If you were going to buy in three months time, you're almost at your deposit. I probably wouldn't

be chucking it into any asset. I'd just be waiting three months to put it down. And the reason I

There's a lot of people now who are using Bitcoin to mix with

property. Interesting. How do you mean? The banks in Australia will eventually start

lending on Bitcoin. One of the challenges for a lot of people is coming up

with the deposit. Actually, they should be allocating their savings rather

than into a bank account earning nothing. They should allocate the savings into

You know, as much as I studied, I still made mistakes. I still didn't understand the

full picture. So I'm still just sort of reshuffling my

Right. So what would you say has been the number one mistake that

you've made that you can share with everybody today so they don't make that

same mistake? I'm Matthew Fraser and

this is Crypto Collective. After making millions with Amazon

and e-commerce, I realized that if I was starting again

today, crypto would be my first choice. I'm here

to help you take your first steps and build real wealth. Ready

to set yourself up for life? Let's go. Today we've

got Tim Brown, a leading Australian economist from Charleston Group. He's

here to break down inflation, interest rates, digital assets,

and whether Bitcoin could be the best bet over property. Interested?

Let's dive in. Hey, Tim, welcome to Crypto Collective. How are you doing? Good,

Matt. Thank you very much for having me on, mate. Mate, it's an absolute pleasure. I've been

watching you on social media. You've been absolutely crushing it, though. First

off, I want to say well done on that. You certainly add a unique element

to the property game and content because

you, of course, are, what would you call you, a buyer's advocate in

Yeah, I'm technically a buyer's advocate or buyer's agent, but

my content side's more about just getting education

to everyday people about all things finances, money, mindset, property,

Yeah, I love that. So tell me about then, I've noticed I've done some research on

you, Tim, and you actually have a history in the Australian army.

And so how long were you in the army for and what was the transition from the army then

Yeah, so I served about six and a half years in the Australian Army,

more particularly in the Armoured Corps. And

then I transitioned to Australian Border Force for a few years, where I started

the Buyers Agency whilst doing both. And

now I'm full-time in the Buyers Agency. But the transition came from me

personally investing throughout my entire Army career.

and then building my own portfolio. And knowing that

I wasn't going to be in the army forever and I'm like, I need to do something different. And

the portfolio was building and that was going well and just sort of clicked and went, this is

it, this is what people should be doing. The more I learnt, the

more I realised that we are so uneducated about anything

that really puts true value in our lives in a financial sense of things.

And then I got passionate about it because I started asking why. Why? Why?

Why don't we know this? Why aren't we taught this? Whether it's basic taxes, investing,

how money works, etc. And I became very obsessive with it and

then naturally just transferred into how can that be

a job for me or business for me to help people and

then align with this passion and I slowly grew out of the border force after

So when you're doing the army? Was it something that

the army now instills in you? Do they actually teach you how

to shoot a gun? Do they also teach you how to invest your salary?

They tell you, you get the briefs of don't

buy this, don't buy that, particularly when you've got young blokes deploying

overseas and you make good money overseas and you don't spend anything overseas. So

when you get back, you've got quite a bit of surplus cash and capital and

Most 21, 23-year-olds end up buying the classic HSV

and the stupid motorbike. So, there's the sort of don't,

don't do this, but there's not much of that, this is a different method.

Start thinking about your exit out of military, start thinking about your financial future

So, is there literally a handbook that, and I just want to just pull

you up on this one. Is there a handbook that they give you from the army that says,

do not spend your money on tie hookers? Do not... Is

It's um, it's an unwritten rule. There's no handbook. I think they'd avoid putting

that on paper No, it's

more comes down to lectures like at the start of every year. We have

what's called like a force preservation. It's essentially a whole

bunch of mandatory death by powerpoints that give

you the do's and don'ts, left and right of arcs about how you conduct yourself in the military, and

all the sort of safety checks that they have to tick off. And within that,

they talk about, they touch on some financial things

like that. And more so, like I said before, when you go on a deployment,

and you're making good cash, it's like, just don't come back and do this, don't come back and

do this. But there's no real education on investment. The most thing

they say is they talk about salary sacrificing, but that's,

So Tim, what was then your inspiration because you

couldn't just sort of wake up one day and think, oh, I'm now going to invest in property. Was it like

your parents were investors or your uncle? Not

It came from, look, to be honest with you, like as much as this is

contradictory of the organisation I

was in being one of the most rigid, structured and organised

and disciplined organisations out there, my mind

is actually quite free willed and I thought, I

can't get my head to contemplate the 9 to 5 until

you're 60 plus. My brain can never work that out. I

still can't fathom that that's just what we do. So

I knew once the army was exhausted

for me as a career, there needed to be something else and it wasn't going to be another

9 to 5. So I thought, how do I actually start creating money

and wealth for myself? And then that question led

to the research and it led to the, how do people make money? How do

you invest and how do you do this? And then the rabbit holes of, you

know, stocks, bonds. what do you call, you

know, crypto, when it was very new back then, and also

property. And then I just delved into it and I thought, this is accessible for

me. I can access this. I go to the bank, I set my borrowing power,

I can then go and leverage the debt, which we're told is very, very bad, to

then grow my wealth and then continue to build a portfolio. I'm like, that's it,

that makes sense. And then it was just obsessive education from

Yeah, interesting. Because we go through this phase where we don't

want to work this nine to five, then you've done exactly this, you've

then gone, okay, well, if I do have to work, how can I

work in the space that I actually am interested in, which is now property. And

then ultimately, what happens is then I think, you know, because you

don't want to get to the point where you do nothing, right?

