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5 investing lessons from one of Australia’s top brokers
Investors can accelerate portfolio growth by making strategic choices, but success depends on smart decisions, timing, and learning from the right experiences. Here are the top tips to supercharge your portfolio in 2026.
Director of Strategic Brokers Hung Chuy and co-host Liam Garman sat down for an episode of the How I Met My Broker podcast to share five key tips investors should know to scale their portfolios effectively.
Chuy said that in the ever-shifting property market, there would always be opportunities for savvy investors to rapidly grow their portfolios.
“Sometimes people complicate property; they think too hard about all the bells and whistles,” he said.
“You really just have to look at what supply and demand are for it and what the intrinsic value is of the property.”
Here are the expert's top tips:
Build through residential before pivoting to commercial
While starting a property portfolio through residential is the obvious strategy, Chuy said it has proven popular, consistently delivering results.
He said that to achieve growth and capital gains as quickly as possible, investors should lean toward residential real estate before diversifying their portfolios.
“You should build up as much wealth as you can through the residential market, and then you can tip some of that and move into commercial.”
“Some people slip a commercial in between a few residential properties, just to get the cash flow to balance out.”
Once buyers have established a portfolio and want to shift their focus from value growth to cash flow, Chuy said they should consider taking the leap into the commercial market.
“Commercial should be a very easy transaction in the sense that everything is taken care of by the tenant.”
“It should just rent out with a net yield because the tenant pays most of, if not all of the costs.”
Yet, according to Chuy, not all commercial properties are reliable sources of income.
He said that investors, especially for their first commercial asset, need to align with someone who understands the ins and outs of the market to avoid making a poor decision.
“It looks so good on paper, but you have to dig a bit deeper and figure it all out.”
“I don’t necessarily recommend doing it unless you really understand and learn everything about it; try to rely on a good buyer’s agent.”
Leave emotions out of it
While scaling their portfolio, Chuy said that investors should think rationally, analyse data, and make tough decisions rather than rely on emotions.
Chuy said that even when a property wasn’t performing as expected, investors often stayed stubborn and refused to cut their losses, which hampered their ability to grow.
Even with his industry experience, Chuy said he wasn’t immune to the emotional weight of property transactions, having held properties in his own journey even after he knew he should sell.
“The property wasn’t growing. It was actually costing me money to hold it every year.”
He said that if he accepted that the property hadn’t grown as planned and made the decision to pivot sooner, rather than remaining stubborn, it would have made a huge difference in the early stages of his investment journey.
By holding on to the property for longer than he should, Chuy said he had limited his borrowing capacity, making it harder to grow his portfolio.
Chuy said it was pivotal for buyers to ensure they got the first few purchases right to set themselves up for long-term success, and for those who may have misstepped, not to allow it to affect their long-term plans.
“There are things that trigger people, and then they sell at the wrong time.”
Consider alternative methods to reach ownership
While property ownership may be the main goal, Chuy said there were different pathways to build a portfolio.
He said that buying as an owner-occupier versus an investor both offered substantial benefits but also came with unique risks.
Owners are incentivised to live in the home they purchase through tax incentives, and while it may seem like an attractive prospect, Chuy said investors may be able to outperform those benefits by structuring their loans correctly.
Regardless of the method buyers used, Chuy said investors should take their long-term portfolio plans into account while shaping their purchase.
“Whatever you buy in your name as an individual will stick with you forever.”
“You will have to sell to get that back.”
For more experienced investors, he said that buyers could consider purchasing property in a structure or using a trust to rapidly grow their portfolio, as once it became profitable, they could “quarantine” the loan and begin building again.
“Whereas, if you buy in a trust today, you might buy multiple properties in there, sell one and reduce the debt, or put that money into a commercial and a high cash flow yielding asset.”
“If you are a seasoned investor and want to build a substantial portfolio, you have to look at that as an option straight away.”
To hold firm or make the move
While property values often continue to rise, Chuy said investors must balance the flexibility to switch assets with the patience to hold for long-term growth.
“If you just leave it there, it's going to make money at some point. Property is very forgiving.”
“It’s about making the maximum out of what you have and the opportunity costs.”
“By not selling, you might be chewing up your borrowing capacity, and the property is chewing down your cash flow.”
He said that buyers looking to be aggressive in growing their portfolio should be decisive, and having a broker who understands how to best facilitate that is key.
“Having a strategic broker who understands the game in the sense of ‘are you selling for the sake of selling? Or is it going to be worth more in three years?” he said.
“I think the key is selling and then moving that money very quickly.”
“If you sell but don’t redeploy that capital elsewhere, then it is useless.”
He said that taking advantage of loan portability and shifting the terms to an existing property when selling would provide significant added flexibility when rapidly growing a portfolio.
“If you are looking at two per cent growth versus seven per cent growth on leverage money, it starts making mathematical sense pretty quickly.”
Make mistakes, but learn from them
Chuy said that investors should look towards brokers with experience handling the processes, as they have often experienced the pitfalls that catch out newcomers.
“I think mistakes are really important, or at least learning from people who have made the mistakes, because I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“It’s one thing to make mistakes, it’s another to own up to those mistakes and share that knowledge with people.”
Chuy said that having previous experience in buying or selling property in their team played a huge role for investors.
“I think it is a matter of having somebody who has experienced a bit of everything.”
“Finding a really good team of people who have experienced a lot of hardships or different things in their property journey that they can share with you, I think, is super helpful,” Chuy concluded.
Listen to the full episode here