Property Investory
The Best Property Advice You’ll Ever Receive: With Real Estate Millionaire Dymphna Boholt!
November 19, 2017
Dymphna Boholt is quite an amazing woman. Founder of the “I love realestate” community, she runs real estate education courses for up-coming investors. She also owns a few of her own real estate businesses that she manages on the side.
However she wasn't always on top of the world as she is now. Join us as we follow Dymphna on her life journey as she describes the highest and lowest points in her life that shaped her into who she is today. She explains how she went from being a single mum who lost everything in a messy divorce, to completely replacing her 60 hour work week income with a passive real estate salary instead. 

Timestamps:
00:00:45 | Who is Dymphna Boholt ?
00:03:03 | Read, Reward, Repeat: How to stay productive
00:08:08 | You can’t take the country out of the girl... but you can give her a culture shock!
00:09:30 | A change of course
00:12:39 | Poor Kid, Rich Kid
00:16:37 | Single Mum takes on the Sunshine Coast
00:18:02 | If you’re going through hell, keep going.
00:21:46 | Negative Gearing: It’s a mugs game
00:24:38 | Rampant energy & real estate
00:27:33 | What is a RAS system and why is it important?

Resources and Links:

Transcript:

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:23:03] And do you know the first three properties I bought, were all positively cash flow properties without any money at all

**INTRO MUSIC**

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

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode, we are talking to Property Millionaire Dymphna Boholt. We’ll follow her incredible story, from growing up poor on a cattle farm, to turning her last $40,000 into a property empire, all while she was a single mum with a baby on her hip and another one on the way. Keep listening to find out how she did it! 

**END INTRO MUSIC**

**START BACKGROUND MUSIC**

Tyrone Shum 
Boholt has many interesting things going for her, one of them being her name, and the other being her outlook on the property world. 

Dymphna Boholt 
[0:23] Well, first of all, my name is a little bit unusual, it's different. It's actually Welsh and Irish its origins. And nobody seems to be able to pronounce it properly, apart from the Welsh and the Irish. I was the last of seven children. So I think my mother ran out of names by the time she got to me. 

[00:00:45] I founded the “I love real estate” community. A long time ago now, over 10 years, I've been speaking on stage and educating people on how to invest their money wisely in the property market, as well as a lot of peripheral fundamentals, which people need to know like asset protection, taxation, you know, legal parameters, contracts, or everything. All strategies in real estate, because I certainly believe to really get ahead in real estate, it's not just about buying anything, it's very much about doing manufactured growth and manufactured income strategies and being active in the market, particularly if you ever have a dream of replacing your income. And doing it within a relatively short space of time, not the 40 year kind of mark that most people sign up for. And unfortunately, the road that most people sign up for is the negative gearing road. And I'm sorry, that just keeps you in your job, it certainly doesn't enable you to replace your income.

Tyrone Shum   
When Boholt isn't talking on stage, she has a day to day routine, which includes actively engaging with her students and teaching them her knowledge. 

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:02:00] What my day is that is very varied, actually, I mean, when I'm with my students, I'm 100% present. So I do a number of training events around the country, whether they be one day, three days, four days, I've got coming up very shortly. So when I'm doing those, I'm very present. And that's what I'm doing. When I'm at home here on the farm. I have an office here, I've got two full-time accountants, I've got other staff upstairs. And my day here probably starts about eight o'clock normally after I've been to the gym and those sorts of things. And I normally do, I'm very structured in my day. So I will have a certain time for my own portfolio, I will have a certain time for my property education business. And then I run a number of real estate businesses as well as in more active management properties in real estate, not just passive investments, which needs a lot more attention. So my day is very, very varied. 

Tyrone Shum: 
She also shared a little trick to getting the hard stuff done during her day-to-day 

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:03:03] if I've got something that I don't like doing, I normally give myself a little reward for, for getting the job done that I didn't want to go and do. And that might be, you know, playing in the garden for 10 minutes or something rather. So something that I enjoy doing.

[00:03:24] It's a good little motivational tool because you know, there's always things that you don't want to do. There are always tasks that you know, it might be ringing up to chasing a creditor, or it might be, you know, tracking down a lease or negotiating on a new insurance policy. Whenever I was doing this morning, actually, before you rang, I was negotiating on reducing one of my insurance policies, which I thought was far too exorbitant. And you know, there are jobs that you don't normally like to do because they involve a bit of wrangling and those sorts of things. So when I'm doing that I've every morning I write my to-do list of what I've got to get done for the day. And I prioritise that to-do list. And there will be things on there that will be.. ugh got to do that. And if you don't have a reward, it's very easy to throw it to the end, so to the end, and that'll be on next days to do this. So it might just be well, I'll get that done. And then I'll go and have a cup of tea or something like that.

Tyrone Shum
This mindset is also very important in property investing 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:04:33] I think real estate is definitely about discipline because you have to allocate time to the real estate business because that's what it is. It's a business. You know, and even if you've got title passive income coming in from your property portfolio, you still need to, you know, to look at it and review it and all of those other things. It's not It's not 100% passive.

Personal Story

Tyrone Shum
Boholt grew up on a farm, but moved around a lot due to her fathers failed endeavours in selling cattle properties. 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:05:09] I grew up in Central Queensland, I grew up on a Cattle Station. My father moved around a lot. When I was a kid, I think by the time I was in grade seven, I've been to five different schools. 
 
[00:05:26] So it meant that I, you know, was very resilient and quite independent and those sorts of things, because, you know, you when you're moving that often you're very much on your own. And being the last of seven children. I'm eight, there are eight years between myself and my next sibling. So it was kind of like growing up with my grandparents really. 

[00:07:19] My father - bless his soul, he didn't understand inflation, I'm afraid. So he would buy and sell cattle properties at a loss. Okay. I mean, the figure had gone up, the actual dollar figure went up, but he didn't really understand the power of inflation and how you can sell a property. But then if inflation is going up, in the meantime, you got to rebuy in and I think each time it was kind of getting a little bit less and a little bit less. So he wasn't a particularly good money manager, my father.

