In this episode, he takes us on a picturesque trip all over the world— from London, to Ireland, to the U.S.A. and, of course, to Australia. Plus, he reveals the Google job that opened doors for him, his family's investing practices, and what exactly his granny said that had him start investing at 18 years old!

Timestamps:
00:01:12 | A Leader in the Domain-ion
00:02:46 | The Family Man
00:03:50 | Great Childhood Hits
00:05:09 | From School to Church
00:06:33 | A Man of Conviction
00:07:54 | In All Honesty
00:09:17 | From Australia to the US
00:14:30 | A Man of Knowledge
00:16:10 | From the US to Europe
00:18:11 | Dear Ireland
00:20:39 | From Google to Uber
00:22:08 | Taking the Wheel
00:23:54 | A Pivotal Moment
00:26:19 | Cheers to Granny

Resources and Links:

That year [I] was surrounded by incredible people who all do the same thing. They feel they have a calling to change the world. And being surrounded by that and the pressure of that just put you down a path of, like, what can I do with this kind of single precious life I've got? And that's how I guess my calling continued to evolve all those years.

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 we’re speaking with John Foong, the chief revenue officer of Australia's leading property marketplace Domain. With a stellar investing repertoire both here and oversees, he reveals the Google job that opened doors for him, his family's investing practices, and what exactly his granny said that had him start investing at 18 years old!

Tyrone Shum:   

With more than two decades of investing experience, Foong recognises the value of time in his line of work. With great detail and smart precision, he makes certain he spends his days wisely.

I grew up here in Sydney, [and] spent the last 20 years overseas in Europe and the U.S.—a bunch of different places. Now [I'm] back to where I grew up in Sydney's North Shore. 

I've been a property investor for 25 years. And I'm also the Chief Revenue Officer at 'Domain', one of Australia's largest property portals and marketplaces.

Domain is one of the most loved and used property portals in the Southern Hemisphere. We have about 8 million Australians using [our site] every month to find property. And obviously, many people use us to try and sell their property. 

I'm responsible for the revenue and for managing our customers. That's about 500 people on my team, about half of those people are in sales, and their responses to look after primary real estate agents who are recommending Domain to help people sell their house. 

And then there's a few hundred people in our customer support team, who once people are using this [site], if they have any problems or changes, they come to that team. So that's my responsibility. 

We sell a bunch of different products, not just, you know, the ability to be found on the Domain app, and the Domain website, but a lot of products just for real estate agents, like a DocuSign-like product for local real time agent[s], some SaaS products-like or Pricefinder, which helps people get market intelligence. 

In any given day, I'm always thinking about how to make it easier for our customers—real estate agents—[i.e.,] to help their customers—[i.e.,] people trying to buy and sell houses—, and all the things that are more than that. 

Tyrone Shum:   

As much as he is passionate about his work, Foong still rightly makes it a point to devote time for his family and in taking care of his health.

[I have] a 4-year-old, [a] 2-year-old, and [a] 4-month-old. All girls. So it's lots of fun, lots of cuteness, and not much sleep.

[I'm] up early, in theory, it involves a run in the morning—that hasn't happened for about a month now. 

Really, it's work and family right now that dominates. Work is lots of fun; I get to travel around Australia, because we've always had customers and have sellers everywhere, which is fantastic. And then, once work finishes at five or six o'clock, then it's family, family, family during the day. So my life is pretty simple in that regard now.

Oh, like many tech companies, we really would provide a lot of options for our people. 

Most of my team are actually on the road a lot of the time. They're the main point of contact for real estate agents. But you know, for most of our most of our companies is hybrid. In reality, I'm in the office most days, really some of the day. And I'm interstate once or twice a week. So I'm at home for at least part of the day and then around the rest of the time.

Tyrone Shum:   

With a good balance of humour and sincerity, Foong gives an inside look to his past and his family's roots while he flips the pages of his childhood.

Well, I think the first thing I'd say is I think you and me have a lot in common. You know we both joke about mutual backgrounds. 