But you're gonna get to this point where you're financially free, you

don't have to work, but now you choose to work. And I think that's

probably a key point is that it's like you want financial freedom to

simply pursue the endeavors that you are interested in as from

a human level. Like what ticks the boxes for you? What

gets you excited? Obviously, I'm guessing with yourself, it's helping other people

achieve financial freedom as well. Would that be right? Totally. And you've absolutely

We are almost programmed to think that retirement is

sitting on a beach doing fuck all with a pain of colitis. That's

the classic image, but it's totally wrong. What you

just said is totally correct, and so many people don't even have those

thoughts of, what do I actually want to do with my life? And

it typically ends up being spending the time that I

have, how I want with the people I love, and have

the experience that I want in life. So that's

really what it's trying to achieve, it's that freedom. And you

need money to support that, you need money to get yourself there. And

so many people have that misconception of doing nothing in retirement, but it's not the case. It's

about everything you just said, time, freedom, opportunity, and

Yeah, that's interesting because you've got this, and I'm going to touch on this because I know you've spoken

about this before, which is the victim mentality. And, you

know, I'm on social media a ton now. I have an online program

completely free to help people move their funds from

an industry super fund into SMSF and allocate to Bitcoin. If that's what they want

to do, I've got a step-by-step guide to that, no fees attached. But

what comes with that, I'm wondering if this comes with you too, is people say, why are

you even doing this? You've already made a whole bunch of

Everything's a scam that people don't understand. The

thing is, there are a lot of scammy things out there, but it's almost

like people's programming short circuits, and

I'm being a bit vulgar here, but people's programming short circuits, when

you do something out of the ordinary of what they're told to do,

or what is normal to do. So if you aren't working your job, and

if you aren't putting money in super, and if you aren't just paying off your own principal place

in mortgage, then what are you doing, you risky weirdo? Do

you know what I mean? That's sort of like the culture, almost like a culture, like

I said, we have in Australia. So doing anything

outside of that, people freak out, they have a meltdown. And then online, if

you're like projecting or trying to portray some sort of alternative

method for, method, sorry, for financial freedom or to just

have supplement incomes, whatever, people smash you

up. There are so many dorks online, like actual beta males

thinking that they are so cool. I feel sorry for them now because they're just

losers. I'm talking about the ones with the negative commentary. They're just losers. They

are so offended. by

something or someone else doing better than them or changing

their lives for the better, that we, they become victims about

it. They become victims of their own situation. And then you couple

that with the tall poppy syndrome they have in Australia. So it's rife out there, but

yeah, you gotta ignore it. But sometimes I

It's good for engagement and a bit of fun. It's fun. It

can get older too. So how do you find then, you know, when you were starting to make this

transition, you started buying up, I guess you can tell me

as well the story of buying up properties and what have you, but how did other people

To be honest, man, I didn't tell anybody. I did it all Just

quietly. So when I was doing my research, I read a lot of

books and a lot of online stuff, and this is the time before

podcasts were massive. So any source of

education I was onto. But most of the stories I

would read, would be, of people who have succeeded in

it, would be people saying that, you know, my friends and my family told me

I was doing something risky or it was wrong and stuff like that. And a

skill that I believe I have is I'm really good at taking other

people's lessons and learning them for myself so I don't have to touch that flame

and get burnt. So I straightaway thought look if everyone I'm

speaking to and everybody I'm studying and virtually mentor getting mentored

by Is saying that everybody even their closest circle was

saying don't do it. It's risky. What are you doing negative negative negative?

Now I'm just not gonna tell anyone and avoid all that shit So I did it

just like behind closed doors built the portfolio and

it was only when I had maybe my Sixth or

seventh property that I started telling some people because I got the

level of confidence of like, you know I don't care what you

think anymore. Like this is what I'm doing. It's working for me. Look look at my position And

then that's like that slowly iterated to I was much more confident talking

about it and instead of being quiet in conversations I

would At least help people without asking questions and

then that came to more overt talking about it But yeah, I definitely might

just kept it under wraps because I didn't want to deal with the negative comments interesting so

What I like about your story is what you're putting out on social media,

you're talking about it from someone who's actually done it. You know, you

haven't just read the book, you've actually accumulated these properties and

I'm sure built equity, etc. Maybe you flip some. So what

Totally. So, when I was back in the army, the borrowing capacity

was limited, but it was at a time where interest rates were pretty

reasonable and you could lend. The first few were

before APRA came in and started making really strict rules around banks'

obligations of credit checks and lending and stuff like that. So, it was a changing time,

but essentially, I just saved my first deposit. bought

my first property. I bought quite a

few cash-flowing townhouse unit type of things because that's all

I could afford, but I knew I still had to get into the market. And then the

equity was just growing on them. So I was just leveraging, taking out

the equity when I could, and then deploying that into a new property. So I only

ever saved one or two Deposits and then I

had seven properties from that. Okay, so that was proof in the pudding like wow

This is just like I'm not doing anything just like six twelve

twenty four months later I'm just taking equity out and buying another property like for money.