Tyrone Shum
Boholt’s main talent wasn’t always property, she was quite the athlete when she was in high school. 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:06:05] I studied hard, I was very much into athletics. So that was my physical outlet. 400 metres was my best race. 

[00:06:16] I was actually talking to my husband the other day because he's saying, you know, can you run 400 metres in a minute? I said “that was my training 400 metres in 60 seconds!” He goes “No, it's not.” I said “yes it is!” I think my best though, was about 56 was my absolute best.
[00:06:55]  But you know, that was a long time ago. And there's a lot of weight between now and then. 
[00:07:05] Weight and three kids!

Tyrone Shumm
After high school, she thought she knew what she wanted to do, but one experience changed everything for her. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:08:08] I kind of settled down a little bit more in high school, and I got into university, I'd actually been overseas for a year. So I went overseas, and you can imagine growing up on, you know, 5 - 10,000 acre properties, and then going to downtown Bangkok. And, and learning to cross 12 lanes of traffic one of the time it was the biggest culture shock you've ever seen. That was after school, I finished school. I went overseas for 12 months, it was the best experience ever. And, you know, when I came back, I thought I wanted to be a vet. But you get to university and you talk to a female vet who came in to talk to all the new recruits. And she said, Well, realistically, you're going to have a hand up a cow's butt for the rest of your life. Oh, no, that doesn't sound very appealing to me. 

So then the opportunity came up for me to go overseas on exchange. So I deferred University and went overseas. And when I came back, I decided I didn't want to be a vet. I when I was over there, I stayed with a family who the lady, in particular, was pretty high up in business. And I was fascinated by the business world. So I used to wag school most of the time because I'd finished school here anyway. And I used to follow her around and go to meetings, take notes, and most of it was in Thai and this sort of thing, I didn't understand about half of it. But it was good fun and good experience.

So when I came back, I started off doing Asian Studies, which meant I could continue with the language and economics but I quickly switched to accounting and economics. I came up with a double major in accounting economics. Things were very different back then, though. I mean, there's plenty of job offers around I think when I finished uni, I got about 15 job offers. And I chose to go to Coopers and Lybrand, one of the big accounting firms at the time. And I moved to Sydney then because I went to university in Canberra, went to Sydney with that. 

And for anyone who's been through that formal training, you understand what I mean when I say I served my time. I got headhunted from there. I went into a private enterprise and I was a financial controller of a number of different organisations. I was in the banking industry at one stage, then finished that, went into a stockbroking firm, the mining industry, lot of different positions within the mining industry manufacturing, I was even financial control of a liquor distribution company at one stage, we had the best parties ever.
[00:10:36]  There was a big bar that we had to have functions and entertain people and all of these sort of things. So that was a very different financial controller position, I can tell you.

Tyrone Shum   
She’d seen a lot of variety in small to large businesses by sales, leading Boholt to discover some newfound wisdom.

Dymphna Boholt    
[00:10:58] Look, I feel that grounding was very good for me because it taught me a lot at a lot of different levels, and to be able to relate to people a lot of different levels with, you know, whether I was talking in the boardroom, or whether I was, you know, running a mine, you know, 160 men, and I'm, you know, female, and all of those things. But, you know, it didn't take long with that, you know, those guys would do anything for me, which was, which was really fantastic. 

But it was also, you know, you get a lot of skills regarding leadership, and, and working as a team and those sorts of things, which is something that I think, is very important for, for real estate, and a lot of the formulas and calculations and, and analysis that I used to do back then to make decisions of, you know, 200 - $300 million, you know, at a board level, with the same kinds of strategies and techniques that I use now on a simplified version to make decisions on real estate. And it's something that I teach in my courses, of how to actually analyse that sort of thing, because you know when you understand the numbers, it's much easier to make a calculated decision. It's not just a haphazard approach, because as I said before, real estate really needs to be a business if you're going to be very successful at it.

Tyrone Shum   
Boholt’s parents had a strong influence over her decision to get into property, but not in the way you’d think. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:12:39] Obviously, I think everything affects, you know, parental growing up, and those sorts of things. But I feel that you know, my childhood attitude towards money was very different to what I experienced when I was overseas. My family was not wealthy at all, they probably had a very lack attitude around money. And, you know, I think that gave me a burning desire that I never wanted to be poor. I never wanted to, you know, to, to live in the conditions that I had growing up. It wasn't what I wanted. And I had a good childhood, you know, my parents were great, and all the rest of it, but the, the money attitude was very, very different.

I'll give you an example. When I was at university, I was at the University of Canberra, and my parents lived up in Central Queensland, both have passed on now. And when I drove home at Christmas time, I got home though when everybody was down at the yards, dipping the cattle. And I said to Mum, she was at home getting the afternoon tea, I said, Look, don't take the old ute down, take my car, you know, surprise everybody, that I'm home. So I'm unpacking my boot, which is, you know, 18-19 year old I got crap all over my boot like most 19-year-olds have. And I, I had a book lying in the bottom of the boot that I was reading at the time. And it was ‘think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill.

[00:14:16] I can still to this day, remember my mother's word, she picked up the book, read the title, she goes, Think and Grow Rich? what’d I be rich for? and she threw the book back into the boot. And that was pretty typical of the attitude around money that I grew up with. Whereas I had this rebellious nature that I didn't want that for me. You know, I wanted to live in a better house. I want to drive a better car, I want to see the world I want to do all these things. I had these, you know, very strong desires and dreams that I was going to fulfil. 

Tyrone Shum
She explains why this was impactful for her

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:14:49]  In one way it was great because it gave me that absolute burning desire that I didn't want to grow up with that lack attitude. But do you know that book, I never finished reading it until my mother died some 20 odd years later.  It was remarkable how a lot of these things, it's not a conscious decision. It's a subconscious decision that you allow these things to influence you. And I think it's something that a lot of people need more understanding of and more training in to understand how you can reverse that kind of programming, that automatic programming that we all run on. Because something that I do, yes, I teach real estate. But a big part of the training that I run alongside real estate is the personal development growth, that absolutely needs to be there. Because without that, no matter how much money you make, you won't keep it unless you're creating the emotional growth that comes along with the financial growth.

