While he used to be a close relative of the Penrith Panther, he now shows his pride for his area in another fashion— but with the same qualities underpinning it. In this episode he shares what it’s like to be in property management, the importance of community and being outside, and the lessons he’s learnt along the way— both professional and personal.

Timestamps:
00:26 | Passion in Penrith
03:59 | A Day in the Life
05:28 | Fresh Air and Fresh Sandwiches
10:39 | The Powerful Panthers
14:22 | What Can Go Right?
16:41 | Taking a Step Back
19:54 | Self-Management Struggles
29:59 | Emotions: Off

Resources and Links:

[00:15:24] So we'd made a little bit of equity out of that one. So that gave us an opportunity then to move on to our next. So that time was a bit scary for us. And I think everyone has that sort of fear. It's the fear of the unknown, rather than what could go right. But once you sort of jump in and understand that property is the way forward, then you'll never look back. 

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

 

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode we’re speaking with Craig Malvern, a partner at Linder Group and a proud family man. He shares all there is to know about his transition from a customer service newbie through to his status as a legendary well-known Penrith name. Plus, he reveals why sometimes it pays to listen to your little sister!

Tyrone Shum:   

Craig Malvern is the property real estate licensee and director of Linder Group, a real estate agency based in Sydney. With a varied career background before he made his way into property, he’s always followed his passions— and now he’s following in his younger sister’s footsteps! The Linder Group may be a family business, but it’s Malvern’s talent and dedication that has gotten him to where he is.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:00:26] Mainly my day involves a lot of property management and making sure the business is operating profitably day to day. Also [I] concentrate on doing a lot of the sales, open homes and pretty much running the whole business day to day. We've been Linder Group now for three years. And it's getting busier and busier. Which is fantastic.

  

[00:01:02] I've been in real estate now since about 2010. [I] started investing around 2008. And that sort of gave me my passion to get into real estate. I joined a local company in Penrith for years, I was the sales manager there for four or five years. And my sister has been a mortgage broker for years and years. 

  

[00:01:23] And we sort of put our heads together one day and thought, 'We can do all this ourselves'. We found there was a bit of a niche in the market where she's dealing with a lot of investor clients. And we're doing a lot of properties for them, building properties and [they] had no one really to manage their properties for them and help them look after it. 

  

[00:01:42] So we thought, 'Well, there's an opportunity there. How do we create a business that can be pretty much a one stop shop for all of our investors? From finance, through to real estate to managing their property and then helping them also grow their portfolio'. 

Tyrone Shum:
Malvern’s sister, Kimberly Linder, founded the company just as COVID-19 was also setting up shop. Between the handful of passionate property lovers at Linder Group and the way the market exploded soon after they set out, he hasn’t looked back once.

Craig Malvern:  

[00:02:12] But COVID seemed to help make our business get a lot of trust through that time. We've [got] a lot of our existing clients and now three years on, we manage 130 properties and it's going really, really well.

   

[00:02:39] And the beauty of it is, I guess, most of it's come from word of mouth and existing clients. So there's already that trust there with existing clients. Which makes the job a lot easier on my part.

Tyrone Shum:   

His typical day involves a lot of emails and phone calls along with what goes on in the background of a real estate agency. It can certainly get busy, but he definitely enjoys it.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:03:59] It's just a matter of making sure you manage it properly. From the business I was in before, I sat in an office with about 10 property managers, so I got to hear a lot of their conversations with tenants. So a lot of that, I think, not knowing at the time that it was actually feeding into my brain and hearing that. 

  

[00:04:19] But now that I get to deal with tenants, I've heard all those conversations before. And I think it just sort of gave me a really good perspective on what the property management side of the business was like. 

  

[00:04:31] And tenants, I've always thought tenants can become buyers, can become sellers and can become really, really good clients. And that's how I've always treated all my tenants and all of my clients. I just think that's the best way to continue to grow your business.

Tyrone Shum:   

He takes us on a trip down memory lane, venturing out to Penrith where his childhood was full of fun, games, and toasted sandwiches by the pool.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:05:28] I grew up in Emu Plains, which is just at the foothills of the Blue Mountains on [the] Nepean River. My dad still lives in the house we grew up in, [he's] been there for 40 odd years.

[00:07:11] We were always, always outdoors until the streetlights [came] on, then we had to go home for dinner. And I was very lucky, we grew up right behind the high school at Nepean High and so we could just walk out the back gate and onto all the fields, so [we were] forever with the local kids playing footy and hitting golf balls and all that sort of stuff, going swimming in the Nepean River. [Which] my dad didn't like at all! Riding BMX bikes, lots of storm drains and things to stack your bike in there and get around. So it was very, very outdoors sort of growing up. 

