Steve Palise is a growing name in the world of property investment. He started his real estate journey buying his first investment property at the age of 22 and was able to retire on the passive income from his portfolio by the age of 28. He’s since decided to jump back into the property world and is now offering his services in investment property strategy design, as a residential buyers agent, and as a commercial buyers agent.
I engaged Steve to help me design my property investment strategy and this was my experience.
Initial Contact (September)
I initially found Steve through a property investment Facebook group and then learnt more about him through his interview about his commercial property due diligence video below:
I reached out to Steve through his website and was on the phone with him within 24 hours for an initial chat. From the call, it was easy to tell that he was both a top bloke who cares about helping people achieve their goals and that he also really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to property investment.
We spoke for about 45 minutes about my situation and goals and it was clear that he was a good fit for me. We organised to meet again in 2 weeks once a business I’m currently selling has been finalised to sit down and develop a strategy.
Signing Up (December)
As with all great business adventures, my business sale just stretched out and stretched out which meant I still didn’t have the initial deposit for my commercial property when Steve Palise sent his Xmas signup 50% discount offer.
Despite the deposit not being finalised this seemed like a good opportunity to sign up so I paid my onboarding fee with the 50% discount and then played the waiting game.
Initial Properties (March)
With the business sale finalised, the Palise team started sending properties through. To be honest, this part was a little underwhelming for two reasons.
The first was that the initial properties they sent through had very limited information about the specific property or the businesses with those properties. Even when I asked for more details, they were slow to respond. This improved over time and within a month, they were sending full reports with a lot of details about the property, the business, and the area in which the property was located.
The second underwhelming part was that their process seemed quite… pushy (I think is the best word). They seemed very eager to get the sale finalised. Instead of presenting balanced and objective positions on the properties, they presented very positive reports on the properties. The negatives and limitations of a property were never mentioned and they were made to seem like every property was too good to be true.
This immediately put me on the defensive. I don’t like when people only mention the positives of something they’re trying to sell me as it makes me think they’re hiding the negatives and therefore, I can’t trust them. I’m not saying that the Palise team is untrustworthy. I’m just saying that the came across as quite salesy and pushy.
First Offer (May)
After a few delays in organising finance, I was in a position to make an offer on a property at the start of May. This was great timing as the exact kind of property I was looking for became available. It was a ‘set and forget’ retail property in one of the fancier areas of Canberra that housed an iconic business with a 15 year trading history that had just signed a brand new 10 year lease. I already have a residential investment property in Canberra and it’s a reasonable drive from my house so I was excited to find something I could visit in person.
I placed an offer at 15% below the asking price (at a 6% yield), signed the Head of Agreement, and now I’m waiting to hear back.