INVESTOR STORY

Tyrone Shum  
So how did Boholt escape her parent’s fate and begin her property journey? 

Dymphna Boholt 
[16:19] I started off in auditing. And then I escaped auditing because I hate auditing. 
[16:26]  And I got out. Then I went into small business services within Coopers and Lybrand. And that's where I then got headhunted. And I became a financial controller in a number of different organisations. And it wasn't until my 30s, when I was going through a very messy divorce, that I decided I made a conscious decision that I wouldn't go back into the corporate world, I would move away from New South Wales, where I was living at the time, I moved back to Queensland. 

And I basically drove from the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast and said, okay, where am I going to be in that belt somewhere, and I chose the Sunshine Coast, and I was pregnant, I had a baby in arms. I've given up the corporate career to try and save the marriage, which obviously didn't work. And I decided that I was going to set up my own accountancy practice, because I figured at least then, cause I had all the qualifications I, you know, you can poke a stick out basically, and I, I decided that I would be at least in one spot, you know because I couldn't with the corporate world, I really became the ‘fix it’ that you know, I go under contract, I'd go into an organisation that was not doing well or losing money. You know the middle-sized companies, mostly I would walk in there, I would turn it around, I would put systems into place, I would turn the profitability around, and I'd train somebody else to come in behind me to take over my position, and then I'd go on to another contract. So I couldn't do that with small children. And I decided, well, I'll set up an accountancy practice. 

And I was literally eight months pregnant, you can imagine it. Six - Eight months pregnant, I was walking the streets of the Sunshine Coast, introducing myself to businesses, setting up an accounting practice and gaining clients etc. 

Tyrone Shum
Divorced and in a brand new city alone, Boholt knew she had to make ends meet to feed her family.

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:18:02] So it was a hard road. And I was really in survival mode because when I walked out a divorce, I had a grand total of $40,000 in my back pocket, not a lot of money to start all over with two kids on your own, and a new business. But I made it stretch I I bought a two-bedroom fibro shack with an asbestos roof that leaked when it rained. And that's where I lived. And I bought a 74 Square - 72 square metre office where I ran the accountancy practice from. 

So I mean, I was very, very good with money, you know, money management and things like that. Because that's, that's been my whole career. That it was tough. It was really, really tough. I mean, it hurts when you’ve got to put your six-week-old baby and your toddler into full-time daycare for somebody else to look after. But if I didn't work, they didn't eat. That was a reality. So that was my life as a single Mum, and I built my business up. And it was, it was really, I mean, I look back and say, you know, how come I only end up with 40 grand considering how much money I didn't know, early years because I had a lot of money. And I know where it went. I mean, I spent it on my husband, but you know, you live in learn, so long as you learn from your mistakes. 

So I am I then it's a couple of years of just really knuckling down and working really hard. I built the business up. And I remember sitting in my office, which faced the western sun, at this big window that faced the West and had some spectacular sunsets. And I remember sitting there thinking, My life is really hard. It's not so much that my life sucked. It was just it was hard. It was you know, working 40 to 60 hours a week to small children look after on my own. You know, you take files home from work and play with the kids put them to bed, feed them, bathe them, and all the rest of it, then you fall asleep on the couch doing work and you get up the next morning and you do it all again. And it was just really, really hard. And I remember sitting there looking at the sunset thinking, I don't want this for the rest of my life. This is not what I planned out. You know, this is... I'm better than this. What else can I be doing? 

Tyrone Shum
In an attempted to answer that question for herself, Boholt set aside time to ponder what she was going to do

Dymphna Boholt
[00:20:04] For the next couple of weeks, what I did was I gave myself between five o'clock and six o'clock to answer this question, what am I going to do with my life? And it was, I had to knock off at about five to six because if you didn't pick up the children by six o'clock, they charged you $1 a minute per child.

[00:20:24] So, I had to pick them up by six and, and a couple of weeks there, I really, I really just went into self-reflection. And I and I studied and I looked at things, you know, I looked at, well, maybe I should set up other businesses. I thought, well, I could maybe set up all these hairdressing salons. I had visions of being Stephen. But I thought that's probably not the not the way to go. So I already had an accounting practice. If I wanted to set up businesses, I could, you know, I could set up accountancy practices around the country if I wanted

[00:20:58]  Because I looked at other things I looked at, I looked at the share market given i’d been in financial control, in the stockbroking firm, I know what happened on the other side of the stock market industry. And I gotta tell you, I am very negatively bias to the particularly the Australian stock market how manipulated it is, but that's my personal opinion.

[00:21:27]  And then they are looking at multi-level marketing. I went and joined unknown company name the time. And you know, all of the multi-level marketing work, they absolutely do. What didn't work was me, it didn't fit my personality at all. So I thought, No, that's not for me. And then I didn't, of course, that leaves property. 

Tyrone Shum
With her mind now set on property, she began questioning how she could flip the traditional methods of property investing to make them work for her. 

Dymphna Boholt
[00:21:46] I thought, well, you know, I can't afford to negatively gear but everything that I had ever been taught from, you know, school onward, with all the training and everything, you know. A client comes into see you and they whinge about paying too much tax, you say, well, you need to buy a negatively geared investment property, you know, this is how it works today and save tax and all these things. But when I looked at it for me, I thought, this is a mug's game, you know, I can't afford this negative cash flow. Because, you know, in the hope that the things going to go up in value, because things were pretty tight back then. 

So I thought, well, maybe there's another way, maybe if I bought a property that even looked after itself, does that even exist. And then, of course, I gave myself another couple of weeks to come up with a business plan. Because, you know, what's the business plan is going to work and I, I did research, I did the analysis, I think I did feasibilities upon feasibilities. And I came up with a business plan that I figured for me was going to work. And that was really creating a portfolio of properties that were positively geared. 

