Timestamps:
0.30 | Development is Non-Stop
3.52 | Humble Beginnings
7.49 | The Builder’s Life
14.00 | Getting the Most Out of Development
18.26 | Development Dreams
29.44 | Rental Value

Resources and Links:

 
Transcript:
Paul Maaskant: 

[2:33] We'll take it right through the council and all the way down to the build. We’ll take the builders, we’ll get the tenders from the builders, on behalf of our clients, and then we will get the process built and get the house finished and then give it to our clients after that.

Tyrone Shum:
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 to CEO of NPI Group Paul Maaskaant, who’s history as a builder and property developer gives him the experience needed when it comes to subdividing and selling developments. His accomplishments have allowed him to build his own portfolio up to $10 million in just 5 years.

In the 5 years when he started building his portfolio, Maaskant also started National Property Investment Group, better known as NPI group, which is a buyers agent known for overseeing the entire development process. He shares what his typical day looks like.

[1:24] So any sort of day I'll arrive at the office around about eight o'clock. Checking emails and inquiries from the night before is normally my first couple of hours. Then I will look at Council applications, see where they're sitting for our clients that already have applications in council. And then the last sort of part of my day, I would head out to site to give updates on the process, or the progress of our building, our builds that are happening at the time, and then report back then to the clients as well. And then whilst I'm out on site, or driving the car, generally on the phone all the time to agents trying to get new deals across the line.

[2:23] We take it right from, we take it right from the buyers, from buying the property for the client all the way through to the turnkey development process. We'll take it right through the council and all the way down to the build. We’ll take the builders, we’ll get the tenders from the builders, on behalf of our clients, and then we will get the process built and get the house finished and then give it to our clients after that.

[2:52] It's all over. It's all the way through, we don't just buy the property and then just hand it to the clients 'Oh, there you go. You sort it out now'. We take it right through to the end. And then the client can do whatever they want to do with it after that if they want to. If they would like to sell, they sell. If they want to rent them out and keep recycling the equity, etc, etc, then they can do that as well. So we have some clients that like selling and going again, we have some clients that like recycling equity and going again. So yeah, just a bit of what your risk profile is like and what you're up for.

Maaskant grew up in Melbourne as the youngest of 4 boys, leading a very active childhood. 

[3:52] [I grew up in the] Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, in a little suburb called Bayswater, which is not fancy just to probably 45 minutes from Melbourne, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up there. [I have] three older brothers and yeah, that's about the youngest. So I used to get beaten up a lot as a kid. 

[4:23] I was a little punching bag for a while there. That's okay.  I grew up there. And yeah, so I'm a builder. I'm actually a builder by trade. So I started my apprenticeship when I was 19 and finished when I was kind of 23, went overseas for a bit and came home and started doing sort of my own property developments. And then sort of grew into doing it for other people. Basically, I thought this was kind of too good not to try and emulate again and again and again. So, here we are.

[5:28] [I was] very sporty as a kid. Footy in the winter, cricket in the summer. Like a lot of Australian children. Like I said, 3 big brothers are always playing footy at the front or cricket out the front and then whatnot. And the same thing I was always bowling and then when I finally got them out, they'd go inside and then wouldn't bowl to me. So brothers, you know. So that was pretty standard, but that's okay. We, and then yeah, just the standard sort of childhood with other kids in the street. We'd all play, you know, sports and ride bikes and water fights and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, just a standard kind of childhood.

After leading such an active lifestyle in his youth, Maaskant hopes to emulate this kind of upbringing with his children but concedes some of the difficulties with that kind of upbringing today.

[6:30] I kind of hope that it's not lost on my kids, when they get a bit older, being able to go out and do that kind of stuff. It's definitely not something you see a lot of, I'm trying to, I think it sort of starts young, when the kids are young, you try and make sure that they're outside a lot and playing in the garden, you know, digging for stuff and whatever. I try and try to push them outside as much as possible, even in the winter in Melbourne months, which we’re smack bang in the middle right now. We try to get them out there. And I always think about what the kids in Canada are doing? It's negative 30. And they're, and they're still I'm sure they're still doing stuff outside. So oh, we just got it done. But we just got to deal with it.

