Prpty360 offers brokers and their clients a market-leading property acquisition service delivering well-researched, high-performing investment opportunities. The focus is on building property portfolios in regional areas that are about to take off.
Julian Fadini has 20 years' experience in the finance world, having worked at major banks, including Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, and as a mortgage broker for a large financial services firm.
But it wasn’t until he discovered his passion for property and built his knowledge of the market that he developed the successful end-to-end property acquisition service that is Prpty360 today.
The director of Prpty360 and his team in Sydney have built up a strong customer base across the country. High-profile clients include a number of Wallabies and rugby league players and Wests Tigers NRL coach Michael Maguire, who has given a client testimonial for the company.
“I started off in the wealth divisions of the major banks in sales and admin roles for super and managed funds in customer service, providing balances and returns for clients and their financial planners,” Fadini says.
“I saw a lot of mediocre returns in these products, and at the same time property was performing well with lower fees.”
After becoming disillusioned with the products and “poor customer outcomes”, Fadini decided to become a broker and was later appointed head of property relationships.
“I met a very successful buyer’s agent in the eastern suburbs. At this time buyers’ agents were extremely rare,” says Fadini. “We struck up a relationship, and I began working for him on some big transactions for high net worth clients. I learnt a lot of key fundamentals about selecting property and property markets and learning the behaviours of markets that were about to rise.”
Armed with his knowledge of finance, broking and property, Fadini saw an opportunity to work with brokers and their clients to achieve successful results and help clients build property portfolios, leading to the establishment of Prpty360.
Its target market is property investors, sourced mainly through word-of-mouth customer referrals and mortgage broking, financial planning and accounting networks.
Prpty360 operates quite differently to property buyers’ agencies, Fadini explains.
“A buyer's agent can be engaged by somebody to go buy them a house. They might say, listen, I'm too busy; I want you to go buy me a house in Leichhardt, and it has to be close to schools and transport,” he says.
“That’s not our service; the markets we recommend are the markets we’ve researched, and it’s purely to get a return.”
Prpty360 starts by developing a property investment strategy tailor-made for the individual and their financial circumstances, focusing on the outcome the client requires – for example, meeting retirement goals.
Fadini says clients vary from first home buyers to rentvesters and sophisticated investors. Some clients want to buy a single property, while others want to build a portfolio.
“Our investment philosophy is all about value in the transaction from day one for the purchaser. We focus on an early result in capital uplift, as well as long-term growth.
“We work within the markets we know and understand thoroughly to execute for our clients. We aim to get a 20% uplift in capital value in 12 to 24 months.
“We tailor every purchase with the view to supporting the next purchase. Our clients on average buy three properties within the first 12 to 18 months. Some clients have bought as many as seven in this time.”
Prpty360 also uses experienced property managers, accountants and conveyancers to provide high-quality services to its clients.
Fadini says Prpty360 has focused mostly on regional areas since 2015, such as Ballarat, Ballina, Kingscliff, Cudgen, Port Macquarie, Ocean Grove, Torquay and the Sunshine Coast.
These have large-scale infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars planned or underway in sectors such as health, transport, commercial and residential development.
“These markets have well and truly outperformed capital cities over this time, and there is still growth to come,” says Fadini.
“We saw that in the Geelong region, the state and federal governments were spending $8bn on infrastructure projects in the area. In the Sunshine Coast it was $20bn. We knew that these areas would be changed forever – now you have jobs there, and people will also be living closer to some of the greatest lifestyle locations ever.
“Almost all the suburbs we have invested in have been rated in the top-performing suburbs of their respective states. In the last 18 months our predictions have been realised, with property value increases of 58%, 100%, 47% and 48%.”
Prpty360’s desire to “look outside the box” is partly born out of the need to support its referral partners and clients.
Fadini says if a financial planner or mortgage broker is discussing investment property with their clients and refers them to a property group aligned to developers focused on a particular product, there is a risk of not achieving the highest outcomes.
“Because our business is focused on referrals from third-party advisers such as brokers and financial planners, we’re going to recommend something that our research shows can support high returns, and this is our track record that we’ve done it previously.
“You can buy anywhere, but have you checked how much land supply there is? Have you checked the future infrastructure spending from state, federal and local governments and which suburbs, blocks and streets are going to perform better than others? It’s not throwing a dart at a dartboard. What we do is detailed; it’s thorough, and it works.”