But my trouble, of course, was that I had to start with no money because I didn't have any, you know, all of my money had been tied up in the two properties, I didn't have any deposits to go and buy a property. So that's great. I need to buy a positively cashflow property without any money. And do you know the first three properties I bought, were all positively cash flow properties without any money at all? So you know that it's really about deciding on what you want, and then, and then working to a business plan to achieve that. And I think everybody should work to a two-year plan. You know, you can have goals, dreams, aspirations, that can be five years, 10 years, those sort of things. 

But you really should be able to accurately step out exactly what you're going to do over the next two years. In a business plan, what properties, what strategy, how much money, how you're going to do it, what areas what, how much money it's going to cost to do the set or whatever else. And I think that something's very important.

Tyrone Shum 
Boholt also shared an interesting story about how she believes other people’s energy led her to make a bad investment. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:24:18] It's actually more of an energetic emotional story than anything else. Yes, I've made some mistakes in real estate, but I'll share this one here with you. First of all, I must confess, I bought a negatively geared investment property. There you go. That's my dirty little secret.
[00:24:38]  But I'll tell you why I bought it which is what is really quite interesting. I was going through a time where a lot of people were coming to me, these are students coming to me, you know, they're basically coming and dumping their stuff on me or this has gone wrong and my business has gone wrong and something's happened over there and I've got an ailing investment property and whatever else. and I was here energetically not protecting myself from other people's stuff for want of a better word, and I felt I was taking on their burden.

And at a subconscious level, I felt I, I slipped back into a lot of childhood attitudes around money and those sorts of things. And at the time, I went out and bought a property, which was a luxury property, and obviously negatively geared and all of these kinds of things. So the heartstrings have bought it, not the head. And I think I still own the damn thing, but it obviously had an effect as negative cash flow, but it was a big mistake. I lost money on it whatever. But the reasons behind it, I think, are important that you can allow yourself to, take on other people's stuff. And it's something you need to protect yourself from. 

And even in, you know, workplaces, a lot of us work in very toxic environments and things like that, which the negative attitudes, if you have them thrown at you enough, you, you absorb some of that. You have to have a regime every single day, to raise your own energy levels, and to remain focused on what it is that you really want and what's right for you. And keeping in mind, your bigger picture, which it's very easy to allow life to kind of take over that position and get you sidetracked and you turn around two or three years later, and you know, you’re really no further ahead than you were, except you’re two or three years older. 

So I think focus is very important with that sort of thing. And it reminds me of a story of. I was actually talking to a friend of mine about a counsellor who counsels cancer patients. And she was talking about how ironic it was that now she has cancer. And it was the same kind of scenario with me. You know, I'm counselling people on debt reduction, and, and you know, all of these things, and not negative gearing, etc. And I ended up doing exactly the same thing at that time. Because of that protection mechanism not being there. 

Tyrone Shum    
She continues to explain why that was an important lesson for her to learn and tells us how she uses that lesson to this day. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:27:33] It's something that, you know, I've obviously learned from that one property, fortunately, It only took me one property to learn the lesson. But it's something that I now incorporate into my daily regime, part of that is actually a daily focus session, which you know, you can call it meditation, you can call it daydreaming, you can call it zero-based costing. You can call it whatever you want from a logistics perspective, but it's really a point in time where you focus within, about who you really are, what you really want in life, and what you're going to do to achieve that. 

And, and setting the intention of, of, you know, your daily life, I suppose, not just daily, but the bigger picture as well. Because when you do that a lot of things happen. It's, you know, I mean, I could get into a whole alternate talk here about your subconscious and things like that, and, and how your reticular activating system is actually four components in your brain that come together that are, that are your focusing system. And what they do is they filter what's important to you into your conscious. So subconsciously, we can, we can process so much more than we can consciously. And you know, if we had to, you know, looking around the room, wherever you are, now, if you had to take in everything that was happening in your room, you couldn't do it consciously, but subconsciously, you can. 

And when you can actually learn to recall that subconscious, it makes, you know, memory recall, and those sorts of things so much easier. But on another level, this filtering system, it makes you notice what you've deemed to be important to you. But if you're not spending time programming, your subconscious or your RAS system in what's important to you, then you go around blindly not seeing things you know, and this comes down to deals. You know, if you've focused on things and you go right, what I need next is I need a chunk deal and I need to do you know, I need a subdivision that needs to be this kind of price, I need to do that and whatever else and you've worked that through, whether it be in a meditation or whether it be on a pen and paper actually working out a little bit of a mini business plan. What you've actually done is you've programmed your RAS system to absorb what that thing is that you want. And you will see you'll start to notice deals that can potentially be a subdivision deal. 

Tyrone Shum
Boholt provides an example and a story of why this habit and knowledge is so relevant to property investing

Dymphna Boholt
[00:29:50] it’s like when you go and buy a new car say you buy a yellow BMW. Before you buy the yellow BMW, nobody drives yellow BMW’s. But after you buy the yellow BMW every man and his dogs have got a yellow BMW. And it's not that there are any more or less yellow BMWs it's just that you're now noticing it. 

[00:30:09]  I've got a story comes to mind, which is these two, two guys who lived near each other in Frankston in Melbourne, and they used to drive from Frankston, which is the southern part of Melbourne, up to the centre of the city every day, and they've been doing it for the last 15 years, they worked at the same place, they carpooled, etc. And for 15 odd years, they've been chatting about the weather and the football and family and whatever else in the car going backwards and forwards. And then one day, they decided to actually get themselves educated and they came to one of my programmes. And within three weeks of doing the boot camp, they actually sent me a very excited email going, Oh, my God, you're not gonna believe it. You know, we've been driving to work at the same roads the last 15 years and never saw anything. But during the Bootcamp, we've got, we've seen three deals on the way to work, we've contracted on these three deals, one of them's probably going to fall over, we're gonna make this much money out of the other this much money and they are everywhere, we didn't even know they were there before. And of course, those deals were they all the time, but they didn't see them. 
And it's something that is so strong that you really need to set that daily routine, checking in with where you're at and what you want to do. You know, ask yourself some big questions like, are you happy? 

