James Short: Helping Business Owners in the Real Estate & Property Industry to Build a Sustainable, Scalable & Profitable Business
James Short Interviews Jay Anderson to talk about Jay Anderson Property
Tell us a bit about your business and the types of properties you are buying?
Jay Anderson Property is an independent buyer's agency. We specialise in acquiring high performing residential and commercial properties in the emerging markets around Australia.
On the residential side, we are buying both investment and owner-occupied properties, ranging from $300,000 up to an excessive four million. On the residential investment side, I personally like to focus on properties with multiple points of upside potential. So things like renovation, where we can manufacture some equity to help leap into the next purchase. Or there may be secondary dwelling potential, land subdivision, future development potential.
For example, some of the properties we are buying in the south east Queensland market at the moment are in rezoned areas, where we can build apartments up the 21 meters (STCA). Now you may not want to do that straight away, but it's nice to have that card in your back pocket, for the future. We also look at things like strata titling; there may be a mixed use premise, where we would look at potentially strata titling it, selling off some of the residential.
On the commercial side, we have a strong focus in accommodation and medical assets. The accommodation sites, specifically motels. My family has been buying and selling motels for 3 generations, so we know and understand that market very well. And I am personally invested in that market.
Motels are great, we are buying them with net yields of 8% to 9%. They are 30 year leases, including all option periods, in most cases, tenant pays 100% of outgoings, including the landlords land tax, so they are great long-term solid investments.
Then there are the medical/healthcare assets;with net yields around 6% to 8%, and sometimes even higher net yields are achievable. Medical assets attract anchor tenants, as they generally have expensive fit out costs. If you think of a dentist practice or a medical centre,they have expensive fit out costs, plus they are very location based businesses, so this helps to ensure the longevity of the tenant within a single location.
What have been some of the biggest challenges and setbacks in getting you to where you are today?
I guess, to be honest, it's probably right now. The market correction and all the negative media around Sydney and the rest of the property market. That coupled with tight lending environments and the talks of proposed changes to negative gearing has made everyone pretty spooked when it comes to buying property. So it's quite a challenging time now, however, on the flip side of that, in times of doom and gloom, I am a firm believer that in any industry, there is a real opportunity for businesses to set themselves up and put things in place to get ready to boom. Whilst many competitors are tightening the hatches or cutting back on operating costs and getting back to basics, now is the time to gain market share. So, as much as it's a challenge, I think it's also a big opportunity right now.
You've had some huge wins along the way, some really great moments and some really ah-ha moments. What are some of those wins that have really shaped you and put you on your path?
Probably the biggest one that has blown me away so to speak is the exposure that I have already been able to achieve in a relatively short period of time. Being featured in publications like Australian Financial Review, Australian Property Investor, Smart Property Investment etc. have all been huge wins for me.
Let's talk TEAMS - What do you think makes a high performance team? Where do business owners fall down in creating CHAMPIONSHIP teams?
I think there is a correlation between teams, whether it be sports or business or any other industry. I think the big things are:
Communication
Focus
Strong leadership
Support
Have fun, I think this one gets forgotten a lot in times of doom and gloom or when everyone gets too busy Go out and do some team events, just get the team to shut off from work for a while and just have some fun.
And I think where most business owners fail is just not putting time or energy into focusing and creating these championships teams.
Let's talk LEADERSHIP - what makes a great leader? Where do business owners fall down in becoming a True leader?
The way I view leadership is…. imagine for a moment, a pyramid, which is the company organisational chart. The top of the pyramid is the CEO or the leader, below that are managers and below that, business support staff. The way I look at it, is a good leader is one that flips that chart upside down, so the leader is now at the bottom holding up, supporting, encouraging, motivating the rest of the team. I think that is the key to good leadership.
Now what about mentors. You've had some great mentors and you've attended some great workshops in the past. Who are some of those mentors that have really assisted you on your journey?
I actually have five business mentors that I speak to on a very regular basis. They cover everything from successful real estate business owners to business operators, sales mentor, and a business mindset mentor. I guess the big takeaways I get from them is not only learning from a core group of highly successful people, who can provide specific advice on my business, but also having a team of people around me that can hold me accountable and keep me on track, to achieve my business goals. You can't make excuses to them like you can to yourself, if you're holding yourself accountable.
If you were to give say three pieces of advice to the listeners out there, around helping them grow their business, 'cause you've had some great success. What would be those three pieces of advice you would give them?
Focusing on providing value, value and more value. If your clients can walk away confidently knowing that the value they received was far more than the price they paid, those clients will forever be advocates of your business.
Take action. Too many people live in fear of failure that they just freeze and don't take action.
Schedule time out. It’s easy to get caught up working seven days a week, 12 hours a day when you own your business but it's not good for you, it's not good for your family and I don't think it's good for the business, because you can't run at optimum performance working such long hours. One of mentors always says, "that ‘to-do’ list will still always be there and it will be there for the next 30 years."
So what's coming up for you? What's the next six months, two years look like for you? Where does the journey look like?
The next two to three years is really about focusing on scaling my business. And that's going to be through creating efficiencies and automating processes, and continually to focus on delivering superior value to my clients.
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