G'Day all,
Beware: (Long Post....Hans Christian Anderson would be proud)
A story I would like to share..........
around 3 years ago I had a net annual passive income after loan committments of around $35K from property investments and figured twas time to take things a little easier and basically leave the so called "rat race" and do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it and not be accountable to anyone else.
I was pretty impressed with myself having achieved this level of "perceived" prosperity in a period of only 7 years and having done this all by myself.
I didn't really talk about it with anyone and I figured I had been really lucky, because as sure as hell I didn't think I was any smarter than anyone else, I just assumed I had been in the right place at the right time and things just happened to me which had turned out for the best.
I also realised that regretfully I had a wife and 3 kids that were a vacuum for money and that my $35K per annum would need to be supplemented somewhat if I were to continue to maintain my mediocre existance. I felt that I should be able to earn at least another $15 to $20K working from home as a Licensed Estate Agent as I had made quite a few contacts during my working life.
I now found that I had heaps of time on my hands and started spending some (a great deal actually) time on the internet.
Property was my great fascination and using that great search engine "GOOGLE" I would spend hours, days, weeks on there trying to uncover property related web sites.
I remember like it was yesterday the day I came across the Creative Real Estate Investing website, and I recall doing an all nighter reading every post on there. ( actually didn't go to bed that night at all, kids got up and I made out that I had got up an hour earlier, told the wife I fell asleep at computer).
The site was by a bloke called Andrew Gray I think and there was reference to the "somerset" forum.
Well that became an obsession, to find this "somerset forum"
Didn't take much, I found it, but it was deserted, it had been replaced by a newer one, not this current one, the one before this one, still I read the posts and figured it had been frequented by Aussie investors.......I was one step away from property heaven.
Found the newer forum, (the one before this one), and starting reading all the posts, didn't actually register for ages, (months), just kept reading the posts.
I was amazed at how many like minded people there was and how they seemed to be such a close knit group, I actually read that others had done what I had done and some so much better and smarter than me.
I figured "this is great" I can read what they have done, learn and also do what they are doing and they will never know.
This was a turning point in my investing career, I now, no longer felt that I had done so well, I felt that I should have done better.
Just reading what like minded people had achieved spurred me on, I was no longer Robinson Curusoe, there was others, average people, who were living off property investment income.
Yes I had read Jan Somers books and others as well, but when you read a book written by someone, there is no interraction, who knows if they exist or not, but these people on the forum were real people, they were in Australia and they were alive and posting everyday.
I registered so that I could post and hoped that if i did eventually post they would show mercy and not try to belittle me by making me out to be a novice and not worthy of being part of their close knit online community.
Then I took it one step further, I logged into the chat room.......
Immediately I was pounced upon by Asy, probing questions from her had me quivering at my keyboard but the worst was yet to come. The next morning I logged into the chat room again, this time TW was on and she also did the questioning thing.
I wrote earlier in this post that finding this forum spurred me on, you better believe it. I recall telling TW that I owned 17 properties back then, the number is now over 50.
my net worth has nearly quadrupled, ( a property boom like we've had has also helped somewhat..), I no longer need to supplement my investment property income from other sources if I don't choose to, I had real funding problems back then, I have learnt other ways to fund property purchases and development.
No one single post or one single poster made this change in me,
but a combination of reading postings from like minded people with a desire to better themselves through property investment and also the questions that are answered from learned people that probably dont apply to my situation today but may apply "one day."
There is such a diverse mix of people on this forum, and lessons can be learnt from others activities and mistakes continually.
Yes, being around or involved with like minded people has definately made a huge difference to me and also provided the stimulus to keep moving forward in the face of adversity.
hows that saying go?............."You can't Soar with the Eagles when you surround yourself with Turkeys"
regards