  

[00:07:49] [I had a] real[ly] great family upbringing. Mum and Dad loved having anyone over at any time. All the local kids were welcome at any time. We had a pool in our backyard, an old above ground pool, and at any time, there could be 20 or 30 kids [coming] over for a swim, and Mum and Dad didn't care, so it was great. And that sort of gave us a really good perspective on life and just family values and those sorts of things.

[00:08:55] There was always toasted sandwich[es] and things for kids so that's probably why they kept coming over, to get a feed, I guess.

[00:09:17] I went to Nepean High, which was great because I could just walk straight out the back door to school and come home for lunch every day. So that was good. [I] went through to year 12, did my HSC. [I] was never really sure what I wanted to do after that. 

Tyrone Shum:   

What he was sure of, however, was his desire to have a family. Now his kids are young adults making their way into the working world, much like he did when he was their age. But that’s not the only similarity!

Craig Malvern:  

[00:05:50] [I] got married in '93, so it's our 30 year anniversary this year.

  

[00:05:59] And [we've] got two kids. 

  

[00:06:23] Liam works in IT for a major bank. And my daughter is in hospitality. So she sort of followed my path. I started in Penrith Panthers in hospitality in '89. And worked there for 15 years, managing [and] looking after bars there, before I got into the real estate space.

   

[00:09:32] I got a job at Penrith Panthers, a casual job, and then that turned into [a] permanent [job] and [a] management [role] and 15 years later, I left there. So I've always loved the hospitality industry. That has always been my passion, helping people and customer service and just love that sort of [thing]. 

  

[00:09:53] I'm not a massive fan of the 9 to 5. I could never just sit in an office from nine to five and do the paperwork, I have to be out and about or have different hours and engaging with people and talking to people all the time. And I guess real estate gives you that opportunity as well. It's not a 9 to 5 office job. It's a 24/7 job sometimes. 

 

[00:10:15] But Panthers gave me an incredible grounding. I met some really, really good people there, some great managers, real forward thinkers, people like Roger Cowan, and they're just real visionaries. And to be able to spend time with some of those people, at that time gave me a real different perspective on life. 

Tyrone Shum:
After leaving the Penrith Panthers in 2004, he continued to work with some very well-known companies with household names.

Craig Malvern:  

[00:10:39] [I] went and worked with Coca Cola Amatil out at Northmead for five or six years. And that was more of a... I sort of had to give up the nights and that sort of thing, because the kids were getting to a point where [we] needed to run around for school and things like that. So that was more of a necessity than a want, but [I] really enjoyed that time. 

[00:11:28] I was in sales, I was a business development manager. So I'd pretty much go around and talk to all of our clients, a lot of takeaways and food courts. One of my major areas was the Westfield at Parramatta, so I spent a lot of time in there merchandising and selling and talking to clients there.

  

[00:11:48] And then I sort of had a territory where I looked after from Penrith through to Leichhardt. So it was quite a big territory. But that was a really, really enjoyable job as well for a long time. And once again, in those type of businesses, you get to meet some really good mentors and some great people. And if you can take a little bit from everyone you meet, it sort of gives you different perspectives on things.

  

[00:11:00] And then after five years, I'd sort of had enough of that sort of life and thought, 'Oh, what's next?' I just started investing, I knew a couple of local real estate agents in the Cranebrook area, really good mates, and got into real estate and haven't looked back since.

Tyrone Shum:   

The shift into business development required a completely different skillset, but it was one Malvern had prepared earlier.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:12:28] My last couple of years at Penrith Panthers, I was a manager of one of the satellite clubs at Glenbrook, Glenbrook Bowling Club. And I'd also done a business management degree through TAFE back in 2000. So I guess I'd already got into that business development side for a while. 

  

[00:12:49] [It was] more running the club than looking after staff and day to day chores. So looking at analysing budgets and things like that, so I'd already done all that. So to get into Coke into sort of a selling role and then a business development role where I'm going out and talking to clients and getting them to come on board, etc, seems to be a pretty easy change from [what I was doing before].

   

[00:13:31] They allowed that for me. And their training at that club at the time I was there, it was just amazing, they really, really wanted you to go out and learn as much as you could. And they had their own internal courses and, and things like that to do with business management and a lot of stuff like NLP and things like that, where [they] teach you to think a little bit different[ly] and yeah, it was a really good time.