But I mentioned before I grew up in Sydney's North Shore. I grew up in a suburb called Gordon, and I'm currently in Pymble now, so which is the next suburb across.

It was such a privilege I grew up here. It's beautiful. It's leafy. There's lots of sports. I wasn't particularly good at sport. But I enjoyed every part of it. I had the chance to go to school called Knox Grammar School out here in Sydney, which was lots of fun. 

Obviously lots of work. But in terms of... they encouraged you to do sport, music—and I just really enjoyed all this.

I went to Sydney Grammar [School] in St. Ives, and then Knox [Grammar School] is in Wahroonga. So quite a very fortunate experience. 

My parents were from Malaysia [and] from Hong Kong. They migrated to Australia before I was born. So you know, that's all I've known and they've always lived around this area.

[My relatives are] fairly spread in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. I think there was a time actually before [the] kids came along, I was probably there every year. And then as I mentioned before, I was away from Australia, most of the last 20 years. I still made it back to Australia quite a lot and to Singapore and Hong Kong, with some regularity. But those trips have decreased since so the time has gone on. But yeah, a lot of relatives there. And there are amazing places to visit as well. 

Tyrone Shum:   

Further speaking on the topic of growing up in Sydney's North Shore, Foong dishes out precious memories from high school and what he loved doing as a kid.

Yeah, I think for me, I love doing everything. I think, going back to Knox, there is this always a vision of they call the 'Knox Man' —it's a single-sex school so—and the whole idea is almost this: It's built on the premise of a 'Renaissance Man', which is, yeah, study is really important, but you should try to expose yourself to a multitude of different things. 

You should understand your sports, your musics, your arts, different languages, [and] travel. And I was very, very fortunate that that was really where I was at. I loved doing everything. 

I love playing sports; I was no good at sports, but I loved it. 

I love music. I was forced to play piano from an early age and got good enough at piano that by the time I went through my rebellious teenage years—that 'I'm not going to play piano anymore!' —I realised that actually at church and in clubs, like actually, it was really helpful to play piano. And that was something which I really got into.

I love volunteering, as well as have a church. I've been a youth leader and organising camps. And they just love music and acting, and the arts, and debating, and public speaking. So [I] just loved all those different things. And I was very grateful to...with many great schools here in Australia but, I think, Knox in particular just really allowed me to [do] those different things in between lunchtime, and after school, and before school. And it was quite close to home and quite complimentary.

Tyrone Shum:   

Living a well-rounded life, being active with his studies and involved in many activities, Foong was very purposeful with his life after high school. 

John Foong:  

I mentioned I was quite heavily involved in church. I had a real conviction in my teenage years that I wanted to basically become either a missionary or a pastor or leader of a nonprofit. 

Great. 

I kind of looked into it [and went], 'This business was not for me'. I really enjoy business, but I want to get out there and serve people in that sense, in that ministerial sense. And so a lot of elements of that are still with me, which I'll talk to you later [about]. 

But what I thought about when I finished Knox—I was really looking for a place where [I can go], 'Hey, where can I get work experience? Where can I study something with a view to bring that actually back into the church or back into [indiscernible] non-profit?' 

Excellent. 

John Foong:  

And so when I thought about that, I was fortunate enough to go to similar alma mater to [the one in] Utah, [which is] University of South Wales. And they had a programme there, this co-op programme, where the whole focus was information systems and management. 

So it was actually three things I was passionate about: It was business, so I did accounting major things like that. It was information technology, so I did an honest to honours degree and honours major in information systems. And the focus was on leadership and management. 

And the whole idea was great. I'll do that, I'll get to work experience, and then I'll go off to the mission field or whatever it is. So that was very much my thinking leaving high school.

Tyrone Shum:   

As he reflects over the positives from being involved in church, Foong contemplates on the good and the not-so-good observations he has with the organisation.

I was very heavily involved in church for most of my life. That has waned as kids have come along. It was a huge part of my life. It was a huge part of what influenced me, I think, in good ways, and in some ways, which I still struggle with. 

