Join us as we hear about the fate-strucken moment that got him into property, as well as the property that made him his biggest profit yet - which he says all comes from his strategy. We also learn about his mindset and his development strategy. All that and more on this episode of property Investory.

Timestamps:
00:04:18 | Growing pains
00:08:21 | The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
00:10:52 | When fate came knocking
00:17:09 | No time to waste (even with a broken leg)
00:21:50 | The reason behind his success
00:24:38 | “The paintbrush guy”
00:31:33 | 20 / 80
00:34:19 | Aha moment

Resources and Links:

 
Transcript:
Jason-John Byron 

[00:33:46] if you're out just to make money out of this real estate game, you're not going to make money. But if you're out to be successful at everything you do in real estate, you will make money.

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 talking with property developer, speaker and coach Jason-John Byron. We hear how fate got him out from behind the camera to develop over $30 million in property projects. Also, hear how a severe leg injury forced Byron to change the way he approached property investing and ultimately become a property developer.

Tyrone Shum    

Byron is well known in the property world, with a reputation for not wasting any time. He follows a structured system that ensures the maximum efficiency and profitability for his developments.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:00:17] I suppose now I call myself a property developer because that's mainly what I'm doing, we never actually buy a property and don't do something to it. So I probably started off as a bit of a property investor/developer, but now pretty much just concentrating full time on developing.

Tyrone Shum    

His day to day is extremely analytical and well-structured. He prides himself on his work system and his team. 

Jason-John Byron    

[00:00:43] you have a day, we follow very systemised patterns. So every day, we have a meeting in the morning with our team. And it's not a big team, because a lot of them are out on-site as well. But we'll do eight-minute meetings in the morning. And we'll look at our top operating priorities that we have to get through that week. We break everything down into an Epoch. And so that means that this is week 38, or something that we're on and we'll go through what we have to do within that system to get to the goal for that week.

Tyrone Shum   

[00:01:13] Cool. When you said Epoch can you sort of elaborate on that? What is that for people who've never heard of it? 

 

Jason-John Byron  

[00:01:22] We’re very much about a system that we ran under, and a lot of famous companies out there in the world run under systems. And so it just makes life a lot easier to get that balance. And also that communication between different parties. 

[00:02:37] So it's very simple, like there's a lot of websites out there that you can use and just type in EPOCH, and what that will bring up or be a calendar. So from the first part of the year, for the very first week of the year is Epoch one. The very second week of the year is Epoch two. You have 52 weeks in a year, so the very last Epoch of the year will be Epoch 52. So on my birthday at the end of the year, it'll be within that Epoch 50.

Tyrone Shum    

Byron was raised in the Northern beaches, so his upbringing was filled with sunny days and free time on the water. 

Jason-John Byron    

[00:04:18] I grew up in Sydney. So pretty much the Northern Beaches so I used to go boating one day or surfing the next day. Very remote area though, because there was no train and the bus took an hour to get into the city. So it was very... one of those places that you get a lot of, you know, really fun place to grow up. But never really got that close to the city. So kind of almost felt like I was in the country town, and people that live in the Northern Beaches down the very, very far end will know that feeling.

Tyrone Shum   

Byron had a more disciplined and interesting schooling experience than most.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:05:17] I've always been a bit of an overachiever. So I needed a lot of support my whole life. And so what's happened is that I started off going to local schools down in those areas, but then really didn't get the guidance that I needed for what I wanted out of life, especially in education. So about halfway through my high school, my parents realised that the teachers weren't really performing to what I needed. 

I was really into computer studies and those types of things, and economics. And so they put me into a military school. That means that you have military service for a period of that, and you’ve got to go three days a week to a school in full military outfit. So I went there for the computers and economics teachers and that type of stuff. And it was quite a hard test to get into. But coming from that military-type exercise really taught me to be very diligent and to be problem-solving. Because there's no such thing as problems in the military. It's just a solution. So I think that made a big difference in my life.

Tyrone Shum   

[00:06:24] Was that anything related to the Australian Army? Or is that something completely different when you say military school?

Jason-John Byron  

[00:06:29] It’s all alignment there. When I finished from the school in year 12, I was an NCO, and so they said, ‘Well, all that you've been doing there, you pretty much qualify to come into the army.’ So I just had to have a think back then and think. I'm a Christian too as well. It's a bit like, I totally respect the army and the way that works in the military, and I love it. But I just didn't like the aspect of the ‘go kill someone’ type of thing. That was something that I kind of had to think about back then and go, ‘Oh, I don’t know, a bit of a moral conflict there.’ 

Tyrone Shum   

[00:07:14] I totally agree. I'm the same. I mean, I had the opportunity to actually do cadets as well at school, which, which I did wish I did wish I did. But unfortunately, I got in a little bit too late. So I end up moving into the musical arena. So I was a part of the orchestra throughout my high school years. 

Jason-John Byron   

[00:07:30] It's the same thing, yeah. Cadets is great, isn't it? Because you have discipline, and you follow a system, where you know what the person next to you is going to do, and especially if you're in a band, or any type of thing like that. It's a really good thing to get in the habit of. Because when you lead into your life and things and obligations that you have to do, you can form things where you can systemise things so you can actually get things done that you need to do. 

Tyrone Shum    

After he finished school, he took a different career path than you’d expect from a military school graduate.

Jason-John Byron    

[00:08:21] My dad was in television. So I became a cameraman when I was about 12 years old. Video cameraman. And I trained probably from about the age of eight, because he had big film studios and television studios and that. But it was kind of something that my dad did, and I got really good at because I had a lot of influence around me. And so I kind of went straight into filming. 

And I was also a pretty famous DJ in those days too, spinning the record. So both those things, I think a lot of people look at the media industries and think there's a lot of money in it. And there's a lot of expenses in it. And so it's not really a career that I think I could use to make massive amounts of wealth, really. All the people underneath it seem to do all the work. 