Coming up after the break, we find out how he nearly got in his own way before even starting his journey…

[00:14:28] My sister had been asking me for years and years to get into it, and knowing how successful she'd been, I was quite stubborn!

The lessons he’s learnt along the way…

Craig Malvern:   

[00:19:54] You talk about property and the end result, but it's not always very easy. You do have struggles throughout it.

He shares his advice to anybody and everybody thinking about entering the property market.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:27:25] I know we've sold a couple, but they were for lifestyle changes, [they] allowed us to do stuff in our life that we want to do. 

And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

Tyrone Shum:   

Malvern had been on the fence about property investment for several years before taking the plunge. However, just like the Linder Group started at an uncertain time in the market, so did his investment journey.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:14:22] Our first investment was [in] about 2008, [that] was the first property we bought. My sister had been asking me for years and years to get into it, and knowing how successful she'd been, I was quite stubborn! She'd been going for five or six years before we took the plunge. 

  

[00:14:42] I guess for us the first one was more out of fear and what could go wrong rather than what can go right. When you've got a big mortgage, you've got kids going through school, there's not a lot of money there for that sort of thing. It's very hard to take that plunge. 

  

[00:15:01] But once we did and had a look at what Kimberly was doing and found the right type of property, being a cash positive property, positively geared, after 12 [to] 18 months, we thought, 'We're doing the right thing here'. And that's when we sort of said, 'What's the next step? Let's look at another property'. 

  

[00:15:24] So we'd made a little bit of equity out of that one. So that gave us an opportunity then to move on to our next. So that time was a bit scary for us. And I think everyone has that sort of fear. It's the fear of the unknown, rather than what could go right. 

  

[00:15:45] But once you sort of jump in and understand that property is the way forward, then you'll never look back. And I always say, now my worst decision is I didn't start five or six years earlier.

Tyrone Shum:   

He walks us through the ins and outs of that first property he purchased.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:16:41] I'd been a local in the area. So I knew the areas pretty well, around [the] Penrith area, and it's a place called Cambridge Park. And we bought a property, it was an 800 square metre corner block. So I was thinking at the time that there could be a chance to at some stage knock down, do a duplex, or do something else with that block of land. 

  

[00:17:05] It was an older style three bedroom, brick veneer home, it did have an old garage that had been converted into a granny flat at the back. So  obviously, we had the two lots of income, so [a] tenant out the front [and a] tenant out the back, which made the place positively geared.

  

[00:17:27] And that was our idea. [It] was, 'Well, we don't have a lot of money to throw at investing. So how can we minimise what we have to put in to start to grow our portfolio?'.

  

[00:17:39] And in that time, there was a fair bit of capital growth in the area. So it's probably a bit of luck with the right timing. 2008, obviously, we had the GFC. And then 2009 [or] 2010, things started to kick again. So we had that equity, and Kimberly persuaded us to say, 'Hey, you've got this equity now. And what are you going to do next?' 

 

[00:18:02] Once again, we were a bit hesitant, but we then went and bought another property, very similar, an old three bedroom home over in Cranebrook, with a granny flat, positively geared as well. And that sort of kick started us on our journey.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:18:19] That is amazing. And since then, since 2008, how many properties have you purchased together, into your portfolio, with your wife?

Craig Malvern:   

[00:18:27] At the moment, we've got nine properties in our portfolio. We've got two on the go at the moment that we're building, [we're] building a dual key property up in Thornton, in the Hunter Valley, and also a four bedroom home in Cooranbong, which is [on] the central coast of New South Wales. So nine in total at the moment. 

  

[00:18:48] We have sold a couple over the years, so our first two, we have actually sold those. We sold the one in Cranebrook first, we sold that [in] I think about 2015. And that allowed us to pay off our full mortgage on our family home, which is fantastic, [it] just gives us a lot of freedom to do a lot of things. 

  

[00:19:10] And last year, we sold the one in Cambridge Park, finally. And that's going to allow us to do our new builds that we're doing at the moment. So buying property and selling the occasional property allows you to do some things that you thought you'd probably never be able to do.

Tyrone Shum:   

He finds that the biggest challenge is pushing through fear, especially the fear surrounding how choices can impact day to day living expenses.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:19:54] You talk about property and the end result, but it's not always very easy. You do have struggles throughout it. With our property at Cranebridge Park, we self managed for a while, which taught me a lot of lessons. And we actually had tenants that trashed a property. So that [became] a bit of a problem at that time. 

