‘Horrible’: 30yo reveals moment investment property turned into a nightmare

A young landlord has revealed the mistake he made that left him unable to sleep at night and why it was a “horrible experience”.

Adrian Trimboli is about to purchase his eighth investment property, but he experienced an investment nightmare before he found success.

Mr Trimboli is the founder of the buyer’s agency Fresh Start Advisory. At 30, he has a negatively geared property portfolio that he believes will result in him making $200,000 in passive income in the next eight years.

The property owner said he bought his first place when he was 18. He had just come back from Schoolies and had already $30,000 saved from working at McDonalds throughout high school.

He credits his savvy mum with getting him into property investing. She told him and his brother to use their savings to invest in real estate, and they did.

“I worked extremely hard throughout school and I’m a tight-arse,” he told news.com.au.

Mr Trimboli said that the first properties he bought alongside his brother were “dud properties” but they were a valuable learning experience.

“I’d done no research, there was no team, and we’d bought around the corner, and you know, you think you know the cafes so...” he explained.

“We bought apartments on the main road and we listened to the real estate agent who we thought was on our side.”

The result? They’d bought in a low-growth area in Melbourne, ignored the number one property rule — location, location, location.

He explained he did no research when he first started investing in real estate. Picture: Supplied

It resulted him buying some “dud” properties. Picture: Supplied

The real nightmare happened, though, when he leased one of his properties privately, and that is when everything went to hell.

“It was a horrible experience; it was one of my earlier properties I’d bought. It was the third property I’d purchased, and I leased the property privately, and I did everything wrong,” he said.

The property investor said that within a couple of months, the tenants were late paying rent, and then eventually “went AWOL” and didn’t respond.

“For six months, they didn’t pay rent, and they ruined the entire house, and there was $30,000 worth of damages,” he said.

“It was horrific. There were sleepless nights. I still had a $500,000 loan on the property and it was tough.”

Mr Trimboli was only 23 at the time, but his messy experience made him want to start a buyer’s agency.

He wanted to help other people learn how to invest, and save them from the mistakes he made.

“It was a learning curve me for me and the catalyst to start my business,” he said.

The property fail made him want to start his own business to help other Aussies navigate investing. Picture: Supplied

Seven years later, the property investor is about to finalise the sale of his eighth investment property and is spending between $20,000 and $30,000 per year keeping his property portfolio afloat.

In that time, he also helped many other Aussies buy savvy investment properties and amass wealth and he is also a savvy buyer now.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t live in a mansion; at the moment, he lives at home. He went through a break-up and wanted to recalculate things.

He plans to move out again soon, but it won’t be in one of his own properties. He’ll go back to renting.

Mr Trimboli explained that he is planning to eventually cash out of some investments and buy his dream home outright, hopefully by the age of 35.

He believes he’ll be able to do this by following a “pretty simple” formula: buying properties between $400,000 and $600,000 and waiting for them to double in value before cashing out.

The amount of time it takes for properties to double in value can take a few years, although he did have a property once that doubled within three years.

He made a mistake when he was beginning his empire. Picture: Supplied

He said debt doesn’t scare him at all. Picture: Supplied

He is currently in about $4 million worth of debt, as he is still waiting to see the results from most of his investments, but he isn’t worried.

“It doesn’t scare me, I think it is too low. The more debt I have, the more successful I am, in my opinion,” he said.

The property investor said it’d be ideal to reach a point where he is in $10 million worth of debt but has a property portfolio of over $40 million.

It costs him between $20,000 to $30,000 to hold onto his property portfolio, but he believes it’ll soon be turning a profit.

He knows that this plan can seem intimidating to people, but as far as he is concerned, you have to take conservative risks to build wealth.

“If you’re going to try and achieve something that your family and friend group haven’t achieved, you’re going to have to do something different,” he said.

“Get around people that have achieved what they want to achieve.”

Mr Trimboli is still on his wealth creation journey but he has had a chance to help the person who got him on the journey in the first place.

“I bought my mum her first investment property. She’s 60 now, and we just bought her another property, and she’ll have $100,000 income coming into her pocket by the time she retires at 65, and that is pretty special,” he said.