Tyrone Shum    

[00:09:21] It's interesting that you say that. So how long were you in the media/DJing industry?

Jason-John Byron   

[00:09:27] I was a DJ for about five or six years. Then I got serious, I thought I can't stay up at night and party all my life. So I stopped that and then really heavily got into doing filming television. And that was 20 years. Yeah, we've been 20 years., my whole period of doing that. I'm in my 40s now so I changed my career in property about nine, almost 10 years ago now. 

Because it was a thing where I kind of got really good at being cameramen, and I was very, very good at filming sports. And I'd always keep people in frame. And I used to do TV shows and other stuff as well. And people admire you when you're a cameraman. They’re like, ‘Oh, wow, you're in the film and television, that sounds great.’ And they get really excited about it. And I was good at my job, the only problem was that I didn't love it. 

And this is the funny thing, sometimes you confuse how good you are at something and other external acknowledgement, with your internal acknowledgement. So I thought, ‘Well, why aren't I happy? God, I'm pretty good at this. And everyone thinks I have a great job.’ And I appreciated having that talent. But at the same time, it just wasn't in my heart, I suppose.

Tyrone Shum    

After spending years spinning vinyls and filming footy players, his move into property came unexpectedly .

Jason-John Byron    

[00:10:52] Just by coincidence, I had a guy called Gary. And he calls me up and he goes, ‘I film these people that talk about property. And this woman on stage walks back and forth from the stage all the time, and I can't keep up with her and she keeps going out of shot. The guys I'm working for are angry at me because it looks really bad.’ And he goes, ‘You’re the best in the industry for filming football players. You’ll be able to keep her in shot!’ And that's honestly, how it happened. 

I said, ‘Gary I don’t really want to film someone indoors. I film sports, mate.’ And he told me how much he’d pay me, and It was four times the amount of what I get paid just doing external sport. So I said, ‘Yep!’ Because [as a] subcontractor, you chase every buck you can. That's the only way you're going to get wealthy in that type of mindset back then. Just work as many hours, get as much as you can, because you never know when it's gonna dry up, or you get some expenses or something like that. 

So then I'm filming this woman on stage teaching everyone about asset protection and trusts and all this type of thing. And I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy trying to keep up with her. But then, then the aha moment was when she started bringing students up on stage. And they said, ‘This is our job, this is what we do. Then we did this property stuff on the side. And we made an extra $50,000 cash this year out of doing it.’ And I was like, that was it. I need to know how to do that. That's like winning the lotto, or scratchie or something like that. Which is kind of what probably what I was doing back then! But you know, how amazing was that? 

That was it. I went home, spoke to Amy, my partner, and said, ‘I've found the pot of gold. This is what we're doing now.’ So that’s when it all changed.

Tyrone Shum   

[00:12:41] How did Amy react to that when you said that?

Jason-John Byron  

[00:12:44] She said, ‘Who is this person?’ I said, ‘Well, she's an accountant.’ Then Amy’s like, ‘Oh, fantastic. Tell me more.’ Because she always respected people who would come from not too much an emotional angle, but also mix that accounting type of background into it. Amy comes from an Asian background, so that's natural that you believe people and the numbers first, and that's how it works. You know what it's like, hey?

Tyrone Shum   

[00:13:12] Yeah, absolutely. I think it's embedded in our sort of Chinese culture. We trust numbers over anything else. And it's facts. That's what we look for at the end of the day. And do you think you had any influences from your parents? I know you mentioned that dad was in TV for a while.

Jason-John Byron  

[00:13:38] This is the strangest thing. Amy's parents and my parents had the one house and had it for years and years and years, tried to pay the thing off. That would have been principal interest loans. And we only ever remember being in one house for a very long time. And so they didn't have any real estate stuff, they didn’t have any investment properties. No one in our family has ever been— on both sides— into real estate at all. So there was no influence from it.

Tyrone Shum   

He further explains how hearing this lady speak openly to him about the property world made him realise he needed to change his mindset and lifestyle.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:14:41] We looked at where we were at, and I wasn't even bothering doing my taxes every year, I'd kind of put them off and wait a bit long. I knew I could just wait a bit longer to do them next year or something like that. I didn't really care about my finances because I wasn't going to be able to get a loan anyway, and I wasn't interested in it. And that's a really bad place to be. Where you're just living by your income coming in and just spending it. And I don't even know how I got there. But that's kind of the attitude we just had back then. 

So there's a big confusion, there's a huge confusion over property. Number one is financing. And number two is buying the right deal. And so I think the beauty of seeing that type of education from a figures point of view, and how do you get loans, and how do you set up certain accounting structures, and why that was important first before just you got to get a property because that's an investment— really propelled us into going, ‘Hang on a second, our finances are bad, we have to get that fixed up first.’ And then we both agreed that if we could put ourselves in a financial situation where we were good to be able to borrow money, then that would be the first step of us being able to progress into this new stage. 

And I think that's one thing people have to look at. And this network that I ended up in just had so much support. I was just flabbergasted. From that accounting side, they'd never ever wanted to sell you a property, it was different. It was like, let's just teach you all the background behind accounting. And that's what made the difference for both of us. 

And then we went and did the education. So I kind of hated education. I didn't go to university. So I was like, ‘Why do I need this?’ But I realised that education was something that would make me make better decisions with more confidence. Then we went and did the course, and went and did our first property from there. 

Tyrone Shum    

[00:16:39] Wow, okay, I agree education is so powerful. And it's also influential in how you actually make the right decisions as well. When did you actually take the big step to buy your first property?

Jason-John Byron   

[00:17:09] Well, it was really strange. I went to a seminar, and there would have been 300 or 400 people there. You sat around tables, and you went through all the strategies, and then went through all the accounting, which is really great. Both Amy and I are there. And then they show you about different techniques you can use. You can subdivide, and then you can renovate, and it was all positive cash flow, which we liked because we didn't want to spend any extra money paying something off. We wanted to have a positive cash flow. So that was good. 