  

[00:20:17] But those things are really good lessons moving forward. And you get to learn from that, but it's not always easy. And there are times when you go, 'Okay, well, how do we afford the mortgage for next week?', but at the end of the day, property is usually appreciating. And you've got to really look at that end goal rather than think about exactly what's going on at the time.

Tyrone Shum:   

The second property they purchased was in Cranebrook, another house with a granny flat for that dual income potential. It was their third property that really sold investment for them.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:21:13] The third one we bought was we actually bought a block of land and built a home in Caddens, which is pretty exciting for us because it was in Orchard Hills, which was always a pretty exclusive suburb around Penrith. And to actually buy a block of land in Caddens or Orchard Hills, was like, 'We've made it', I guess. That's how we felt as local Penrith people anyway. But that's one of the best decisions I've made.

  

[00:21:44] We built that one. It's just a four bedroom home, we've still got really good tenants in there at the moment. And then we started to get some land tax bills, which is something every investor goes, 'Oh, no' [about]. 

 

[00:22:01] So I guess we had to have a look at where we were at with our strategy and then change. So we then started looking at Queensland.

  

[00:22:11] So once again, we looked at a couple of properties in Queensland. [We] built just some four bedroom homes to get some decent equity and decent rent yields out of, which by the time they were built and rented out, they were about neutral. [They] might [have] cost us a little bit a year but it wasn't costing us too much. 

  

[00:22:34] And then we ended up building a duplex up at Glenvale, which is out around [the] Toowoomba area. And we still own that, and it rents really well now. So that’s the dual income strategy again. 

  

[00:22:50] Once we'd sold a couple in New South Wales, and we thought, 'Oh, hang on, we can come back to New South Wales and invest a few'. So we built a dual key home, which is a four bedroom home with a two bedroom granny flat under the main roof. And we built that one out at North Richmond, in an estate called Red Bank. And that sort of got us back into New South Wales. Once again, a really well positively geared property.

  

[00:23:23] And I guess then after selling a couple, we then bought a property up [in] Forster, on the New South Wales North Coast. [It's] an investment property but it's also a lifestyle for us as well, we get to go and use that right on the beach when we need to. So some of our choices have allowed us to buy that. And to use that as an investment and also as a lifestyle choice as well.

  

[00:23:56] It's gorgeous, and we're up there every long weekend when we can. But also, it still returns a really good yield during the year as well.

Tyrone Shum:   

Thanks to his years of experience, he’s certainly experienced the rollercoaster of ups and downs that property investment can strap you in for. When it comes to his worst investing moment, it happened during the time where he was in between jobs.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:24:41] I'd just left Coca Cola and was thinking about getting into real estate so doing my license and all that sort of thing. So I probably had about six months off and thought, 'I'm going to buy a property and renovate it and on sell it', the old 'see how much we can make out of a property' [idea].

  

[00:24:56] So I bought a really, really rundown property in Kingswood, right across from the uni on a really, really big block of land. [I] spent probably about $30,000 doing it up, cleaning it up, tidying it up. It was a really, really bad property, they'd taken about eight skip loads of junk out of the property before they put it on the market. It smelt like dog urine. So it was probably a good property to buy because no one else wanted to buy it. So I picked it up at the right price. 

 

[00:25:27] But once I had done it all up [and] put it back on the market, we ended up selling it and probably made about $20,000. So not a massive profit. And I guess the biggest problem with that is that property is probably worth four times what I bought it for now. So if we would have held that, it's right across from the uni, it's an R3 site, which means you can knock it down and put townhouses on [it]. It's an 850 square metre block. So that was probably my worst decision. 

  

[00:26:02] But at the time, it was once again done out of necessity. [I was] not working and about to go into a new career. So we sort of couldn't afford to hold on to it at that stage. 

  

[00:26:13] If we would have sort of stuck it out for a year, put a tenant in there, then it probably would have been the best decision I've made. But on selling it to someone that quick, that sort of took me out of that space and [I] thought, 'No, I don't want to do this sort of thing for a living. I don't want to flip houses. That's for the experts'. [I] learnt a lot of lessons along the way.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:26:33] Oh, absolutely. I mean, especially doing a renovation. And you know you picked it up at a good price by the sounds of it. And walking away, how long did the renovation take roughly for you? For that time period of time?

Craig Malvern:   

[00:26:46] It's probably about six months, by the time we bought it and [had] done the renovation, then it just settled. So it wasn't a lot of time. But if you think it's $20,000 in six months, that's… you know, you can go and work at a pub and earn more money than that. And the amount of work that I was putting into it, 10 [to] 12 hours a day, it definitely wasn't worth the money or the effort.