I didn't trade my time for and that was really rewarding

for me to understand that and But yeah, I got to seven properties

and realized that I'd probably maxed out. So I'd maxed out my debt to

income ratio because I had bought all my personal name. Because again, as much as

I studied, I still made mistakes. I still didn't understand the full picture. So

I'm still just sort of reshuffling my portfolio now to

Right, so what would you say would be, to date, has been the number one

mistake that you've made that you can share with everybody today, so they

So, again, because I did study so much, I learnt

as many mistakes as I could, so I stayed away from home and land packages,

I stayed away from high-density apartments, but my

mistake was probably maxing out my personal name, not

Well, it's very nuanced, it's very circumstantial and it's

down to the individual. So again, this is not advice, but I

should have bought in different entities like trust structures much earlier

on to capture my serviceability and allow for further

extended lending to keep building the portfolio because what I

did was buy under my personal name and my wife's. And

then the bank said, no more, you got too much debt, not enough income,

And did you look at things like, well, just interestingly, Tim,

I actually come from a lending background. So before I was a social

media influencer, before

I was a TikTok sensation, I

was a mortgage broker. So back in my 20s, I was a mortgage broker and I

worked, I had my own office and it was a wizard home loans office. You're

probably too young to remember those, but Mark Buros owned

it. That was something that he set up before he set up Yellow Brick Road, right?

And so I think I was the youngest mortgage broker within wizard or

a franchisee anyway in Australia at the time. And it was a great business.

I loved it. So I have an understanding a bit about lending and there's some other

things. I guess what I've done now is I've utilized

my lending experience in my own property portfolio

because I also went down this rabbit hole. I

bought my first property at 21. And much like you, I didn't, I

just went and started reading books. And something in my head too was like,

hey, I don't want to, I don't want to be a nine to fiver. Right. So this is

going back to the year sort of 99, 2000. This

is a while ago. And even then I was thinking that I've

remembered him buying Tony Robbins. Yeah.

I bought the, I bought the DVD set, the

DVD set delivered to your door and. Yeah,

I just started going through his and it was about like mind shift,

right, of the way I was thinking about whatever it was, right? It was basically just

breaking down barriers of everything that we've been taught through high school and what your parents

tell you and what your teachers tell you, that, you know, you can do

this and this is the pathway to do it. And I think it's

basically just if you set the goal, you

can kind of do it. And when you're 20, you don't really think

of the barriers because you don't know what the barriers are. So I'm

reading the books, it's like, hey, go buy property. Okay, I just went and bought property. I

didn't think I can't buy property. It was like, how do I now just do this? And I went and

sort of started doing it. How do you find now with people

in, I guess, you know, you're talking to people all day, every day about

buying into property market. How is it for young people? Because

this seems to be like it was a big topic through the federal election that we just had recently. Young

people can't get into properties. What are you seeing? Are people changing their,

I guess, expectations of what they can afford and perhaps moving

out of the city, so to speak, and buying cheaper products or Are

Yeah, it's a good question. I was speaking to another buyers agent about this this

morning. We're talking about the younger generations that we have coming

through to us. And I was saying they're one

or the other. I've got these people, these young, low

20s, even 19-year-olds who are just

ambitious. They're just like, let's go. How do I do it? Tell

me what I need to do, and I'll put the work in. And that's the attitude. I

love that. I love those type of clients. And then I have other people

I speak to who are so anxious. They are, you

know, the world is crushing down on them. They are very, very anxious.

It's a can't be done type of thing. And it's really polarizing

those two different mindsets. And there's not much in between. And

they're the people I speak to. So there are a lot of people who are

just taking it by the horns and just having a go. But

I find in the general population, Most

people are still stuck on, I need to do it exactly

how the people before me did it. And that's their

problem. They're trying to fit a square block

into a circle hole and they're frustrated by it. No shit

they're frustrated. You have to do something different now. What our parents

did and our grandparents did doesn't fucking work anymore. Like

that's the reality of it. And then this right now, what

I'm saying, will be posted on social media and there'll be comments on it. I guarantee you

that right now I can see them happening. People complaining, oh this

is bullshit, you better, you probably, all the negative bullshit. But

we need to think about doing something different because times have changed. Inflation is

destroying the currency. And debt

is harder to get, but sometimes it's actually easier.

