Hello Grasshoppa,
Recently, I have stumbled across a property investment book called Back To Property Investment To Create Wealth by Anders Ong. After browsing a few pages of the book, I decided to connect with Anders to interview him on my blog. Getting to know some brief story about him, his story is quite inspiring for someone that can purchase his first property at 24 & he managed to purchase 1 property each year while working a 9-5 job.
Hope you guys enjoy this interview & I can guarantee you can learn a lot from this.
1. Can you give our readers a short introduction about yourself?
Greetings, I’m Anders Ong a young real estate speaker, property investors, enthusiast, trainer, advisor and author of the latest property investment book titled “Back To Property Investment To Create Wealth.” I started to invest in properties when I was 24 years old (6 years ago) and managed to purchase at least one property every year non-stop since then. To be able to achieve what seems to be impossible, I have to be a BIG Dreamer.. a Dreamer with believe, passion and sincerity whole hearted. ?
2. What has inspired you to write your book?
When I was 10 years old, I asked my mum how much does a property cost? and she replied me they were around RM100,000-RM200,000 which is of very huge amount (in year 2000) compared to me as a kid who only receive RM1.00 as a pocket money to buy food in school canteen. She then continue and said that the repayment amount would be doubled if we are taking loan and pay back to the bank. I was shocked on how people could buy such an expensive thing in this world… But today RM100k-200k is considered Low Cost. hahaha
That night I look up into the sky in the car seeing the bright moon, and suddenly I got the idea of helping people to own property when I got older in my mind. But to be honest, helping people to buy or building property for people is not as easy as ABC or an easy task.. Thus, I decided to try myself and teach people whereby it is the easiest way to help out. Today, “Back To Property Investment To Create Wealth” is published and distributed in the whole Malaysia to make real estate knowledge accessible and affordable to poor people up to rich people and different backgrounds to reach Financial Freedom through property investment to create massive wealth. I am happy a quarter of my dreams to help everyone had been fulfilled.
3. What is your financial goal?
Financial Freedom goal is what everyone aspires to achieve, and my financial goal is to retire once I am 40 years old. By saying financial freedom, I actually mean that one day my return of investment and my passive income from real estate could sustain my daily lifestyle without compromising on the standard and quality or having at least RM10 Million cash 12 years later. Why 40 years old? It is because Time is more valuable than Money so we all have to hustle hard to earn Time. ?
4. Where do you learn about property investment?
Property is always in my mind and soul, I can talk about property investment and research whole day. I learned property investment through property portal, forums, newspapers, property book, doing research and survey myself. I did not enroll in any fancy or expensive classes of few thousand to learn about property investment. But, I am quite amazed on how many people whom enroll into those luxury classes to learn about property investment which can cost up to RM10K. This is the reasons, I wrote my book… ?
5. How did you manage to buy 1 property a year with your 9-5 job?
I did it all through strategies which I learnt during the buying and researching process which has been commercialized by many property gurus out there. For example, No Money Down(NMD), Property Markup, Below Market Value, Technical Analysis and most importantly do not Follow The Crowds or People Advice without research.
6. Do you think it is possible for the readers to buy more than 1 property with average income?
DEFINITELY YES! I am a good example myself, I am of average income myself and I did not had any silver spoon together with me to eat my lunch and dinner. The most brief and simple steps is always to do the following:-
- Look for new development & property boosters.
- Compare prices of similar & completed properties.
- Check the rental yield of surrounding properties.
- Do not wait, there is no market down if we do our research.
7. How many properties do you plan to own?
I do not know how many properties I would like to own, because I never get bored of investing in properties and I always have the urge to keep on investing whenever I see a good property for investment. Before this, I wish that I could own up to 30 properties but, why limit ourselves.There are limitless possibilities in this real estate world and I would like to venture into different classes of real estates in the future.
8. What is your worst financial or investment decision you have ever made?
In terms of property investment, I do not have any failures or worst properties decision made before as all are making money now. I only made a loss in other platforms 3 years ago because of putting money into Money Game platform which was then vanish into thin air in a matter days.
9. How do you define success in your life?
The definition of success is very wide and different for everyone, and I have my own definition of success as well. My definition of success is being able to provide a better life for my parents, my partner, my families and to the societies. Yes, we can have bigger house and bigger car and better life but it won’t change the world and societies as we are only helping ourselves and changed ourselves not the environment. I aspire to help more people to achieve their dreams of financial freedom and it would be my biggest success to see the smile on everyone face with a better life.
10. Any advice to the BBM readers on property investment?
My advice is very simple and straightforward:-
- Do not follow the crowd in property investment
- Do not wait for a property price to drop
- Do not overstretch for property investment
- Do not buy based on emotion
- Do not listen to naysayers without facts
- Do not wait to invest
