My Story | Why I Started...

All right, we're going to do things a little differently in this article. I want to share my story and let you guys get to know me a bit more. 

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Yes, it’s all about the black T-shirt and the KFC, but there's something beyond that I want to share with you, to connect with you a little more. So, I want to share a few things you may not have known about me and how my years of experience in real estate can help you when it comes to building wealth. 

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If you’re interested, then definitely keep reading.

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About Me

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This is my story…

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The thing is, I started blogging just recently, and my YouTube channel in 2020. 

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At that point, I had a couple of hundred people following me, and I realised there might be a few others who think the same way and want to learn about real estate to actually use in their everyday life. 

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Whether they use the buyer agency (Search Property) or not, it doesn't matter—I just wanted to bring value. Plus, I was sitting at home, so I was bored, and I thought I'd give as much value as I could by talking about real estate, personal finance, and the economy, which I’ve always found entertaining. During 2020, though, it just got to a whole other level.

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Now, you may have only come across my blogs or my YouTube channel just recently, but I think it’s important for you to have context about who I am. 

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Anyone you listen to, you should really have context about them—because why would you buy something from someone when you don’t actually know who they are? Why would you eat with someone at the dinner table if you don’t really know who they are? You’re not going to bring them into your inner circle. So hopefully, after this conversation, you can go: Yeah, Ravi's a good guy, he's my mate, I like him, or you might just go: He's an idiot, let's move on.

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I started in real estate when I was 21, so that was a good 10 years ago because I’m 31 now. 

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I got into a graduate position straight out of university, which was at Mars Chocolate. So yes, I did put on a bit of weight, and I suddenly had new friends at that time. 

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However, back then, it was my first full-time corporate job, and I was on about 50k or 60k, which was a lot of money for me at the time. 

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During university days, I was working in retail stores, clothing stores, and making around 20 bucks an hour. Suddenly, I had all this money coming in, and they used to pay me weekly. So, I’d get this money, and I thought: Well, if I spend it all this week, all I have to do is wait seven days, and then the funds are replenished.

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I was saving more than I was spending, and, yeah, hindsight is a good thing, but the reality is I spent a lot of money on dumb stuff, like clothes that I absolutely did not need.

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In fact, at one point, I had clothes still in their plastic wrappers six months later, and I had no intention of wearing them. I think three months after that, I pulled them out and thought: What the hell was I thinking nine months ago? and basically donated them. 

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It was around that time that my dad realised: Yeah, my son might have a problem here because he's just spending money on dumb stuff, so he decided to advise me to invest.

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That's when he came to me and said: You should probably invest. But I found stocks so boring. I thought: I cannot understand why I would go and buy shares or why I would buy shares in a company—it just doesn’t make sense to me. 

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In response, he said: “Okay, what do you actually like?”

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I replied: “Look, I like real estate.”

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The funny part of this was that in year 6—I would have been around 12 at that point—there was a question in the yearbook: What do you want to do when you grow up? Then I wrote: A real estate agent. 

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I didn’t know what a buyer’s agent was at the time, and if I did, I definitely would have written that. But you can tell from a very early age, real estate was something I was super passionate about.

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In fact, just almost a year ago, I asked my mom: “Look, do you have any fond memories of when I was young, related to what I would do?”

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She said two things really stood out to her. She goes: “One, when you were like seven or eight, you would wake up in the morning, have a hot chocolate (awesome), but while you had the hot chocolate, you would watch the finance news as part of the morning show.” 

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I was like: “Okay, but I'm seven or eight—did I even know what they were saying?”

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She said: “No, I literally would ask you, ‘What are they saying?’ and you’d reply, ‘I just like how they’ve got graphs, and some days they move up, some days they move down. When they’re up, they’re green; when they’re down, they’re red.’ Genius kid over there.”

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More importantly, I was already interested in how the economy worked. 