We talk about different interest rates. You've just got to play your cards and

the position. But people are so not willing to compromise anymore, and

I find like these younger people coming, they're either so,

so keen or they're not willing to compromise and they just complain and

they want the government or somebody else to come in and

So just to get this right, you've got these people who basically could afford

to buy properties, but they can't buy the property they want to

buy. So for example, they come in to you and say, Tim,

we want to buy a $1.5 million house. It's our very first home. We want all these bells

and whistles. We want four bedrooms, two bathrooms. We want a pool, triple

lock up, one acre block. or tennis court,

right? So they're coming with those expectations because they've seen a lot on social media, because

maybe some basketball player has bought it or something, you know, overseas. And

then you're having to step in then and say, actually, guys, your

Pretty much, but the clients I'm dealing with is investor-only

clients. I don't do PPOR. They're thinking about doing it for a long time, but

I do speak to people trying to buy the PPOR, principal place of

residence. That is, for those who don't know. And

so the people who are coming on board with me are people who have changed their

mindset. They're trying to buy their principal place. They can't afford the

location or the dwelling type and quality that they wish. So

they go, I need to do something different. They might see a rent vesting video I've

done. They come on board and be like, tell me more about this because I can't do this. They're

the people I'm dealing with. But the others who aren't, who aren't getting

educated, they're just idle. And this is such a

problem in any facet in life, not just property. They're idle,

waiting for something to happen, waiting for a piece of information to come, waiting

for somebody else to do something for them without going out and hunting for

the information they need to make the informed decisions they need to do. So

yeah, they're the sort of people I deal with. So it's investor only, but yeah, definitely the

people trying to buy, they just can't buy and they're unwilling to compromise because

the prices have changed. They're moving 20, 30 Ks away from where they

And so do you have a solution then for people, because you obviously think about

this all the time, what is the solution then for people who

want to get into the market? And

yet, it's taking a long time to save

up deposit, I guess. By the time they save the deposit, the price of

the property's moved up more. So there's a forever chasing the tail. Is there a

So in my opinion, I believe rent vesting is a really, really good

tool to employ for the younger generations who can't

afford to buy their own place. So you're deciding and you're making

the informed decision to rent in that location you want to live in. and

you're going to buy property as an investment

vehicle in other locations that you can afford. That's my

method. That's what I do. That's what a lot of people I know are starting to do.

If that's not what you're doing, you have to have your own walls, then

you just have to move out to the locations you can afford. And that might mean you

need to move. But the prices aren't just going to change for you because you

want to live somewhere. So there's other options. You can start sharing with

people. You can buy a joint venture. Like

I said, move to another location, change your expectations, buy something

small that you don't love and stepping stone. But if you're looking for really the

Interesting. And how big is that? Like how many people are coming to

Probably 50% of people who are looking to buy their own place end up doing the

Yeah, and that's because they just think, okay, I can just get into the market now and

start, I guess, investing, right? With the

dream, I guess, do you put a plan together as well and say, look, let's do this first, this

is the investment first, rent vesting, and then we can look at

using some equity later or some other savings to then buy into

Yeah, look, we try to piece together the potential outcomes. What

usually happens is that the time horizon is quite long and

my personal opinion on those sort of longer term plans and goals is

that there's just so much time to get to there that

a goal or the plan It just becomes null and

void after a certain amount of time because there's so many nuances and

circumstances in life that are so unpredictable and unchangeable that

you just, it won't be stuck, you can't stick to it. So I like a

vision and then what's the tactical decisions we make in the now with the

information we have to get to that vision. Because for instance, imagine

if you had a plan. five years ago for the

next 10 to 15 years, you would not be able to predict what

happened in the last five years, whether it's COVID, whether it's interest rates, whether

it's whatever. If you wrote that down in your plan, you'd be bloody sent

off to a mental home. You know what I mean? So it's just

so nuanced and things have changed. So you've got to, I like the vision and then the tactical

plan to get there. But when I do speak to people, we think, okay, so what can

you do now? What's your best decision? What are the options and what

do they cost? What's the overall benefit? So we go through that process. Okay,

this decision makes sense, and I'll let the clients make the

decision, I'll give them the information, and if it is rent vesting, then

how do we rent vest to get to the outcome we need? So, ultimately

it comes to how do we make as much money in equity as we can, so then

at that time you want to pull the trigger to buy your principal place, you've got

as much capital as you can. What funnily happens most

of those times is they just fall in love with rent vesting and they end up doing that for a

Well, it's just so good. You live in a better quality house, typically, because

you're paying less. It's a fixed cost. Then you've got, the

location is much better usually, and then all your debt is

tax deductible debt. So you're actually putting more after tax dollars

in your pocket from your income, and you've got properties that are actually growing way

more than a PPY would, because you're buying with your heart, not your head,

Yeah, there's a strong argument for what you're saying too, Tim, because, I mean, and you're not

the only person I've heard say this, which is, don't buy

your owner-occupied home. Rent in that home and

put your capital elsewhere. That's going

to be growing. The flip side

to that, I want to say too, is obviously the owner-occupied home gives security.