Tyrone Shum 
She continues with another story

Dymphna Boholt
[00:31:23] I'll give you another example of just how powerful this is. It was Valentine's Day this year. And I was actually working. And I came home from work and drove a car in the garage and I walked up the back steps into the house and I saw this big balloon that said Happy Valentine's Day and I saw it was attached to a car and I thought isn't that lovely? And I walk inside and I thought, but why has he got in the garage for God's sake. 

Anyway, I go inside. And my husband says, You know, I did you say see what's in the garage. I think it was lovely. Thank you, darling. Oh, I thought you should give it to me. So go out to the garage. And this is a big heart-shaped balloon and the card and I read the card and I said thanks very much. Yeah, that's lovely. And he kept looking at me going. Is that it? And I said oh, it's lovely. Thank you. What do you want me to say? And he goes, is that it? And I’m going what? 

And the card was sitting on a motorbike. He had bought me a motorbike but I didn't see the motorbike because I wasn't expecting a motorbike. And I don't have a motorbike licence. I still haven't written the goddamn thing. But anyway, he decided I needed a motorbike. So I've had this big, red motorbike. How do you not see a motorbike? but it obviously wasn't programmed in my RAS system to see a motorbike. So if I can miss seeing a motorbike you're missing a deal unless you’ve actually programmed it in there

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:32:57] You don’t know what you're missing, That's the thing.

Tyrone Shum  
Interestingly, Boholt shared how she completely replaced her accounting income with her real estate income in just 1.5 years. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:33:24] You know, I don't think there was one aha moment for me it was more of a slow burn. Because when I made that decision sitting in my office, looking at the sunset, it took me 18 months to totally replace my accountancy income, I was working 40 to 60 hours a week before previously. So within 18 months, I had totally replaced my accountancy income with a passive real estate income. And remember that the first three deals, I had to do no money down just to get going. So I don't think there is that… it is very much a slow burn. 

And my whole life has been really more about that. Because I am constantly learning. I'm constantly educating myself, I am constantly working on myself so that I can be a better leader or a better teacher for others as well. It's an ongoing journey. I don't think it's something that ever stops. And if you stop learning, you die. It's something I will continue to do. I mean, I have a goal that I’d speak on stage when I'm over 100 and make sense. There's a qualifier there, I do have to actually sense. We’ll see if I can meet that target. 

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:35:07] So that's just something that I'm, you know, I study on a lot of different things. And, you know, health nutrition is certainly on that list. 

**ADVERTISEMENT** 

Tyrone Shum
Coming up after the break we’ll talk about how Dymphna Boholt managed to get her first three properties without any money

Dymphna Boholt
[00:03:02] I negotiated with him to do was to basically lend me the 20% deposit on a personal loan agreement. And I had the personal loan agreement all done up. I actually negotiated it to be an interest free loan for five years.

Tyrone Shum
We’ll also here some great advice about investor strategy 

Dymphna Boholt
[00:06:44] It's not what you want, what you like, or anything else is, what does my portfolio need next, because every deal that you do, the next deal needs to strengthen your weakness. 

Tyrone Shum
We find out what personal habit changed Boholts life, that can also change yours! 

Dymphna Boholt
[00:28:00] 15 minutes is all it takes, but needs to be every single day. And it will change your life forever. It honestly will.

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

**END ADVERTISEMENT**
 
<insert money partner advert here>

Tyrone Shum: 
After arriving in the sunshine coast and working long hours, Boholt knew she needed to get into the property game and bought her first property, with two more to follow. But how did she do it with no money?   

Dymphna Boholt
[00:02:06] And the first three deals? Well, I mean, there's a longer story to it, but basically I found a seller who was in need. And my seller was a guy who had committed into a shopping centre site. And he was a builder and developer, the banking industry had turned where it was quite tough to get loans. And the market had turned, so it was a bit hard to sell properties as well. Now I picked the cheapest properties, which was two little townhouses, side by side. And what I did was first of all I got in front of the developer directly, because I wanted to negotiate myself now that's not cutting the agent out, my agent was there. I just wanted to create a deal that I could do, because it wasn't just a price deal. Price was actually less important to me than the terms were. 

To cut a long story short, what I negotiated with him to do was to basically lend me the 20% deposit on a personal loan agreement. And I had the personal loan agreement all done up. I actually negotiated it to be an interest free loan for five years. And I could pay him as and when I could out of my business. So he thought I was going to pay him in dribs and drabs in 20%. Obviously, I borrowed the other 80%. And I paid him that money because I had serviceability. I didn't have any cash. So that's how I got into the first property. I didn't pay him in dribs and drabs, what I did was I waited until the fourth year, if the properties went up enough, I would refinance those properties in paying out the rest of the money. If they hadn't gone up, as much as I would have liked, it gives me a year to sell that property, put whatever they have gone up in my pocket. 

Meanwhile, I've got four years worth of passive income, and then I pay him out the other 20%. So I didn't negotiate in price, I actually got the price, I paid list price for the properties, which was over what he was expecting, because everybody negotiates but I got the terms that I wanted and effectively when he vendor financed me the 20% deposit. And he had no intention of doing that. He had no intention of structuring a deal that way. But there wasn't a lot of buyers around. It wasn't a hot market. And if he wanted to sell the properties, this is a way I could make it happen any other way. I couldn't buy those properties. And, you know, everybody won. You know, Bruce got that my agent got paid. He got the price that he wanted eventually. And I got a property that I didn't have to put any money into actually buy and it was positively geared. So everybody wins in that scenario.

Tyrone Shum 
She even thought of a way to get the developer to keep his word when he asked her for his money early.

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:04:49] I pulled out my contracts and I’ve gone hang on, i’ve got five years to pay this. And he said, whatever. But when I paid him his money towards the end of the five years, He was very happy. He thought he didn't think he was going to get his money. But he did.
 [5:08]  that's why I drew up the contract the way that I wanted.

**Strategy segment**

Tyrone Shum   
While Boholt was new to the property game, she had a huge amount of financial experience behind her - which meant she had a different strategy than most investors had starting off. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:05:34] I think what's more important to your listeners is what I started with, because now I'm a little bit different, you know, I want to do bigger deals, and that sort of thing, which is probably not where most people will be at, listening. So I think it's, it's the early years when I first started out, but I think are more important, and I think a big part of growing your portfolio is actually you need to be balancing income and growth. Now, I don't keep anything apart from that one mistake. That was negatively geared. I mean, if at the end of the, at the end of the strategy I might buy it, negatively geared, but I'll do things to it to turn it into positive. And there's lots of strategies you can do to do that. 