I think the very benevolent way was... you know, church, we will call the 'church service', right? So the whole notion of if you're at church, if you're a regular, how are you going to serve? Are you going to play an instrument? Are you going to serve morning tea? Are you going to preach preach and lead a small group? It was like, all those things, right? So it was very, very obvious, even if not stated that, hey, if you want to serve, you can serve in a part-time capacity, but what if you could serve in a full-time capacity? 

So that was mainly the positive notion of, like, a life of service [which] was very much ingrained, you know, upon the thinking of the church I was at during my formative years. And I think a lot of the leaders and the mentors I looked up to, that defined their life. They were either a full-time pastor, or they were doing some kind of job. 

But doing a lot of work, [maybe] 30 [or] 40 hours of church work on the side, which I think was a big influence for me. I can also see some of the troubling aspects for all of those people probably over-prioritise church and ministry over their families [or] over their own physical and mental health. So I think that was very much the influence in better ways and worse ways.

Tyrone Shum:   

Unbeknownst to Foong at the time, his life took a turn to a different corner after joining the co-op programme in UNSW—a direction that would surprise even him.

So I think I went to that co-op with that mantra of like, 'Okay, great. I want to serve other people, I want to get a range of experience of other people. And this degree helps me get work experience, and it helps me get some real great learnings about business technology leadership'. I think when it came to in that journey, my original expectation was great, you know—[that is] now I'm going to go and go to Bible college or go join a nonprofit. 

But the reality is, like, I didn't feel ready, you know. 

And the world of business started opening up, and it was like, I really enjoyed it. I still really enjoy business and technology. And so, I think a lot of how that shaped my calling is to go from 'Great, you know, my job is to get a job or a nonprofit or a church. And that's my destination'.

And I think the way that that changed and then evolved was, 'Hey, my calling, my purpose, may or may not be a destination'. But there was, I don't know, the world was such a changing place. 

My calling is to build up a set of skills around leadership, business and technology, which can then be used in many forms. It could be used in the church. It could be in a nonprofit volunteer. It could be used in a family, or it can be used to run a corporation, where that can have a lot of social good, hopefully, right in the end. 

And I think that conviction, I guess, came to in my 20s. And that was a big part of why I wanted to go down the consulting path. 

Because I think that consulting company—I end[ed] up working for McKinsey out of university—, their big selling point is: 'We're going to give you a whole range of experiences, we're going to teach you a general a set of skills around problem-solving leadership and technology, and you're going to apply that for us for customers are going to pay McKinsey—not you, [but] McKinsey—a lot of money. You'll get a lot of great experiences. And then you'll be able to use that'.  

And that's why those consulting companies [are] often great CEO-building grounds. It kind of teaches that general management skill set. 

I was very fortunate to get into McKinsey at the time—this was back in the in the early 2000s. And that led me down a path of being surrounded by amazing people who then asked, 'Hey, after she was with McKinsey, what are you going to do?' I said, 'What did you do?' [They] said, 'Well, we all got our MBAs or our graduate degree'.  [So I said], 'Wait, I'll get back to UNSW', and they said, 'Well, UNSW is a great college. But you know, what if you [can] go anywhere in the world, where would you go?' 

That opened up a path of, you know... I applied to all these Ivy League schools in America. [I] was lucky enough to get into Stanford, and going to Stanford was a life-changing experience. I'd always lived at the same postcode my whole life. [I] wouldn't survive [indiscernible]. 

That year [I] was surrounded by incredible people who all do the same thing. They feel they have a calling to change the world. And being surrounded by that and the pressure of that just put you down a path of, like, what can I do with this kind of single precious life I've got? 

And that's how I guess my calling continued to evolve all those years.

That was 2005 [or] 2007. So we worked for McKinsey for about two years. And I ended up leaving there and work[ing] in Africa for a bit, for about six months. And then, after, [I went to] business school in the States.

Oh, that's wonderful. And what were you doing in Africa?

