"If only'' is the mantra of the would-be property investor who never got off the blocks. What successful property investors have in common is that they've done it, says serial investor Olly Newland, who has bought and sold more than $2 billion of property during his investment career.
"By all means read and attend workshops, he says. "But don't believe everything you hear in a seminar because often the people behind them have something to sell and will paint a rosy picture.''
Commercial property, Newland says, produces a better return and is less subject to the whims of the market. What's more, commercial property values are easier to manipulate irrespective of what the market is doing. Typically, Newland alters the leases and makes improvements. In the past, he concentrated on buying commercial properties with structural, lease or other problems that could be solved, fixing them and increasing the value rapidly.
Of late I have been concentrating on ones that require less management so I don't have to wake up in the morning and wonder what the next letter or fax will say.''
Newland, author of The Rascal's Guide to Real Estate and The Day the Bubble Bursts, buys a mixture of retail, office and industrial property as well as some residential.
He has been very heavily into retail because "it has more knobs and switches to turn'' to improve the yield and capital gain, but is now turning his attention to "quieter'' industrial property and has just completed on a "goof proof'' industrial unit in Ellerslie that he says won't keep him up at night.
Newland also likes to have a sprinkling of residential properties in his portfolio because of the "zing'' they provide when the market goes hysterical.
