On my second ever project, I followed a similar formula to what worked successfully for my first home. After my stint as a policeman, which ended rather abruptly (but that’s a story for another time), I played the field on jobs – bouncing in cool and rough nightclubs, selling high-end cookware (saucepans), and helping run a farm with a convict-built homestead in Tasmania that had been converted to a bed and breakfast. Here, my passion for property found a professional avenue and I started work at the Real Estate Sales division of a large land developer, where short of being a professional surfer was my ideal gig. 

After learning the marketing and sales process, it didn’t take long before I started selling, but also understood more of the maths around the world of property. As such, I approached my bosses to purchase the cheapest site in one of our subdivisions with discounts for no marketing and sales commissions, plus, of course, a generous staff loyalty discount. This discount equated to build in equity, and combined with the uplift in my first home, I was able to borrow all the funds to build a home which was valued at just over $240,000 on completion – $50,000 more than its costs. The home became a rental property for some 15 years until being sold.