LAST IMPRESSIONS
Warren Brusse
Chief Financial & Marketing Officer
United Kingdom Property Partners Property Investor
What makes you happy ? Spending quality time with my wife and our children doing outdoor activities . I value time as the most important asset in our relationships .
What is the best book you have read and why ? Secrets of the Millionaire Mind , Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T . Harv Eker because one needs to be constantly be aware of their feelings and how they influence your day to day life . Feelings impact our thoughts and our thoughts ultimately impact our actions . If you want to achieve massive positive actions you need to have massive positive feelings and thoughts .
What is the best advice you ever received ? To invest in yourself . From reading the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki I realised that I needed to invest in a totally different level of financial education than what my parents , my school and my university taught me . A little bit of a wakeup call I guess …
What was your first full-time job ? I was a Civil Engineer for an environmental and geotechnical engineering company called Knight Piesold in Johannesburg , South Africa . I bought my first property investment in my fourth month of employment by leveraging the banks money .
What person has made the biggest impact on your life and why ? My wife , as she has always believed in my crazy and far reaching goals and ideas . She has always been there to help me , support me and PUSH me . Thank you Bron !
What makes property such a great investment ? Please don ’ t get me started on this question , as I will have you busy for the next few hours . Property has the unique ability to produce passive income , to allow the deduction of expenses to reduce one ’ s taxes , to provide
instant equity when one purchases , to appreciate in value over a long term and is the ultimate vehicle for leverage and creative finance .
What has been your best investment ? My best investment is one of my latest investments . I guess all those years of knowledge and experience have to bear their fruits . The property is a five-bedroom house of multiple occupation ( high quality room rentals for working professionals ) located in the heart of the city centre in Grimsby , United Kingdom , which generates in excess of 30 % cash flow return on investment per annum .
What has been your biggest lesson when investing ? NEVER , I am mean NEVER , “ invest ” in a negative cash flowing property . All this does is massively slow you down . Ask yourself this question , would you invest in a business that is losing money ? Then why do so many people “ invest ” in properties that lose money . I am still absolutely stunned by the advice shared by many property professionals that encourage people to this his very thing .
What are the one thing people don ’ t know about you ? Over the past fifteen years I have concluded over 40 property transactions within both the South African and United Kingdom residential property markets and been responsible for combined property developments in excess of R200 million .
If you could change one thing in the world what would it be ? Property is my passion , so the one thing would need to align with my passion . Create a property investment vehicle that allows the average man on the street to be exposed to the like for like returns that professional property investors and developers are achieving .
64 NOVEMBER 2016 SA Real Estate Investor www . reimag . co . za