And then the conference finishes after three days. Now on the fourth day, we're out looking. And then we're trying to find that property. Our first property, where I'm starting to talk to my accountant, and Amy is starting to talk to her accountant and do all this other stuff. Our first property was seven hours out of Sydney because we could only borrow $100,000 because we just weren't structured right financially at that time.

We both had jobs that were close to $90,000 or whatever pay. But doesn't mean that money’s being put in the right place. Or structured yourself. You might make $100,000, you might have $30,000 on your credit card. And that $30,000 doesn't disappear. You've got to then make almost $130,000 to pay that off. 

So that was the first thing, structurally get ourselves ready. And then keep looking for that property week after week. But the strangest thing was out of those 300 people in there, I thought that they all left the room and went straight into it. It was really strange. Like now I look back even a year after and I'm like, ‘Oh, I met some other people that were there. And I'm like, ‘Haven't you started looking?’ ‘Oh no we haven't.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, but isn't that what we're all meant to do?’ It was strange. Yes, we just left that.

And then within six months, we'd gone seven hours out of Sydney, used some advice from what we've been able to find out from what other people were doing, investing, and then find that positively geared property. We used a whole lot of different strategies. Even today it's all about manufactured growth to us. Warren Buffett says, ‘Price is what you pay, and pay is what you get.’ And so that was always stuck in our head, right from the start, that whatever we're gonna do, we're going to manufacture it. We've got to do something to it and pull out more money than we put in. 

And so that's where we went, we went straight out seven hours out. Found a property, it was on a double block, which means that there's a block of land attached to the house pretty much. So we renovate that house, subdivide it, have a spare block of land, revalue it, bring up some equity in that, that’s a bit of manufactured growth. But then to make it even better we get a house that we could cut in half. 

And then we cut the house in half and moved it 100 kilometres down the road to where we were. Say 10 years old. Vinyl-clad, which was good for a country area. Put it back together, plopped that on that spare block of land. And then we had two rental properties, both positive geared, and two houses. And that was all in the space of, I don't know, the first nine months. 

But something really bad happened to me. I went and played paintball and it was kind of like an army version of paintball, where you go up and down hills and that type of stuff. So It was a bit more serious than the average one. And I twisted my leg at a degree where it all shattered. I was pretty much no bone. Wasn't really a fracture, it was kind of shattered, the whole of my right leg down from my knee down. So that meant that it wasn't just a simple type of ‘Put it back together and it’ll mend.’ It was like, ‘Well, you didn't have a bone here in there.’

So a rod was put in it and I was disabled for a year. I wasn't allowed to put any pressure on it, I'd have to learn to walk again because there wasn't a natural bone from top to the bottom. And that was the end of my filming career, pretty much. 

But we'd had that first property, right? So it was like, ‘Okay, well, we've already started there.’ So I was in bed. And I'd have to stay there for at least three months before I can start rehabilitation. And so Amy put a laptop on my chest and said, ‘Well, I'll work and maybe try to get some extra money in, and you do this property stuff.’ And so that's how it happened. So I found more deals than we could actually possibly buy with our income. So that's when we put out the JV partners.

 

[00:21:50] And that's what really has made us quite a success in the industry today. That from the start of it, we were forced— not only that we could only get a property for under $100,000— but we made that work by being able to create two properties, and two positive incomes, and have two properties in one year, which is what most people don't get. 

And then this is the equity up. So we had another $70,000 equity, we could pull out of that, which would be the immediate deposit to be able to put into another buy that we did. But it still took us two years to get our borrowing capacity up to where we could afford something. We were finding stuff that was around $500,000 that we weren't able to borrow into yet. So that's when we get JV Partner on board. And we did the same thing again and again. Found blocks of land where there was intrinsic value in the house on it, and we would subdivide the land and then, in this case, just build new properties on those spare blocks of land.

Tyrone Shum    

[00:22:56] Okay, so that's a very interesting strategy. Basically, as you said, it's always adding value. Buying a block of land that you can subdivide, have an existing one which you can rent out and then build a new one, and you just kept repeating that process until a certain period of time. 

 

Jason-John Byron  

[00:23:10] It was always manufactured growth. It was never buy and hold strategies, from the point of view [of] buy it and wait. It was like, ‘Buy it, do something to it, increase the value of it, and then take that chunk, and then move somewhere else.’ That was the same thing with our JV partners. ‘We're going to buy this, from the day that we get that document signed, and it's in our name and the money has been transferred over from our bank to their bank, whatever. We're starting. Not one second lost.’ 

Even during our inspections. Because we've done a lot. We would have done over 50 deals with JV partners or with other people and ourselves. And the thing has always been that people know us for having a system. And we don't slow down. And so even when we've purchased a property within our contracts, it's like every Wednesday or Tuesday for one hour we’re allowed to come on with some professionals to get some quotes. 

And most people that are selling a property go, ‘Oh, they just probably want to do the bathroom or something like that.’ Yeah, sure. That's okay. But I tell you, if I bought a property off you, I bring about 10 people through on that Wednesday for the one hour to get my quotes! And it's hilarious because they think, ‘What's going on here?!’ But that's what it said, you know! So when the money's been transferred over, I'm starting.

Tyrone Shum   

[00:24:38] Share with me as well that first particular property, did you actually go and do the renovations or did you hire people to help you with that?

Jason-John Byron   

[00:24:46] The first one we did the renovations ourselves and we knew nothing. People know me as the paintbrush guy. Maybe you know this story too. But I got up on the roof with a very small paintbrush, I think it was two centimetres wide. Because I'd never done it before. But it can't be that hard to paint something! Because we thought the roof needed painting because it was just red and rusty. We thought that it’d make a big difference. It probably wouldn't have, in hindsight now, but it still looks pretty good. 

But I went down to the local hardware store, just a city boy kind of thing, and went, ‘Where's the paint?’ ‘There’s the paint.’ I said, ‘Where's the brush?’ He goes, points to me, ‘There's a brush.’ And I just thought, ‘Okay, well, there's a brush.’ I didn't even look any further. 