If you own your home, it's security as opposed to renting. The

rental crisis now, it's very difficult to get into rentals. Personally,

I wouldn't want to have the problem of, oh, shit, in 12 months, I'm

going to have to move out and find another property. And

so I guess I just like the idea of the security. But I also have two

young girls as well. So there's that to sort of think about. And I also want

to add, too, that where people have made a lot of money, too,

is actually when they flip their owner-occupied home because it doesn't have any capital gains tax.

So that's just something that I would People

have to consider, I guess, and I guess it's a nuance, right? Totally. In

your case, Tim, have you done the rent-invest yourself? So do

you rent now and invest

in other properties? Yeah, you do that. Okay.

Yeah, I rent myself and I keep buying assets elsewhere. And I will touch on

what you just said as well, like as much as I am an advocate for

the rent vesting, I never force it on people because it is

so nuanced and it is so emotional too. So I give them the

hard fact information, this is the sort of way up to what you're looking at, the

place you can afford to buy, the rent vesting strategy, whatever. And

then you have to layer on the emotional side of that as well, because usually

there is potentially one or two in a relationship, if it's a

couple, who just needs that sense of, these are

my walls, I can paint them what I want, I can put a hole in them if I want,

and I can't be moved on, etc. So that is definitely consideration

in the process. It's just more so on the paper. Red

Vesting does usually work out for best. But yeah, it comes down to the personal situations.

If you can't afford the location you want, then typically it works out. But totally,

totally, the emotional side needs to be considered, and the security side,

et cetera. But just to answer your question again, yeah, I've red vested. I'll be

doing it for a much longer time. I live in a beautiful home, and

I'm able to do that because I've got assets elsewhere, and I

live in a good location, because I want to be able to afford the home I live

Yeah, look, there is, like I said, there's a strong case for it. Because I

think the other thing too, that people don't consider is, you know, when you get

into these beautiful homes, there's actually upkeep on

those beautiful homes, right? Which of course, if you're renting, you don't have to

worry about the upkeep of the home. I

know that even now, I live in a pretty nice house. It's on an

acre block. This is an example. The upkeep on the acre block, right?

There's constant mowing. I just had gardeners there yesterday. You

know, there's 800 bucks for a day of them doing all the hedges and

this, that and the other. And I remember my sister rang me recently and she's like, oh, we're going to go,

we're going to get a, it was like a five acre property or something.

I said, I said, that is going to, that's

a money pit. And this is a person who's not, they're not

wealthy people, right? But I think the idea, there's a difference between

the idea of owning a property and

actually owning it and then realizing, oh my God, I've got extra like insurance,

for example, like the bigger, the more expensive the home, the more insurance there

is and just things go wrong and you're just shelling out all the time. So anyway, I

love the fact that you're doing it because now you're an advocate for what you're actually preaching to

and you can show people, hey, look, I'm doing this and look at, I've got bloody all

Totally. I'm all about preaching, practice what I preach.

And you're right, not just the money to upkeep, but

the time as well. It's so nuanced. It

comes down to such an individual circumstance and what's the better decision

for them. Project it and say it like I

don't want people to think that that's what you have to do And I don't think people

you have to buy your own house either That's probably why I'm so

strong on it because there's such an counter dare I say narrative of

you must own your own home to be successful like that's what we've sort of been

socially injected into Because people, like when

I moved over, I was in Adelaide when I was in

the army and I moved back to Melbourne a couple of years ago. And I had seven

properties at that time and I was renting in the location. And my

auntie's like, oh so where are you now? And I said, we're at an ex-suburb. And

she's like, oh did you buy there? And we're like, no we're just renting. And she went,

oh that's okay. And she rubbed my shoulder. I was just like. Fuckin'

hell. That's the mentality though. I've got this multi-million

dollar portfolio and I'm, oh that's okay, you poor little piece of shit renter. That was the

That's so funny you say that because I, long, long story ago,

but I used to rent and I bought this new business, but

I'd moved to a new location. I was renting at the time. And I didn't want to

tell people that I was renting this property because of the stigma. It's

just easier to say, oh, I'm living there. And people then assumed, they

just automatically assumed, oh, you own it, right? Because I remember someone said something, I

just didn't say anything. But listen, I want to bring up something that's super, super

controversial. And that is that, you know,

obviously you're on the Crypto Collected podcast and although

I've been heavily invested in property, I'm now selling properties

and allocating more money into Bitcoin. I've

got, but I think the reason why I did that though, Tim, was because just

like most people in Australia, I was indoctrinated into property

is it. I'd also bought a lot of properties when I was in

my twenties and So in recent

years, when my online business did quite well, I started then allocating money

into commercial properties. And I thought, nah, commercial properties is

the way to go. And so I bought three

commercial properties in the last few years. And

around that time, I was like, I need to also maybe think about this Bitcoin thing,

too, because I hadn't had any money in Bitcoin at all. So I started buying

into Bitcoin. And I don't know if you can tell me in a

second, but once you go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, It's

hard to come back out. Totally. And so then you start

just comparing every asset to Bitcoin, which of course,

Bitcoin has been the number one performing asset over the past like 15 years.

