Making Dreams Reality

Respected leadership author Michael S. Hyatt once wrote: “When you know your why, you’ll know your way”.

Across the 40-year JLF story, our ‘why’ crystallised very early on in the journey – we wanted to share our knowledge in a way that would uplift and empower others.

So, our ‘why’ became our way with our clients. In the past four decades, JLF has helped thousands of clients invest in property across Australia. We now have more than 3,600 clients and 8 per cent of them own five or more investment properties and 1.2 per cent own 10 or more.

That’s impressive when you consider Australia has 2,207,905 property investors and of them 71 per cent own just one property and only 1 per cent own five or more. Proudly, we also now have a multigenerational client base, working with the sons, daughters and sometimes grandchildren of our loyal and supportive clients to create lasting wealth.

Every day the JLF Group aims to help clients to set themselves up to be financially independent and fun the retirement they dream of.

THE TISANO FAMILY

The Tisanos have become a family of property investors with all three children following in their parents’ footsteps to buy property through Custodian.

Parents, Antonio and Teresa made their first foray into buying property in 2003.

Since then, the couple have bought nine investment properties, in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

And now their children have joined in, with Cinzia, 26, Chiara, 21, and 24-year-old Alessio all buying their first investment property through Custodian this year.

In fact, Cinzia has already settled on her second, and she along with her siblings hope to continue building on her investment portfolio in the coming years.

After seeing the example set by their parents, Cinzia and her siblings had been keen to get into the market.

The family members bought four properties all next to each other in the same street at the start of this year.

“We were interested in doing it for a while,” Cinzia said.

“We probably first spoke about it a couple of years ago and we started the process last year, settling on the properties this year.

“I think after we saw our parent’s experience, we felt investing through Custodian was a good way to get into the market.

“We felt like we had a team of experts helping us and they made us feel confident and comfortable about what we were doing.” Fortunately for the Tisano children, their parents helped them with the deposit for their first property, something James Fitzgerald advocates in his ‘Bulletproof Investing’ book, that is to use other people’s money to help you get into the market whether that is a bank, family or a friend.

Cinzia and her siblings will continue to invest in property and try to build a solid portfolio in the coming years.

“I think that will be the long-term plan,” she said.

“We don’t want to go too quickly we are just starting out in our careers, but that is the goal.”

They learned that it was not as difficult to become a property investor as many young people believed.

“My advice would be to find out about it and see what realistically you need to do, when you have the experts behind you that takes away the fear,” she said.

“It’s about getting the knowledge and the support. The one thing I really learned from working with Custodian was about looking for areas of growth, areas where there is new development and infrastructure and schools. Areas where you can buy land, that is where the values come in and where you can achieve good returns.”

The Polito family are a close bunch.

The three adult children, Stefania, 25, Natalie, 23, and Robert, 21, all live in the family home with their parents Maria and Vince (below).

So, when it came time to think about investing in property it was only natural that the whole family decided they would do that together as well.

All three children have bought an investment property in Queensland’s Augustine Heights through Custodian, in fact they are all next to each other in the same street, while Maria and Vince have bought an investment property a few hundred metres up the road.

Investing in property was something Maria and Vince had always wanted to do and they encouraged their children from a very young age to save so that once they had a deposit they could invest too.

That time finally arrived in September 2019 after the family was referred to Custodian.

“Since the kids started working, they have been saving. They have been saving since they were 13 or 14 with every part-time job they had. I have always said to them, ‘save for your future’ so that you have a good deposit and you can invest in property at a young age.”

Maria and Vince were able to use the equity in the family home for their investment property. However, for Stefania, Natalie and Robert, they each used their savings to fund their individual deposits, even though it meant Robert had to put on hold his plans for buying his dream car. Stefania said the family took the first step toward investing on the recommendation of their long-standing accountant.

“We were always very keen to get into the market somehow and we went to our accountant who was also a long-term client of Custodian,” Stefania said.

Natalie said while they knew they wanted to invest they weren’t sure how to go about it before they were introduced to Custodian.

“Once we met them, they really helped us make that dream come true. It is simpler than you think, if you want to get into investing, then Custodian makes the process a lot easier.”

Stefania has already followed the Custodian model of repeating success and adding more properties to her portfolio, purchasing a second property in South Australia.

The family will most likely next invest in an area of South Australia which has strong future population growth.

“If you can invest in property, then why not,” Natalie said. “Eventually one day you can live off that.”

The family treats investing in property as a business – they don’t live in the properties and buy with their heads not their hearts.