I'm quite tall. So maybe I didn't see the second row down. But I just picked it up, went, well that’s it, what do I know? I suppose it’s like shopping for a new car. Unless you know anything about cars, well, you don't know the options. So yeah, we got there and I said, Amy didn't do that much renovating either, she was in marketing and design and stuff. So we did our best. I got up on the roof. And it took me two days to paint the whole roof with a two-centimetre paintbrush.

Tyrone Shum    

[00:26:00] That's an amazing story.

Jason-John Byron    

[00:26:04] When I think about it, I think well, yeah, I'm glad that it's a funny story. But there’s two sides to it. One side is: What an idiot, I could have used a bigger brush! But the second side of it is: You give me something to do, and I'll get it done. 

Tyrone Shum   

[00:26:22] You're amazing. You're amazing.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:26:24] That was a budget, we had $5,000. That's it. So we did all the work ourselves. That place could have been 100 years old, who knows, when we bought it. We did all the work on that ourselves. Seven— you can imagine this, right? You've got a job. Friday straight after work your girlfriend meets you at your work with all the stuff for the weekend. You drive seven hours to a country town, you suddenly get there past midnight, you run inside, you have some sleep, you wake up at the crack of dawn, you start renovating, and you know that on Sunday at five o'clock, you've got to drive back. Because you’ve gotta start work on Monday. So that happened for seven weeks. And that was hard.

And then the place next door. We hired people, they went to somewhere, they picked it up, they put it there and then we just told them what to do. We did a little bit of painting and laid and lawn and that. But the amount of effort— this is what resonates with me today— People like renovating, there's nothing wrong with it. But there is so much effort for what type of reward sometimes. There's no definite what you're going to get for it at the end of the day. No one would say, ‘Definitely I'm going to get this amount.’ And it is a lot of time out of your day. And it’s a lot of time away from your family, which I think people don't look at that time how that affects it. So it was five times the amount of equity increased on the one that we got everyone else to do the work, than the one that we did all the work. 

So from that point forward, we were like, ‘No. I'm not lifting another brush. If I can make this work where I'm paying someone else to do it, and managing them with a system and made sure I had it all systemised, then that's what I want to be doing.’ So any reno that we did from there on was us on management. And that's the secret behind renovation. Don't lift a finger doing it yourself. Just buy the right property that you're going to get enough chunk out of it by doing that. If you're going to do renovation. But at the end of the day, we couldn't be bothered doing renovation anymore. Purely because we've now come very much to the financial side. And that's the time versus effort. 

And what we do now is develop properties straight from the land up. Because the amount of time versus reward is so much more. And if you're just doing property for wealth, and you're not doing it for your ultimate passion of the love of renovating, then why not do that?

Tyrone Shum    

For someone as invested in property as Byron, you’d expect at least one of his deals to go bad. However, he says due to his work system, he’s never had an investment fall through.

Jason-John Byron    

[00:29:21] I think because we started out like that idea where that very first property was really hard because it was very cold out in the country town and we didn't know what we're doing there, that that was the hardest thing. But then when we'd done the other one where we put the property on the block of land, we kind of figured out our strategy from then on. 

We've had quite good outcomes because we became very systems and solution based. I think you can stuff up very heavily if you put all the relying on just yourself and don't have a team of people that have already done it before, professionals around you. When we try to do everything ourself, you'll often fail at it. Or you'll learn a whole lot of lessons that you go back and go, ‘Well, maybe I should be managing this.’ You sit in these conferences and you know 10 times more than anyone else out there. So why are you going back and doing the work that everyone else... but doesn't know that, could be doing?

I got a carpenter. He's not doing my course, he doesn't know about our situation, doesn't know how to buy stuff, doesn't know how to get JV partners and doing all that— why am I doing his job? I think I've probably been disappointed sometimes that I didn't go hard enough for that property or something like that. But the experiences have been good. I've seen a lot of people make mistakes out there. And so I suppose I've been guided by that, too. Where I'm kind of on a thing now where I see people get into certain patterns. Where they don’t see the value in using teams over people or just being a bit smarter and losing that total emotion behind property. And just going back to numbers. 

[00:31:16] you know that 80/20 rule? Have you heard that before?

[00:31:21] So that 80/20 rule, obviously, is 20% of what you do produces 80% of your results. 

Jason-John Byron   

[00:31:33] I think it also works if 20% of deals aren't going to work out, and 80% are. So from the other angle as well, from both sides. Don't expect that everything's gonna go perfect. There'll be 20% of what you do that's not going to go perfect. But then it's your ability to be able to problem-solve with five different scenarios of how you can get out of it, that will make you so much more powerful in the future. People get stuck down and give up on property if they have the challenges. I suppose the worst thing is when I put in a skylight with a team, and it leaked. And people came along to inspect that property that day to buy it, and they walked into the property and there’s a big puddle on the ground. That's probably one of the areas that I’ve gone, ‘Now they're not going to buy it,’ and I felt awful.

But look, straight away, I've snapped up and said, ‘Get these guys out here and just fix it.’ Water is one thing that you're going to get on every property. Water does not like being outside. It’s like cockroaches. They want to be inside your house. So you're going to have things happen. And sometimes you don't even know why. But you've just got to trust the universe, that you're a good person, you're doing this for the right values. 

Every property we've done, we've been very successful at. And so we've been able to pull money out of that, use it for replacing our income, but also help other communities out there around the world that have a need to be helped. So they're not being helped by anyone else. So I think when we drove from that point of view when we started making profit, we said, ‘Okay, we're gonna take a certain percentage, and now let's share that out somewhere else.’ Which is just both of our moral upbringing. It's kind of something that we've thought, ‘Well, whatever challenge we're having, it's happening for a reason. Because at the end of the day, we always try to do our best by our JV partners and be very fair, which is a big word.’ And then also use that wealth for more than just ourselves. If you're out just to make money out of this real estate game, you're not going to make money. But if you're out to be successful at everything you do in real estate, you will make money.

