This investor’s unique benchmark for a good investment suburb

As he works to grow his portfolio in a year’s time, one of his main concerns is finding another suburb poised for growth. While he believes in the benefit of diversification, the investor does not shy away from the possibility of looking into Queensland again because of the current positive market movements in the area.

For instance, the construction of a military base is now underway in Leichhardt, which will make way for job growth—one of the fundamentals of property investment.

According to Mr Scott, “In my mind, I thought, ‘I want to diversify out of Queensland because I’ve already got three in Queensland’, but you go where the money is, right?

“So, if those underlying things are good for Queensland and the fundamentals are right, then I’d be happy to look at going there again.”

Keeping assets ‘away’

Despite his regard for location as a primary growth driver, Mr Scott admitted that he has never been into any of the suburbs he has invested in.

While it gives comfort to other investors knowing that they can drive past their properties anytime, he prefers to buy his assets in areas that are relatively far away from his place of residence.

“I've [only] seen them on Google Maps. That's the extent of it,” he said.

When buying, Mr Scott engages buyer’s agents to get reports about the property, including photos and walk-through videos, and decides based on this data and his own research.

For management, the investor opts to engage property managers to take care of his assets for him, as well as the tenants who reside in his properties. In fact, aside from never seeing his properties, he has also never met any of his tenants.

This strategy, according to Mr Scott, has helped him lessen the stress associated with investing and ultimately do away with emotions when making important financial decisions. As long as he’s got good professionals on his team, he's reassured that his investments are working to create wealth for him.

The investor said: “If I owned a place 20 km down the road, then I had a problem with our tenants, I'd probably be more stressed because I'd be tempted to go. I'm going to go and have a look."

“I'd be like one of these weirdos, slow-crawling down the street because I don't want them to know I'm the owner but I'll just have a quick sneaky-peek and see what's going on.

“The fact that there is that distance, it's probably something that helps keep anxiety and stress down because I can treat it very much at arm's length, which I think is important because, generally, you don't make smart decisions when you're emotionally charged,” he concluded.

Tune in to Andrew Scott’s episode on The Smart Property Investment Show to know more about how he plans to keep growing his portfolio in a year’s time.