“It has to be something that works for everyone, something simple and nice which would be rented out quickly,” Stefania said.

Natalie said many of their friends who were buying investment properties were investing in units, which Custodian didn’t recommend, as it was the land component which increased in value over the long term, not the building.

She said the family lived by John Fitzgerald’s mantra, that there is a difference between real estate and property, and it was important to buy something with a good land component for future price growth.

JADEN & LUN

Jaden’s parents bought their first two investment properties through Custodian in Brisbane in 2001.

“After that they continued to invest through Custodian for a long time, and dad is still active today,” he said.

In 2017, when Jaden was 21, he decided he would like to invest too. He initially thought he would go it on his own but found he kept getting beaten at auctions and couldn’t get a foothold anywhere.

“The properties were also selling for more than I thought they should, which wouldn’t make them a good investment,” Jaden said.

“So, I went to Custodian to see what they had to offer, and they were looking at some of the same growth areas that I had been researching and was keen to buy in.

“They were able to find me a good investment at a fixed price in Melton in Victoria.

“It was a little bit of a rocky start for me as the land release was delayed but eventually the sale went through and in April 2020, I purchased my second property, a dual occupancy at Augustine Heights in Queensland.” “My investment philosophy is to go as passive as I can, and to invest in positively geared properties,” Jaden said.

“I just think – why wouldn’t you be investing all your money and making it work as hard for you as possible? Just get in there and go for it. Once you’ve got skin in the game, it gets you over that hurdle of not knowing how to do it.”

GEOFF & THERESE

Geoff and Therese bought their first property through Custodian when their accountant told them they needed to invest.

“We had money sitting in the bank that wasn’t doing anything. We just hadn’t taken that next step,” Therese said.

“Geoff went and bought about 50 books – he read all of them and then he handed me one which was ‘7 Steps to Wealth’. John’s book stood out because he had a moral purpose.”

“It worked for us. We learnt from what he said we didn’t try to reinvent the wheel.

You’re best to diversify around the country which is what we did,” Geoff said. “We’ve ended up with eight investment properties through the help of John. It certainly made us a lot less worried – in terms of how money was going to come in. It opened up the whole concept of having experts help you.

“We trusted John. We chose that path rather than worry about the ups and downs of the stock market.”

Robynne had always been interested in investing in property.

She owned her own home, but it wasn’t until after she was left a small inheritance when her mother passed away that she was able to even contemplate investing. “Everyone I have worked with at Custodian has just been absolutely amazing. They have kept in touch with me since day one and have always been on the other end of the phone if I had any questions no matter how insignificant or if I needed to seek their advice,” she said.

“Prior to this, I had recently separated from my husband and didn’t come out well financially, so when I inherited some money from my parents, I decided that I really needed to be careful with how I managed my funds,” she said.

“I can’t really remember how I heard about JLF and Custodian, but I attended about five or six meetings in Canberra. What they were saying resonated with me.

“After much research and soul searching, I decided to dive in …. and I hoped that everything would work!” “As a teacher, I hold a special place in my heart for our young Australians and am inspired by John Fitzgerald’s unwavering faith in our youth.

“Through his massive ongoing commitment to education to Toogoolawa School it is easy to see how passionate and dedicated he is to guiding these students towards confidence and faith in their own abilities.

“With this evidence of devotion, he has certainly inspired me to believe in myself, and in that placing my faith in his method of investing in property will serve me well.”

Robynne said the investments were her retirement money, her superannuation.

“Although I have worked as a teacher, the separation wiped out a lot of my finances. It was like I was pressing the reset button financially and going back to square one,” she said.

Robynne said at first it was very scary because once she had made the decision to invest, she didn’t have a lot of accessible funds.

“I literally sat on the edge of my seat and held my breath while contracts were signed, construction was completed, tenants were secured and the first rental money was deposited into my bank account,” she said.

That was in 2013 and Robynne breathed a long sigh of relief that all was going well.

“I was so excited that this venture was working. I could see a glimmer of hope towards becoming more financially stable and wondered how long it would be before I could possibly buy another property,” she said.

By 2019 she had a second investment property, again in Queensland. Just a few weeks ago Robynne settled on her third investment property, this time in South Australia. “My inner peace and contentment have continued to flourish since I started investing. It is satisfying to know that I have taken charge of my financial future. I have unwavering faith and confidence in myself to know that I can secure my financial future on my own.

“Maybe somewhere down the line, my children will also be inspired by my journey to invest as well.”

“We trusted John. We chose that path rather than worry about the ups and downs of the stock market.”