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I wasn’t interested in the fluff, the entertainment news, or the political news—I was only interested in the finance stuff.

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She also mentioned that when she used to take me and my brother to school, we didn’t have a car, so we would walk, and on the way, there were a couple of real estate agencies. 

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Back then, the only way to advertise was through catalogues. These catalogues listed properties for sale or lease, and I used to collect them. I’d go home, look at all the pictures, cut them out, and show my dad, saying: “Hey, look at this property, look at this property.”

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I had no idea what the numbers meant and had no clue what was going on. Mind you, I repeated Year One because I was underdeveloped, so the fact that I was even gravitating towards real estate is unbelievable.

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I Bought my First Property When I was 21

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When Dad came to me and said: Hey, you need to invest in something—what are you going to invest in?” It was crystal clear to me that it was going to be real estate. 

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From there, I started researching, even though I didn’t know much. I went to a couple of seminars with my brother, where some guy up front would teach us about how to get wealthy. He would eventually come out in his daggy suit and say: “Look, you should buy all these house-and-land packages and off-the-plan properties.”

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I thought: This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would I buy something that doesn’t even exist yet? So, I thought: Cool story, but I’m going to go find something that I can actually buy. 

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At the time, property prices in Sydney were already high, and affordability—a concern 10 years ago—was also a concern 40 years ago and still is today. That meant I had to look elsewhere. 

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My dad suggested: “Why don’t you look outside of Sydney?” So, I started looking in regional New South Wales and bought my first property when I was 21.

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Soon after that, I doubled up and bought another one. 

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Now, it was around that time that I had clocked about 18 months in my grad position. I had this conversation with my manager where she basically said: “Look, you know, you’re doing really well. In 10 years' time, you’ll be where I am. “

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I was like: “Okay, cool, tell me what you do.”

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She told me what she does, and I realised that it was so not in line with my values or where I wanted to be in 10 years' time. It was at that point I started realising that: okay, if I’m investing my extra surplus time into real estate and research, I should probably do something in that sphere of work.

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However, at that point, I didn’t feel confident enough to be a real estate agent. 

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I had no idea what to do with that, and I didn’t even know mortgage brokers existed. So, I decided: Okay, I’m going to get into conveyancing, because someone else told me that it was a good idea. 

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In conveyancing, you could look at contracts, different types of properties; it would be pretty fun. 

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Now, was it fun? 

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Yeah, not for me. 

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However, I still went on that journey. I ended up getting an advanced diploma in conveyancing, completed all my hours required for the licence, and then, when it came time to go: Okay, I can start my own business, I decided to pull the plug.

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I thought: No, this is probably not for me. I’m only like 23 years old; I want to go out there and do other things.

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By other things, I mean meeting girls and partying all the time. 

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However, the thing is, I don’t drink, so when I would go out, it’d be like: Okay, I’m here, mingling with people, networking, you know, networking and getting to know everyone, but this isn’t really worth my time. I don’t want to come here every weekend and do this. 

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I had a conversation with one person; that person had a conversation with someone else, and suddenly, I found myself being a promoter at a nightclub. One of the biggest nightclubs in Sydney hired me as a promoter.

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I started doing that on the weekends and then quickly figured out that I could use social media, which meant I didn’t have to be there physically. I could start getting a lot of traction and build the brand. 

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That was my first experience running my own business, and I realised from that moment that I had to run my own business. It was the only thing that made sense. So, from promoting one nightclub to promoting six nightclubs to setting up an entertainment brand and running my own nightclub events, it was really fun. 

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I networked with so many different people, especially in the entertainment industry, and a lot of high-net-worth individuals, too, because they would come for Friday drinks and things like that. I mingled with a lot of celebrity DJs and singers, and it was awesome.

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However, there was a moment when I thought to myself: Look, I can’t see myself doing this all the time, especially till like 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I value my sleep too much. So, I thought there must be something else. 