[7:24] It wouldn't be fun. Now we've got some family in Canada, we were over there. And they were explaining how and when it's gonna be dumped. They're just gonna get everywhere. Everyone's just out there with shovels and trying to get their cars out of the driveways and stuff, it would be pretty full on. Because here's what they do. That's just what they do. They're just used to it.

[7:49] So after school, I guess primary school, you went to high school and as you said, afterwards, you went to your apprenticeship. How did you fall into that? Because there's so many ways to actually go into either you know, that industry, but how did you know that you wanted to go there? Did you have some kind of experience from your family? Or was it something that went ‘Cool, you know, I like to just do it because it looks interesting’?

[8:11] There's a bit of Column A, a bit of Column B, I suppose. I think I liked the idea of building my own house. I don't know why. I just liked the idea of being able to know how to do that. So that's probably the main reason why I got into it. I kind of just liked the idea of being able to do that. If one day I needed to build my own house, because I needed shelter for whatever reason, I could do it. And that was probably the main thing. That was, yeah, it was. I knew that I wouldn't have to. I knew I wouldn't be in the situation where I would have to, but I thought that was probably the main thing. I just like to know how to do this. So that's what I did. That's what I did for a long time. 

After losing interest in studying physical education at University, Maaskant went down the path of becoming a builders apprentice where he learned all of the tricks of the trade. 

[10:48] [A]s an apprentice, everything, we did everything. We did mainly extensions and renovations of houses. We never did new homes or anything like that. It was just extensions and renovations which is probably harder because you're dealing with old houses.  A lot of the old houses have kind of become... they're not level anymore. They're not straight. So things change, you have to kind of try your best to make things work, look right and be right. And all that sort of stuff was a new home, you rock up and it's kind of there and you can just get it all to get it all done properly. So yeah, so that was good. So we just did a lot of renovations. A lot of weatherboard renovations. And yeah, so people that have had a three bedroom home would want a four bedroom home and two bathrooms and CPD ensuites and all that kind of stuff. New kitchens, bathrooms, decks, pergolas. You name it, we did it. Yeah, we did everything.

[12:13] As an apprentice, you don't really learn until you kind of qualify, and you're out there on your own and you're doing things yourself. And that's when you start. That's when you start to learn a lot. As an apprentice, you learn but you're like, you can always ask your boss, you can always say, ‘Hey, mate, what do I do here, what do I do there?’ And they give you the answer. But when you're out on your own, it's a little bit different. And you can still call them if you want to, and whatever. But you're still on your own. So that's when you have your money on the line as well. You make sure you want to try and get it done as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Maaskant continued down this path and after 4 years, became a fully qualified carpenter. 

[13:11] So I was a carpenter for a while, well, for a long time. And then I got my builder's license. And then once I got my builder's license, I started doing developments. Just buying old houses, which looking back is probably not the best way to do it. But as I'm sure you're aware, property is quite forgiving with time. So if you hold on to it long enough, it doesn't matter too much. You can kind of make a few mistakes, and then come out the other end, and it's all okay.

Through his experiences, Maaskant learned from the complications that can arise when renovating an old house. 

[14:00] I think adding the value at the start of the renovation can be a bit time consuming and a bit costly. And then you’ve got to sit on that until you develop the back house, to subdivide the property. So you sit on that property that front house for a while, so it's pretty capital intensive. But by doing that, if you can buy a better house at the front, and then put a new house on the back; I think it's much more valuable. If you're paying a little bit more to get into that property, a few less headaches as well. You can rent them, you can rent them out easier. Initially, especially when you're doing a development. At the back, you know you want the front house rented as well. Yes. 

[14:53] So if you have to take a bit of a hit there as well, because people don't necessarily want a development happening whilst they're living in a house. Okay. So I think over time, it kind of worked out that maybe it's not the best thing to sort of buy an old place and put 50 or $60,000 into that and then do a development, the back for four or $500,000 as well, it just becomes very capital intensive. Your money is sitting there for a long time idle. But that's what you learn when you do it. And that's what you get better at, things as you do them.

