original thoughts were to maintain the existing house. It was pretty rundown.

Joel Keefer (00:53:25):

We were going to do it as a PPR for you though.

Bianca Brown (00:53:28):

Yeah, it wasn’t quick.

Ian Ugarte (00:53:33):

Quick renovation.

Bianca Brown (00:53:33):

Yeah. Quick renovation but when we got the building and-

Ian Ugarte (00:53:35):

Well, the building and pest inspection because Joel and I turned up for the building in person, as soon as I turned up and I heard these guys talking O and R these guys are knobs but it’s was incredible because I knew there was a slump in the floor and I’m talking to Joel and Bianca gallons. It’s pretty easy to fix a slump in the fall. We’ll just get some bottle jacks. We’ll just Jack it up, we’ll put some bricks or something in there in the short term and then we can do a quick round now you’d be able to live in there be comfortable enough. There’s a bit of asbestos but the house is going to go eventually anyway.

                  So anyway, I fear slope in the floor, like there’s humps all over the place and I went and looked under the house when the building inspectors were there and I went, Holy crap, that’s something I’ve never seen before. So these are timber stumps big ground hardwood posts, like trees that were cut down, put in and holding up the house but the termites had eaten through the bottom of it and every time the termites had eaten the bottom of it would sink into the ground and then they’d eat more and it’s sinking again. So these things, some of them have fallen over but some of them don’t even exist that was sitting in the dirt. Right, so I go, I can see why that would have been a bit of an issue for the floor. It’s still fixable thing like it we would have been done by lunchtime, just putting some new piers in, we can just concrete some peers in, get some adjustable heads, get them up into where it needed to be. And it would have been easy to fix but that didn’t quite work out.

Bianca Brown (00:55:02):

Now. So I’m trying to remember what happened now. So many things.

Ian Ugarte (00:55:04):

I think with something to do with funding.

Bianca Brown (00:55:06):

It was to do with finance. Yeah.

Joel Keefer (00:55:08):

It was funding. We just didn’t have the capacity to do it.

Bianca Brown (00:55:11):

Finishing up[crosstalk 00:55:11]because you had to do that one on you.

Ian Ugarte (00:55:12):

You’re going to do that one on your own.

Bianca Brown (00:55:13):

Yeah. And we weren’t quite finished with the other duplex by the time we refinanced just timings weren’t lining up. So we, we had it on the contract and we were, if everything Went perfectly, which sometimes it never does in property, it never does [crosstalk 00:55:33] there is just as long as it takes, there is no perfect in a perfect world, it would have stacked up timing wise, but we realized we’re sort of approaching and we’re like look, we’re not, we’re not going to have enough time to finish this one and move into that one so we spoke to our JV partner again from the one into three and said, look-

Ian Ugarte (00:55:54):

There’s a deal here.

Bianca Brown (00:55:55):

There’s a deal here. Are you interested? So we did the numbers on that. So yeah, it’ll be another subdivision one lot into two.

Ian Ugarte (00:56:04):

So right before we get there. So these building and the air, and I’m talking to the agent and the market just started to go crazy. What’d you pay for that

Joel Keefer (00:56:13):

Five 75.

Ian Ugarte (00:56:15):

And you’d probably sell it for seven 10.

Joel Keefer (00:56:16):

I reckon we’d go close. Yeah.

Ian Ugarte (00:56:19):

So I, then things are happening. There’s two building inspectors that work together. And I go out the front, standing at the front and the heat one of them comes out and he goes, he looks at me. He goes, you know what? I reckon, it’s not a bad block. Like if you could fix the house up, he put a granny flat in the backyard and so then Joel walked around the corner. I said Joe, this guy reckons that we could probably get a granny flat in the backyard and joggers here seriously, really? Oh, that would be awesome. So he wanders off, So what you’re about to hear is what they’re going to do on the deal. Right. And so I reckon that he’ll be sitting in the pub, the RSL or the bowling club across the road, drinking with his mates one day and go and see that young couple. I told him to do that, which is not a house in granny flat. What are you looking at doing on it?