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From there, I pivoted into the wedding industry and the entertainment space. I found there was a gap in that market, and I was positioned perfectly, so I went into that space.

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Now, I know you’re probably more interested in the real estate stuff, and that’ll come in a second, but to me, it’s important that you know who I am and what my background looks like. 

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When I got into the entertainment space, I realised I could make a lot of money. So, I would go out and host events. I started doing wedding planning and DJing, eventually doing weddings and DJing overseas. It was fun—it was great. I mean, who doesn’t want to get paid to travel, DJ, and have a good time at parties?

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It was really at this point that I started seeing some real wealth and some real money.

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I was running my own business, learning how to do marketing, and learning other skills, but while I was doing all of this, I always had one focus in mind: how do I get back into real estate? 

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I was constantly buying real estate throughout my 20s because, after the first few properties had grown and compounded in value, I realised it was a no-brainer. I could leverage my money, build my portfolio, and, if all else failed and I decided I wanted to sit on a beach somewhere, I could just take my properties, live off the rental income, and call it a day.

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I thought: Okay, this makes sense. I’m going to continue down this path. 

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However, investing in real estate is quite passive if you do it the right way, with the right systems and people around you. You don’t actually spend that much time on real estate. 

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I soon realised that this was the time to start pivoting because I needed to do something I was truly passionate about. 

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As I started talking to people—friends, family members—they realised I was investing in real estate and wanted to know more. There wasn’t enough information available; YouTube was hardly a thing, and there was definitely no one in a black T-shirt teaching about real estate and the economy like there is today. I thought to myself: Where am I going to bring the most value?

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As a result, I decided to take up mortgage broking and get my real estate licence. 

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I did both, completed the certificates, and got licensed for each. I was a fully-fledged mortgage broker and had a Class One real estate licence, ready to go for the buyer’s agency. 

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At the same time, I was at the peak of my entertainment career, getting offers to DJ overseas and make some good money. I made a 12-month plan to pivot out of the industry and into real estate. The money in entertainment was great; at that point, I was making five to six times more than when I had started. DJ gigs were paying between $2,000 and $5,000, which was substantial.

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How the Pandemic Sparked the Creation of My Buyers Agency

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While this 12-month plan sounded great, it came to a sharp end when the pandemic hit. 

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I went from having $150,000 worth of bookings to zero as everyone naturally requested refunds because the whole world stopped. 

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I’m so glad I had this idea and passion for real estate because I knew at that moment that I was at least safe with my portfolio providing rental income. That was the point when I realised I couldn’t go back to the entertainment industry—I didn’t know how long the pandemic would last. Instead, I felt this was the universe’s way of telling me to go into real estate.

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That’s when I started my YouTube channel. Initially, my content was sporadic, but I soon got to posting two or three videos every single week. 

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While running the YouTube channel, I also run the Search Property Buyers Agency.  I got my first client in 2020, and it’s been growing ever since. 

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Now, the agency has grown to a team of more than 30 people, which is unbelievable considering we only started three years ago. In that time, we’ve helped more than 400 clients, purchased millions in property, and created significant equity—it’s been amazing.

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I’m sure some of you started your buyers agency career because you have read my previous blogs or watched my videos on YouTube, which makes me so happy. We need more people doing the right thing in this industry. 

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Now, the buyers agency has been a finalist in over 10 categories and has been featured in AFR, Business News Australia, Channel 7 News—it’s been an incredible journey so far, and I’m so glad I’ve documented it all. 

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I have nothing to hide. I probably have the most real estate content in Australia on YouTube, and while I’m not sure if that’s something to be proud of, I am.

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I’ve always wanted to share with you guys every part of the journey. 

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I hope that my insights into the market can help you along your own journey—whether that’s buying more property, achieving financial freedom, or helping your parents. This has always been, and will always be, my intention. 

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I hope you connected with my story and resonated with me a little. I’ll catch you in the next one. 

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Thanks, guys!