[16:09] There’s definitely exceptions to each rule. You know what I mean? Like some [opportunities] are just worth it, you know, if you can get in there and you can get it for $100,000 less because it's got this and that wrong with it, then potentially it is worth it. But you know, what they call in the industry a sweat equity, you know, you're doing it yourself and getting in there and getting it done. That's, it can be worth it. But from what I've sort of found, it's probably not always the best way.

Maaskant’s family were not major investors growing up, so the interest in property came from observing the houses he delivered to on his paper route as a child. 

[17:04] I can't remember much about property being mentioned at home, or anything like that. No, not really. No, it was more about I don't know, I remember I remember as a kid, I used to look through the local paper and see which houses sold for what and this and that. And you kind of look at you know, I used to do a paper round when I was a kid as well, when I was probably 10 years old. And I remember liking seeing the houses I delivered the paper to in the in the in the in the paper as well, for some reason. I don't know why. It was just something that I looked at and did and yeah, so maybe that's got something to do with it. Maybe not? I'm not sure. Not really sure. But no, not really. It was more about just me sort of seeing an opportunity to be able to get ahead.

Coming up after the break, we’ll dive deeper into the details of development with Paul Maaskant… 

[21:31] It was pretty intense. But got that done. Got it rented out, got the plan sorted for the back. Got that built? Yep. And then I sold that for probably two years.

The time and commitment it takes…

[21:50] [You’re] probably looking at 18 to 24 months, depending on the size of development, really.

The importance of prioritising your time…

[23:07] Could I be in an auction today and getting a steal? Or could I be you know, talking with agents and stuff like that.

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

Observing the developments happening around him, Maaskant formulated his investment strategy of purchasing, developing and subdividing. 

[18:26] You drive around any sort of street. And you see developments happening, you know, you see a house get knocked down, put two houses there, three houses, four houses, or when you see a house getting built behind someone else's house, or you know, all these kinds of little things. And it's like, ‘Well, maybe if people are doing it, there's got to be some money in it.’ And then you can kind of have a go at it yourself and potentially don't do so well on the first one or the second one, but you learn things as you go and you get better at it over time. And that's when you start to really reap the rewards later on.

[19:12] So the first property I purchased was actually my principal place of residency. So this little two bedroom, little two bedroom weatherboard and I turned that into a four bed two bath, two living areas sort of place. And this was well before I thought anything about property; it was more about just getting in there renovating it and selling it. Just get it done and get it sold. That's what I did. I sold that one. Made some pretty good money on that one.

When renovating your own place and doing all the work yourself, it takes a lot of time, commitment and dedication as Maaskant learned with his first property.

[20:01] It took 18 months to sort of from start to finish in about time, I bought the place and I got the plans drawn and whatnot. But that was me being a bit lazy as well and kind of back then I was a bit more like I would do everything. You know, I'm building, I'm painting and plastering. I'm tiling, I'm doing everything. But now everything's outsourced. Because I've learned I've learned that I'm wasting my time doing that when there's other opportunities that I could be getting out there. So, but you only learn that by doing it. That's the thing.

[20:42] I remember I was hanging plaster sheets by myself. Just painting. And just was silly every weekend, just working all week and then working all weekend at the house and, but probably stood me in good stead, really, because I realized that that's not how you do things. But you don't work that out until you're like I said until you do it. And then and then I bought another. I bought my principal place of residency again. And then I bought another investment property at the same time. And I subdivided the investment property. And that was again, an older style place. So I had to get in there and do bathrooms and kitchens and floorboards and move some walls and stuff like that.

Whether developing or simply buying and holding, Maaskant assures that you’ll see growth on your investment as long as you exercise patience and prudence. 

[24:12] Like I said before, property’s pretty forgiving. Like if you hold it long enough it can turn out fine. Probably I sold a couple of places, pre COVID which and we know now two years coming out of COVID the market has been going gangbusters pretty much anywhere in Australia. It has been going pretty good in the areas where I sold so it's probably one of my worst mistakes to call a mistake. I'm not sure I deployed the cash somewhere else though. So I sort of took the cash from that and built another house. So that kind of helps that situation out. I suppose you could call it in terms of purchasing, probably buying on a main road and I'm, which I've done. Which, which is sort of one of those things. Well, when I was doing this first, I didn't really understand any of that stuff. I didn't ever think about it. I just thought about property. That's great. That's a house. Let's do it. It's got to be enough on the land. Let's get into it. But probably buying on a main road has probably been the worst, the biggest mistake we've made.