Bianca Brown (00:57:16):

So the real plan It’s to do a subdivision and now that there’s two parties involved, the existing house will go., so we’ll end up with two parcels of land, medium density. So we’ll do a duplex on each but basically at the point of subdivision, we’ll get a parcel of land age and then JV partner will get theirs. They can build whatever.

Ian Ugarte (00:57:38):

Wait, what happened? That point titles will go both ways.

Bianca Brown (00:57:41):

That’s right and then, we’ll build another duplex there. So

Ian Ugarte (00:57:46):

You can pay PR that one

Bianca Brown (00:57:48):

Could at that point in time, probably

Ian Ugarte (00:57:52):

And  then you’d have another one outside of a trust, which would asset protection once [inaudible 00:57:56]

Bianca Brown (00:57:56):

Yeah. So the plan is to do it, not as PPR.Just do it as-

Ian Ugarte (00:58:01):

Well that one big finish before your PPR.

Joel Keefer (00:58:06):

Probably before the front one. Yeah. The duplex. We’re about to start it with finished

Ian Ugarte (00:58:12):

But you are going, okay. Let’s not talk about it on there. Okay. So you’re doing okay.  On top of the complete pivot we’ve done

Joel Keefer (00:58:24):

in our business and YouTube being the key to personnel that have made a change for me. It’s good. What’s the plans. What’s the big picture. I mean we did the Metro pitcher marathon together. I keep on pushing it into Kilimanjaro. I don’t expect you to, a whole bunch of people. I mean you’re in sales. That’s how, how you’ve lent what you do. Yeah. Previously you worked, this is the thing that does my head in previously you worked for a car retailer and you were working in there and you couldn’t, that was just before our job. So you went from there to here. Your thing, my thing is that there’s a whole bunch of people that will sell anything to anyone to get the commission. You told me about a young couple that came in and yeah.

Bianca Brown (00:59:14):

Yeah when I was working for Scala Dealership was saying people come in and finance themselves up to their ears but I think and that just didn’t sit right with me  but there was this one particular couple that, they bought this luxury car  it was about 120,000. It was, it should have been 180,000, but it was a demonstrator and they needed to move it. And it came down to about $120,000. So it was luxury car tax, the female was the sort of breadwinner in the family. So she had a certain amount to dedicated to a car but yeah, there were payments and I just couldn’t fathom how they were going to fund it , their repayments, I can’t remember what they were off the top of my head but it was like you

Ian Ugarte (01:00:01):

said, three and a half grand a month or something.

Bianca Brown (01:00:04):

Yeah. It was something astronomical a week. yeah, it was astronomical and I just thought how are they ever going to get ahead doing something like this? and they went ahead with it, but I just, I knew pretty early on that it wasn’t really an industry for me just seeing people they get caught up in their material things and they have to have it when they really shouldn’t. There’s probably more beneficial things that they could buy to put themselves in a stronger position because the moment they drive that car out,

Ian Ugarte (01:00:32):

it’s gone.

Bianca Brown (01:00:33):

it lost its valued. so, yeah, I wasn’t there very long, so then I guess.. 

Ian Ugarte (01:00:42):

So then you came here and so the point behind that is that you’ve got a whole bunch of, we run a business based on ethics and not signing people up when they can’t afford it.

Bianca Brown (01:00:50):

That’s right.

Ian Ugarte (01:00:51):

How many people have turned away and to there’s quite a few of them that have gone away, saved what they’ve needed to save, to get to where they need to get,  to come back and be able to join. It’s why I don’t offer, I offer a payment plan but it’s not worth taking the payment plan. I do it on purpose if they wouldn’t do that and I don’t want people putting stuff on credit card if they can’t afford it. Okay. You’ve done really well for yourself. You’ve got stuff happening. There’s things going on in all areas of your life. You have bought yourself a motor home to live in while you’re building the PPR, which is just everyone’s dream. It’ll stay a dream for too long. But, we’ll see what happen.