I was working for the U.S. government there actually. 

Oh nice. 

Something called 'TechnoServe'. And it's a thing that a lot of ex-consultants do when they're in that 'career break' stage of life. And they have this programme [where] we can volunteer for the U.S. government to go. And the U.S. government has a lot of aid that are deployed to developing countries. 

They bring you in and go like, 'Great, here's some entrepreneurs. They got a company. It's going okay, but it's got problems, fix it.' 

And even though I knew nothing about chickens, which [indiscernible]... 

There is that the value of that general skill set you learn, you know, at university to the degrees we had. And at a place like McKinsey, we can really actually add a lot of value to an entrepreneur there. So I end up kind of volunteer[ing] there a few months, and they ended up giving me a kind of a full-time job there as a Project Manager to try and help turn around the Mozambican chicken industry. So I end up staying there for about half of 2005 and went back in 2006. 

It was an incredible experience [indiscernible] from the world of of nappies and young kids and and the luck we have right now.

Coming up after the break, Foong gives us a thrilling in-depth account of his journey from Australia to the U.S. to the Republic of Ireland and then finally back again to Australia…

Yeah, so I did my first year at Stanford, got the job at Google, spent three months at Google, then went back to finish my second year at Stanford, and then ended up joining Google full-time afterwards.

The pivotal moment he found himself in as he teetered between settling in the U.S. or returning to Australia…

But at the same time, we thought, 'Oh, we have all of my family, my cousins, back in Sydney, what if we just look for jobs there as well [to] just see what came up?' 

He opens the door to that moment with his grandmother that paved the investing journey at the young age of 18.

When I was 18, my granny, who played a huge role and raised me [until I was] 7 [years old] and said, 'Hey, John, here's a book, we are going to buy a property. You've got some income now. We're going to buy a property.' 

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

Tyrone Shum:   

With eagerness and care, Foong continues to share what it was like to take post-graduate studies while pursuing the next steps of his career. 

It takes about two years— I did an MBA and actually a master's in education as well, which is also really interesting. 

Yeah. 

And then what happens is, the American system is, it goes over two years. And then they have about a three-month summer break in the middle. And typically, to a summer internship. A lot of Australian universities or MBAs are similar. 

And I have a good fortune of, at that time, Australia had just qualified for the World Cup. For the first time. 

It was happening in Germany. My sister had just moved to London; she was based there. So [I was] like, 'I've got to  get to Europe, ideally in London'. And then each weekend, I'll go watch the World Cup games or do some fun stuff. 

Awesome. 

And the only company that was really hiring at the time that wasn't a consulting company or a bank was Google—a small company back then. This was back in 2006, or 2005 [or] 2006. So I started off as an MBA marketing intern at Google, back in 2006, based in London, and had an amazing summer there. So two years overall at Stanford with a small internship.

The way it works is, you know, I think business school is about 40 weeks in the year. 

Yeah.

So there's like a 12-week break. In that 12-week break, everyone does an internship. But most people will just do one in America. But for me, it was like, 'Wait, let me try to do one in London'. And it so happened in Google, [they] were offering internships in London at the time for the background I had, which was marketing in this case. 

Yeah, so I did my first year at Stanford, got the job at Google, spent three months at Google, then went back to finish my second year at Stanford, and then ended up joining Google full-time afterwards.

Tyrone Shum:   

Travelling back and forth between the U.S. and Europe has certainly earned Foong notable rich life experiences. But there was one experience with a particular company that really stood out to him.

Yeah, it was amazing. 

I was very fortunate at the time. There was a lot of great technology jobs. And Google did one thing, which is a bit, they've stopped doing it, because [it] actually was quite unsuccessful— But to a lot of MBAs, what they did was [they] offered full-time manager positions, even though most of us had never managed anyone. 

They actually stopped the programme because it was not successful. There was a lot of rejection there like, 'Oh, actually, you're not a very good manager yet'. 