[27:19] I think when you're selling a property, you're selling something that people want to love, I think, and you don't want them to walk in and pick anything out. You don't want to walk in and go, this, the windows are no good, or the bathrooms a bit small, or the kitchens a bit, not quite what I wanted, or, you know, this or that, or there's no robes in the bedrooms, or there's no, this same thing, it's on a main road. And that's and that's, I feel like when someone wants to buy a property, they wanted to be able to go this is the best thing I'm about to purchase is I love it, and I want it and and you also if you've got two people loving or three people loving it, that's when the price goes up and up and up as well. But if you've got if you've got those knocks on your property, like I just mentioned, it makes it harder to sell, I think and you're selling for a little bit, you're selling in a bit of a, a bit of a not a loss, but you're selling a bit less than what you could potentially get in a better street for instance, or, or making sure that you've got all the mod cons and whatnot.

[29:44] You've shared with us a moment where it was a learning lesson. What do you think has been one of your biggest aha moments along your property journey or property development so far?

[29:56] The biggest aha moment I think for me was when I decided to rent the houses out, rather than sell them off. When I originally bought these houses, I was always about selling. Get in the development and sell it off. And then as I was kind of moving through and just kind of they were going alright, the developments and excuse me, they're going out the developments and I kind of looked at the rental, rental market in the area, etc, and vacancy rates and whatnot. I thought maybe it's better to hold these for a while, and then started to get into a bit more learning about actual property investing rather than just, you know, property speculation which is what I was doing,  buying, developing and selling. I was kind of… Yes, making money, but keeping the money in the market is probably better than selling.

[31:02] And I understand sometimes you have to sell, I get that. banks won't let you borrow for whatever reason, or, or a myriad of reasons of why you have to sell, family issues or whatever, you need the cash, and that's fine, you have to get out. But there's no point having money in the bank, sitting there doing nothing, you might as well have it in the market, giving you some rent on your money. And then the market grows over time as well. Being able to recycle the equity was stuff I didn't know about, you know anything about when I bought my first property, I didn't know you could go and buy or borrow up to 80% on your property again, and then keep moving.

[31:40] So all these things I learned as I was sort of going through and I thought you know, second, maybe it's better to hold these for a while until I really need to sell or if something comes up or I want to buy my dream home or I want to do this and I want to do that then then then sell there's no point selling just to have a nice shiny figure in your bank account doesn't doesn't mean anything. No. Number, it's a number on the page. So that was probably my biggest aha moment. And then when I did a three unit development, the brand new houses all got rented out in the first afternoon. So we finished them all basically on Tuesday or whatever, they all got done. All the occupancies tickets are all sorted. Saturday afternoon, three o'clock or so I'm done for the next 12 months. And then on Monday, there was you know, X amount of money from my bank account. I was like, ‘This is pretty good. Okay, and that's the cash flow. Yeah’. 

[32:41] And then recycling the equity again, I was already at the bank. I was already up to my broker on Tuesday saying, ‘Well, this is what I've got. Now these are done. This is the value. This is my cash flow from it. Where can we deploy this equity again?’ So I think starting to rent them out was my biggest aha moment for sure.

We’ve learned a lot from Paul Maaskant in this episode so get ready for even more next time as we discuss development strategy…

[00:25 transcript 2] If you're selling to have the money in a bank account, it's a shiny number on a page, then it's not the right thing to do.

His favourite deals to manage…

[4:34 transcript 2] I really liked the retain and build where you're building the house behind the front house keeping and keeping the front house. I seem to think I don't think bigger is always better. 

His overcoming the challenges of COVID… 

[13:16 transcript 2] You turn on the news or turn it open in one paper. And you can see what's going on. So people understand it is frustrating, and that's part of the unknown.

And that’s next time in a future episode of Property Investory.