Bianca Brown (01:01:31):

He keeps saying. 12 months, nine,

Ian Ugarte (01:01:33):

Nine,[crosstalk 01:01:35] you’ll be looking forward to take care of people’s houses.

Bianca Brown (01:01:38):

The people have said, Oh, can we borrow? I’m not a hundred percent. Let’s book people in once a month for a week and then we can do three weeks on the road, look after someone’s house. Let’s swap. Perfect.

Ian Ugarte (01:01:47):

Yeah. That’s a great outcome, you for a couple of your age and I know  there’s an age difference between you but  I look at back at the same age time and I wish I would’ve had more fun and you to look like you’re having fun. I could ask you, what would you say to anyone that’s listening right now and all that but I think it’s pretty obvious. Just be really good looking

Joel Keefer (01:02:12):

For me, I guess, I can probably get a couple of points out, don’t overextend yourself. Don’t go and buy a flash car, you paying it off, It’s just bad debt. It’s going to stop you in your tracks from moving forward. I’m still driving a 2000 model Holden rodeo. It’s full of rust. I don’t need anything else.

Ian Ugarte (01:02:38):

Can you forget People can judge your city car,

Joel Keefer (01:02:40):

Go for it,

Ian Ugarte (01:02:40):

Haven’t  look at my cashflow dude,

Joel Keefer (01:02:42):

Go for it. I don’t mind, we’ve got the motor home now, we’re going to be selling all the cars. We’ll keep the anchors little buzz box and buzz around. If people want to judge go for, I’m not trying to keep up with the judges were extremely happy doing it the way we’re doing it, so that’s one point. Two, if you want to, I guess dive into to the property to the property world get some education we’ve talked about our success, and it’s come from us working hard but it’s also come from people that we’ve surrounded ourselves with, such as Christianity and the whole smallest you’d be community and once you start doing that, I think things will just evolve to like the amount of, we came on board being, come on board as someone in the office to help out part time. However..

Bianca Brown (01:03:42):

And I was going to teach yoga, how about out part-time and teach yoga. And then a week later, well, full time,

Joel Keefer (01:03:50):

Welcome to the vortex.

Bianca Brown (01:03:52):

Absolutely, and I loved-

Ian Ugarte (01:03:53):

So sucked you into the vortex.

Bianca Brown (01:03:54):

I loved it.

Ian Ugarte (01:03:55):

And then Joel sucked into the vortex.

Joel Keefer (01:03:59):

But you took us in, you took us into mastermind. We’ve not only become work colleagues, were good friends and there’s just so much gratitude from us to both yourself Christine and everyone else in the office that we’ve got here. It’s just a huge thank you and we wouldn’t be where we are today, we definitely wouldn’t be sitting here. We wouldn’t be talking about all the things that we’re doing if we hadn’t have made that jump, got the education and then it’s led us to be here with you now.

Ian Ugarte (01:04:35):

It’s often a question I ask myself I say, out of the success stories that turn up and there’s lots of them would they have achieved without me and I can’t take any ounce of credit for your success as much as I can’t take any credit for your failures. All I can do is provide something in front of you for you to be able to do something with and you’ve done something with it, and what if, I love International Teachers Day. That’s where they always release a video of some sort where they bring the old students back and the impact they made on that person and without getting too sentimental about it, I know that there’s people that get impacted in a positive way just from anyone and that’s what ticks my box and that’s why I do what I do, I suppose.