Typically, what a company will do is offer [you] a position as an individual contributor, and then you learn skills and look for the right manager opportunity. 

But that was a big selling point for me, like, 'Hey, you can go and manage a team'. And actually, the job I took was in the Republic of Ireland. 

They have a large operations base there— thousands upon thousands of people now. 

And I was managing a search engine operations team, looking after all the European countries and managing about a team of 10 to 15 people, my first full-time management experience. And that was incredible. A lot of the reason that was appealing to me was because, you know, as per my calling, I'm trying to build skills around leadership, technology, [and] business. 

And I think so much it was just practice, you know. And they [offered] the chance to get that practice right now. I was like 'Right, well, Google seems cool. And I've never lived in Ireland before, never been to Ireland before. But that sounds cool. They're super friendly'. And it was for the next six and a half years there I had a range of different roles— first as a leading a technical operations team, and then about 16 years ago, I got my start in in sales. 

That was also really cool. I've never sold anything before. This is back in, not 16 years [but] about [in] 2009. Running a small Sales Team at what was a very small part of Google called 'Google Cloud'. And we were at work. For the next 10 years after that at Google, I got a very fortunate, very lucky experience in one row chance, where I got to learn about the [Google] Cloud and learn about sales for the first time my life.

Tyrone Shum:   

Evidently invigorated by his memories of living in Ireland, Foong emphasises how grateful he is for the opportunities and experiences he had there.

It's an amazing place. 

Europe is full of Aussies. So Aussies are pretty well-loved everywhere. Ireland is a very special place for me. I end up spending six and a half years there. I'm actually an Irish citizen, because I spent so long there. I've got a godson there. 

Some of my best friends are there. 

It is a place where it's very, very welcoming. But a lot of foreigners like me have remarked that it's actually difficult to get settled there. 

Because Irish people tend to live in Ireland their whole life. A lot of Irish do leave, and they end up coming to Australia [or] to Bondi Beach, just settling here. But it can be quite a close [town], like literally, all my friends not only that [did] they go to school together, but their parents went to school together. 

Wow. 

It's a very, very small town in a sense. And it is beautiful and lovely that way. And I think I consider myself very fortunate where... you know, one of my things was, I still do a lot of church stuff. My big priorities are: I need to build community, [and] I'm going to find a church. And that's what I did from day one. 

And that was really, really helpful. Because then I was able to get stuck in to church. I was able to forge a lot of local community, playing piano, leading small groups—all those kinds of fun things that really helped me feel settled, and getting to know people. I'd see some of my Irish friends every single day. I was a single guy having fun [and], getting to know families. 

It was just a wonderful, rich, and unique time of life.

Tyrone Shum:   

Of course, it was no surprise that Foong's passion for serving in the church in Australia also spilt over to his adventure in Ireland.

By the end of my time in Australia, I'd started to be on like boards of directors and councils. So I went to a church called 'Wesley Mission',  and I was part of their leadership council, and it was interesting to serve in that strategic way—that kind of, like, more managerial way rather than kind of hands-on. 

And I think I was able to do that a lot in Ireland. Actually, I was able to get involved with the Church of Ireland there; we ran a church plant, which those are like a church startup there. And [I was] learning about finances and learning about denominations, and also [about] a lot of the brokenness in leadership. Like any company or organisation, there's challenges, and [so] how do you deal with that? 

So I think for me, I had a very, very fortunate, I guess, intersection of what I was learning at my work, what I learned in my studies, and what I was able to do [in] a nonprofit, in church, and each of them kind of cross-fertilised each other—which was very much, I guess, what, as a teenager, I had hoped for but had no concept of how that would work out.

Tyrone Shum:   

Interestingly, the technology path that Foong was walking on at this point of his career did not end with Google.

I was with Google for 13 years. Eventually, if you want to keep climbing, you end up at [their] headquarters. 

And this to me happened about, I guess, [in] 2012 [or] 2013. I'd be leading European teams, [indiscernible] European countries, and I was leading entire European teams. And then I was asked to lead global teams. 