If at the end of the deal, it's not positively geared, but I've elevated the value, I'll sell the property, you know, take my chunk money, and put it back into the next deal. But all the time, you're balancing off income and growth. And I think it's something whenever you buy or sell a property you need to step back, don't get emotional about and go. Okay, and this is a really good question to ask and some of your listeners should take on board is: what does my portfolio need next? It's not what you want, what you like, or anything else is, what does my portfolio need next, because every deal that you do, the next deal needs to strengthen your weakness. 

So for instance, if you're got low equity, you don't have a lot of money, then your next deal needs to be a chunk deal, you need to do a deal where you're elevating the value of the property in some form. So that at the end of the deal, whether you refinance, or whether you sell that property, you're in a stronger position for having that property than before you bought it. Conversely, if you're low in serviceability, you've got no job or you don't have a job, you need to buy properties that are strongly positively geared because that next property needs to strengthen your position. 

And you always should be thinking two deals ahead, so you never get into a deal that if at the end of the deal, you haven't got enough money to get into the next one. So you've either got to be getting into the deal and elevating the value, so that that gives you the momentum to get into the next one. Or if that is a sell, then you take that money and go into the next one. So at the end of the deal, you should always have to be in a position to get into the next deal. Otherwise, you've chosen the wrong strategy, it doesn't work, because you need that momentum to be able to keep investing. And that's what replaces your income is the ongoing consistent, you know, investing with the underlying rule that you don't keep anything that's not positive. And every deal needs to strengthen your weakness at the end of every deal, you need to be in a position to go into the next one.

Mind set segment 
Tyrone shum
After hitting rock bottom during her divorce, a strong mindset is what helped her get back onto her feet and allowed her to succeed in the property world. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:00:24] Well, one, I think the biggest thing is belief system belief in yourself. And, and getting out there actually just turning up and getting out there, you know, talking to people, real estate is something that everybody thinks is, you know, you can do behind a computer, you can't, it's very much a people business. And the more people you connect with, the more opportunities present themselves. And when you're, you know, we spoke before about your area system and things like that, you know, there's a lot more to that there's, there's energy levels, there's electromagnetic fields, there's, you know, the chemical reactions that go in your body, when you have certain thought processes, and those sort of things, the whole thing kind of comes together, to to be who you are. And I always had a very core belief system that, you know, if that's what I decided to do, I could make it happen. I had no idea how I was going to replace my income in 18 months, when I first started, It wasn't even really that I planned to do that. It was just that I knew I needed to make passive income. Because that's how I was going to have more time with my children. Time with my children was my overarching why. Because when you're working 40-60 hours a week, you're a lousy mother. And I knew that, and I needed to do something in order to re-create that kind of time with kids. So passive income was definitely the vehicle, the exact how I didn't know, I knew it had to be passive positive cash flow properties. 
But beyond that, back then I really didn't know. And it was really a matter of taking one step at a time. And having the belief system that something could show up, you know, one way or another, I'll make it happen. I don't know how, but I'll make it happen. 

Tyrone Shum  
Following her success in the property market, Boholt decided she couldn’t close her accounting practice. 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:08:24] I didn't actually close the accountancy practice, I've replaced my income, which basically meant I continued to work, but I could, you know, I could take a day off and play with the kids. So I chose to, but I kept the accountancy practice going. And, and because I decided I couldn't be a full time mom either. And I continue to invest, but it gave me the luxury then of basically being able to choose, you know what I wanted to do. And I can't remember the number of years I kept that business going then for a number of years thereafter. But what I did do is I put into place a retirement plan. So I didn't want to close the practice. I mean, you know, I liked my clients, I liked talking to my clients, I, you know, I respected that they didn't want to just shut up shop either. So I brought other people into my business with a view to replacing myself in the business. And that took about two and a half to three years, where I was in a position that I could actually step out of the business, I still owned half of it, I could step out of the business still get paid from the business as well as my property income, but not have to work in it. But that was two to three years in the planning to be able to do that. It's not something you can do overnight.

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:09:49] But see, I'd already replaced my income with real estate. So it wasn't the income I needed to work on. It was just the practicality of how can I evolve this business into something that will continue to generate me a salary and income, as well as, look after all the clients and grow and you know, all my employees, I mean, I had employees, I had to look after, you can't just go Sorry, I've replace my income. I'm out of here, guys, you know, there's responsibilities. And all of them were taken care of, and all that sort of thing. So it's all part of the process.

Tyrone Shum  
So how did she do it? How did she manage to go from single mum to Millionaire? Was there a book that taught her all these savvy tips, was it dumb luck, or was it guts? Perhaps it was all three… 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:10:41] You know, more than education, I actually think it was guts. But back when I was doing this, this was not something that was common. I mean, even the word positive gearing, I don't think it was in the dictionary I really don’t. And it was not something that anybody else was doing. Somebody that I had listened to, that I thought, made a lot of sense. Was someone by the name of Dr. Dolph de Roos, Oh, yes. Now, we actually became friends. And I've spoke on stage with him many times, I actually had him on one of my US tours, when he lived in the States. And we've spent some time together since then. But he was somebody I respected with, you know, his attitude around positive gearing and things like that. 

Obviously, Kiyosaki with his Rich Dad Poor Dad book, but I mean, was it was great mindset book, and it's really changed the, you know, the mindset of a whole generation, it's a fantastic, a fantastic book to get your children to read and things like that it gets their head in the right spot, which I think is, you know, 80% of the battle. It doesn't have a lot of the How to, there's not, there's not a step by step process, which, for me, probably became the easy part because of all my business training, because of all my, you know, my logistics, training and analytics, and all of those sort of things, the How to, I could work out. The motivation I needed and the belief system when needed. 