Then I'm looking at, hang on a sec, this property, it's yielding like

4%. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm

out of that property, sell, you know, I'm dumping it. Just quickly,

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what's your position on Bitcoin? Do you even hold any other assets

Yeah, totally. So I hold cryptocurrencies, I

had shares and I own precious metals. So I diversify against

all asset classes as well, for different and various reasons. But

I think that's, like the word is diversification as well. I think it's great

to be across multiple Investments for different reasons, but

that comes down to like your position and your goals and what you're looking to actually do

Your risk profile is a big one as well the

time in the economy But I certainly think cryptocurrency has a huge role

to play in people's investment portfolios particularly Bitcoin because

you're right like it has been You know, if

you looked up the media headlines on it, you'd think you're an idiot for investing in

it. But if you looked up the stats and the graphs of how it's

performed, you're a genius for investing in it. Do you know what I mean? And, you

know, people do lose money on all investment types, but it's

typically because they sell and

they don't understand the market cycles, etc. So with Bitcoin, I'm

Okay, and so just from a personal level then, so you're holding Bitcoin,

Yeah, look, to be honest, I haven't looked at it in so long, which is like how I like to

do this type of investment. I probably own maybe 15 other

coins, you know, and I bought them a

few of them like a while ago and like I bought a few of the main big ones in XRP

everything and all that sort of stuff and then a few of the old coins just like a little bit of

money here and there you know back in the day when you could just dump a little bit of money there and

one of them would bang and be like a great return so I started

I got a little bit of a spread there but it probably is

due to have some updating and potentially more investment in that as well which

Interesting, Tim, because I'm now going through this phase where I'm deproperty-fying

myself. You're right. So, yeah, and it brought up

something really just so prevalent

in the community and the investing world, which is diversification. And

Even my wife says to me, Matthew, we need to be diversified. We

can't, because I was like the other day, I was like, not the other day, a few months ago, babe, let's

sell this other commercial property. We already sold one. Let's sell this one.

Let's sell the other one. And she's like, no, babe, I think, remember,

we want to stay diversified. And I think

deep down in my heart, because I'm so entrenched into the Bitcoin space,

I feel it's the wrong decision. This is gonna be controversial, but

I feel it's the wrong decision. I feel like offloading the properties is

actually the best decision to allocate into Bitcoin at this time

because the expectation on Bitcoin is a 30 to 60% compounding

annual growth rate over the next 10 to 20 years. You

are just not going to get that in property. Now, I'm not saying that I

may never come back to property. I

could, right, but I think When I'm talking about a

capital allocation at this time, my

capital will be better off spent into Bitcoin. So that's my

two cents. Hey, just quickly, if you're ready to dive deeper into

crypto and Bitcoin and build real wealth, join my

free crypto collective community. It's where I share exclusive insights

and strategies and live discussions to help you succeed, whether

you're a beginner or scaling your portfolio. Click on the

link in the description and join us today. Now back to the episode. I

will say something interesting though from a property perspective that you might find interesting. I'm not sure if you

know this, but there's a lot of people now who are using Bitcoin to

mix with property. Interesting. How do you mean? So

what's happening now is there's a lot of the

banks in Australia will eventually start lending. on

Bitcoin. Bitcoin is considered the most pristine capital now on

the planet. There's already a financial institution, actually there's

a couple, in Australia who already lend fiat

currency on Bitcoin. So what I can essentially do for those listening is

basically I can have a million dollars worth of Bitcoin, I can

put up a million dollars of collateral to XYZ Lender, and

they will then, the next day, Tim, send me

back 40%, sometimes 50%, in let's

say $500,000 in cash. So let's

say I'm a property investor, but I do have a million dollars worth

of Bitcoin. I'm like, you know what? I don't want to sell that Bitcoin. It's probably

going to do 30% to 60% over the next 10 years, but I also want to buy this

commercial building. I can give up the collateral. I

get my $500,000. Now two things can happen at this point. One

is you can use the $500,000 as a deposit and

let the bank fund the other, let's say 70% on your

commercial. Or let's say you're buying a very small unit

or you're buying a house for 500 grand, you can literally just take the 500 grand and

literally pay cash for the property. So now you

have a completely unencumbered property. I

probably see your mind ticking there because you can then go now buy

I'm loving that. If that's the way it's going to go, that's

bloody awesome. That's best for both of us. And

there's been some recent changes from a court outcome in Bitcoin

as well. And so there's potentially some like change in classification from

ATO in terms of how they're doing that. And the ATO might have

Yeah, and for those listening who don't understand, the court has made a ruling in, I

think it was Victorian court, Tim, that Bitcoin

is really considered money and therefore not classified under

the taxation system to have a capital gain and be applicable

to a capital gains tax. Now, on that note, because that's another rabbit

hole there, the ATO team already has a classification for

either or. So they say, how do you treat your crypto? If you treat

your crypto like an asset that

you're going to hold for 12 plus months, and you make a gain that comes

under capital gains tax. But if you're a trader, and

you're trading in and out of the market, you can elect to

Yeah, so that's what's happening in that space. Now, I already know that two out

of the four major banks in Australia are already putting

together the framework so that they can custody Bitcoin. I

don't know the exact banks, but I know

that there's two out of the four. So what will happen is you will

go to, for example, your CommBank account. It'll have

savings account. credit card, Bitcoin, right?