So I was leading this global pre-sales team for Google Cloud, out of Ireland, and then I was just travelling the U.S. all the time. It basically became pretty clear: Like, if we want to keep progressing, you don't want to play the whole time; you want to be [in the] head office, right? And I wasn't married or things like that; I was still a lot more flexible. And so in 2013, I moved back to work on a business school in Silicon Valley, and kind of started life there. 

And so that was with Google. I was able to have a range of different roles. It was all with Google Cloud. One was running their agent network, which actually was a great precursor to my time at Uber and now Domain where primarily they sell Cloud products through agencies, not direct to customers. So I had a bunch of different roles there and running sales teams and agency sales teams. 

I did that for about five or six more years. 

And then in 2019, [I] had the chance to do a very similar thing: Run a account management team and a customer engineering team at Uber. Uber [was] starting a business group. So it was there from 2019 to 2021. So I [ended up] being in Silicon the whole time, getting married and hav[ing] a bunch of kids on the way.

Tyrone Shum:   

With Uber's brand already growing globally at the time he was invited to join them, Foong took the wheel of his new position with both hands.

Uber, I mean, started about 10 years before then. 

Yeah. 

Already by kind of 2013 [or] 2014, it was quite popular in America. I think it was probably in 2015 [or] 2016 they start[ed] to get very mainstream around the whole world. 

That was the point in time, in 2017, where they went through their own organisational crisis. Their CEO was basically replaced, and there was some very material cultural issue. 

So even by that time, [in] 2017, they were quite large. So by the time we got to 2019, their culture had changed a lot. You know, it was a bit more, a lot more Google-like; a lot more friendly, a lot more family-friendly. [They] had a new CEO for a few years by that time. And I was along part of a kind of a fledgling group, which was particularly selling Uber to business travellers. Uber—it's a fantastic group; it's grown a lot since. 

And by that time, I was brought on board to professionalise our experience for business travellers and create like an easier expense system—slightly different products—, manage those accounts, manage the big deals. Actually, a lot of consulting companies are primarily who have a lot of business travellers. So that was my role, and they were really quite big by that stage. 

Tyrone Shum:   

As he talks about working with Uber at Silicon Valley, Foong takes a moment to reflect on the slice of life where he met his wife.

I met my wife shortly after moving to the States, like early 2014. I got married in 2015. We had our first kid in 2018. So she's now four and a half; with another kid during COVID— [who is] almost three now. So that all happened. They were both born in Silicon Valley, where we met and had settled.

They had American accents, and now they've got Australian accents. But yes, the first few years of [their] life were in America.

Tyrone Shum:   

Interestingly, life took a bit of a dramatic turn for Foong when Uber decided to make considerable changes in their company.

So this is mid-2021. And Uber was going through, I guess, some restructuring conversations. And obviously, the global team... And, you know, it was basically the heads-up that [went] 'Look this structure is not going to stay the same'. This happens to big organisations—we structure [and] we restructure; it's part of the deal. 

And so I was faced between staying in Uber in a smaller role or looking for a different possibility—something that all happens to us. 

And I think at that time, my assumption was, 'Great, you know, Silicon Valley is great. Our friends are here; my physical friends are here. The kids are settled here. Let's stay here'. And so I was looking around those really interesting jobs in that technology-leadership space. 

But at the same time, we thought, 'Oh, we have all of my family, my cousins, back in Sydney, what if we just look for jobs there as well [to] just see what came up?' 

Over the course of the next few months of searching and looking and reflecting and chatting and seeking. It became pretty clear that it would be cool to spend some time in Australia; to experience that, to give our kids that experience. We have much bigger family here. My wife has less family in the States. 

And actually those really interesting jobs here, really interesting jobs here, in terms of particularly folks who are [or] companies that were looking for my skill set, which is basically scaling companies to go global, particularly [in the] technology space. That had been my life for the last 10 or 15 years. And in a place like Silicon Valley, there's thousands of people like me. And [in] a place like Australia, if you want a skill set of background like mine, I'm actually pretty unique. 