But the How to, that's where I had my strength, where, you know, the likes of Robert Kiyosaki is a lot of these strategies don't work in Australia, for starters, yeah. And he is not a technical guy, he doesn't doesn't get into the nitty gritty of exactly how it has to be done. And in particular, how it has to be done in Australia. But that was my strength. I already had that. Once I worked out the formula, I already had the logistics, I had the strategies, I had the, you know, the How to because that was my training, and whether it's the business training, you know, all everything that I've ever done in the past kind of really set me up to go, that's what we got to do.

Tyrone Shum   
After a few months, Boholt had a successful accounting business, as well as a huge portfolio, and eventually she decided to get into running seminars to help share her knowledge.  

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:13:04] Well, I actually started on stage speaking on stage teaching accountants how to teach their clients about asset protection.  
[00:13:17] But I’d spoken on the radio and things like that before about doing market updates and reports when I was in Canberra, and those sort of things. But really, speaking on stage came about out of a need, because my accountancy practice got ridiculous, because once I replaced my income, I got very excited about it. And I thought everybody should replace their income, whatever. And so you've had to book like three months in advance to see me it was ridiculous. Wow. And I got to a stage where I thought I am saying the same thing 50,000 times a day, I need to just put them all in one room and say the same thing once. 

So I started to do my own little client seminars. And you know, I'd have 40-50 people in a room that were all my clients, and we'd do a training session and we do another training session, I was just doing it really to, to help my clients an added value, because that's what really what they wanted to know. [00:14:09] anyone could do their taxes, but what they really wanted to know was the business analytics and the you know,  the property and the income replacement and all of the other things that I was talking about. 

And then I got asked to speak at other people's events, because they heard me speak somewhere. So I started there. And then one of my clients was … she was setting up a business, which was an education business, and she said, Would you come into partnership with me? And her name was Sandy Foster. And we started wildly wealthy women together.

[00:14:55]  We started wildly wealthy women together for about four or five years, I think. Yeah. Four years, I think it was, yeah. And yeah, so that's when I really sort of started to ramp that up with her. And by this stage, I was pretty much out of my accountancy practice anyway. And then knowledge source asked me to speak with him. And then when wildly wealthy women kind of finished off, I just continued on with knowledge source who, who does all of the organisation and everything for everything that I do. And I've done I've ever since 2006, I think. 

Tyrone Shum   
Knowledge source is a separate company that hire her to speak at their seminars 

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:15:45] We have a long standing arrangement, obviously. And I very rarely speak for anybody else. And, you know, and if I do, I run it through them, because I let them handle all that side of it. Because, um, you know, if I had to keep my head in all of that stuff, I, I'd go insane. stuff on my mind is far more important to me than doing, you know, promotional administration type stuff. So they handle it with that side of things that I get very excited about teaching people, I get very excited about seeing people evolve and replace their income, and then actually bring them through the ranks to become leaders, because that's my next mission. 

I've, you know, I've helped 1000s of students over the years to replace their income is now about, I need to be selecting leaders to come through to, to duplicate, you know, the legacy that I've created within I love real estate and other things. And, and I think you've interviewed Jason and Amy. And, you know, they're, they're two of my leaders that have come through my programmes. I've got others coming through that, that, you know, that's the next round that I I've got a fabulous team, who can do all the things that, you know, I've been doing for so many years, which then, of course, frees me up to do more in depth and higher level stuff. motivational and higher level property training.

Tyrone Shum  
Behind every leader, is a great team. Boholt shares how she’s able to have so much going on at once. 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:18:44] they're a great team, I've got a fabulous team, you know, my team here on the farm are fabulous, the knowledge hills team are fabulous. The, you know, all the professionals, I mean, I've created a, you know, a team of professionals who, who support all of my students in all of the, the varying facets that they need, like finance, like legal, like accounting, like financial planning, insurances, all of these things are all fundamental elements to be the most successful, over, you know, in everything. And I've got a team of professionals that back me up in all of those sectors. And, and I think what's important as a leader is to create the right culture. And over the years, you know, there's been a few ups and downs with that, obviously, but, you know, my team is fabulous, and the culture of support and genuine desire to see the students and your clients succeed is is, is palpable. And that's what's important..

Dymphna Boholt 
[19:53]  And I'm very humbled by it. I mean, it's not something you know, may sound like I'm skiting, but it's not. I'm very, very humbled by it. These amazing people that have come together to fulfil, I guess my dream and cause and make it their own. And it's making a massive difference, you know, massive difference in people's lives. 

I mean, as an economist, I can get very excited about just how, you know by changing one family unit, one family unit can change financially and it changes a whole community just by changing one family unit. And economically I can, I can, I can do the calculations, and work out how many times $1 goes around Australia and things like that. But we have a lot of social problems in this country, that you know, the drugs or the violence, there's all these things. And if you get right down to it, the root cause of most of it is financial insecurity. And it's so ridiculous, because that's the easiest thing to fix. 

You know, I've taken on the last two years, we've taken on groups of kids now these kids are between the ages of 18 and 22. The first year one of one of them was my daughter. And it's basically they're coming in with nothing, nothing. And and saying, Well, you know, these are the new millennials, what are we going to do with them? You know, how can they get into real estate, when everyone's complaining about the prices being too high, and this and that now, you can track this story, we've got these, these next seven, I've got seven kids this year. And we’ve only been working with them for nine months. So in November, on the 17th 18th and 19th of November, I've got a big national super conference, it's actually in Queensland this year. And anyone can come along to that, actually, there’s a fee for it, obviously, but you can come along to it. And we it's basically an expose of success. So I will be selecting students from my community to come on stage with me and share their story. And we'll be showcasing these seven kids the property games, kids, and how far they've come within nine months, which is not a lot of time. 

I mean, I step back and say we can grow a baby in nine months, we can do anything with a couple kids. But these kids, honestly, I think that one of them. They are all into deals. You know, and they've doing all sorts of strategies to get into deals. And you know, one of them, I don’t know about 90k up on a property he's got for sale at the moment. The two girls have teamed together -  and in their is about 168 from memory property net, but it'll take them a little while to complete that deal. Another one's doing a small one, which is about 80k in that one. We also we got Liam, what's he doing? He's got about 300 in that. So he'll get about half of that another 150 there. 