And then, and see, this is, see, the banks realize they don't want to miss out on the cash. They

know where this is going, right? So they'll say, look, we'll hold your Bitcoin.

In fact, you can just buy the Bitcoin with us. There's no, you don't even need to

go to these scammy, dodgy looking crypto exchanges, right?

You just keep it all with us like this. We're just going

to control everything. And they will

Yeah, that's sort of interesting. They're bloody banks, mate.

They know what they're doing. You've got to listen to them because they put so much time and energy into how

do they make money. If they're onto something, it means you should be paying

Yeah, absolutely. So, I guess the interesting part out of all of

this is I think there is going to be a very big

synergy between property, particularly in Australia, and

of course, the US and other places, Western countries, and

crypto, and more importantly, I think, Bitcoin. And you'll see

the banking, I already know the banks are starting to become exchanges,

and some of the smaller exchanges want to get banking licenses, so

they can sort of start diversifying, I guess, with their offerings within that.

I think the other thing I wanted to just say for the listeners as well,

and potentially your listeners too, Tim, is what I have found

is when you go and get this borrowing against your Bitcoin, there's no

pay slips, there's no income statements, there's

no how many kids have you got, right? Yeah. They

don't really care. Yeah, it's about what you're holding. They're

holding the Bitcoin. So if you can't... You

can't pay the cash back. They're just going to sell the Bitcoin, take their

money and give you back the difference. Obviously, the benefit with them is unlike holding

a property as collateral, the rigmarole to have to get that property

back is obviously more cumbersome than just selling Bitcoin

The other thing, and I'll finish on this point, is you can capitalize the

interest. So if I'm borrowing $500,000 on my million, the $50,000, and it's

actually about 9.5 to 10% interest rate, so it's not too bad considering that $50,000 in interest now

sits on top of the 500,000 after a year. So you now owe $550,000 on that loan. And then what you're able to do is either roll over that

loan, or you could pay off the $50,000 interest if you want. And You

just have to hope, though, that the Bitcoin is going to continue going up at a certain rate,

right? Because of course, there could be drops in that as well. So certainly

something very interesting from a cash flow point of view for when you then, if you then allocate that

funds into Bitcoin, sorry, into property. And I think it's

Man, that will be. If that's how it goes down, it certainly will be.

And they'll be the first adopters who really harness that and

take massive gains from that. But that's super interesting. Do you think we'll see

I don't think so. only

because the US dollar is so ingrained. And also

the other thing too is that Bitcoin is not really considered money. Although

the judge in Australia, this is what I found so interesting, the judge in Australia said,

I think it's money, but yet no one really trades with it.

No one's really going down to the Shell service station and filling up and

giving them Bitcoin for the fuel. It's now considered

a store of value, something much like gold, and

hence why it's called digital gold, but better. And so

I think we're going to have a day-to-day transacting. What I do think,

Tim, this is what I actually think, is that the US dollar will eventually be

backed by Bitcoin. There's already talk right now out of the US about

It's wild, it's wild, it's super interesting. But to go back

to your very first point, I think it definitely needs to

be a consideration for most people. And the good thing about it

is that it's so accessible. Like you don't need, like when you're

buying a property, if you wanna buy a decent asset, you need the

finance, the income, everything, plus a big deposit, all

that sort of stuff. You can just go in and just incrementally buy crypto

with whatever sort of change you have. And you can allocate like that, which is

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now I want to just jump into something else back on the property side of

things and it's to do, it's down sort of the political route. You've got,

I heard you said you're in Victoria, right, which in

my opinion is a socialist Victoria. They've got so

many taxes down there. We've now got this new increase in land

tax. and now I think they're calling it the emergency

services tax now applicable to your rates. And I only spoke to someone yesterday

who has a farm. He said, I was paying $15,000 a

year. It's now jumping up to nearly $50,000 a

year, every year. So what is your

position on that, I guess? What are your thoughts on that? And what are you telling clients then

Yeah, so my thoughts on it all is it's

absolutely bullshit. The amount of taxes

that are continually coming in is outrageous. The government, like

you said, it's so socialist. It's almost tyrannical.

It's take, take, take, take, take. And

then they wonder why they're destroying the middle class and the lower class because,

you know, even in property, some of the biggest barriers to property are

the freaking taxes, are the stamp duties, and then the cost to

hold are the taxes. Buying a new home, I think like 40% of the new

home purchase is taxes. It's out of control. And then they get

up on their podiums, they preach about helping cost of living and helping people

get into their first homes. Like you're the barrier, dickhead. So anyway,

Yeah, good. What I tell my clients is though, as much as

it shits me, as much as I wish

it could change and influence change, at the moment, we can't control it.

