AWARE - A Business in a Book. Lucille Orr
estate is different. There are so many laws associated with selling a home, land or a business today that we have no choice but to understand them before we can work in the industry. I was grateful for the 12 months traineeship to gain the practical experience I needed on the job before starting my own real estate business.
Location, location, location is Important in Business
In hindsight I did something right while in Sydney. I didn’t sell my Adelaide properties and they increased in value by 500% since I divorced my husband in 1994. I paid $195,000 in the eighties for our Adelaide shop front, offices and warehouse. In February 2008 a small two-storey, city office block a few doors down from ours sold for $1,400,000. A few weeks later a small upstairs strata office, opposite our building, sold for $535,000. Both sold at auction. In early 2010 a large office/ warehouse a few doors from our commercial building sold for over $2 million.
This is why I trust investing in real estate, and use credit cards when I need to get through challenging financial times.
We all need to focus on the good decisions we make in life and not beat ourselves up over the mistakes we think we have made. Keeping my Adelaide commercial property was a very good decision.
I’ve owned and operated many successful businesses in my life and have never had a more profitable business than AWARE Properties. By holding onto my early property investments it made it possible for me to finance this business and create an opportunity for you.
In my past books I’ve always said it takes two years before a new small business makes a profit. This has all changed with the Internet. It seems many of the Internet based businesses started by young entrepreneurs boom in the initial years and later disappear altogether.
In real estate it took me just over two years in the industry to make a profit, but only because I had to work for someone else before I was allowed to open my own company.
When I finally started my own business it was profitable from the first day by offering our customers help to find properties to rent and buy. It created a steady cash flow, a valuable asset in any business, and unique in real estate. AWARE Properties didn’t need to spend money buying an expensive rent roll, which is what many real estate agents do when they go into business. Our property management division grew steadily from the many clients for whom we bought investment properties through our buying service.
The real estate industry is extremely competitive and one agent told me. “You’re too friendly, you talk too much, people don’t want to get to know you, they’re only interested in themselves and how much their home is worth.” He also said, “Buyers are liars don’t waste your time with them.”
“How can I sell property if I don’t have buyers? And why would someone trust me to sell their most precious asset, their home, if they didn’t get to know me first?” I thought.
I’m so pleased I instinctively didn’t listen to these hardened real estate agents and did my own thing. I probably do spend too much time getting to know my clients and having them get to know me, at our first meetings. I’ve given away many of my books to the vendors I’ve worked for so they had a chance to know me before they gave me their home to sell.
It worked! I’ve never had to advertise to get business. I’m probably the only real estate agent who doesn’t ask vendors for a huge advertising budgets to promote my company!
Follow your instincts, it sounds crazy not to want to spend money on advertising, but I love to do business differently because it works, and I hate to waste money on unnecessary advertising.
Don’t waste money, is the first rule of good business.
Why Real Estate?
When a vendor and purchaser sign a contract for the sale and purchase of a property my company is selling it’s our greatest reward. Watching their happy faces and knowing we’ve helped to change their lives is a wonderful feeling. Our financial reward is a bonus.
Chapter Three
Getting Started
Consistent effort creates enormous change.
If you’re interested in gaining your Real Estate Sales Certificate I’d love you to call us and we’ll explain what we can do at AWARE Properties to help you.
The real estate knowledge is invaluable, because the training you will complete will help you with so many other types of businesses. You will learn Contract Law, Consumer Protection Law, Property Law, how to sell and manage properties, manage people, keep your accounts and much more.
Even if you don’t use this information to work in the industry it will be invaluable to you if you want to invest in property and start your own property portfolio as you’ll understand the law associated with property management and the Residential Tribunal which protects the rights of the tenants and landlords. You will know how to protect yourself as a landlord against tenants who are not reliable.
Property Developers and Investors
There is also a law course to educate you in property subdivision and development so you can confidently buy homes, demolish them and redevelop the land. So many councils are now rezoning the land so that at least two small courtyard homes can be built where one home and a large back garden may have been on the property previously. I’ve found these days, “people will pay more for less.”
In November 2010 we assisted a female doctor to secure a solid brick, four bedroom home in Christies Beach and the doctor was wonderful to work with. I was able to teach her so much over the months we were searching for the right property to purchase and she was not only a fast learner but she was teaching me things I hadn’t taken the time to do when I bought my own investment properties. She created an excellent financial matrix to help her work out exactly how much money she would need to contribute if the property was to be negatively geared. I told her I would love her to make her program available to our buyers in the future. She read every document we gave her with the Form 1 (Cooling Off). She was so thorough that she even spoke to the local council planning department and found out the council had plans to allow developers to build three, three storey homes on large, corner blocks like the one she was purchasing. This along with my advice convinced her to go ahead with the purchase.
Make Money Investing in Property
You can become a full time property investor - you don’t have to operate a day-to-day real estate office to be successful in this industry.
If you’ve read any of the books written by Robert T. Kiyosaki, especially the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” series, you’ll know what I mean by making money work for you as a business, rather than operating a business.
I met Robert Kiyosaki in Adelaide way back in 1988 when he was presenting one of his early Money and You weekend seminars. At the time I was working for Capita Finance as a managing agent. I had a team of financial advisers working for me and I earned commission on my own sales and a small over-riding commission on the sales of my team members.
At one of our daily 8 am sales meetings (regardless of how late we worked the night before), my young boss who was in his early twenties, wanted us all to attend the next Money and You weekend. He’d heard about these life-changing seminars from a friend and was very excited.
I was working all day and into the evenings visiting people’s homes, so I was reluctant to spend a weekend away from my husband and young son. The seminar started on Friday night and didn’t end until late on Sunday night. Many participants didn’t sleep the whole weekend I was told.
I guess I only agreed to go because my young boss wanted me to. I was a team leader of 15 people at the time and I didn’t want to let him or my team down because they all seemed pretty keen to go along for the experience.
It was an unforgettable weekend. I did go home very late on the Friday night and Saturday night rather than keep on playing the games and not get any sleep. But I had to be back extremely early each morning. That weekend changed my life. After