Tyrone Shum  

When you work in development, it might take a while for the profitability penny to drop. Byron’s aha moment was simple, but it left an everlasting impact on him. 

Jason-John Byron   

[00:34:19] That's when I got into doing property development. That's when we looked at what… we just built two properties in Leichhardt in Sydney, they were duplexes, and they were brand new builds right from the bottom up. Knocked down that place and built two next to each other. Very expensive build. One of them actually got bought by Boys Town, which is now called Your Town or something. So it was a lottery one, that was so good. 

And then when we looked at that, Amy and I... maybe we spent about 10% of our time on that property, but the profit was so much more than anything else we've ever done. But it was a smart buy in the right system that we used behind that. And that was our Aha moment because we were like, ‘That's it. This is what we're doing now. We're going to find the best mentors we can. And we're going to look at property developers out there, because this is so much better. A way to do it.’ 

Because we knew that by the time we'd finished this property— or even with property now your pre-sales are good— you can see the profit in there because you're increasing the value of the product. That's where you end up if you don’t start unless you do that. And that was a hell of a lot better than being in this moment. Before where you might renovate something, or you might do something else. And you never quite know what the value of that property is going to be at the end. When you build something brand new, you're automatically building in a 20% margin of the value it will be worth afterwards, because you’re manufacturing that. That’s where everything changed.

Coming up after the break we learn how his mindset has changed over the years... 

Jason-John Byron  

[00:00:35] I was quite a negative person back then people even knew me in business back then said that I was quite angry person. 

The best advice he’s received... 

Jason-John Byron  

[00:06:40] I had someone tell me once outside a conference, they looked at Amy and myself and said, ‘What are you guys doing?’

His detailed development strategy and the systems he uses.

Jason-John Byron  

[00:08:02] You've just got to look out for people out there that are doing whatever technique that you're interested in and try to find the best person that's doing it. 

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

 

Tyrone Shum    

Although he has been successful, he’s still faced setbacks in his career due to his mindset. 

Jason-John Byron   

[00:00:35] I was quite a negative person back then. People even knew me in business back then said that I was quite angry person. I kind of thought that forcing things would get the stuff done. And there was this whole thing of I had set beliefs. I mentor thousands of people now. And the main thing that I've got to get them through is that you've got to change your beliefs to get into property development. 

Because everyone gets... going through life as they grow up and you’ll either have a set belief that someone has brought you up with, it might be your background or where you grew up or something like that, or else it might be something that you've adopted, that you've heard out there. And my set belief was, ‘Hey, I finished high school. I was a cameraman. That's all I knew how to do.’ 

I had, obviously my HSC, and I'd done that. But that's all. I didn't go to university. So what else could I do? I was going to be a cameraman for the rest of my life. And that was the set belief that I had back then. And then if it wasn't for me seeing someone else do something in a similar situation where they didn't have a university education or something like that, to fall back on. And what did they do? Then my belief wouldn't have changed, I would still be a cameraman now.

Tyrone Shum   

[00:01:54] So yeah, so how do you think you've been able to change that mindset? 

Jason-John Byron   

[00:02:09] It's so strange because that's what I teach people now, when I teach them about property development. The first thing I teach them is the mindset, so it's really good that you touch on it. Because I tell them first off, ‘You've got to put down what your weaknesses are.’ And so that's really hard because you’ve got to go right down and think, okay, well, my weakness is my budgeting, my weakness is I don't know enough about this, I don't know enough about that. That's really hard to admit what you're not good at. 

And then you put down what you're good at as well. But from that point on, I realised that my weakness was the negativity. I was very negative, I'd get into something and I’d start thinking, ‘Oh no I shouldn't be doing this. What am I doing?’ So I found a mentor on the Internet called Les Brown. And he just said things in a way that made sense that it would reprogram my mind to say, ‘No, it is possible.’ And anyone that listens here knows that you listen to enough Les Brown, he instils this faith in you that says, ‘No, keep going forward. Don't stop, it'll come, just don't go back to the negative.’ 

So I listened to him a lot when I first started because I was having the education that was working but listen to him every single morning. I know you listen to a lot of podcasts and that, so that's what I was doing, listening to him on YouTube. And then I wrote down my weaknesses and then made a plan to tackle those weaknesses. And that's very much what it was. It was a plan. Okay, who do I need? What do I need to do? And then this week, I'm going to be doing these things to get better at that particular issue that I had to get better at, I suppose.

Tyrone Shum   

[00:03:48] Wow, that's very powerful what you said there. It's very easy to sit on that negativity fence because I think it's natural within us, we're always looking for problems and issues. And that's how we socialise in our society. Like, that's the reason why the media does so well is because everything that they put out there is negative and our brains seem to attune to that than positive news.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:04:13] Yeah, you're right. You’ve tapped it right on the head. I was in media for 20 years, and I've been media trained, and I've been with reporters and done television shows and done a lot of news and that. And the first rule of media is: bad news is good news. Good news is not good. So you look for fear and things that are negative because that gives people a chance to complain about it. No one’s gonna complain about someone that did something good. 

So it's just a natural way that we're programmed. It’s easy just to sit back and accept things and complain about them over and over again and analyse problems. Oh, this problem is this, this guy did this— but not come up with solutions. That's how the world is, 90% problems and 10% solutions. Unfortunately.

That’s that belief though, you would have gone through that too, right? You've grown up with this thing. And what people don't realise is you just change that belief, and you can believe something else. There's not totally equality out there in the world. We’re still at a point where people are told, ‘You can't do this, and you can't do that.’ Even when it comes to what we’re recently on about marriage and that type of stuff. 