Tyrone Shum:   

He sees that every worst investment moment cloud has a silver lining, which is that he’s faithful to the trusty method he’s been using ever since.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:27:19] Dual income strategies and holding on to properties. And that's probably the biggest lesson for anyone. I know we've sold a couple, but they were for lifestyle changes, [they] allowed us to do stuff in our life that we want to do. 

  

[00:27:33] But [my] advice to anyone that is buying [is] the longer you hold it, the better. Especially if you're a young person buying property these days. Historically, in Australia, property has doubled every 10 years. So if you can hold on to something for 20 [or] 30 years, you may be 20 and buying something now, and when you're 50, you're going to have an amazing asset that you can sell and probably retire at that time.

Tyrone Shum:   

His aha moment goes to show that even when somebody close to you has your best interests at heart, sometimes it’s best to trust your instincts.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:28:32] The one we bought in Cranebrook was my biggest aha moment. Because I'd just started working for a local real estate agent up there. And one of the agents, this property [came] on the market and I thought, 'Oh, yeah, this looks like the type of property that we're after'. But it was in a housing commission area. The area didn't have the greatest rep. And the agent's sort of saying, 'No, mate, don't buy in there, that's no good for you', etc, etc.

  

[00:29:04] And I thought, 'You know what? I think there's really good rental yield here. And I'm not not too fussed on areas and that sort of thing'. And, we ended up purchasing that property. And I think that was a really good property for us, [it] allowed us to, once we sold it, pay off our own home. And I think that's probably the moment we said, 'You know what? We're really confident in what we're doing here, and this is working'. 

  

[00:29:34] And that's probably that aha moment, you go, 'Well, I'm not listening to people now. I'm making my own decisions'. Obviously, you get as much advice and you do as much research as you can for yourself. But until you've sort of got that confidence to go, 'Yep, this is what I want to do. And this is why I want to do it', that's when you get that aha moment and go, 'Yeah, this is really going to work for us'.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:29:59] You mentioned that the agent said to you it wasn't a good purchase, or was it the agent or someone else that said that. What was the reason behind that?

Craig Malvern:   

[00:30:07] I think the agent honestly knew us pretty well and had our best interests at heart and thought, 'I wouldn't really recommend my family to buy in that area', it was a pretty rough area. So he did have our best interests at heart. 

  

[00:30:22] But I guess one of the biggest lessons you learn is buying investment properties, you've got to take all emotion out of it. You're buying something that's going to be a business. And when you start bringing emotion into it, you make different decisions. If you look at investment properties purely on numbers, rent returns, and then potential growth. 

  

[00:30:44] And obviously, I've seen a few areas where they've been a bit rough and they've been tidied up and all of a sudden, they [became] really, really good areas that people want to buy in. So you tend to get a lot of capital growth in those areas.

  

[00:30:58] So that was the aha moment. And I know he's still a good mate today, and I know he had our best interests at heart when he was saying, 'No, don't buy in that area, mate'.

Tyrone Shum:   

He knows both the New South Wales and Queensland markets reasonably well, which meant he was able to make a wise investment choice in what was once a working class suburb near Brisbane.

Craig Malvern:   

[00:31:52] We've got a property up at Yarrabilba, which is just out of Logan. And it's had really good rental yield for about five years, really good rental yield up there. But you can just start seeing that now, like, the rents have gone up [by] $70 [or] $80 a week now, and they're started to get some really good capital growth in that area. 

  

[00:32:22] And that's what happens. People have to move to where they can afford. And they start to sprawl out. You look at Blacktown and people move out from Blacktown and then come to Penrith and then start looking [in the] lower mountains and those areas. 

  

[00:32:26] So the expansion [and] growth of population in Australia just means that people need somewhere to live. So those areas at some stage are going to become popular areas, and you're going to get a lot of capital growth in those areas.

Craig Malvern’s story continues in the next episode of Property Investory. He opens up about the deliberations that come along with the investment process…

 

[00:00:12] After the second one, we got a bit of... not cold feet. But we thought, 'Oh, hang on, what's next?’

 

The pros and cons of new and existing properties…

 

[00:04:58] Having older properties too, there is a lot of maintenance with them.

He delves into the true cost of doing business.

[00:07:15] And the beauty of a few of these is that we have had quite good capital growth on the blocks of land in the time.

 

And that’s next time on Property Investory.