Prpty360 spends thousands of dollars every year sourcing the latest property data from CoreLogic and other data analytics companies, as well as infrastructure data from local councils and state and federal governments.
“That’s your hard data, but the huge difference is we actually go to the location which we’re going to invest in, and we look at the streets, the blocks; we talk to the local agents, and we talk to locals as well. We share this with clients, their brokers and referral partners.”
The company has worked with aggregator Finsure and many brokers. Fadini encourages brokers to get in contact so Prpty360 can share its philosophy and detailed market reports for locations.
“Proactively, brokers work with us by providing to their clients educational resources we prepare and create that assist their clients by keeping them informed of the market and its direction,” he says.
“Brokers also get us involved by sharing their pre-approvals for clients that are looking to invest.
“Some brokers may be approached by a client looking to invest in a particular property, and they may suggest to the client that Prpty360 is a service that can be used to provide a detailed second opinion and/or comparison to the property they are considering.” Prpty360 also conducts webinars and masterclasses for brokers and does joint marketing with brokers to their clients.
The benefits for brokers of using Prpty360 are tangible: their clients will only be recommended properties that fi t the investment criteria, that show early uplift and ongoing capital growth potential.
“Once a client has three or more loans with a broker, it's very rare that they will go anywhere else for additional lending if the client has profi ted from the sale,” says Fadini.
“The feedback from brokers is overwhelmingly positive. They trust us, and they know that we get it right, and we got those clients the uplift they require in their portfolio.”
Prpty360 is able to refer clients to brokers as well.
“At the moment, a broker refers 10 clients. On average we’re giving them back another three clients.”
Low interest rates, HomeBuilder and the First Home Owner Grant, as well as a limited supply of land, are driving the market, says Fadini. He predicts “upward pressure on house prices for at least the next 12 months”.
In this competitive market the brokers will benefit from using a service like ours because we can help the client transact and get them a good result.”
One broker who has achieved great results for his clients using Prpty360 is finance broker Sean Wroe, a former 4 x 400m relay runner who won gold at the Melbourne and Delhi Commonwealth Games and competed at the Beijing Olympics.
Wroe runs Byron Bay brokerage Sakura Finance. He started his broking career four years ago in Melbourne and moved his brokerage to Byron Bay in July 2019.
“I specifically target millennials, as I am a millennial myself, and as a result of that I get a lot of first home buyers,” Wroe says.
He has been working with Prpty360 for two years, after being introduced by Finsure, and has had positive feedback from all his clients who used the service.
“Prpty360 are very professional, and they’re great to deal with. I’ve had really good success with clients,” he says.
“For me it’s about providing opportunities for clients – to say, not only am I a mortgage broker, I do have a property group that are on my panel that specialise in sourcing very sound and good-quality properties.
“If they’re interested, I set up a time to have a chat with Prpty360, or if they want a couple of examples of properties, I touch base with Julian and the team.”
Wroe provides examples of two clients who have used Prpty360.
“The first property deal was with my first home buyer millennial in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne,” says Wroe.
“She was living at home and was looking to purchase an owner-occupier property.
“She had a pre-approval and kept going to properties and was getting outbid. Her pre-approval had expired, and she was wanting to potentially wait until her income was greater to borrow more.”
Wroe suggested a rentvesting property instead. Prpty360 presented a house and land package option on the Sunshine Coast, and it was settled towards the end of 2020.
“She is currently in the build stage of the property, and already she has created significant equity in the property … a value-add was they had a property manager and guaranteed rent.”
Wroe says another of his clients was a couple in Byron Bay.
“I met these clients at a local open for inspection in the area. They were looking for an owner-occupied established property. I explained that due to their budget they couldn’t afford anything in the immediate area and suggested they go for house and land.”
He referred them to Prpty360, which sourced a property in the Ballina development Banyan Hill.
“They secured the property towards the end of 2020, and we are still waiting for the land to title, but we have had other blocks in the area that are now selling for $100,000 to $150,000 more than what the clients paid.”
Wroe says he introduces Prpty360 to his clients as the professionals for sourcing property, while he is the loans and finance expert.
“We have very good synergy in the way we work together … they diff er [from other property companies] in the sense that they pick good-quality property for the clients.”
Partnering with Prpty360 has benefi ted his brokerage through diversifi cation and more referrals, says Wroe.
“It allows you to give a complete package or value off ering to your clients and make your clients stickier.
“Brokers should use Prpty360 as they are a solid business sourcing good-quality properties. They can integrate into your business the way you want them to.”