Bianca Brown (01:05:28):

Yeah. So now I think, in terms of our age, we often get people just sort of, “How are you doing what you’re doing?” And I actually asked Joel, I said, “Do you ever get people asking you how?” And he’s just like, “Not really.” And I’m like, “I often get people sort of be like, so what do you guys do? How do you know how to do that?” and they’re starting to ask questions and it just comes back to the simple thing and I’m super grateful for Joel because when I met Joel, I was wanting to buy a property, my mom and dad were talking to me about like, “You’re earning good money. You should be looking at investing in property,” which I wanted to do but I had this mindset of that, it was going to lock me in and I wouldn’t be able to travel and do what I wanted to do because I’d have to stay in a job to pay for this thing.

                  So I hadn’t actually committed to anything and I’m really grateful for when I met Joel, he was into property and we started talking about it and we got educated, it opened the door of possibility and we stumbled across HI RES, which is all about a property that pays for itself and pays you I’m like, “Sign me up,” so that really sort of ticked my box but I think for anybody of any age, you have to do different to what everybody else is doing because if you’re wanting an outcome and you’re not getting it because you’re not investing but purchasing flashy cars or your first house is a brand new house that’s been marketed to you and it looks nice and you’re trying to get to the end goal straight away, you’re going to put yourself behind before you’ve started. So I think that’s and don’t be afraid to start small and just crawl.

Joel Keefer (01:07:25):

It’s also interesting when you go and see a lot of the friends around you and I know one particular story where you went and saw someone and said, “Hey, you should be designing a house with this bit in here because you’ve got multiple outcomes and adaptable.” “No, it’s not that type of house.” They just don’t want to listen to that, do they? And I early on was trying to force upon people and say you should be doing this and I’d be really upset when they wouldn’t do it. I learned pretty quickly that they’ll do it when they’re ready. Yeah. And that’s what’s happening.

Bianca Brown (01:07:52):

Absolutely. They may not be ready for that info information yet and they’ll come around, I’m sure I was probably hard to deal with at the start. I was still wanted to keep going out for our smash river all the time.

Joel Keefer (01:08:03):

There was a lot push back at the start.

Ian Ugarte (01:08:04):

You get still get your smashed stuff.

Bianca Brown (01:08:08):

I did want to give up my nice little comfy lifestyle that I had but I realized if I kept doing that, I wasn’t going to have and I think that’s, once you change your mindset and yeah, I was spending a lot of money on things I didn’t need to spend money on but I’d sort of just started that way and I kept going down that path. So I think there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen but yeah.

Joel Keefer (01:08:32):

And it’s not forever.

Bianca Brown (01:08:33):

It’s not forever.

Ian Ugarte (01:08:36):

Now’s the test that when you get to that point where you say, “Have I reached it yet?” Because that’s the awakening I had not realizing that I was already there at a point where I didn’t have to keep on doing it and you’ve seen Kareena do it a year ago. She was so gung ho about she’d achieved what she needed to do to be able to do what she wanted to do but she kept on going and she had to go into a depression to be able to realize that. So Joel and Bianca, thank you for being part of Small Talk, Big Ideas.

Bianca Brown (01:09:10):

Thanks for having us.

Joel Keefer (01:09:15):

Thanks for having us.

Bianca Brown (01:09:15):

It’s was fun.

Joel Keefer (01:09:15):

It’s been good.

Ian Ugarte (01:09:15):

So there you go, Joel and Bianca out there, kicking ass everywhere, doing amazing things in all the things that they’re doing not only in our business but out there in the property world, ending up with ridiculous positive cashflow coming from the properties they do and equity outcomes as well. What you don’t know is that straight after the podcast, Joel did not propose to Bianca. As always you can follow all my podcasts in all the social media channels, you’ve got the website ianugarte.com.au and we’ll catch you on the other side for the next podcast. Thanks for listening.

Voice Over (01:09:50):

Thanks for tuning in to the Small Talk, Big Ideas podcast. We hope we’ve succeeded in our goal to inspire and challenge you and we look forward to catching you on the next episode of Small Talk, Big Ideas with Ian Ugarte.

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