Ticker TV : How Can Millennials Break Into Property

Adrian Franklin:

Since the pandemic began, we’ve tried to focus on how millennials can build wealth into the future. Our next guest says there is one place they should be focusing on, and it’s an interesting place that you may not have thought about. Ian Ugarte, welcome into Ticker for the very first time. How are you today?

Ian Ugarte:
Good. How are you?

Adrian Franklin:
Really well, mate. Where are you based in Australia at the moment?

Ian Ugarte:
Sunshine Coast. It’s a balmy 25 degrees up here.

Adrian Franklin:
Wow. I don’t know. We speak to a lot of people from the Sunshine Coast from Queensland, and they always say it’s sunny. We’re in Melbourne. It’s actually sunny in Melbourne today, but it’s about 14 degrees at a max. So I don’t know how that works.

Ian Ugarte:
How unfortunate for you.

Adrian Franklin:
Absolutely. Let’s talk about what your area of expertise is in. So, as I mentioned in the intro, we try and talk to and about millennials in terms of building their future and their wealth. So you’ve got an area, I believe it’s called the Adaptable Housing Strategy. Tell us about this. What does this mean exactly?

Ian Ugarte:
Well, from the position of millennials, I mean, they’re out there wanting to buy a property. They can’t afford their properties. And in which case from that process, the reason they can’t afford is because it’s too high a price. But then the income they are required to be able to pay for a huge loan is also a problem. And millennials want a finished product. So what we do is we say to them, well, why don’t you actually build an adaptable house that for now you can live in part of it and rent out other components of that property? And then other time, while you’re having kids, you can slowly move those residents on, have those kids, kids can grow up in that, and then on the way back while the kids are moving out, they can then earn income as gray nomads traveling around the country.

Adrian Franklin:
So what is it just for someone that doesn’t know exactly? So adaptable housing, just break it down. What is it exactly?

Ian Ugarte:
Well, what we do is we create micro apartments within a house. So instead of building a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house, what we build is a studio, a one-bedroom property in a two-bedroom property that’s connected via walls. And then what happens is that the young couple will live in the studio compartment. They’ll rent out the one bedder and the two-bedder. As they have a child, they’ll take up part of the house, and then they’ll take up more of the house. And so, these micro-apartments have their own bathroom in it, have their own sitting area, have their own kitchenette. They share one communal area in the house, whether that be a lounge room or a full working kitchen, but what that does, it means that someone young can get into a property and they can afford it, and they can get some income coming from and then actually live at home for free.

Adrian Franklin:
Yeah. I like it. Let’s talk about, let’s say, if I bought a property like an existing property and then wanted to make it into more of an adaptable property like you described, is that going to be something that’s hard or expensive to do?

Ian Ugarte:
No, not generally. I mean, what we actually have, every now and then we run a 48-hour challenge. So we get the approvals which sometimes take as little as two or three weeks. We then convert the property in 48 hours. And that, we can take a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house into a four-bedroom, four-bathroom micro-apartment within that space of two days, and double, triple the rent out of them, and about $50,000 to $70,000 sometimes to be able to do that conversion. But when you’re taking rent from $500, $600 to $1100, $1200, that’s really good for a young couple that’s living in part of it and being paid for the rest.

Adrian Franklin:
Can you do this in any area of Australia at the moment, or are there particular cities where it works better? How does that work?

Ian Ugarte:
Yeah. Look, every state has a policy of some sort that allows you to do this. They’re just unused and unknown policies. And so I’m consistently bashing on council doors and government doors saying, “We need to be even better.” Victoria has the best policy in the country. I could go and do nine bedrooms, nine bathrooms by going to a building surveyor, so I don’t even need to go to a council to get the approval. It’s a private certification process. So Victoria trumps the country as far as what you can do. You may not have the sunshine, but you’ve got the policy that makes it best for the millennials to be able to do what they want to do. But look, again, every policy around the country works. Some of them, there are two states that need council approval, but they are state-based policy, so as long as you tick the box, the council’s happy.

Adrian Franklin:
Yeah. Nice. And just finally, what feedback have you had from people that have been involved or just people you talked to about the idea? What are people saying?

Ian Ugarte:
I mean, all different. So firstly from the residents component, they’re saying, look, we’re, we’re so happy. We’re saving one third to one half off our normal, weekly rent. The people that own the properties are saying, “I can’t believe that I’m getting this cash flow in such a bad time in the marketplace.” During COVID, we’ve actually increased the amount of people that are needing our accommodation because people are saving money. And then from the perspective of government, you’ve got one-third of the housing waiting list that shouldn’t even be on the waiting list. And so they’re now saying the government is saying, “Well, I can see what the great outcome is this.” And this has worked around the country and created some great affordable outcomes for people renting and people purchasing at the same time.

Adrian Franklin:
Awesome, mate. How can we find out what you’re up to? Is there an online presence, the best place to go?

Ian Ugarte:
Yeah. If you go to sitnbdev.wpengine.com, you’ll find our website, and we’ve got lots of information, downloadable reports, and everything that you need there.

Adrian Franklin:
Awesome. Really interesting stuff. We’ll talk down the track and see how things develop, mate. Appreciate your time.

Ian Ugarte:
Thank you. Have a great day.

Adrian Franklin:
You too. Ian Ugarte there, property commentator talking about different ways to invest in property. Let’s hope for the future; we can see younger people getting involved because, as we know, particularly in Victoria and all around Australia, property is very, very expensive.

JOIN MY POSITIVE CASH FLOW WEBINAR to learn how you can get started using the Adaptable Housing Strategy.