So we can't get or stop our investing

for things we cannot control. We need to see how can we still do it. Now

going back from the very start of this conversation with

your mindset was, how do I do it? It's the same thing applicable. Okay,

how do I still do this? And then it comes down to, what are the taxes at

X price? How much is it gonna cost me? What's the cashflow analysis? Is

it still doable? Will the outcome be a benefit overall if

I'm paying X, Y, Z? So, Essentially my message

to my clients is to yeah, it's shit. I don't agree with it, but suck

Yeah, but the strategies team like maybe don't buy in

Victoria maybe buy in a different state Maybe it's under

Yeah, so your personal name is usually the best entity to get the most, I

guess, or to pay the least land tax, for instance, for that one. When you own

trust structures and stuff of that, you usually cop it straight away. And Victoria,

not that long ago, put the threshold for the land, for the land tax down

to $50,000. If you can find me a piece of land in Victoria valued

under 50k, then I'll buy it myself. Wow. So it's just pretty

much means everyone pays now. There's also a COVID levy that

Yeah, it's freaking criminal in my opinion. It's like you guys recklessly spend

from your bullshit COVID stuff and then you're going to charge investors because

the rhetoric is investors are big, bad, scary, rich people trying

to, you know, destroy the housing market, which is just so wrong. Like most

people are just mum and dad investors just trying to get by, people who don't have super, people

just trying to better themselves. But yeah, look, essentially, it's not

too bad in Victoria when you put the numbers together for

the, say, the prices that we're purchasing at, which is typically around that 500 to

800k. A

few years ago when Victoria's market cycle wasn't performing, that's

when we said other states are better. Queensland, South

Australia, WA. But now that Victoria's market cycle

is actually starting to move in different regions, it's now worth paying that one,

two, three, four grand per year in land tax because

the gains you're going to get due to the growth coming will outstrip

Mm, interesting. So really the extra taxes are just increasing the value

It always does. Everything they do increases the value of the property. It's all the

headlines, but like, you know, whether it's the 5% deposit scheme,

get your money from here, this grant here, like it all just gets absorbed into

the price. Like if you don't think the builders incorporate all those grants into

their margins, then you're stupid, and then you're paying overs for

it, and it just inflates and continues to bring up prices. And the

more people can lend, they will

lend that money and they will go spend it and then the prices will go up.

So anything they do to help people lend more will then increase the

prices. So if you're one of those people who take advantage of that, you'll be in.

Everyone else who's not ready for that, younger generations, whatever, is just

I've got a pretty, I've got another controversial thing to say, Tim. I

actually think one of the best strategies to get into property, so I know I've been talking

up, I've been talking up Bitcoin and moving out of property, but of

course there's going to be people that want to buy into property. But I think one

of the challenges is for a lot of people is coming up with the deposit. So

one of my unique strategies, let's say, is

actually they should be allocating their savings rather into

a bank account earning nothing, they should allocate the savings into

Bitcoin, right? You know what, I agree with you. This

could be the new thing, right? We could partner together. Allocating

to Bitcoin to build up a portfolio, I would say, a

deposit, sooner rather than later, and then

use that, either two things there, Tim, borrow against it to

buy it, to put the deposit down, and if their Bitcoin portfolio is

big enough by that stage, they may even have enough money to borrow against it to buy the

house outright. they won't even need to touch the

bank, which would be absolutely extraordinary. So anyway, just something to

think about for some of the viewers out there. And I

It does. I agree with you on that. I think it's a timeline thing.

So if you have a short timeframe when you're going to buy,

so say if you were going to buy in three months' time, and you had money, you're

almost at your deposit, I probably wouldn't be chucking it into any asset. I'd just be waiting three

months, putting it down. If you have a one, two, three, four, five year horizon of

savings, and what I get people to do is, or what I want people to

do is to understand where the money's coming in and going out, what

can you save, how do you increase that, and then you have a timeline by projecting

how much you can save per year, how many years until you have X amount for the deposit. If

it's a few years, then I think explore other

assets. And the reason I say I agree with you is because I did that. I

did that when I saved my first deposit. I put it into shares back in like

2015 or 16, because it took me like three, it's going to take me like five

years to save the deposit. And then I thought,

that's way too long. I need to figure out how to do this quicker. I put it into shares. I

went hard on a concentrated portfolio, built my deposit and made a year

Awesome. Well, Tim, I think we'll leave it on that note. It's been an

incredible conversation with you. I want to thank you so much for coming on again. And anyone who's

looking to buy a property, who needs a buyer's agent, reach

out to Tim because I know he's big in this space. He's big into rent

vesting. It's something that he's done himself and the proof is in the pudding

with his own property portfolio, which I know a lot of people want to do.

So Tim, thank you so much for coming on. We'll put your details in the show notes and look

Thanks for tuning in to Crypto Collective. If you've enjoyed this episode, the

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of me at I'm Matthew Fraser on all