During this discussion of Australia's Top 200 richest people, I sincerely hope that the penny has dropped for many property investors who are reading this.
For the unintentional benefit of property investors, BRW magazine has published their Rich200 annual edition for many years. With a detailed explanation of how each person attained their wealth, surely the simple observation that NONE of them have made their fortune through buying rental properties was enough to sow the seed of doubt? Or even merely raise your level of curiosity? Surely you have asked yourselves the question?
Or was the influence of that seminar speaker / property book simply too hard to ignore? Persuasive, aren't they?
Unfortunately, it seems that very few people have not only failed to observe the bleeding obvious, but in fact continued along their deluded path for many years - blind-sighted and brain-washed by a manipulative and coniving property industry, who prey on the naive middle-class Australian.
Residential property investors have simply been tricked into believing that the path to millionaire status is through buying rental houses. Yet they fail to understand that to make big money, you have to actually do something other than buy an asset and wait - you have to actually produce something tangible - i.e. ADD VALUE. This is what every member of the Rich200 do in their businesses. They are creators, they are employers, they are developers, they are productive. They bring something to the economy other than just buying an asset and praying that it goes up in price. They have direct INPUT and CONTROL into the value and direction of their investments - something which rental home owners are unable to do.
"But I made money from my investment properties during the past 15 years", I hear you property investors all say. No - the MARKET made you money. You had no control over the situation whatsoever - you were lucky. And that is the key point here. You are purely at the mercy of the market - which you have no control over. All you are able to do is sit back and pray. And you'll certainly be doing plenty of praying over the next decade or two.