But there's all these rules, you can't do this, and you can't do this and you can't do that. And so all these things happen that keep coming up for people when they're told they can't do things. And that's a belief. And then people just don't do it. Women are told, ‘You have to marry a rich man.’ And that's just the craziest thing. And it's just a culture thing that comes into it, too. And that just stops you making decisions, to change things. And you just go with the pack. 

And so that's where I had to say, ‘Hang on a second, I'm just being negative for the sake of being negative. I've got to be looking at everything from a positive angle. And instead of me saying I can't find a property, I've got to say, ‘I haven't found one that stacked up for me to be able to progress forward to the next level, but I'm gonna keep looking. I know it's out there.’

Tyrone Shum  

Byron wasted no time securing his first development, but he admits he was slow to continue on his property journey until he received some advice that gave him the wakeup call he needed.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:06:28] I think it just comes back to doing what I'm doing now, with development. If you suddenly get better at something, then you need to scale up. If you underestimate your talents... I had someone tell me once outside a conference, look at Amy and myself and say, ‘What are you guys doing? You're fantastic at doing this. You've already done one house, two houses, three houses, like, why not go into moving up to development? What's stopping you?’ 

And I suppose it was a fear and uncertainty in thinking that you need all this money. And you really need no money for development. Because this is what investors want. They want a brand new product, where you just knock down the land and build something brand new and have a 20% margin. And that's easier to find a JV partner for that than it is to do any other type of technique. So we were just kind of using that as an excuse that you need lots of money when, it's the total opposite. That's the best advice I've been given. Don't underestimate your power now you've got to this stage, what are you holding back for?

Tyrone Shum  

Next, he breaks down his property investing strategy. 

Jason-John Byron    

[00:07:52] I suppose we had to look at... I use things called proven track record when I teach people about stuff. I say, ‘You've just got to look out for people out there that are doing whatever technique that you're interested in and try to find the best person that's doing it.’ And so you go right to the top. 

So I went to Meriton and had a look at how they did it. I don't want to be building that type of stuff that they built, but it doesn't matter. I could look at what techniques and stuff that they’re using to be able to do what they do. And then break it right down to someone that's just done a duplex or a four plex or something like that. But then you look high at the biggest achievement and then go down. And then when I looked at it, I said, ‘Okay, well, these guys have systemised it.’ So they run it like a business where it's a system that you've got to go through. 

And so it's the same thing that I do now. I look at it and go, ‘Okay, let's break this down. It can't be that complicated. If they started from the same place I did, which is the same as Harry Triguboff, then, surely, what's my fear?’ Everyone started from somewhere. But our fear is when we look at the big picture and don't break it down into what was a process that got them there.

Tyrone Shum  

With a great reputation behind him, especially in joint ventures, he wanted to share his knowledge on what investors look for in a JV Partner. 

Jason-John Byron  

[00:10:19] If someone's going to JV with me, and they want to go into a deal with me, they want to see that I've already got some way of being able to buy it for a certain price and add value to that. So at the end of the day, the value of the product is actually more. More than just a kind of a situation where even with renovations, I find it very hard to get that investor assurance. 

And so when we looked at JVs, we had to break down our whole system for them and showed them who was the people behind this what was in there our analysis, what was our comparables to show this area would actually work that we're going to go into. And we kind of branded ourselves in a way to say, Well, this is who we are. And, this is our crew. This is the people we use, this is our feasibility. 

We always do an information memorandum, which is a document that just breaks all that down for them. And that's what an investor wants to see. It's really not about you. It's about, well, what can you present to him? You’ve got to prove yourself in this world. And I think a lot of people kind of just wait for that investor to come along, that JV partner with all the money then try and find the deal. Well, it just doesn't work. You need to find the deal and back yourself up. Almost like a business plan.

Tyrone Shum   

The system works similar to how you would go to a bank and ask for money.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:11:43] Exactly the same. And that's been our success. Every single year, for the last nine years, we've been in a JV. And that's what's got us to where we are today. That's where we were able to retire and just do property almost, like, as a hobby. Because it wasn't our be all and end all if we stopped doing this, we wouldn't have any cash flow to live. Like we've got property investments that we've developed now that are fine, that are going to be there for as long as we keep them and they’re chugging along good. 

But when we started to be able to do joint ventures, every year we knew that we had a property we were doing for ourselves. And at the same time, we're going to do something to manufacture growth out of that property, split that with the joint venture partner. So that means that every year I'm guaranteeing having cash flow as a chunk as well. And then we get to the stage where we can do three [to] five investors at once. Because if we systemise it— and this is what people need to start thinking about— I mean, what's the most successful restaurant franchise in the world?

Tyrone Shum   

[00:12:46] Probably McDonald's.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:12:47] McDonald's, right? Does McDonald's have a system?

Tyrone Shum    

[00:12:50] Yes.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:12:51] I mean, everyone knows that. And do you look at McDonald's and think that they lose money? 

No, definitely not.

You wouldn't mind being left a McDonald's tomorrow?

Tyrone Shum    

[00:13:01] Of course.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:13:01] What if I said I'm going to leave you a fish and chip shop?

Tyrone Shum  

[00:13:05] There's no guarantee.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:13:06] You'd be a little bit worried, like, ‘I don't want the hassle.’ But the reason why McDonald's just works is because it has a need. And this is exactly what property development… I break it down to people very simply. The need in McDonald's is yummy burgers, fast food, in convenient locations. The system is the actual McDonald's franchise. What they’ve set up. They've copied it and gone up. And the process is using that system to make the burger. 

I didn't do anything different from McDonald's. Neither does Harry Triguboff. Neither does Gina Rinehart. Neither does the Pratt guys with Visy Recycling. They all have a need. So my need is people want affordable, classy, brand new dwellings that are close to amenities and convenience. And that's townhouses or units. So they'll always need that. So I've just got to find out whether they need it the most. 

My system is something that I teach people now, which is really the true part of our success, which is we break development down into 12 stages. And almost like I told you about the Epoch’s, right? So if I'm up to stage four in our development, then I know I've got that system up to stage four, then I can start another development and go back to system one and keep it going. So then the system turns into a process. And the process ends up building a finished product. 

