Accessing Commercial Property Through SMSF Investing
How a chance meeting led to Chris taking control of his finances
The journey to commercial property investing looks different for everybody. We spoke to a first-time investor to ask about his experience and what the catalyst was for him.
When Chris accepted an invite to a charity fundraising lunch, he thought he’d buy some raffle tickets, maybe bid on an auction prize, but he wasn’t expecting to make any big financial moves.
‘It was actually a late call up for me, a mate had pulled out and there was a spare seat, so I said I’d go along and fill the spot.’
‘I ended up seated next to a guy I’d gone to school with, I asked him what he did, and he said he worked for a commercial property investment company.’
While not a completely foreign concept, Chris hadn’t taken much notice of commercial property, or investing in general.
‘I was probably the classic case where I’d focused more on my career than thinking about anything too long term. I had a super account set up for me at the first firm I worked for and just left it there, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you how much was in there.’
After catching up with Tim, they got talking about self-managed super funds. Chris had never considered it as an option for himself.
‘I’d heard of them but from the limited knowledge I had they seemed like a lot of effort to set up and expensive to run, in the end it turned out to be pretty simple.’
From there, Tim put him in touch with the partner he had used to set up his SMSF and the ball was rolling.
‘Tim put me onto Aleesha at the place he had used, I assumed I’d have to do most of the legwork, but they walked me through the whole thing, they told me what to provide and I sent it through, all up the set up cost me about $2,500 which was less than I had expected.’
Chris ended up making his first commercial property investment through one of Quanta’s closed-ended funds, an experience that he said taught him a lot.
‘Throughout the whole process I think the part I’ve enjoyed the most is just becoming more financially literate and taking control of my finances.’
‘I’m lucky that I’ve done well for myself and my family but I’m only about 20 years away from retirement, which is a bit scary to say actually, and until now I didn’t feel like I had prepared for the future at all.’
After investing once, Chris says he will continue to place funds with Quanta when the right opportunities come up, but he’s also looking at diversifying his portfolio.
‘The experience with Quanta has been great, it pays 8% a year and I see the distribution hit the bank account each month, they send me a report every quarter and they’re easy to get a hold of if I need anything. Being able to predict how much my employer is contributing on top of how much I’m generating through investments, it makes planning for the future so much easier. I’ve even got my parents converting now as well.’