And so it turned out the time that Domain [was] looking for a Head of Sales, a Chief Revenue Officer. And the CEO of Domain, a guy called Jason Pellegrino—he was also at Google for a decade. And he, obviously, was quite familiar with the kinds of things that I could do. And it was quite complimentary with the direction he was wondering the company. 

There was a lot of really interesting possibilities in Australia, but Domain was a great fit. It was a great company. There was a chance to be on the executive team, which I've never had that experience. 

And it was in property, which we haven't spoken much about but was really my life's passion, [and] my family's work. [With] my dad, being a real estate agent and, maybe, [an] investor for over 20 years by that stage. 

So it was just a wonderful combination of leadership, business, real estate, and growth, all coming together.

Tyrone Shum:   

With undeniable zeal in his voice, Foong delves into how his property journey unexpectedly started at such a young age.

I was fortunate to be on a scholarship at a university. I didn't pay that much. [But] I did pay for university fees; a bit of pocket money. 

When I was 18, my granny, who played a huge role and raised me [from when I was] 7 [years old] and said, 'Hey, John, here's a book, we are going to buy a property. You've got some income now. We're going to buy a property'. 

Okay. 

It's funny. 

It was just such a big part of, you know… I'll speak to the particular kind of the Asian Australian migrant culture at the time. She was Malaysian Chinese. It was just a given that when you had money, you put [it in] property. 

Yeah.

That's what you did. 

First your family home, and then like an investment property, depending if... whatever it was. And so for me, that was, I guess, the practices of my family. 

So my parents—when they came over from Malaysia and Hong Kong, they were not wealthy. But the first thing they did was they bought a property, right? They'd have their family home. They'll buy investment properties; some went well, some didn't. 

But it was just that the investment vehicle that they had grown up with, and that they would pass down, right. 

And my dad actually was a real estate agent after he was in corporate as well. So by that time he had become a real estate agent in the in the '90s. This is the late '90s I'm talking about when I started my investing journey. He had already begun to [do] a lot of research—both as a real estate agent as an investor—into different parts of Australia, investing in. 

Most of the investment was outside of Sydney. We invested first in Perth and Cairns and places like that. 

So I was very, very fortunate that I was from a culture—and actually my wife [was] also very similarly [from the same culture]—where that was just a given; that's what you did with your money because of the leverage, because of the relative safety, [and] because you can touch and feel it. And it was just a practice. 

Yeah, at 18 [years old] I first got into the game.

We first started looking at stuff in Sydney because we could visit it. And we looked for things that had, I guess, 'people magnets'. And one of the best people magnets are universities. 

And so around that Broadway, Paddington University, Sydney University area, there are a bunch of these university lodges like UniLodge. And these are apartments—this is back in the day—that was $60,000 in the '90s. Just little studio apartments that, typically, folks from overseas or outside of Sydney who are studying, they can stay on campus, they can stay close by. 

So these are good because they had pretty secure cash flows. They were going to be used for most of the years. Unless something terrible happened like COVID, you can count on people being in that right. (We had no concept of COVID at the time.) 

That was my first investment—$6,000, [which] I think is worth 10 [or] 20 times now. But it was a very, very good cash flow-positive property and a good thing to dip my toe in.

In the next episode of Property Investory, John Foong eagerly shares in great detail the highlights and upturns of his initial investments.

 

We were very fortunate that the first few bets we made, particularly Perth with the space called Armadale and then Cairns, we did really, really well. 

 

The admirable perspective he holds on to in times of unexpected and gut-wrenching circumstances…

 

For me, I had three properties there at the time. And, you know, I was fortunate that I didn't lose money, but I got capital growth and it all disappeared. 

He discusses the time-tested and effective strategy that he and his wife implement in their own property journey.

But for us right now, our concept is, we maximise the return we have, we maximise how much we've bought out, we maximise our time in market, and we don't attempt to time the market. 

 

And that’s next time on Property Investory.