And that's what I think people need to understand. As a property developer, you are the same as the most successful companies in the world, and that's why they're successful. Gina Rinehart has mining, who's got to produce iron ore. The system is her mining company. The process is putting out the iron ore. Visy is recycling boxes. Now it's 10 times the demand for the boxes because we buy everything over the internet. But he has a system and the process is recycling old stuff for new stuff. But can he repeat that? And can you scale that? Yeah, you can.

As a property developer, I have a system that other people work in. And I produce money, the same thing that the richest people in the world have. The richest, or the wealthiest, I don't know what you want to call them. The most successful people, right? They have systems where other people work in their system. So you’ve got to figure out, are you working in someone else's system to make them money? Which if you think about it, sometimes your job is that. You're working in someone else's system, and you figure, ‘Hang on how come I'm not getting forward?’ But the smartest people have developed the system like I have, where 75% of the work is done by people working in my system. I do 25% of it. 

But I have that system. And I know how to run that system and the processes that all those teams of people have to go together to produce my product at the end of the day, which is always in need. And it's a lot easier to produce a product that people need than something that you’ve got to try to put out there and hope that someone will buy. And that's why I love doing what I do. And that’s why JV partners love it, too. Because they love the idea of having a system. I mean, who wouldn't?

Tyrone Shum 

[00:16:19] Yeah, it's absolutely a win-win, and you’ve definitely, really, really shared some amazing points there about systemise and ensuring that if you want to actually succeed in property development, that's where the real money is. If you want to do multiple projects, you've got to have procedures and operations and systems in place. And I'm very much in line with you on that one, too. That's excellent.

Jason-John Byron   

[00:16:39] And you think about it. Land, it's a certain dimension and a certain slope. And that system’s got to be able to move around to different things, like a McDonald's can, or like a mining system can. So the type of system has to be flexible for it. I don't really think there is a system that you can adapt to doing renovations. Because every time you move it somewhere else, it's going to be totally different. And you don't know your outcome. At least with me, with building brand new product, it gives a very strong reliance on what the end value is going to be. Because you know you look in a certain area, and there'll be a brand new townhouse or a unit, it's going to cost you this much, you pretty much know.

But when you go down the street and you see a whole lot of houses, you’ve got no idea what each one of them is going to be worth at the end of the day. So that assurance takes it out. And JV partners, that's what they love as well.

Tyrone Shum   

A systemised development project doesn't just come together overnight, it takes practice and discipline. Byron has some personal habits that helped him get there.

Jason-John Byron  

[00:17:47] The habit is very much making a yearly goal. So our annual priorities say that we want to get this many developments happening this year. And then we break it down into quarterly goals, down into monthly goals, weekly goals, and Epoch’s, weekly Epoch’s, to kind of go through what week are we up to within the 52 weeks of the year. So a lot of planning is behind it. 

And then we use our system behind us to know exactly what stages have to happen within that stage and what the person that's doing the construction has to be up to at that certain stage as well. So if I'm following that system the whole time, then I actually feel a lot more confident that even if I've got issues, I know how to solve them. Because I know what's happening next. And you kind of work backwards. So that's our monthly programme. 

And then I can go and have holidays. Because I get to a stage that I can get someone else to follow that system. It's not all in my head. And that's what we've done now. We've employed people that do the minor work, and we're just the big thinkers of doing acquisitions and that type of stuff. Sales and marketing. 

The strangest thing though— you want to hear this? I got out of business, to not be running a business, because I used to run three or four businesses, Amy got out of business because she didn't like the politics in work and all that type of stuff and the negativity in that. So we get into property to replace our income, which is what everyone says, so you don't have to work again. 

Then we get into property development, which runs so well once it’s systemised. And our first deal with property development, we made $300,000. The second deal, we made $1 million. From there, $400,000- $500,000 profits using our system. And so it ends up being that because we systemise it and because we're able to take JV partners’ money, to be able to invest it in our company, run it through the system, and pump out a profit every year— guess what we've got now? A business. 

Tyrone Shum   

[00:20:05] Full circle.

Jason-John Byron    

[00:20:07] Isn’t that crazy? And then Amy and I went back to them, to people that were structured on military training, and we got them to... we treat our business like a military exercise. So the military do train, train, train, which is what you would have done in cadets and what I did, so marching marching marching. You would have been marching and playing instruments. And then you plan, okay, so you know what's going to happen when you get to an event or go on a mission or something like that. And then you debrief. 

And so that's kind of a thing that we looked at the military, who do it the best because if they don't do it, right, they die. And then we put that into our business process, and that's what it breaks down to. Train, skill, which is improving your skills, and then you go into your plan of how you're going to run that whole thing. And then you debrief it at the end, to see where you could have gone better or how you're going to grow or what you're going to do.

And we do that every week, and every month and every quarter, and every three months. We'll sit down and we'll debrief everything to see where we're going. I make it sound so simple, but it does get to a stage because people are walking around there with so much knowledge in real estate, and they're not using their full potential. You get to a point, and you just stay there, and you go, ‘Oh, hang on a second, I already know that. I really know how to buy stuff. I already know how to do all the hard work and the tax and do all the accounting and that. Why shouldn't I move up the property development where it's a systemised process?’ And then you end up with a company. And that company's got value to it. And you end up with a company that you could sell. You can even put on the stock exchange, you know?!

Tyrone Shum  

Although the market can be unpredictable at times, Byron has figured out the best areas to buy. 

Jason-John Byron  

[00:22:39] I've got development within six kms of all the other capital cities is where I look at. So that's where I find the highest demand for my product. That's what I like. Where we're developing at the moment, I came up to Brisbane four years ago, because my parents were getting close to very old age. And so within one week, we left our place in Sydney, packed our clothes, left all our furniture in our house, moved up here and started doing property development straight away. Because we actually had that luxury of being able to do that. And we had JV partners that would finance everything for us. So we ended up in Brisbane because my parents were up here. 

