Investor In Focus: Jay Anderson

In less than a decade, Jay Anderson has developed from an aspiring property investor to a business savvy and intelligent property professional.

Like many Australians, Jay and his wife Caroline first got interested in the idea of using property to generate wealth in 2010, when home renovations were all the rage in the media.

They purchased their first property in Sydney’s Potts Point and spent the next 12 months renovating and doing all the hands-on work themselves before having it revalued and using the manufactured equity as a stepping stone to build a portfolio.

“I came out of the first successful project thinking, “Oh, yeah, this property thing’s easy. Let’s rinse and repeat and do it again.” So we set out to try and find the next one and it took us, about 10 months of doing open-for-inspections every weekend, inspecting numerous properties, looking at plenty of options and we just kept just missing out.”

“I thought I was doing the right due diligence at the time. I was looking at comparable sales, I was trying to estimate renovation cost and renovation budget, and post-renovation value. But we just weren’t securing properties.”

It was at that time, that he decided that if he was going to improve his results he would need to treat it like any other professional pursuit. He spent the next year learning everything he could about what drove property prices, as well as surrounding himself with a team of professionals that could help him get where he wanted to go.

“I’m a very analytical person so I went back to 1970 and had a look at all leading house prices, population growth data, infrastructure spending, interest rates, unemployment rates. Trying to have a look at what was happening in each market at that time from a capital city point of view and trying to identify some patterns and to see if there was any correlation between data and property price movements”

One of the first things Jay learnt was the importance of asking yourself what your ultimate goal with property actually is? Only then can you develop a plan to get you to that point. For Jay and his wife, that was simply a passive income in retirement.

As a result, he started working with a number of professionals including property-focused accountants and financial advisors, mortgage brokers and buyers agents, that could help him achieve that goal as effectively as possible.

“I started using buyers’ agents and other key professionals in my team. From there, not only did my learning curve accelerate quite quickly but so did my portfolio because once you have that team around you, they hold you accountable and they encourage you and I guess there’s no more real analysis paralysis or kind of looking for that unicorn property deal. It’s about getting the fundamentals in place and continue buying.”

Jay and his wife were quickly able to start accumulating a base of solid residential investment properties across both NSW and QLD. His strategy in the early phases was to acquire a combination of properties that offered either good yield potential or the ability to find some type of additional capital uplift. Either through adding a granny flat, renovating or even subdividing.

The next stage in Jay’s development was to expand into commercial property. Commercial property can at times offer strong yields which allow buyers to service their loans and grow their portfolios even faster.

“My current strategy has evolved over time. My own strategy right now is I’m still in the acquisition phase of the residential side of things. And then approaching retirement I’d be looking at transferring some of that residential into commercial, specifically motels, which can then provide me with passive income. So the aim is to get the capital growth out of the residential side. I’m only 35 so I’ve got a bit of time for that compounding to do its magic on the capital growth side and then, transition into the commercial for the passive income.”

After the countless hours Jay put into developing his skill set and knowledge of both NSW and QLD property, friends and family began approaching him to help them buy property on their behalf. This formed the early beginnings of what would go onto become Jay’s full-time career in the industry as a buyers agent and property strategist.

While Jay had the knowledge of property and could identify excellent investment opportunities, he was still unsure of how to turn his knowledge into a business. As a result, Jay decided to train with one of Australia’s leading buyers agents Ben Handler and the Buyers Agent Institute, to help fast track his business.

“I felt by working with Ben and the Buyer's Agent Institute, it was going to fast-track my journey, which in turn it has done exactly that. I’ve been able to learn how to leverage the different business relationships I have and how to manage clients through their journey, as well as finding new clients. It really helped me structure everything and gave me a big head-start on a lot of my competitors who weren’t doing it starting out.”

“When I originally spoke to Ben, my biggest concern about going into this as a business was the sales component. It’s not that you’re selling something as such, but you need to be able to sell your product to sell your services. And that’s something the Buyer's Agent Institute has really helped with.”

Going forward, Jay is looking to continue to expand his property portfolio and put more focus on building up his commercial holdings. While also continuing to assist others in achieving their own goals in property as a buyers agent and property strategist.