Tyrone Shum
In only four months Boholt managed to train up and change these kids lives

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:22:54] we had to train them first, like we get these new green kids. And it took us four months to train them. So you know, to be able to do a feasibility be able to do a reverse feasibility and to do it standing on their head and to be able to know what this cost and that cost and that strategy and analyse deals. And so that took four months of working with them directly. So they're only really in the last month or so actually been out live doing deals. And so it's been a world wind I can say you know, with these kids. But it's just so remarkable as to how far they've come in such a short space of time. And I'll have them on stage with me in the middle of November at the super conference and just share the story. And it's, you know, their young kids.

Tyrone Shum  23:40  
It’s clear that anyone can do well in the property market with the right training, and Dymphna believed that fullyt, so she tried to get property education incorporated into schools in QLD

Dymphna Boholt
[00:23:53] You know, you say that? Yes. Let me tell you a story. A number of years ago, I thought this needs to be taught in schools, we need to get into schools, I thought, well, it's the year 10, where we can make the most difference because they're not quite 11 and 12, where they've got to get marks and grades and whatever else. You tend you got some flexibility. So we contacted a local school. And I said look, this is what I'm planning to do. And I've got the lawyers on board. I've got some tradies on board, I've got one stock ones on board, etc.

And what we're going to do was get a piece of land and build a house. And the year 10 students through the year would build the house, they would do all the costings, they would do all the market analysis research they would you know select the tiles and I think I had four grade 10 classes so they each had a part of the the house that they were in control of, and and teach them how to do it and then at the end of it and you know people are going to donate their time and donate this and donate that and one stock was going to donate the land for the publicity and whatever. 

And whatever money was made would sell it at the end of the year and that would go to the school. I thought that was a great thing to do. teach the kids real life how to do it. And I think that the principals on board everything was great. He's just got to get it cleared through the Queensland Education Department [00:25:12] came back and said, No, we're not allowed to make a profit. God I was so cranky. I had all these things lined up; they're not allowed to make a profit. For god’s sake what’s life about? It would have been so good for those kids. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:25:27] anyway. And we're going to use it like film the whole thing and use it as a pilot so that other schools if they wanted to, they could roll it out themselves, but never happened

Personal habits and book section

Tyrone Shum 
We find out from her if she had any mentors or leaders that helped her along her journey. 

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:26:06] I have my own people, I have my own people within. And that's where I bring my leaders up through that. And I've got some, you know, one amazing guy who, you know, I call him the mini Anthony Robbins, because he really is- he's fantastic from a motivational perspective. And, and, you know he'lll be out doing things very shortly on his own, or with me, but, you know.

On this topic, I've got some fantastic trainers who are really fantastic at varying strategies. And, you know, they will continue to train and educate in those strategies themselves. So I really nurture from within. I guess there's, you know, there's one old friend that I've kind of roped in, because he's been in the industry a million years, and he has a lot of experience to the whole world. And his name's Kevin dewdney. And he really started a lot of the, you know, the smaller spaces and, and he's the future housing can't force leader. And he in a lot of people have copied what he does. But he's the originator, and much, and he's, I guess, one of the only ones that I kind of bring in externally who I just know adds a lot of benefit to the community. 

Tyrone Shum   
With so much experience and knowledge, Boholt felt the need to share it all. Here are some of the books she’s written that can help you on your property journey!

Dymphna Boholt  
[00:17:47] I've written a stack of books. I mean, my story is Confessions of a real estate millionaire. But then I've gone on to, to write specific books on certain things. So I've got asset protection secrets of a real estate millionaire, I've got tax secrets of a real estate millionaire. I've got 101 10 top tips in real estate. I've got the pig in the sand journal, which is basically how to step out two years of investing in and through goal setting and things like that. I've got the finance secrets of a real estate millionaire due to come out very, very shortly, I've got the real estate millionaire within - which is all about the mindset, and getting yourself market ready from an internal perspective, not just financial perspective, that'll be out very shortly. Writing a couple of other books, I'm writing a kids book at the moment, I've got loads of things going on at the moment. 

Tyrone Shum
She also has a personal habit that will help change your life and get you started in property. or in any endeavour you’re thinking of pursuing! 

Dymphna Boholt   
[00:27:39] I think that 15 minutes a day is all it takes. 15 minutes a day just focusing on you now, whether you do that, you know, eyes shut to music or whether you sit down with just a piece of paper and really write things out. And you know, spend a little bit of time daydreaming about you, and what you want in life and the way you want your life to pan out and things like that, I think is very important. And 15 minutes is all it takes, but it needs to be every single day. And it will change your life forever. It honestly will. 

Something else that I think that is very important is consistency. And being regimented in that consistency. I mean, you know, if you go to the gym, going to the gym once is not going to change your body. But if you are consistently doing things and you have consistent application and termination, that's what will, that's what will make the difference. That's what gets results. And it's just the application of that over a long period of time, which is why little techniques like a reward system, even on a daily basis, you know, have something that I'll get this done, and then I'm going to go and do that I'll get this done. And then I'm going to go and do that. Just those little mind games that you play with yourself throughout the entire day makes such a big difference.

 You know, it's really about having respect for yourself, that you don't let yourself down by saying you have to do something and then not do it. Because little by little what that does is it chips away at who you really are. And you will only achieve who you see yourself being. You will only put into practice what you see yourself doing. And it's really keeping that self image protected, keeping that self image very, very secure. Because that is your life. That is your destiny because you will become that person.

Tyrone Shum 
Looking back in hindsight, she shares what she’d tell herself 10 years ago

Dymphna Boholt 
[00:29:35] 10 years ago, I would say you're in for a wild ride girl. You know everything, everything you do, creates who you are. Good and bad. Good and bad experiences create who you are. And I really feel it's not something that you go back and say I wish I'd done this. I wish I'd done that because you know, even the mistakes are benefits to you if you learn from them. 

**OUTRO**

Tyrone Shum: 
Thank you to Dymphna Boholt, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.