And I said to Amy, ‘You know, we're married now. But I don't really know my parents well enough, I haven't spent that much time with them.’ Because they moved up when I was 18, up to Queensland, so I didn't properly see them for a good 10 [to] 15 years. So I said, ‘I don't want to lose that part of my life with them.’ So she said— even though we were doing stuff in the city in developing— she said we're going to come up here. 

Now, the cool thing about property development, what I teach is a target strategy. Which is, it's a certain thing so that I can tell you exactly where to find that property. So the biggest thing people go is, ‘I can't find a property, I can't find a deal.’ Well, with property development, it works backwards. You can use targeting to target exactly where it's going to work. So you can give me any state. And I can tell you exactly where to go to build that townhouse, or that unit development that will work. 

And I purely go back to my demand. People want convenience, people want to be in an area that they can get access to work within a decent time frame. They want access to fast food, they want access to infrastructure, they want access to cafes and entertainment. And so that's where we kind of do this big analysis. I teach people how to do it and then we narrow down and we go, ‘Okay, that's where you're going to do it. Don't do it there. There, there, do it right there.’ 

I teach people all around Australia how to do it, and it works over and over again. And that's what the smart developers know. Even the big guys. You look at them, they'll always be close to certain points of infrastructure, or cafes, or districts that service the need of the people that want to be there. So that product, eventually, you're going to sell it, because you're servicing that need in that area. 

Now, when it comes to media, the biggest problem people do is they read magazines, and they trust what they say. Now getting back to my history in the media, it's very easy for.. And I’m not saying this is always the case. But you’ve got to think about this, it's very easy to get facts and write factual stories. But they might not be the actual story behind it. They’re just a factual story, it's very different. So I can tell you a factual story now is that here's an area here, where it's had 25% growth in one year. 

Surely that means that you should be going into this area, right? The only thing that happened there it was re-zoned. So what's the story behind it? So this is a whole thing. So when you become smarter is when you stop listening to everyone out there, you take hints about certain things. But then you go back and use fundamentals, which is what we teach, and go, ‘Hang on a second. Let's just look at what areas do people need to be in first.’ And in developing that's really easy. Because you're actually just creating the product that they're actually demanding the whole time. 

Tyrone Shum    

He shares a reminder for developers who feel like they are struggling to secure a deal or loan.

Jason-John Byron  

[00:26:51]  Our job is so much easier if we're doing property development than anyone else's. Because we have all these grants that happen for brand new properties. And we have a natural influence of people being able to borrow more for a brand new property or get a higher yield for a brand new property. 

But then we have these things that the government do called growth corridors. And you can Google them in every single state, it’ll show you where those growth corridors are. And that's where the government and the council say, ‘Property developers, we actually need you. We would like to help you.’ 

Because you think about it, no matter where you live, you know your low growth corridor around you. That's where the government says, ‘We're going to spend all the money on the infrastructure.’ That area is going to become beautiful, because we're going to spend all our money in there because we want a growth corridor. Now growth corridor means high density, right? That's what growth is. What do we build? Medium to high-density products. So they want us there because they want that area to have more people in it, and they will support it, 100%. 200%. 

But guess what? The government and the Councils can't do it. They don't build high rises and townhouses or units, so they actually need you. This is the best thing. I can sit down with the Council and go, ‘Where do you want me to go? Where are you going to help me?’ ‘Can you go here, because we need this density here to be double.’ The only way I can double the density is to do more on the block of land, right? So that's where it's going to get rezoned.

Tyrone Shum  

[00:28:20] So that's kind of given, pretty much. I mean, they need you as a service provider, and you've got the perfect product to be able to give to them. So it's a win-win.

Jason-John Byron  

[00:28:28] Isn’t that better? Isn't it easier to do if you know anything about property already and you've done it for a few years, just to go to an area now where the council's not fighting you? I mean, we're in this to make money. I love doing property development. But I just like having a cash flow system where I can make choices in my life. And I love educating people and helping people into having those things too. I mean my life now, I just don't understand how I got here sometimes.

Tyrone Shum    

[00:28:58] I think this episode will be able to share that with you.

Jason-John Byron    

[00:29:03] Cause seriously, you wake up and you go, ‘I'm not driving to work. And if I do want to work again, I don't have to.’ And it's just the decisions that I made. And where I'm at, at the moment, from now to whenever, I'll always know how to be able to use my system to make money. Successful people around the world, they do the same thing.

Tyrone Shum  

What would Byron say to the guy holding the video camera all those years ago if he could go back in time? 

Jason-John Byron   

[00:29:37] I, I think I'd say don't be afraid to go and do some education. I think that would be the biggest thing. Just because you didn't go to university or just because you didn't know exactly what you wanted to do in life, the more you try different things out that you're interested in, from an educational point of view, it'll come to you. All my friends went to university and none of them are doing what they did degrees for at university. 

And what they eventually got to is that they use University as an education platform to go, ‘Actually, this is what I thought I was going to do. But actually, I heard about this, and I want to do this now.’ There's plenty of short courses, and this and that. Just go and explore it: how do people make money? I don't care what industry it's in, but you have to go along and spend some time on yourself and say, even if it's gonna cost you money, if you're spending it on yourself, there's no problem. 

And I don't mean buying clothes and things like that! I mean spending it on your brain. How much money do people spend in university? Sometimes up to $60,000. Yet they're scared to go and spend $2,000 [to] $3,000 on some education. Even if you just pick up one point out of it. 

And I'm saying don't go in the spruikers where they just try to sell you properties and stuff like that. Because if it's just sell property, and there's no education, that's when you should be leaving those seminars straight away or asking for your money back. And they will give you money back. The good ones out there, if you're not happy with it, they'll give your money back straight away. So what's stopping you from doing it?

Thank you to Jason John Byron, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.